Ruri stood rooted, thoughts spinning like loose thread on a bobbin, when Sasaki closed the distance behind her. His lips grazed the shell of her ear, breath damp and warm against skin that had never been touched there before.
"Let's go. We have a date."
The words landed low, almost sub-vocal, and the heat of each syllable pooled against the curve of her earlobe and trickled down the side of her neck. Every fine hair on her nape stood at attention. A full-body shiver jolted through her—shoulders, spine, the backs of her knees—and her cheeks ignited in the space of a single heartbeat. She turned to face him, lips parting, closing, parting again, but nothing came out. A dozen retorts curled up and died in her throat.
Say something. Tell him no. Tell him—
She exhaled through her nose, defeated, and gave a single, miserable nod.
Sasaki's mouth bent into that infuriating crescent.
---
To dodge anyone from Ruri's circle, Sasaki steered them six blocks east to a narrow yokocho tucked between a pachinko parlor and a defunct karaoke box. Dusk had started to bruise the sky a deep persimmon above the low rooftops, and the alley was waking up—vendors cranking open aluminum shutters, portable gas burners hissing to life beneath steel griddles, the first ribbons of smoke threading upward carrying the fatty sweetness of yakitori glaze and the sharp, vinegar bite of freshly splashed okonomiyaki sauce.
A middle-aged man in a happi coat wrestled a sandwich board into position. Two office ladies in rumpled blazers were already seated on red stools at a takoyaki stand, chopsticks clicking, laughing about someone named Tanaka-buchō who'd fallen asleep mid-meeting. Overhead, a tangle of paper lanterns—some printed with kanji, others with cartoon tanuki—swayed in the breeze that funneled down the alley, carrying the faint undercurrent of charcoal and sesame oil.
Ruri glanced at Sasaki, brow furrowed. A date was supposed to involve a restaurant, maybe a movie—something out of a Toradora! episode at the very least, not a street-food alley that smelled like a festival had set up camp and refused to leave.
Sasaki read the confusion on her face. "Gotta eat first. Can't date on an empty stomach." He smiled—easy, unbothered. "You're hungry too, right?"
"I have zero appetite." Ruri kept her voice flat, her jaw tight. If not for this man, she'd be sitting at her own dinner table right now, warm rice and her mother's nikujaga steaming in front of her.
I'd rather eat cardboard than share a meal with you.
Her coldness didn't dent him in the slightest. "Doesn't matter," he said, shameless as ever. "I'm hungry."
Ruri's molars pressed together. She had never encountered a boy like this—who could say something that tactless in the middle of a supposed date and not even blink. No wonder no girl had ever confessed to him. He was a walking case study in emotional illiteracy, the kind of protagonist even a romcom manga would bench by episode two.
Absolute trash. Hopeless. A lost cause of a man.
Her internal monologue could have filled volumes, but her face stayed carefully neutral. "Fine," she muttered. "What are we eating?"
Sasaki surveyed the alley with theatrical deliberation. "This isn't really a sit-down kind of place. Let's just grab something quick to tide us over." He nodded toward a small storefront wedged between a grilled-squid cart and a crampon accessories shop, its sign glowing soft pink: Hana Boba — Handcrafted Milk Tea & Snacks. "Milk tea and some bites. Over there."
Ruri gave a terse nod, expression bleak, and started walking toward the shop. Two steps in, she realized Sasaki wasn't beside her. She stopped, turned.
He stood exactly where she'd left him, hand extended, palm up, fingers relaxed. That same half-smile curving his lips.
"What do people do on dates, Ruri?"
Her brows drew together. The outstretched hand hung in the air between them like a dare. He didn't lower it, didn't flinch, didn't so much as shift his weight.
You have got to be kidding me.
She exhaled—long, resigned, a white flag in the shape of a breath. Marched back to him, seized his hand, and dragged him toward the boba shop with the deliberate fury of someone pulling a stubborn dog on a leash. Her ears burned crimson at the tips.
Sasaki's fingers curled around hers. His palm was dry and warm, calloused along the ridge below his fingers. He let himself be towed, expression serene.
---
"Welcome! What can I get for you two?"
The shopgirl behind the counter was petite, early twenties maybe, with a messy bun held by a cat-ear clip and a dusting of matcha powder on her black apron. She beamed at them—wide, professional, the kind of retail smile designed to survive an eight-hour shift.
Ruri glanced at Sasaki. Sasaki addressed the shopgirl. "What's your specialty?"
The girl's gaze flicked between them—his hand still loosely holding hers, the proximity of their shoulders—and her smile brightened a degree.
"You two are a couple, right? We just launched our new Couples' Boba—one large cup, two straws, big enough to share. It's been super popular." She tapped a laminated placard on the counter featuring an illustrated pair of anime characters nose-to-nose over an oversized cup, hearts floating around their heads. "Really cute for photos, too!"
Ruri dropped Sasaki's hand as though it had shocked her.
I would rather drink drain water.
Sasaki's eyes lit up like a kid who'd just been handed the last limited-edition gacha figure. "We'll take one. And an order of fish balls and an order of beef balls."
