All right! Fine! I will take you! – Chapter 6 (Patreon)

The training arc is a comforting lie society tells us to make us believe we too can amount to something. If we just had the willpower to punch rocks until they shattered, our bones would magically strengthen and our attacks would surpass the Heavens without any kind of long-lasting injury crippling us for life and making us unsuited for the workforce. It is a comforting lie that nonetheless serves to keep the dredges of society down, because, after all, if they haven’t managed to surpass their limits it is only because they lack the willpower to do so, not because their circumstances are actually impossible to manage. That is the viciousness that lies at the heart of shounen manga.

And if the training arc is a lie, the training montage is sheer slander.

We are presented with a select few vignettes of a character pushing past their limits, with just enough hardship thrown in to make it cathartic when the spectacular results are finally shown, because we can then believe the character has earned their new power/ultimate technique/cooking recipe, unlike the jerkass rival who was just born with spinning eyes that somehow don’t give him a seizure.

And it is a lie.

“You are dropping your hips, Hikigaya. Straighten up,” the insane taskmaster who for some reason has decided that the middle of the training montage is the perfect place to stop saying needy ‘Hachis’ is just making my point for me.

“You are thinking something rude,” she states the obvious.

Here is where I would reply with a scathing remark about how warranted my rudeness is after being given a tantalizing glimpse of the promised land consisting of a grey sports bra barely covered by a black, cropped tank top comboed with purple sport shorts that could pass for the second cousin of summer sleepwear with a slightly incestuous bend with the lingerie branch of the family… only to be tricked into actual exercise.

“Wark,” I say instead, as my abdominal muscles tell me they aren’t currently in any shape to expand enough to allow my usual glibness of tongue. Though it is nice that my body, tortured as it currently is, still manages a passable imitation of a chocobo. How endearing, Body-chan.

“Come on, just give me ten more seconds! Nine! Eight! Seven—”

And I drop down on the ground from my precarious plank position, grasping at my burning abdomen like some kind of desert bandit finally discovering that the whole series was actually about overpowered aliens looking for a new stylist. Dignity? Male Pride? Composture? What are those, and can they pay me a full-body transplant?

Shizu sighs at my pitiful form, but rather than earning some charm points with the audience by showing her mothering, caring side, she just squats beside me and…

“Right, you at least got the proper form down pat. Remember, you aren’t going to bulk up just with that, but it is important that you properly develop your stabilizers and get a feel for correct posture so that you avoid injuries with more intense exercises.”

And lectures me.

Also, moreintense exercises? Nope, not happening, you can’t do anything to persuade—

“So if you ever want to be able to… lift a… person—” I am listening, Sensei. Please pour your wisdom upon this unworthy vessel! “Then you need to do this regularly. Other full-body exercises are—” I manage to lift my head from the ground enough that my eyes catch hers and she stops.

She’s blushing.

And breathing heavily. Very heavily. Which her attire makes me appreciate quite a bit.

Woman, I am the one undergoing hellish trials to surpass my limits, why do you look like you are the one who needs to lay down?

Apparently, Shizu finally remembers that the Christmas Cake Teacher is at least supposed to pretend to care for the well-being of her students and grasps me under my arms before (with insulting ease) standing up and leading me to her grey couch (that seems specially designed to easily hide cigarette burns and ash stains), upon which I drop bonelessly as my body informs me that it’s not so much that I’ve been writing checks that it can’t pay, but that I should stop mailing my dear friend, the Nigerian crown prince in exile.

“You aren’t listening to a word I say, are you?”

“Wark,” I agree.

That better be a gold chocobo, by the way.

Shizu shuffles out of my immediate field of view and I am left contemplating the strangely Spartan living room of her small apartment, where a speedbag (that explains quite a few things), a wall-mounted pull-up bar, and a row of free-weights are crammed beside the television. I would make more astute observations about her messy yet sparse living environment, but that would require moving my head, so I will abstain and, instead, try to transcend the bounds of my physical vessel by allowing my consciousness to drift in an unguided observation of my environment as I focus on my breathing.

