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Nene's known the Yugi twins since her second year of high school. The two of them transferred unceremoniously in the middle of the semester, bewildered and afraid of everyone but themselves. She remembers the way they looked like hunted animals, eyes as big as dinner plates and clammy hands interlocked tightly, as though they'd sink into the floor if one of them let go of the other.
They've come a long way since then, each of them cultivating their own unique circles of close friends and respective hobbies, and though there's some overlap in their idiosyncrasies, Nene considers them two extremely different individuals. Through simple observation—and Amane complaining about as much to her—she knows the grief it must cause them to be treated as two halves of a whole. Teachers always fall into it. Even friends fall into it.
Nene has steered clear of the pitfall as much as possible, partly because as time trawled on and they found themselves attending the same college, she began to foster something of a crush on Amane, and when she crushes on someone, she all but starts counting their eyelashes. A fact she isn't exactly proud of, but she can't help it; Nene does not do anything in half measures, and it's less of a virtue and more of an all-consuming compulsion for her. She's started noticing things like the differences in the constellations of barely-there freckles dusted across the twins' cheeks, the way Tsukasa has more of a spring in his step than Amane does, the way Amane telegraphs his thought process and Tsukasa is like talking to an opaque mirror. The way they chew differently. The way Amane's eyesight is a little worse and he squints a little more at signs. The way Tsukasa is a pickier eater.
And Nene will completely miss the irony of the fact that her observations still come packaged in a bundle of how Amane contrasts against his twin. If she articulated these thoughts to Amane, it would surely make his mouth twist into a chagrined smile (and Tsukasa never uses chagrined smiles, he smiles with all of his teeth or not at all). But she doesn't think about this because she has no immediate plans of telling Amane how she feels, as she isn't certain he feels the same, and anyway, she's felt from the very beginning like there's a wall between the twins and herself that she can't quite climb over. It’s as though they've carved out a little hole for her to peek through and talk into, but they won't let her cross the barrier. She doesn't know why. She chalks it up to Amane holding her at arm's length due to a lack of feelings and doesn't dissect it beyond that. Dissecting it would raise questions she doesn't know how to answer.
So when she and all their mutual friends are crowded into a modest house that Teru rented out for his college graduation party, and someone gets the harebrained idea to initiate a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, as inspired by the bizarre, dark, empty closet connected to the living room, she drops a slip with her name on it into the hat without any particular second thoughts or ulterior motives. She would love to get matched up with Amane, of course, but she isn't counting on it. She's even a little anxious at the thought, the theater of her mind conjuring a scene where Amane once again puts up a wall between them and leaves no more room for doubt that he doesn't like her like that. At least as things are now, she can still dream, dammit! Instead, she's hoping to get paired with someone who will turn it into a funny, memorable experience that they can both shrug off as a part of the game. Isn't this what college parties are all about?—Lowered inhibitions and youthful mistakes to wax nostalgic about twenty years later!?
"Okay, up next!" Aoi is swiveling some cheap alcohol of an inscrutable color in one hand and the hat of names in the other. "Sorry, Nene-chan, can you hold this for me for a sec?" she asks when she realizes a third hand isn't going to manifest to draw slips.
"Sure," Nene says with a smile as she takes Aoi's glass. She pokes her nose over the edge and sniffs, trying to sleuth out what the hell Aoi is drinking, but the smell just baffles her further. The outline of Aoi's lipgloss shines on the rim of the glass invitingly, and Nene has the passing thought that it wouldn't be the worst thing to get paired with Aoi. She thinks maybe she and Aoi could make out once and not feel weird about it later. Maybe . She decides against the secondhand kiss regardless, not enticed enough by the mystery alcohol's smell.
Across the living room sit the Yugi twins, Tsukasa happily balancing a plate of various cheeses on his knees and Amane looking oddly sulky for a guy who agreed to play Seven Minutes in Heaven. She thinks maybe it's because Tsukasa showed up late to the party wearing an outfit nearly identical to Amane's, a vestigial habit of theirs that they've long since abandoned, at Amane's insistence. Tsukasa seemed chuffed as could be by their accidentally matching looks, even going so far as to undo his top button and roll up his sleeves to better imitate Amane. This has had the unfortunate side effect all evening of their friends mixing them up much more than usual.
Nene, of course, knows the difference. It's clear as night and day.
"Oh! The first name is mine, and the second one is…" Aoi squeezes her eyes shut and makes a big show of digging around for her fated makeout partner. "Oh…? Minamoto-senpai!"