Ruri's frown deepened, but he didn't consult her, didn't even glance in her direction.
"Perfect! That'll be just a moment. Four hundred yen total." The shopgirl's smile didn't waver.
Cute couple. Boyfriend's kind of intense though.
Sasaki did not reach for his phone. Instead, he turned his head to Ruri and gave her a pointed look, chin dipping slightly—the universal gesture for go ahead, pay up.
Ruri's face went blank. Then it cycled through a rapid sequence—disbelief, outrage, a flicker of genuine fury—before settling into a hard, porcelain stillness. In her entire life, across every interaction she had ever witnessed between boys and girls, she had never once seen a guy make his date pay. Not once. Not even in the trashiest manga she'd ever hate-read.
Scum. Actual, irredeemable scum.
Her chest heaved. She took a slow, deliberate breath through her nose, told herself that four hundred yen was a small price to keep the peace, mentally filed the expense under "feeding a stray animal," and—still visibly fuming—pulled out her phone and tapped it against the reader.
Beep.
The shopgirl, apparently interpreting the exchange as playful teasing, giggled. "You two are so sweet together!"
Ruri's eye twitched.
---
They sat at a small wooden table by the storefront's open side, facing the alley. The sky had deepened to indigo at the edges, the lanterns now glowing amber against it. Ruri said nothing. She sat with her arms folded, back straight, and leveled Sasaki with a gaze that could have curdled fresh milk.
I am being extorted into a date with a man who makes me pay for his food. This is rock bottom. There is no lower.
Sasaki, naturally, was entirely at ease. He'd engineered every moment of this—the girl paying wasn't about money, it was about making himself look as awful as possible. A real boyfriend would have fought for the check. A decent guy would have at least pretended to reach for his wallet. Sasaki did neither, because the more she despised him, the less she'd ever suspect this arrangement was anything but pure coercion. And the less anyone else would believe she'd chosen this willingly.
The drink arrived quickly—the alley wasn't yet at peak crowd. A single oversized cup of brown-sugar boba, tiger-striped syrup marbling the creamy surface, two pink straws poking out side by side. The shopgirl set a small tray of fish balls and beef balls beside it, each skewered on bamboo picks, steam curling off them and carrying the savory scent of bonito and soy.
Ruri rotated her face away from the cup. "I'm not thirsty. Drink it yourself."
Sasaki leaned back, arms draped over the back of his chair. "Actually, I ordered it for you. Milk tea keeps me up at night—caffeine, you know. If you don't drink it, my four hundred yen—sorry, your four hundred yen—goes to waste. Seems cruel."
This man has never experienced shame. Not once in his entire life.
Ruri knew resistance was pointless. She reached for the cup with both hands, brought it close, and lowered her mouth to one of the straws. Her lips had barely sealed around the pink plastic when Sasaki's head swept in from the side—fast, fluid, no warning—and his mouth closed around the second straw.
Shlrrrrp.
They both drank at the same time. Ruri's eyes blew wide. She spat the straw out, shoving the cup away, and fixed him with the exact look one might give a man who'd just licked a subway pole.
"You're disgusting—"
Then she saw it. His other hand, the one that hadn't been anywhere near the cup, was holding his phone at arm's length, screen facing them. On the display: a perfectly framed photo—two heads bent toward a single cup, straws touching lips, lantern light warm on their faces. They looked, unmistakably, like a real couple. An annoyingly photogenic one.
Ruri's mouth fell open.
Sasaki studied the photo with the critical eye of a man reviewing his own gallery exhibition. "Hey, Ruri. If I posted this to the class group chat… think everyone would congratulate us?"
He said it the way someone might comment on the weather, then slid the straw back between his lips and continued drinking, gaze lifting to meet hers over the rim. One eyebrow arched—barely, almost imperceptibly—but the message was clear.
Your turn.
Ruri's face contorted. The thought of that photo reaching anyone—Miki, Aoi, Haruto, anyone—sent a spike of cold panic straight through her sternum. Her reputation, her carefully maintained image, the distance she kept from every boy in class—all of it, undone by a single screenshot.
She leaned forward, cheeks blazing, and placed her lips around the second straw.
Shlrrp… shlrrp… shlrrp…
They drank in silence, the cup draining steadily, the brown-sugar syrup leaving sweet, caramel-dark trails on the interior walls. When it was more than half gone, Sasaki released the straw and sat back.
"I'm hungry."
Ruri had given up fighting. Her face had gone carefully, deliberately blank—the expression of someone who'd been taken hostage and had simply accepted the situation. Without a word, she picked up a bamboo skewer, speared a fish ball, and held it to his mouth.
Sasaki opened up and ate it. His lips brushed the tip of the skewer, teeth clicking lightly against bamboo.
"Mm." He chewed, swallowed. Then his eyes sharpened, that dangerous, playful light flooding back in. "My turn to feed you."
He plucked a fresh skewer, stabbed a fish ball, and extended it toward her face. Steam wisped off its golden-brown surface, carrying the warm, oceanic scent of fish paste and a trace of chili oil.