Oooommm.

Giving a harsh blow to my chances of achieving nirvana in this life, Shizu comes back and offers me an open can of something that, going by the suspiciously cheerful blue of its can, must be sporty and refreshing and meant for people who embody at least one of those virtues, and thus probably poison to me.

“Wark?” I eloquently explain to her that I am currently unable of partaking in her offered recovery potion, which may or not be lethal to my kind. Said explanation results in her sighing as she cradles my head and tilts it slightly backward before slowly pouring the drink into my slack mouth.

I am sure this is somebody’s fetish. No, I am not going to Google it.

Not now.

It takes me a few gulps of the refreshing, citrusy drink before I signal to her that I am currently at least as able of fending by myself as the average toddler, and she passes the can to my unsteady hand.

“Better?” she asks, with the usual soft smile of the caring teacher who is about to impart some worldly insight on my current woes. It would be more reassuring if said woes weren’t caused by her teaching me hands-on the proper way to do a pushup, how to use a desk to substitute for my lack of rowing equipment or pull-up bars, the importance of alternating ‘pushing’ exercises with ‘pulling’ exercises, a couple of stretches (in which I at least got a teensy tiny bit of proper “food for thought”) and…

I was pretty sure there was something else, but… those stretches…

There’s a very conspicuous throat-clearing at my side, which I guess means I should answer the question. Which was… I got nothing.

I turn toward her, and she is looking far more amused at my state than a woman who isn’t wearing leather and spouting an Ojou-sama laugh ™ has any right to.

“Still with me?” she asks.

“If you want me to answer that with something sappy, maybe you shouldn’t have tortured me beforehand.”

“Hey, I asked you if you wanted to stop.”

“Sometimes, a lack of answer does not imply consent.”

“You kept going without protesting.”

“You are making a very good case for me buying you a ball-gag.” She sputters at that. I have no idea why.

“You wouldn’t dare! And how do you even know—”

“Teenager. Internet.” And now she’s flushing. Huh, it appears stating the obvious is somehow embarrassing to others. Maybe that’s why I shouldn’t call idiots idiots.

That, and it shows laziness, lack of creativity, and other unsavory things having to do with not being a particularly interesting person in general. That is to say, it is the province of Zaimokuza, and I shouldn’t infringe on his domain.

No, my dear friend, now that I have embarked on this journey of self-betterment through muscle growth and a possible pompadour hairdo, I am afraid our paths have finally diverged. I entrust you with the Way of the Lard. I know you will make me proud.

Also, Shizu, is there any reason you have been staring at your lap with flushed cheeks for the past minutes while my mind pointlessly meandered and my breathing decided to stop punishing me?

“Well, that is more or less… what you need to start with. You will improve quickly the first few days, but that’s only because your brain will learn to recruit more muscle fibers, not because your body is growing that much stronger, so don’t get discouraged when you stop improving that fast,” she says, trying to paint over her embarrassment. Cute.

Too cute.

“And you know all of this because…?” She manages to raise her gaze from her lap and look at me sideways before she quirks an eyebrow and tilts her head toward her speedbag.

“Guess.”

“You are a trained assassin on an undercover mission?”

“Wha—? An assassin, really?”

“Your blush is a lethal weapon. Really, I already have an appointment with my cardiologist.” And now I am treated to a spectacular demonstration of the phenomenon in question. Hng! My chest!

“Stop acting like you are having a heart attack!”

“Stop being so cute!”

“Wh—I am not cute!”

And now I roll over, pinning her to the sofa, my hands on either side of her red face (and my arms screaming in protest and promising eternal vengeance at me, but let’s gloss over that).

“Shizu, I don’t know who convinced you of that, but as soon as I am done undergoing your hellish training, I am going to kick their asses.”

She looks at me, a deer caught in the highlights look on her that only slightly abates before she answers with a whisper: “It’s not actually that harsh, is it?”

And her bewildered expression turns shy as her eyes drift down and to the left, leaving herself vulnerable, exposed and I—

Almost scream bloody murder when her phone starts ringing.

