All right! Fine! I’ll take you! - Chapter 1

Author’s note: Obviously inspired by, and starting right in the middle of, this. This. Oh my God, the sheer diabetes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBmMvnFcf_Y

There comes a time in the life of every man where temptation appears. Should I say I forgot my wallet back home? Should I look at the finished test of the bookworm sitting next to me? Should I look at the walkthrough before fighting the final boss? Should I push Zaimokuza in front of an incoming truck just to grant him a chance at his wildest fantasies? Society conditions us to refuse temptation so that people who are—

“Take me!”

Ahem. So that people who are below the totem pole don’t take advantage of opportunities that are not approved of by the system to rise up. Resisting temptation is a virtue because it allows the system to self-perpetuate, to keep down the ones who are down—

“Take me!”

Oh, for… Say, for instance, that a high schooler on the verge of graduation is entangled in a love triangle for reasons beyond his reckoning. The two girls in question are age-appropriate, both attractive in their own way, and, asides from their unexplainable attraction to the dense harem protagonist, apparently sane. Mostly. Society dictates that he should choose one of them and allow the other to go through heartbreak; that’s the established solution, and anything else would be cheating—

“Take me! Take me! Take me!”

Ms. Hiratsuka, you aren’t making this any easier. So, what is this boy supposed to do when confronted by the temptation of his delicious Christmas cake teacher? Should he go on a diet? Abstain from even the most remote chance of catching diabetes? Gorge himself on ludicrous amounts of plump, round, bouncy icing till his—

“Take me! Take me! Take—!”

“For heaven’s sake—all right! Fine! I’ll take you!”

“Eh? Hmph! Hmph!”

Before I can (finish) talk(ing) myself out of it, I am leaning over the small table that separates me from my gorgeous, middle-aged teacher, grasping her white coat-clad shoulders, and silencing the maddening siren call of her combo-finisher “take mes” by pressing my own lips on hers.

She tastes like cherries. Should have known she would use a high schooler’s lip gloss. Ms. Hiratsuka, don’t you know a woman who doesn’t act her age comes across as desperate and desperation is the ultimate mood-killer? Source: me.

“Hikigaya… I…”

She leans back and breathes my name against my lips, possibly to stop me. It is a very counterintuitive way to reach that goal.

I push forward, bumping my shin against the corner of the table as I try to climb over it. I should have known my first kiss would end up in pain.

Hiratsuka’s eyes are wildly open, looking into my own with something close to full-blown panic. Should have known I would terrify the first girl I kissed. Hey, Ms. Hiratsuka, I called you a girl in my internal narration, aren’t you happy?

Her eyes don’t stray as I advance the last few inches that separate us, and, this time, I am slow enough not to take her by surprise. I lean forward.

Our lips touch.

We move.

After all, I think I like cherries.

Though I could do without the tobacco aftertaste.

I would like to say I leave her breathless through sheer passion, that my heretofore unrevealed abilities as the ultimate lover are awakened and her pupils turn into pink hearts (which would look terrifying, so I am actually glad that doesn’t happen), but this is my first kiss, my shin is hurting like Zaimokuza’s beta reader, and the posture is awkward like… like everything related to both romance and Hikigaya Hachiman. No surprises there. I manage to climb across the table and sit beside her on her chair, mindful of making too much noise as we are still in the teacher’s lounge, even if we have these increasingly suspicious privacy screens. Hiratsuka shuffles, making room for me, and her hands travel up my back before tangling her fingers through my short hair. I like it, so, like the very good and diligent student that I am (LOL), I copy her and grasp her by her nape, making her let a little whimper of pleasure against my lips.

God, she’s so beautiful…

I can’t help myself and grasp her hips, shifting her so she is now sitting on my lap, never allowing our lips to part. Then, shyly, as if asking for permission, her tongue peeks from between her lips and moistens my own.

I lose it.

I open my mouth and devour her. My tongue tangles with hers, muffled gasps swallowed by my eager mouth as my vision goes white, as a torrent of heat rushes up my body, and I realize that yes, I am kissing this gorgeous bundle of insecurities and mature wisdom, this woman who has done so much for me and... I grasp her by her neck and her lower back, pressing her against me as the predictable physiological phenomenon occurs beneath my waistband, and I allow the sensation of her squirming on top of it to take away unnecessary thoughts.

“Hachi… Hachiman, we should stop…”

I nibble the side of her neck with a possessive urge I haven’t felt outside of particularly heated waifu wars. “Why?” My voice is hoarse and my wit nowhere to be found. How surprising. Not.

