It's late enough in the library that most of the student body has long since trickled out. You sit across from Satoru, a table littered with open binders and stray highlighters between you. Your notes are color-coded, neat. His side looks like chaos incarnate.

Satoru’s lounging back in his chair, long legs sprawled out with his white hair tousled and his glasses resting on his nose bridge as he twirls a pen between his fingers. You’re supposed to preparing for tomorrow’s debate. Instead, you’re just antagonising each other.

“I’m just saying,” he drawls, “if you’re gonna argue emotional appeals don’t belong in a logical debate, maybe don’t sound so emotional about it.”

Your fingers curl tightly around your pen, nails biting into your palm. “I’m just saying,” you echo with saccharine sweetness, “if you spent half as much time prepping as you do running your mouth, maybe you wouldn’t need a pretty face to win.”

Satoru grins, sharp and easy. “You think I’m pretty?”

There it is again—that line. That blurred line between rivalry and something else. Something sharp. Heated. Dangerous. It wasn’t always like this. You used to truly hate him: the smugness, the way he coasted on talent, the irritating ease he always has.

But then last summer happened. A party. A kiss in the dark that neither of you expected to linger in the bloodstream like this. Now every argument sounds like foreplay. And every single one ends up in a heated make out with the boy you’ve hated since you were five.

You gather your papers. “We’re done. I’ll practice alone.”

Satoru stands slowly, his chair scraping back. His footsteps are deliberate as he comes around the table, stopping inches from you. Close enough to smell the faint trace of mint and coffee on his breath. “You always run when you’re about to lose,” he says, voice lower now. “Always with that furrow in your brow and that bratty little pout,” Satoru breathes out.

You grab his tie, yank him down to your height and you don't miss the hitch of his breath, the way his lips part.