Reflexively, Nene's eyes dart over to Akane to gauge how badly he's faring with this announcement, and to his credit, his brow only crinkles slightly. He's gotten better about reining in his jealousy in the last few years, though Nene questions how much of that is a genuine change in character and how much of it is the fact that Aoi probably would have dumped him if he continued digging his claws into her the way he used to. Like a cat that knows to fear the water spritzer but feels no real remorse for tearing up the furniture.
"Lucky lucky graduation boy," Amane jests with a lopsided grin, defrosting himself from his reverie enough to rub a little bit of salt into Akane's wound. Teru and Aoi look utterly unfazed by the teasing, both smiling with ease as they start the timer and enter the closet.
A tense minute passes before Mitsuba suggests, "Let's listen in."
Nobody really wants to, but having no clue what's going on is polluting everyone's minds with unbidden mental images, so perhaps it's better not to leave any room for imagination to fill in the gaps. At least, that's what Nene thinks as she follows him and the others to tiptoe up to the door. Kou declines to join on the extremely fair grounds that he'd really rather not hear his older brother moaning tonight.
As she presses an ear to the door with bated breath, Nene thinks back to the crush she used to have on Teru in high school. He lost a bit of luster for her the more she got to know him, but her heart does still reflexively skip a beat or two at how charming his smile can be. It can't be helped! It's pure instinct. She really isn't sure how she's going to feel about hearing—
"I've always preferred the pods because I hate measuring the detergent."
"That's fair, but I always feel like the liquid detergent lasts so much longer than the pods, so when you think about it, it's a better bargain, right?"
"You've got me there."
"What the hell, are they really just talking?" Mitsuba sneers, losing interest immediately. "Boring assholes."
Nene doesn't feel any particular relief, just amusement, which comes to her as a bit of a surprise despite everything. It's nice, she thinks. It's nice to grow up and not feel so hung up on every fleeting feeling she catches. It's nice to grow out of a crush and move on.
Then she looks over to Amane, and he squints at her with mutual amusement, and her pulse skyrockets so suddenly that she forgets she still has Aoi's drink in one hand and spills it on herself.
"Oh, shit!—Er, shoot! Do you need help with that, senpai?" Kou is already on his feet and fussing idly with his hands. "Here, I'll take that glass for you."
"Ahhh, no worries, I'm just gonna run my shirt under the sink so that it doesn't stain! I'll be right back!" Nene titters with some embarrassment, rushing off to the bathroom before the mystery drink has the chance to ruin her clothes for good. In all of her hurrying, she fails to notice two nearly-identical pairs of goldenrod eyes watching her intently.
She clicks the door shut and shrugs off the sullied shirt, thankful that her tank top underneath hasn't been caught as collateral damage. She's relieved to see the stain come out fairly quickly under cold water, but she has to rinse it so thoroughly, there's probably no hope of her wearing it again tonight unless she wants to sport a huge wet spot.
"That's what I get for wearing my favorite top," she mumbles despondently to herself, holding it up to the light before rinsing it a second time, just to be safe. It's a soft lavender blouse with a round, white collar and heart-shaped buttons, and she's not one to brag, but she thinks it's pretty flattering on her. With that thought in mind, she does a quick mirror check to make sure her makeup and hair are still in place; if she can't wear her blouse anymore, she at least needs to look cute enough to kiss in other ways.
Once again, the thought of who she could get matched up with tonight flickers across her mind. It’s possible it’ll be someone she doesn’t even really know; after all, a few of Teru’s friends in his graduating year are also in attendance. That realization gives her pause. Does she really want to make out with just anyone that badly? Sure, it’s a graduation party and none of this needs to mean anything, but the more she thinks about it, the more it’s becoming apparent that she only has one person in mind.
She hangs her blouse over the shower curtain rod, making a mental note to come back for it later, and smooths her skirt down. Her tank top doesn’t leave much to the imagination, but it’s. Fine. It’s a college party. She repeats that like a mantra. It’s a college party. It’s okay to be a little stupid tonight.
Aoi is already singsonging her name by the time she’s back in the living room.
“I drew your name and Amane-kun’s!” Aoi says with a conspiratorial smile barely concealed behind one hand. Nene’s almost certain this means Aoi rigged the system as a favor, and she isn’t sure whether to thank her or shake her for that.