“Yukinoshita… Yuigahama… Iroha?”

That last name is not like the others, I am compelled to claim, yet the point does not evade me.

“What? Do you want them to watch?”

Though I can still act like it did.

She slaps my chest and pouts at me, so I nibble her protruding lip before she has a chance to retract. Don’t provoke me, woman!

 “You know what I mean. They… and you… And I am so…”

“You are making it far too easy for me to pretend not to know what you actually mean. Keep at it, it makes my job easier.”

The pout turns into a glare. It would look much fiercer without the blush that manages to cross the bridge of her nose in a prolonged, two-pronged campaign. Fight on, Blush-chan! You can do it, Blush-chan!

“You are thinking something stupid to avoid the consequences of this, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just that all the blood necessary to think not-stupid thoughts is currently devoted to trying to lift your shapely butt through the power of applied hydraulics.”

“…”

“I did say that out loud, didn’t I?”

“This is why Yukinoshita calls you a creep, you know?”

“First of all, I have never mentioned any of the intricacies of the male body going through puberty to Yukinoshita, second of all, could we please stop talking about her?”

“Would you rather talk about Yui?”

My traitorous brain can’t help but conjure Yuigahama’s Yuigahamas. Ms. Hiratsuka is not a slouch in that department (maybe the only department where she doesn’t slouch out of habit), but she’s still far from the reigning champion of my… My something extremely complicated that I dearly do not want to define at this very moment.

What else is new, Hikigaya Hachiman?

“And there’s the brooding look that was missing.”

“At least I am not pouting.”

“I am not pouting!”

I pointedly look at the protruding lip that had been my target not that long ago and she retracts it. Before licking it nervously. I am getting mixed messages here.

“So, consequences. What a fun topic.”

“I am twice your age, your teacher, and you are about to wage war on the whole administration and PTA on behalf of one of the two girls who have been surgically attached to you since you were introduced. This”—she gestures down towards where her excellent derriere is still parked on top of my lap –“is absurd, and you should forget about it.”

“Counterpoint: you aren’t twice my age, more like one and a half”—her knuckles dig into my solar plexus, and I let out a not at all surprised gasp—“I mean, you are much younger than that, almost as young as you look—please stop trying to give me a masochistic fetish—I am just one year from graduation, and I would go to war with the whole PTA over the brand of canned coffee they have available.”

“You care a lot about the brand of canned coffee we have available.”

“Right. Poor example.”

The hand that was still worryingly pressed below my breast bone relaxes, and her palm comes to rest over my chest. Ms. Hiratsuka, taller than me, a gallant figure straight out of a movie poster with fast cars and expensive cocktails, impossibly looks up into my eyes. My mouth dries at seeing them moist.

“This is impossible, Hachiman.”

My hand cups her cheek, and I breathe my answer against her lips.

“This is inevitable, Shizu.”

And I kiss her.

Not frantically, not half-maddened by the desperate litany of someone who fears loneliness as much as I do.

Gently.

Probingly.

Lovingly.

My mind is thankfully silent as I feel our bodies entangle, pressing against one another. The stiff fabric of her vest stops me from feeling her heat seeping into mine, from feeling her softness against my chest, but my fingers make up for it by delighting in the silk of her long hair as they travel down her tresses, exploring a back slim yet toned with muscle and finding so, so many delightful spots that, when pressed, result in little whimpers that I keep swallowing as soon as she releases them. Her whole body is enticing, her legs crossed atop my own radiating a warmth that grows as my pulse quickens, her firm behind molded against me in a way that should be obscene yet falls slightly short, her chest kept prisoner of a vest that, stylish as it is, I am beginning to despise (seriously, get a hint, you pretentious wifebeater). But, more than that, it is her slender, smooth neck that holds my fascination, as I keep making her shiver by softly dragging the back of my fingers up and down its length.

I don’t know how long we take, but we don’t end up brusquely separating while trying to get some much-needed air. We separate gently, languidly, our foreheads touching as our lips barely graze each other. Looking into one another’s eyes.

“Why?” She asks, barely audible over my thundering heartbeat.

“Because it is genuine.” And she smiles, and I smile with her, and it is not a creepy smile, it is not insincere, not trying to show what isn’t there. It… is a smile. Nothing more. Nothing less. Wonderful.

“It won’t be easy.”

“Ms. Hiratsuka, I am offended that you would think I would be easy. I would have you know I treasure my virtue and I am saving myself for my future working wife, to which I will devote my very being as a househusband.”