Panicked, Shizu quickly takes the phone from where it was lying on the sofa as I start planning painful retribution on—

“Haruno?”

Nobody. A phone call between friends. Perfectly understandable. I shouldn’t intrude.

“No, no I am fine. Really, you just caught me at a bad time yester—” And now Shizu looks at me, and realizes I am listening and probably know what the elder (in the Lovecraft sense) Yukinoshita is asking her about. She starts to panic before I gently smile down at her and leave a soft kiss on her forehead. And she smiles back at me. Soft, warm, wondering.

“Wha—No, I am still here. Sorry, I got distracted.” She doesn’t look away from me, but, for some reason, is unwilling to cut the call short and… Well.

I have my Christmas Cake teacher below me, dressed in what she probably thinks are practical clothes, and every heterosexual man (and any girl willing to call her onee-sama) knows to be anything but. And she’s engaged in something she doesn’t want to interrupt, with someone she doesn’t want to alert to what is going on.

So, naturally, I drop down on my knees and start kissing the inside of her thighs.

Shizu lets out a sharp breath that she quickly explains away as having stubbed her toe, and her free hand goes straight for my hair. She grabs it, but doesn’t pull me away, so I keep my circular caresses, my fingertips drifting over the soft layer of skin that is covering these toned muscles I am just now starting to appreciate as they deserve. She pretends to listen to Haruno as she covers the phone long enough to let out a small, pitiful, delightful whine, and my fingers sink into her thighs with greater strength, my teeth nibbling on a particularly sensitive spot right in the middle of her inner thigh that makes her twitch erratically.

I raise my head enough to catch her yearning gaze before she sees me looking and tries to affect anger, but the hand tugging on my hair isn’t tugging me away.

So I go in.

I am now kissing stretchy fabric, nuzzling into it, warm legs closing over my ears as my arms wrap around them. The shorts are warm, and a spot of moisture is starting to spread just under my lips, but what kind of illicit lover would I be if I let her get her clothes ruined? So, as the caring, dutiful, and well-mannered man that I am, I start tugging the shorts down.

There’s a sharp tug on my hair and I look up to find her bewildered eyes nailed to mine. She’s stopped breathing, speaking, and just looks at me, paralyzed.

Then I tug on her shorts again, the waistband slipping to offer me a delightful view of fit abdomen rippling as the elastic travels further down until—is that black, sheer lace?

My expression must have made her somehow happy, because her lips curl up in merriment and, slowly, hesitantly, her hips raise from the cushion. And the delightful, purple shorts glide down her silky legs before being promptly forgotten.

I am sorry, truly, Shorts-chan, but my love for you was too shallow. I hope you will wish me good luck with Panties-chan.

I mean, I always thought Happosai was a crazy weirdo, but maybe the old lech was onto something.

The black lace that only barely covers Shizu’s sex depicts a mosaic of roses transparent enough that I can now fully appreciate her legs and hips, and a stretch of shimmering cloth is the only thing that separates me from her own flower—right. Corny. I need to stop pilfering Komachi’s mangas.

I also need to stop thinking about my little sister when the overwhelming fragrance of—what was I thinking about?

The fabric is at this point visibly soaked, sticking to the skin in a way that allows me to guess at her tender folds, and I kiss her over it, her taste filtered through silk, her heady scent awakening that part of me that is surer, more confident, and I start to tug on her panties.

This time, I don’t need to look at her before she raises her hips.

And now I am finally face to face with her sex, with this part of her that I have already touched, caressed, played with until I made Shizu shudder and moan in ecstasy and release.

So I kiss her.

Softly, tenderly, no more than a brush of my lips over her own, moisture barely clinging to me as I lean back to look into her eyes as a low moan escapes her and she bites her finger to stifle her reaction at seeing me looking up at her from between her gorgeous legs.

So I go back, to do it again, to make her shudder, to—

“What?!”Shizuka’s bewildered scream makes me stop for a moment before the part of me that clutched Iroha’s chin as I gave her tacit permission to masturbate to pictures of me getting my cock sucked surfaces and deems the interruption irrelevant. If Shizu is going to scream while I caress and kiss her sex, it is more a bonus than a nuisance.

