The funny thing is that it’s always been Yuuta who nobody can quite think of as normal. He’s ordinary, or average. He’s very both of those. But normalcy is measured with a different scale, and he doesn’t sit right in it.

It’s because he tries too hard, really. He’s always the one who's turning in extra credit assignments first (then given half marks because he forgot to cite his references) or offering to stay late and clean the blackboards (and spilling a bucket of water down into the main stairwell just before parent-teacher conferences begin.)

He’s the kid whose hand is constantly in the air, even though he almost never heard the question.

Syusuke is his antithesis. He never answers a question in class unless asked, and sometimes not even then. If it’s a subject that interests him he might let the answer slip out of the corner of his mouth before the teacher’s finished asking the question. If not he’ll smile and admit that he doesn’t know. But that’s how Fuji Syusuke is, and no teacher or classmate would ever expect anything else from him. Normal.

--

The girl is a senior and a year older than Yuuta- but he’s taller than her, and remembers thinking experimentally that she’d fit under his chin pretty much perfectly, which is supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it? They kiss sitting down, under a tree not far from the tennis courts, and that’s even better because actually he thinks she might be a little too short and bending down to reach her might be uncomfortable and awkward, which is already pretty much summing up this situation.

Yuuta has his eyes tight shut and is trying to think of other things besides the way her tongue feels pushing into the pocket of his cheek, like she’s trying to suffocate him from inside his mouth or something. Then he tries to think about nothing at all, because that might be a better response. Surely it’s not right to try and push your mind away from a kiss? It’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to get lost in, to let yourself go with… And he does for a moment- even puts his hands on her back without realizing it, only that makes her gasp and crush herself up against his chest, which startles him. He jumps back without meaning to.

Her lips look sticky, which can’t entirely hide the fact that that they’re just a little torn up- chapped, he guesses, though her lip gloss hid it pretty well at a distance. Her pretty brown eyes narrow and she flips her hair back and forth over her shoulders.

That’s when the bell rings and he realizes they’re both going to be late.

He walks her to her class before going to his own, because it’s the polite thing to do, even if she has already told him, turning and pausing just at the top of the steps, that if he’s going to be more enthusiastic about pulling away than he is about kissing her in the first place, they might as well break this off right now.

That is how he loses his first girlfriend.


His second is the quiet girl who sits behind him in maths and chews on the end of her braid a lot. Yuuta doesn’t find this overly attractive, but he doesn’t think he’s allowed to say no after she’s gone to all the trouble to wait for him at lunch, just to ask if he’ll be her boyfriend. She keeps her mouth closed when she kisses him, later that week. It happens in the hallway when they’ve both got their arms full of textbooks to return to the library, which is nice because it gives him something to do with his hands other than worry about the girl.

They sit on the lawn after classes are out, notebooks perched on their knees, taking it in turns to solve English grammar problems, so that each of them only has to do half an assignment a night.

Sometimes they hold hands, but Yuuta’s tend to get all sweaty, and he fumbles his pencil every time he has to turn it around to get at his eraser, so it never lasts very long.

She tastes like artificial cherry, which is funny, but on the whole Yuuta thinks they’re getting along rather well.

Two weeks later she phones him on a Saturday, to ask why he hasn’t called her. He points out that they did all their homework yesterday, and she says that she’d love to keep on being his study buddy but she doesn’t really think they have much chemistry as a couple.

He decides that ‘study buddy’ must be some sort of girly code for utterly unattractive and worthless human being.


His third girlfriend is named Hana, and Yuuta really, really likes her.

He likes he pretty white-blond hair, even though he knows it’s dyed because her eyebrows are dark black. She wears it sensibly short, but it curls a little bit in the heat, and he like the way the little half-ringlets curl over her forehead and the back of her neck and around his finger if he plays with them.

He likes that she actually knows something about tennis. She plays herself, on the girl’s team, and she looks it- she’s got a little wiry body with a sort of whipcord energy to it. And if the girls get out of practice first, or if Yuuta wants to stay late and practice a little longer, she’ll stand at the edge of the court and wait for him, a soda or a bottle of water for him in hand.

They never play against each other, though. Yuuta’s not interested in competing with the girl he’s (he says it to himself once or twice, trying out the sound of the words) really starting to fall for.

Hana-chan doesn’t press the issue, and he likes that too. That she’s willing to let him take a lead in things, and set their pace.

He hasn’t kissed her by the end of the semester. But he’s told her about his first experience, the girl and her intrusive, open mouth, and she’s agreed that it’s better to wait until they both feel like the time is right.

Yuuta goes home promptly after his last exam of the day, ready to relax for a week or two, and looking forward to telling Okaasan all about how well he thinks he did before his actual grades arrive and spoil the moment. He and Hana sit together on the ride home, because as it happens she lives in the same neighborhood as he does.

“When do your parents get home?” she asks.

“It’s only ‘kaasan, and she and Oneesan get home late.” He tells her. Their knees and calves are pressed tight together, and every now and then she shivers her leg a little bit, eager to get off of the overcrowded bus.

They don’t say anything else about it, but somehow Yuuta’s not suprised when they end up together in his family’s foyer, toeing off their sneakers and padding along the hallway, her hand on his elbow as they move, as if she was the one guiding him through a stranger’s house.

