Shutting his eyes, Kanae suddenly remembered and asked, “That contest. Who was the winner?”

Yuichi, who had just shut his eyes to sleep, suddenly opened them wide and laughed.

“You think I’d lose?”

His brimming self-confidence was attractive.

I really like him, Kanae thought to himself.

It doesn’t matter how cruel a man he is. I like Yuichi.

In the middle of the night at about twelve o’clock, Kanae woke up. He rose from the bed, making sure not to wake up the sleeping Yuichi, and he headed toward the bathroom for a shower. He didn’t have much feeling left in the lower half of his body, so he leaned himself against the wall for support and moved slowly. Even though his insides hurt quite a bit, much of the pain from before had left his body. Kanae smiled wryly, impressed at his quick recovery.

Maybe that’s because I like Yuichi too.

He entered the bathroom and jumped into the shower. Kanae sighed.

“Lovers?” he said, as if he was trying to hold something back inside himself. He knew that being Yuichi’s lover meant that he wasn’t going to be treated very well, if Yuichi’s past girlfriends were any indication. He had seen it himself. He understood Yuichi well enough; it had almost turned Kanae off.

To Yuichi, a girlfriend was only someone that he could fuck whenever he wanted. There was nothing to suggest it would be any different with a guy.

A convenient person that he could call on anytime he wanted it.

Yuichi had been dumped numerous times, but after the relationships ended, he would act as if he had forgotten everything about them. Or maybe he really had forgotten.

The same would happen to Kanae. He would be discarded when Yuichi was tired of him. Out of the blue, he would be told that it was over and that they wouldn’t meet again.

“Would I be okay with that…?” Kanae mused to himself.

Would the pros of being his lover now outweigh the cons of not being able to see him again later?

But when Yuichi had called him his lover…

He was so happy he could have cried.

He had managed to obtain something he had always dreamed about.

Even though he was a guy, Yuichi had called him his “lover.”

So it was going to be okay.

They were going to break up sooner or later. It could be tomorrow. It could be the next day. It certainly couldn’t be too far away.

But that was okay.

He liked him. That was enough. He truly liked Yuichi.

What am I thinking, falling for such an asshole?

But then…that’s love, Kanae thought to himself.

He didn’t understand it himself, but that was love.

Chapter 3

“I’m tired.”

Rubbing his eyes, Kanae trudged onward to school. He had planned to skip first period today, but he had woken up at the usual time, so he had gotten ready and left the house. It was at times like these that he hated himself for being so committed to his studies.