Chapter Text
Subaru closed the book she had been reading and laid there, pensive, staring at the ceiling of her dimly lit room. The book rested against her chest, cradled in her arms, rising and falling with her slow breaths, the back cover warm against her skin.
She rolled onto her side, legs curling instinctively around a pillow, her body still flushed, her skin sensitive to the touch.
She felt restless, aching, aroused.
The images from the story she had finally forced herself to stop reading for the night lingered vividly in her mind, exposed and insistent.
Teasing, tempting, mocking.
With a small huff of frustration, she set the book aside, adding it to the pile of similar titles on her nightstand. Her now free hand slid up to her neck, fingers tracing back and forth the delicate boundary between the collar of her shirt and bare skin with slow movements. She buried her face into the wrinkled sheets and let out a low, irritated groan.
Calling the last couple of months a period of change in Subaru’s life and habits would have been a gross understatement.
For most of her teenage years, she had been remarkably chaste, detached from romance and desire alike.
During high school, she had developed a crush on her close friend, Saku. It had taken months upon months before she could even recognize those feelings as anything other than platonic.
She had loved him then, and even after deciding to bury those emotions for the sake of their friendship, she knew she still loved him, deeply.
Even so, those feelings had been innocent, pure.
That was simply how she experienced the world.
She often felt strangely out of place listening to her friends recount their romantic stories. At times she worried that something about her was broken, but she eventually learned there were others like her. She had made peace with that, accepting her own pace, her own way of feeling.
Even so, curiosity had taken root.
And curiosity, once awakened, demanded answers.
She was a good student, after all. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was study.
Months earlier, she had returned home carrying her usual backpack stuffed with law textbooks and notebooks, along with an extra shopping bag from the nearby bookstore.
Inside were psychology texts, non-fiction analyses of sexuality, research on women’s pleasure, and smut. A lot of it. Popular titles, for the most part. She had been wary of this type of mass-produced content, carefully filtering for stories that at least promised engaging plots and interesting characters to frame the explicit parts.
A few weeks later, the psychology book had been read cover to cover. The non-fiction analysis on sexuality had been abandoned halfway through, its author’s style grating on her nerves. The research on women’s pleasure lay mostly forgotten on her desk, a bookmark stranded in the middle, interesting enough to keep, not compelling enough to finish fast.
The fiction, however, had been devoured.
She had torn through it hungrily, even making return trips to the bookstore to buy subsequent volumes in more than one series.
At first, she had found some of it off-putting. The most explicit and graphic scenes had been a little too much for her. Starting with immersive plots and genuinely likable characters, however, had been the right strategy. Before she realized it, she was lingering over the charged moments between the protagonists, reading more slowly, savoring every line. Her pulse would quicken, her throat tightening as she swallowed without noticing. Certain descriptions sent a faint electric sensation creeping along her spine, delicious and uncomfortable all at once.
Now, when she was not buried in law books and project work or making time for friends, her guilty pleasure was curling beneath her covers with a new book, or rereading the ones she loved most.
That night, however, she was frustrated. It was the same frustration that had been building for weeks now, a tension that clung to her and refused to ease, driving her quietly mad.
She had no new books worth checking, and she had just finished rereading one of her favorites. All the anticipation and slow burn that discovering her own sexuality through these fictional scenarios had stirred in her left her aroused, restless, and with nowhere for that energy to go.
She definitely had not thought this through, nor could she have imagined herself ending up like this, but it was far too late for that now.
She had tried to deal with it on her own.
A couple of weeks earlier, during a particularly restless night, she had tossed and turned in bed, too agitated to fall asleep. Eventually, she slid her hand beneath the hem of her pants, moving slowly, carefully, curious more than confident.
It had not worked. Not at all.
She had been too aware of herself, too inside her own head. It felt clinical, almost detached, like she was examining her own body rather than inhabiting it. Her thoughts stayed cold, her fingers cooler still against her skin, the sensation awkward and the friction uncomfortable.
After that night, she did not try again.
Another groan slipped from her, thick with annoyance. Her sleeping habits had been in disarray for a while now because of all this, and once again, sleep seemed determined to evade her that night. Finally defeated, she reached for her phone and began scrolling idly, killing time without really seeing anything.
When that grew tiresome, she gave in to another of her guilty pleasures. One she kept entirely to herself, too ashamed to reveal. She opened her gallery app and navigated to a separate folder she had carefully tucked away.
Once inside, she selected a photo.
It was Saku's.
It had been taken recently, during a trip to a water park with their friends. The picture showed him standing close beside her. Shohei and Yorita were there too, smaller within the frame, but they vanished the moment she zoomed in on the dark-haired boy.
Her gaze traced his silhouette slowly. His dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, leaving his neck bare, exposed. She lingered on the gentle bob of his Adam’s apple, the clean line of his throat descending to meet his collarbone. That collarbone pressed faintly against the fabric of his black shirt, the same black shirt now soaked through, clinging to his skin in all the right places.
She locked the screen and groaned again, louder this time, burying her face into the pillow. She was fully aware she was ruining any remaining chance of sleep, indulging in her own self-sabotage.
Still, she unlocked her phone once more.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the sexual frustration that had been quietly piling up inside her. Maybe it was both. Either way, she found herself circling around a new idea, turning it over in her mind.
She was stuck. It was not like she could resolve her issues the normal way, the way Kaoruko did, or even Madoka, by having a partner. She had always struggled with men. Even though she had improved immensely over the years, there were still walls she could not easily cross in everyday social situations. She couldn't even start to imagine something more intimate.
With one exception.
The person, the man, who made her feel at ease.
Him, with whom she could share small touches, brush shoulders, and not flinch away.
Him, whom she trusted completely.
Him, who was always eager to help her.
And who just so happened to be very good at teaching.