“No, of course not, I am not—why would I ever—” Her denials are getting ever more frantic. Uh. Guess I am doing something right.

And then there’s a sharp tug on my hair that actually pulls me away.

I almost growl.

It seems the deep-voiced bastard may be part werewolf. How chuuni of him.

Shizu looks at me, eyes wide and panicked in a way that only partly has to do with what I was doing seconds ago, which I find somehow offensive for reasons I am unwilling to explore. Then she hands me the phone with a trembling hand.

I won’t say how my own hand receives it.

“Yes?” I say, in a way that is the epitome of self-assured masculinity and would be completely out of place when dubbing an underage character.

“Hachiman! How delightful to hear your voice!” Oi, is that a crack at my manly, uncracked greeting, Yukinoshita? “Now put the phone in camera mode.”

I look at Shizu, who looks completely lost, and start getting up.

“Without moving from where you are,” Haruno interrupts. Obviously.

“I don’t see why I should be obeying orders here,” I bluff.

“That’s the problem, Hachiman, I am not seeing anything at the moment, and I think this is a chance I would dearly lament not taking advantage of. You wouldn’t want to see me sad and disappointed, would you?”

I could argue that I would rather see her tied up and frustrated out of her mind, but that’s the deep-voiced bastard talking.

“Tell you what,” she says in a breathy voice that makes all sorts of things happen along my spine, “if you turn on Shizu’s camera… I will turn on mine.”

I turn on the camera.

“Hmmm, good boy,” Haruno says, and that’s something that also makes all sorts of things run through my spine, but I am not quite able to focus on it right now.

Because in my hand, in the wastefully large screen of Shizu’s phone, a topless Haruno is smiling at me.

All right, there are at least two reasons to say that the screen is not pointlesslylarge.

“Hey, my eyes are up here,” she says jokingly (I hope), but Shizu’s little grunt seems slightly devoid of humor. You know, like a… a man looking for a humorous simile while his sorta girlfriend looks at him after he has stared at the naked breasts of her friend in astonished amazement? Yes, like that. Just that devoid of humor.

Wordlessly, before I can get into any more trouble, I pass the phone back to Shizu, who takes it with a slightly firmer hand than when she handed it to me.

“Well, you have seen what is going on. Happy now?” Shizu asks with a pointed voice that makes me want to check whether I have done my homework.

I am sure this won’t cause me any conflicting feelings in the near future.

“Partly!” Haruno cheerfully replies, in a way that obviously implies a happy bounce, which would do delightful—no, that way lies sleeping on the sofa.

And the sofa smells like tobacco.

Shizu sighs loudly at that, and I am starting to get a bit uncomfortable at being on my knees right in front of her naked sex without being able to do what comes (surprisingly) naturally. I am also wondering why she looks so unbothered by Yukinoshita’s nudity.

“What else do you want, Haruno?”

“Always straight to business, is it? And here I thought you would be more relaxed after finally getting—”

“Haruno!”

“Ah, so uptight… Hachiman, it looks like you haven’t been doing a good job at keeping your promise.”

“It’s only been a day, give me some time to work, woman,” I automatically protest. Which may have been the wrong thing to say, because now Shizu’s thighs are tightly pressed around my neck as her eyes narrow at me and Haruno’s mirthful laugh echoes from the phone.

“’Time to work?’ Anything you want to tell me, Hikigaya?”

“That you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I am the luckiest man alive?”

“Hachiman, you are going to make me jealous.”

“Shut up, Haruno. In fact, why haven’t I hung up already?” Shizu asks the question I hadn’t dared think of till now.

“Because you owe meee,” she answers in a childish singsong that is as wildly out of place as anything that Yukinoshita Haruno does when she can get away with it.

“I owe you nothing!”

“Oh? Why do you think your dearest Hachiman is kneeling down in front of you and doing what you have always complained about your bastard exes never doing?”

“You didn’t tell me to eat her out!” I protest my innocence.