She settles on smoothing down her skirt again and looking towards the couch that the twins had been sitting on, only to find it empty.
“Amane-kun went on ahead into the closet to wait for you! I think he’s being shy,” Aoi whispers, a little too loud.
“Oh,” is all Nene can say, her face beginning to burn already.
“Go on!! I’m gonna start the timer!”
Nene distantly registers encouraging or teasing words from other friends in the room but doesn’t have her wits about her enough to even play out her usual overblown embarrassment. Instead she feels weirdly outside of her body as she enters the closet and hears the door immediately close behind her, trapping her with little more than some boxes and a shadow shaped like Amane.
When the shadow turns towards her, all she can see is a crescent of teeth slicing a smile across a face. This surprises her somewhat; Amane can be smarmy and playful sometimes, but she expected some measure of shyness, at least at first.
“Hey, Yashiro,” comes a low whisper, and he hasn’t even touched her yet but she shudders.
“H-hi,” she whispers back, unsure of why they’re whispering, but then again half of their friends are probably pressed up against the door at this very minute. Nosy bastards , she thinks to herself as if she hadn’t been a member of the nosy bastard gang all of five minutes ago.
Right as she’s wondering if she should make a move or if they ought to talk about this first, strong hands curl around her shoulders and press her against the wall. That cat-like smile leans in close enough that she feels its curve against her mouth before her lips are forcibly parted. She melts into it immediately, reflexively, her entire body going soft and pliant without her even willing it to. Her heart is hammering so hard, she almost fears that Amane will feel her racing pulse in her mouth and call the whole thing off, but if he notices it, he’s emboldened by it if anything. She can’t believe how confidently he’s maneuvering her body—him!—bookish little Amane, always looking like he caught a shooting star in his eyes, dazzling and warm and a million miles away.
Darling Amane, running his hand up her thigh and squeezing her as if to stake a claim on her, silly Amane, snaking his other hand up under her tank top and kneading her with purpose, gentle Amane, moving his hot mouth to an all-too-visible junction of her neck and sucking a painful mark into her flesh.
Somehow she didn’t imagine it being like this, and it makes her gut drop.
Does she not like him after all? The thought shocks her so thoroughly that it actually distracts her from the teeth mottling her sensitive skin, at least for a second. But he’s firm and insistent enough to pull her back into the heat of the moment, whispering, “Don’t leave me hanging, Yashiro,” and before she knows it, she’s kissing him back with fervor, curling her hands in his short, choppy hair.
She definitely likes him. She likes doing this with him. Perhaps reality just betrayed her expectations of what her first kiss with Amane would be like enough that she lost her footing. But even if it’s different, her heart’s still up in her throat at the thought of him wanting her like this—of him wanting her back, as much as she wants him. Hiking her knee up between his legs is enough to make that plenty evident. He grinds shamelessly against her, cupping hands under her bottom to give himself more leverage over her.
“Wanna give your first time to me here in this dirty old closet, Nene-chan?” he breathes, nipping at her earlobe and already gravitating towards the hem of the tights underneath her skirt.
“Wh—are you serious?” She feels dizzy. “We only have seven minutes in here, and who knows how much of that we’ve already spent—wait, that aside, that’s moving way too fast—!!”
“Too bad,” he hums with a smile as he bites again at a spot that’s already raw enough for his teeth to feel sore and redundant rather than lighting any fresh nerves on fire. “You were making such pretty noises, I wanted to hear more of you.”
That comment makes her feel pinned up like a specimen to be admired clinically rather than intimately, like something fascinating and not something beloved. When she tries to search his face for some kind of clue, some kind of anchor in this unfamiliar situation, he just buries himself against her chest and continues to dig fingers and teeth into her until she loses the capacity to hold up a lens of reason anymore.
When their seven minutes are up, he relents entirely, leaving Nene feeling odd and alone. It isn’t until she follows him demurely out of the closet and spots Amane entering the living room with a towel in hand that she realizes, all at once, her partner in the closet had most certainly not been Amane.
Tsukasa looks at her over his shoulder with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, a glint of something beyond mischief shining in his canines. “Thanks for the fun, Nene-chan!” he chirps, settling down into Amane’s spot on the couch. “Let’s play again soon.”
Amane is already gone by the time Nene has the wherewithal to look to him for a reaction. Everyone else in the room seems equally confused.
