The bathroom of Arcadia is pure chaos — flickering neon lights overhead, Rihanna thumping through the cracked speakers, and the sharp smell of cherry lip gloss, vodka cranberries, and too much hairspray. Everything sticks — the floor under your sandals, the heat between your bodies, the glitter clinging to your sweaty skin.

You’re perched on the grimy sink counter in your tiny denim skirt, cami top clinging to you, gloss smeared perfectly across your mouth like a cherry-red dare. Your flip phone buzzes angrily in your back pocket — probably Suguru and Shoko texting something stupid from the bar, but you ignore it.

Because in front of you stands Satoru. White hair damp at the temples, baggy jeans slung low on his hips with a ridiculous chain belt clinking when he shifts. A rhinestone choker glints at his neck because Shoko had dared him to wear it earlier and he hadn’t even flinched.

He's pouting, full mouth twisted into a bratty curve as you tug his chin up with two fingers. The eyeliner pencil in your other hand is shaky — not from nerves, but because Satoru's being so fucking annoying.

"Stop moving, Satoru," you scold, frowning as you try to drag the glittery black pencil along his lashline.

He grins, teeth white and wicked, voice honey-sweet and fake innocent. "You're shaking. Nervous 'cause I'm gonna be prettier than you tonight?" Satoru's words are catty and coy, just like him, a toxic mix that you know like the back of your hand.

You scoff, leaning in closer, your thighs brushing his jeans. "Please. You wish, manwhore."

His chest rumbles with a low laugh, cocky and fond. "S'that why you're sitting between my legs right now? Admitting defeat?" Satoru goads like the dickhead he is, blowing a bubble of strawberry gum and snapping it in your face with a wide smile that makes you want to smack him. Out of love, of course. Your friendship is intimate, blurred, and deeply codependent — forged from contradiction and closeness, smudged with the confusion of teenage obsession and undefined boundaries.

"Shut up," you mutter, thumb pressing a little harder against his jaw to tilt his face. Satoru hisses dramatically but lets you move him, the heat of his body sinking into yours, electric under the flickering bathroom lights, leaning into your body as you swipe the eyeliner over his eyelids.

You’d all crammed into Shoko’s piece-of-shit car earlier, sticky legs pressed together, cheap perfume thick in the air. You’d rolled the windows down, screaming along to Fergalicious with the summer heat slapping your faces. It’s that kind of night. Loud, stupid, too much. Perfect.