“No, I told you to break her ideals and force her to do what she wants and not what she thinks she should want.”

And that’s… Yes, that’s true, and Shizu looks at me, lost, as if unsure she wants me to deny it.

“You did. Thanks for the push, I needed it.” And my lover takes a deep breath while I look straight at her, as steel comes back into my voice.

“You are welcome. Both of you.”

Haruno’s words hang in the air, the three of us silent as each of us processes not only the situation, but what has led us to this.

“You know, Haruno, I think you are right. I think Shizuka owes you.”

“She does, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. How would you like me to make her pay?”

“I would love it, Hachiman.”

“Why… why are you calling him like that?” Shizu asks, unsure about whether she can ask anything else.

“Because you got to call him ‘Hachi’ first. So this will be a nice consolation prize.”

And then I dive forward, Shizu gasps, and Haruno chuckles.

My arms grasp her legs, keeping them around me as I start tracing her lips with my tongue in long, deliberate strokes that soon have Shizu start letting out her sharp, short yelps of pleasure.

“Hmmm, is he any good?” Haruno asks.

“I—I don’t—hmph!”

“I guess that’s a yes. Nice going, Hachiman, you don’t know how adorable her red face looks from up close.”

“I do. She’s gorgeous.” I stop just long enough to say that before my lips wrap around Shizu’s clit and I suck as strongly as I can. Her cry and her fingers digging into my scalp only spur me on.

“Wha—” Haruno, for once in her life, sounds out of balance, and then she laughs. It is not her usual laugh, tinted with barely hidden derision, but one lighter, more sincere.

If sex keeps getting me genuine things, I may end up more invested in it than I thought. Which may prove logistically troublesome.

“Hey, Shizu, seems like you will have something interesting to share next time we go out for drinks.”

“What—what makes you think drinks are still on?”

“Well, you do seem a little thirsty.” I almost groan at the bad pun. Shizu doesgroan, but I think it is for unrelated causes. “And you owe me the next round.”

“I thought—oh gods, Hachi, yes—I thought this was what I owed you?”

“Hn! No, that’s… hmmm… that’s what Hachi owes me. You look so amazing when he drives you wild…”

“Haruno, I… You know I… Ah! Hachi, don’t—”

And that’s the moment where my hands let go of her legs and, with just two fingers, I enter a woman for the first time.

Shizu is drenched, her honey sticking to my chin and thighs visibly glistening, but I still need to twist and push my way in, her flesh wrapping around my fingers and only parting after I coax her with back and forth motions. For a delightful moment, I am lost to the world as I focus on her undulations, within and without, as her pelvis starts thrusting at my mouth while my tongue dances around her clit as I keep sucking on it as long as my lungs allow.

And then I am looking into Yukinoshita Haruno’s wide eyes as her hands grope her breasts and her fake smile melts into something that, somehow, manages to make me even harder.

Over the phone, I can see Shizu’s eyes, wide, disbelieving, as she herself holds the device so close to my face and to what my mouth is tending to.

“Yes, just like that, Hachiman. Make her moan like a slut who is finally getting what she so desperately wants.” And Shizu whines at that, once again biting that long-suffering finger of hers. “Make her go crazy as you pump in and out of her… God, you both look so appetizing.”

“I think I need an adult,” I can’t help but quip, lips drenched with something that is clearly not saliva.

“I… I am an adult,” Shizu impossibly manages to quip back. “And I need you.”

And, once again, against all odds, something snaps inside my head.

My arms wrap around her thighs, and I stand up, dragging her body up as she lies down on the sofa, defenseless under me. I switch my hands around, one pounding roughly in and out of her while a thumb circles her clitoris again and again, pressing it down whenever she tries to say something. Haruno looks at me, transfixed, silent, and I notice only one of her hands is still visible and her shoulders start to shake as she stares at Shizuka’s sex being so roughly handled.

And now I am seeing two beautiful older women biting their lips to muffle their voices, both entranced by my actions, both being driven further and further to the point of no return. I turn my head to the side and suck on Shizu’s thigh as strongly as I can, right over that spot that had made her twitch just moments ago.