“He—I thought—we thought it was Tsukasa-kun who left to get you a towel while you were in the bathroom…” Aoi struggles to say, perhaps equally as shell-shocked as Nene. “When I pulled Amane-kun’s name, he…”
“Took his turn for him,” Tsukasa explains, glib and already playing with his cubes of cheese again as if nothing had happened. “Gotta keep the game moving, right?”
Nene breaks into a run after Amane, praying he hasn’t already called a ride. She doesn’t even think to curse Tsukasa for being misleading; she blames herself and no one else. Why hadn’t she noticed from the moment he first touched her? Here, she had always prided herself on knowing the difference, and yet the one time it really mattered, she’d let her own selfish desire to be wanted win out over logic. The shame that bubbles up in her throat nearly threatens to suffocate her.
Thankfully, she finds Amane down the street, sitting on the curb and almost certainly waiting for a ride home.
“Amane-kun, please let me explain,” she pants, leaning against her knees to catch her breath.
“Explain what?” he replies, almost too convincingly unaffected. He avoids her eyes like an expert and buries his hands in his pockets, which Nene knows he does sometimes so that he can squeeze his nails into his palms.
“Why are you leaving the party early if you’re not mad at me?”
“Can’t a guy go home in time to catch his favorite shows anymore?”
“What shows,” she demands. When he doesn’t answer right away, she exclaims, a little bit hysterical and her voice a bit shrill, “There are no shows!! And I didn’t mean to make out with Tsukasa-kun!!!!”
Amane visibly flinches at that, making Nene instantly regret her word choice, but he at least stands up to be on equal footing with her. “Listen, I don’t care about that half as much as I’m hurt that you…” He seems to catch himself, embarrassed by the word ‘hurt.’ Amane doesn’t ‘hurt.’ Not where other people can see it, anyway. “I just can’t believe you thought he was me.”
“Aoi said it was you, and it was dark, and he—he called me Yashiro the way you do, so I really thought…” She's losing this battle, she can tell, but she soldiers on regardless. “I was just… so excited by the thought that you wanted to kiss me and touch me the way he did. I let myself think it was you. I’m really sorry, Amane-kun. That wasn't fair to either of you. I was being selfish.”
Nene feels tears well up in her eyes, but she does everything in her power to keep them from falling. She doesn’t feel like she deserves to cry in front of Amane right now. She knows that he’s kind, and he’ll probably wipe the tears, or pull her in to rest on his shoulder until she’s calmed down, even if he’s furious with her. That’s just how he is. That’s why she likes him so much.
“…You wanted me to touch you?” he says cautiously, his head ducked and his eyes only darting towards her when he thinks she isn’t looking.
“Huh? Of course I did!” Nene eschews shyness for honesty for once, feeling that Amane has more than earned it, though her voice is still quiet and fragile as she admits, “I like you, Amane-kun. I really wanted to get paired with you. I did.”
She could kiss him for how plainly he wears his own thoughts sometimes. Like he’s pantomiming solving a problem on the chalkboard, using little more than the muscles of his face. She watches him ponder and consider, unraveling some kind of question to himself and putting all the strings where they’re meant to be, before he assents to whatever conclusion he comes to and turns to face her properly.
“Me too,” he admits, and she isn’t sure which part he’s referring to, but he tilts forward and plants a chaste kiss on her lips before she can form a question. This time, she’s quick enough on the uptake to reciprocate thoroughly, pulling him by the shirt to slot their mouths together.
This time, things go a little more the way she always pictured it, the two of them stumbling to meet each other halfway on the backdrop of an early night sky rather than a dusty closet in a house neither of them have ever been to before. What he might lack in heat, he makes up for in earnestness, holding her against his chest like he never wants to let her go. He savors her like he’ll never get to taste her again, and when he kisses down to the mangled patch Tsukasa left on her neck, Nene doesn’t even think twice about sweeping her hair back and offering the spot up to its rightful owner. Amane’s eyes darken as he sinks his teeth in, relentless and single-minded in his goal, though he intermittently pauses to lap soothingly at the abused skin. Nene whimpers but welcomes his intrusion, patiently allowing him to draw blood and lick it clean, over and over. When he pulls back, her blood is staining his lips, and his kisses taste like iron, and she loves this side of him too.
All said and done, Nene gets what she wants in the end and doesn’t think to question why Amane never chews Tsukasa out for his deception afterwards. She fancies that she’s finally crossed the wall between herself and the Yugi twins, but what she doesn’t realize is there are four walls, and she’s on the inside with the two of them now.