“There’s that twisted side of yours, I wondered where it went.”

“Twisted? I will have you know I am the very embodiment of the virtues of the Japanese spouse. I swear solemnly to receive you at the end of the day with the sacred phrase: ‘Would you like a bath, dinner, or… me, Ms. Hiratsuka?’”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

She leans forward, her chin tucked against my shoulder, her cheek caressing mine, and she breathes against my ear, “Stop saying my… Just… Just call me Shizu?”

I feel something snap inside my head.

My arms surround her of their own volition, smashing her chest against mine as she gasps.

“Shizu.”

I nibble on her neck, still wet from my last try, and she whimpers as I murmur once again.

“Shizu.”

My hands wander, one pulling her hair so that she offers me her throat, the other venturing towards her backside, grasping it with more daring than I would have thought I had.

“Shizu.”

She moans, surprised as I maul her flesh with my eager fingers, as I suckle on her skin, delighting in her taste that no longer carries tobacco, and I venture to unclasp her vest (vanquished at last, my eternal foe), finally feeling her breasts without the stiff cloth hindering me.

“Mine.”

I growl, and she whimpers.

I grab at her with all my strength, every gasp, every moan, a sign that I have a hold of her, that she is not beyond my grasp. Because she fears being alone, but I… I fear letting go.

So I don’t.

“Hachiman… Hn! Please!”

I don’t listen, now nibbling on her ear, still grabbing her hair, while I finally venture between her legs to find slight wetness soaking through her slacks. I begin to rub her and she jolts, the movement felt too strongly given what still lies beneath her (that is, me—a very much eager me).

“Hachiman, please, please, please, please—”

I rub up and down, not fast, but firmly, with short strokes. I hope eroge has taught me well.

And then she grabs my wrist and, with wild eyes and short breath, she tells me:

“Hachiman, please, stop.”

What a surprise. Not.

Something of my utter dejection must have shown on my face (I guess dead fish eyes can still be expressive), because she hurries to console me: “We are still in the teacher’s lounge, you know?”

Oh.

“Oh.”

The fond exasperation would be more convincing if you didn’t look like a gravure model who has finished an impromptu photoshoot after a bikini malfunction, a hidden camera, and a photographer that would make the #metoo movement faint, Ms. Hiratsuka. Mental note: never even think about gravure models when around Shizu. My brain-to-mouth filter is not to be trusted.

“Yes, oh.”

“Stop trying to act cool while looking like a gravure model who just realized the kind of photoshoot she signed up for.” Damn it, brain! You had one job!

“Stop trying to distract me from how cute my clueless student can look,” she ripostes, her eyes full of cheeky affection.

“Cute? Me? Is that blush from heatstroke, Shizu? Should we go to the nurse’s office?”

We both freeze at that. As we look at each other, we say at once:  “We should go to the nurse’s office.”

I hurry through corridors tinted orange by the evening sun and reach the nurse’s office so quickly that the speed alone would disprove any legitimate reason for me being there. Luckily, the place is empty, and I settle on one of the beds to wait for Ms. Hirat—for Shizu, each second feeling like a minute and each minute feeling like—like something very long. An info dump at the beginning of a fantasy novel written for the likes of Zaimokuza? Yes, let’s go with that.

We decided to come separately in case… Of something that should be obvious, given the very illicit nature of this burgeoning relationship. It may also have been a factor that I have had to walk here in standard adolescent male gait number two (hunched over, hands in my pockets—you know why) and not even the legendary Stealth Hikki would be enough to cover for this if I was walking beside a gorgeous woman who—hormones. Right. My old nemesis, we meet again.

Still, Shizu is taking her sweet time coming and I am starting to get nervous. Not for any actual reason, asides from all the very valid reasons.

Just as I am starting to ponder the merits of pacing around the room in a manner very unbefitting of an energy-saving character—sorry, Houtarou-sensei, it seems I have abandoned your teachings—I hear the unmistakable clacking of hard-soled shoes approaching, and Shizu’s silhouette appears through the ground glass window of the door. I hold my breath.

And she pauses.

I look at her distorted image, awful comprehension sinking in with each second that she doesn’t come in.

And the image disappears as her harsh footsteps vanish down the corridor.

I lie back on the bed that had filled me with so much anticipation just seconds ago, and I look at the ceiling like a traumatized robot pilot—I should buy myself some headphones. As I finally let out the breath I had been holding, I can’t help but say:

“My illicit romance is messed up, as I expected.”

I should come up with better taglines.