And she screams.

No. Theyscream.

Shizu goes completely limp, only held up by my gripping her thighs over my shoulders, and Haruno has thrown her head back so I can only see her open mouth, pillowy lips stretched thin as her voice mixes with Shizu’s ecstasy.

Legs shaky with effort, I start lowering Shizu back on the sofa as they both regain hold of their senses. I lie her down along it and then take a seat on the floor, right beside her head. And kiss her. Long, tenderly.

If I get sticky lips out of this, so does she.

I caress Shizu’s hair as she recovers, a small, satisfied smile on her lips the whole time, but then Haruno speaks, and her voice is raw, less guarded than usual, and I think… I think I shouldn’t be here for this. I think this is for Shizu, not for me.

So I excuse myself to the bathroom and wash my face, before I take off my undershirt, thankful that my shirt had already been removed during my training montage and wash my armpits on the sink before I discover, to my chagrin, that Shizu, for some reason beyond my understanding, only has a distinctly feminine body spray that I shouldn’t wear home under risk of thorough interrogation by a very suspicious little sister.

I briefly debate whether the risk is worth it and decide that no, it isn’t, so I twiddle a bit with my phone before I decide enough time for a post-coital friendly confidence has passed and peek out the door to find Shizu sitting on the sofa with a pensive look.

And I sit beside her before hugging her to my side.

She leans into me, her face buried in my naked chest for far too long for this to be normal cuddling, but I don’t even know where to start asking, so I don’t. Because I am here, hugging her, and that should be enough to tell her she can tell me anything she needs.

“Thank you,” she says, after the silence stretches too long.

“Anytime.”

She nuzzles against my skin, her hair going taut under my embrace.

“You don’t even know what I am talking about, do you?”

“Not the foggiest.”

She somehow manages to unglue her face from my meager chest to look up at me. And kisses me.

“Thank you, then.”

“For not knowing?”

“Yes.”

“I feel you will have plenty more opportunities to thank me in the near future.” And she giggles, and a small weight lifts off my shoulders.

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I…”

“You…?”

She fidgets, clutching me and gluing her face to my chest once again, avoiding my eyes before finishing her line with a small voice.

“I enjoyed this.”

“I could tell,” I can’t help but cockily remark.

The fist digging into my side should be a deterrent, but it’s still weirdly endearing.

“No, I mean… Being watched while you, while we…”

“I will talk with Iroha.”

She remains silent for a few seconds before she mutters against my skin.

“Thanks.”

And I lie back on her sofa, cradling her soft body against me.

“Anytime.”

***

After a silence that should have been too long to be comfortable yet somehow still felt too short, Shizu decided to drive me home in what probably is one of our more atypical rides in her sports car. Item number one is that she doesn’t do her Misato Katsuragi impression, item number two is that she hums a soft melody the whole time and I can’t help the goofy smile I feel taking over whenever I look at her (which is the whole time). Unfortunately, not everything is good news, and before she drops me off she gives me a thorough test on all the exercise tips she drilled into me before (reluctantly) entrusting me with my dumbbell’s suitcase.

And then she kisses me goodbye just before I get off the car and giggles like a schoolgirl addicted to Pokemon Go at my surprise.

So my head isn’t quite clear when I finally enter my home after what feels like the longest day of my life, and I could be forgiven for being slightly louder than I should when I drop the dumbbells on the floor before I take off my coat.

“Brother? What was that?”

“Sorry, Komachi, I just dropped my dumbbells.”

And there’s a sound of something metallic dropping on the kitchen floor before loud, hurried steps rush to me, given me just enough time to realize how deep the grave I’ve just dug is.

“Who is she?!” Komachi, my adorable little sister, asks, eyes wide and face red in what I hope is merely exertion, holding the doorframe so hard I think the wood is creaking.

I regretfully look down at the traitorous exercise implements, my only loot after a day of avoiding classes and defiantly flaunting the authority of the system.

Being a delinquent doesn’t pay. Stay in school, kids.