He asks if she wants a drink, and she says they should just go on upstairs.

As soon as the door to his room closes she’s right there, bumping up against him, arms wrapped tight around his neck as she kisses him-probably aiming for his lips but opening her wet, surprisingly smooth, waxy lips against his chin instead. He jumps backwards in surprise and she follows him, biting down a little bit with her teeth before she lets go and finds his mouth. Then her arms aren’t strangling him anymore, and instead her hands are grabbing his and putting them on her chest, where her breasts are, and they feel like wet sponges under his clumsy fingers, and she won’t let him pull away from her, biting down on his lip when he tries, almost hard enough to break the skin.

And Yuuta, wondering when he stopped being the assertive one, gathers up all his courage and uses his trapped hands to push her away from him. A little too hard, because she stumbles and falls against his door-

-which is partially open because his Aniki just stuck his head into the room.

Hana squeals, and Aniki says something that might have been ‘ouch’ as the door closes on his shoulder. Then he nudges his way into the room.

“Welcome home, Yuuta,” he says, eyes dangerously wide open, and “Do you know how much trouble you’re going to be in if Okaasan finds out that you had a girl in your room?”

Part of Yuuta wants desperately to flare up at this (unfair. mostly unfair. it wasn’t his fault that she was here and anyways it wasn’t like Aniki was thinking...) accusation, but some greater part of him would appear to still be running on some sort of defensive autopilot, because the next thing he knows he’s agreeing completely with Aniki and Hana-chan really shouldn’t be here because they might both get in trouble but he’ll call her tomorrow, really he will, and where did she leave her jacket? And then his girlfriend is safely out the door

Aniki’s still there, though, and if it isn’t all kinds of awkward to have your older bother watching you when you’re still horribly flushed and uncomfortable and partly covered with somebody else’s spit, Yuuta doesn’t know what is.

“How long have you had a girlfriend?” Aniki asks, quietly, like he’s not sure if he should even breach the subject even though Yuuta already knows that he saw them doing… whatever Hana-chan was trying to do upstairs.

Yuuta swallows. “I’ve had three.”

“Oh.” Aniki looks vaguely shocked, and that gives Yuuta the strength to stare him down until he asks, smiling again. “And have you kissed them all?”

“Not like that.” Yuuta snaps, even though it’s really none of Aniki’s business.

“Huh.”

There’s a long pause as the two of them stand together in their living room, surrounded by familiar things which to Yuuta are beginning to look strange because he’s been away too long. He feels as if he’s at a disadvantage in just about every way possible.

“How about you?” he asks, seeking to re-balance somewhat the already tipped scales of his relationship with Aniki. “How many girls have you kissed?”

Aniki looks amused, though Yuuta can’t see what’s funny about it. Unless maybe he’s just happy because they’re sharing secrets again, like they used to when they were little, sitting on the couch and confessing all the petty wrong-doings of the day- Yuuta’s, mostly- whose pencil got stolen and who was pushed down on the playground at lunch.

Aniki sits down and waits for Yuuta to join him. “None,” he says, still smiling as if that was the best number of girls to have kissed in the all the world.

It thunders around Yuuta’s brain for a while, the knowledge that somehow or other he’s managed to get ahead of Aniki in something.

“Why not? You should try it, it’s really-“ and here Yuuta’s enthusiasm draws up short. Sure, he’s always been told that kissing is really great, but so far he really hasn’t felt that way about it himself. He tries again- “really… interesting.”

“So you like it, then?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Do you?”

Yuuta knows that his relationship with Aniki has come a long way in the past few months, since he decided that he didn’t want to beat his brother into a pulp as much as he wanted to reach him, for once. He knows that compared to this time last year, they’re doing great- well, he’s here, isn’t he? Still, he’s not quite ready to let anybody, least of all Aniki, know that mostly kissing just feels like somebody else, really very close to you and doing very sticky, soggy things to you that make you feel vaguely claustrophobic and taste like faux fruits. “Sure.”

“Was she special?”

The past tense is confusing. “Who, Hana-chan?”

“No, the first one.”

“Oh.” Yuuta shrugs. “Not really? I don’t think she liked me much, actually.”

Aniki frowns, “I think you’re doing this all wrong.”

“Well, I don’t.” Yuuta snaps. “You wait for someone special.”

“I am.”

Something in the way he says it, something very quiet, not monotone but close to, makes Yuuta back down from the rant he knows is boiling up inside him. Aniki’s eyes are opened again too, wide and dark because the sun’s starting to set outside their shaded windows, and neither of them has bothered to turn on any lights yet.

Then Aniki leans over and brushes his lips across Yuuta’s.

Which is unbelievable.

So Yuuta doesn’t believe it, just stares blankly ahead of himself (at Aniki’s eyelashes, actually) and thinks about absolutely nothing, especially not the funny tingling along his bottom lip when after a moment Aniki decides to do it again, working his lips against his, because this isn’t happening. He opens his mouth for just a moment, and suddenly all he can taste is warmth and Aniki as the tips of their tongues brush.

And if this is the first time his heart’s ever started beating faster with somebody touching him like this, it’s probably just because this is so wrong that he’s terrified, because it’s his own brother and this is happening, and it’s unbelievable, unbelievably-


Yuuta pulls back, and punches him.

***End
return to splash page