Ruri stared at the offering. Her expression twisted—reluctance, discomfort, something she refused to name pulling tight behind her ribs. Feeding each other was something couples did. Real ones. The kind who held hands because they wanted to, not because one of them was holding the other's dignity hostage.
And yet I just fed him. Because I was forced to. Obviously. That's the only reason.
She knew what would happen if she refused. He had the photo. He had leverage she couldn't even begin to quantify. Every line she drew, he erased. Every wall she built, he walked through like it was made of paper.
Fine.
Ruri steeled herself and parted her lips.
"That's barely open," Sasaki said, voice low, teasing, the skewer hovering an inch from her mouth. "Can't fit it in like that. Wider."
Her nostrils flared. Heat rushed up her neck in a wave so fierce she could feel it pulsing in her temples. But the truth he'd already taught her—brutally, efficiently—was that once a boundary broke, every boundary after it broke easier. The first crack was the hardest. After that, it was just… erosion.
She opened her mouth wider.
From Sasaki's vantage point, the sight arrested him mid-breath. Ruri's lips—soft, pale rose, slightly glossy from the milk tea—parted to reveal a neat row of small white teeth, and beyond them, the pink of her tongue resting against her lower palate, the delicate interior of her mouth flushed a shade deeper than her lips. The warm overhead light caught the faint sheen of saliva on her inner cheek.
She was nervous. He could see it in the rapid flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat, the shallow staccato of her breathing, each exhale a tiny, humid hahh that ghosted against his knuckles where they gripped the skewer. Her face had gone the color of ripe persimmon—forehead, cheeks, the bridge of her nose, all burning—and her eyes were fixed somewhere past his shoulder, unable to meet his gaze. The combination of her flushed skin, her parted mouth, and the quick, breathy rhythm of her chest rising and falling beneath her blouse produced an effect that was, objectively, obscenely erotic for something as innocent as eating a fish ball.
Her throat had opened slightly with the deeper breaths. He could see the small, pink nub of her uvula trembling faintly at the back, framed by the soft arches of her palate.
Sasaki's pulse kicked up—hard, sudden, a drumbeat behind his sternum. He guided the fish ball past her lips with exaggerated care, the pad of his thumb brushing her lower lip as the bamboo skewer slid free. He watched her close her mouth, watched her jaw work as she chewed, watched the blush spread down to the collar of her blouse, and felt something tight and hot coil in his chest.
Fuck.
"Your turn," he said, and his voice came out rougher than he intended.
He dropped the skewer onto the tray. His gaze locked onto hers—direct, unblinking, the teasing veneer thinner now, something rawer burning underneath.
Ruri blinked, still chewing, then reached for another skewer on autopilot. She speared a fish ball, brought it toward his mouth—
Sasaki leaned forward and bypassed the skewer entirely. His lips closed around her pinky finger, warm and soft and deliberate, and his tongue dragged a slow, wet line from the pad of her fingertip to the first knuckle.
"Mmnh."
The sound vibrated against her skin—low, unhurried, savoring. His tongue was slick and impossibly warm, tracing the shallow groove along the side of her finger, curling around the nail bed, flattening against the sensitive pad and pressing just hard enough to feel the ridges of her fingerprint yield against the muscle. Saliva pooled where his lower lip sealed against her skin, and when he drew her finger in slightly deeper, she felt the faint graze of his teeth—not biting, just holding, the edges resting against the thin skin at the crease of her knuckle like a warning and an invitation at once.
A tremor raced up Ruri's arm—wrist, elbow, shoulder—and her stomach clenched in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. She yanked backward on instinct, but his teeth tightened just enough to hold her in place. Not painful. Just inescapable.
"Nnh—"
She looked at him, and for the first time all evening, her expression wasn't anger or resignation or exasperation. It was something unguarded and startled, her eyes wide, her lips still parted from the involuntary sound she'd just made, a faint tremor visible in her lower lip. Her cheeks burned so hot she could feel the heat radiating off her own skin, and between her thighs, a pulse she didn't want to acknowledge throbbed once—twice—in time with her heartbeat.
Sasaki held her gaze, her finger still resting against the flat of his tongue, and the corner of his mouth curved upward around it.
I should stop.
He didn't.
His tongue swept one more slow, thorough pass over the pad of her pinky, tasting salt and the faintest residue of fish-ball grease and something cleaner underneath—soap, skin, her—before he finally let his jaw relax and released her. A thin thread of saliva stretched between her fingertip and his lower lip for a half-second before it broke.
Ruri snatched her hand back to her chest and cradled it there, wet finger curled into her palm, heart slamming against her ribs hard enough that she could hear it in her own ears. The alley chatter—laughter, sizzling oil, a vendor shouting irasshaimase—rushed back in around her like sound returning after an explosion.
Sasaki picked up a napkin from the dispenser, wiped his mouth once, and reached for the half-finished boba, drawing a long sip through his straw as though nothing had happened at all.
Ruri pressed her thighs together beneath the table and stared at the wet shine on her pinky finger, the lantern light catching the thin glaze of his saliva still cooling against her skin.