A/N: I'm really sorry for putting this one off for so long. Haha... I said 90% crack, but it's more like 99% now. I'm so sorry! x_X
About Yuuri's dogs, they're novel!canon and named after baseball players.
The Sexual Misadventures of Shibuya Yuuri Harajuku Furi, Lion Tamer
I. Showing Him the Ropes
It's Saturday evening. College entrance exams are looming, dark and fearful, over the heads of Japan's young hopefuls. Third year high school students everywhere weep over their textbooks. They weep, and then they pick themselves back up, tie on their headbands, and fight-o! They beat worksheets into submission like Ultraman on a pack of bad guys. Day by day, they march into the ring and bite the ears off their opponents like Mike Tyson.
Shibuya Yuuri is no different. Well, maybe he's a little bit different. Instead of cram school, he has that slavedriver of a tutor, Murata Ken, who should by all rights also be studying for the exams himself. But noooo~ Murata just has to rub it into Yuuri's face that he doesn't need to study. His super-brain probably holds more historical knowledge in it than ten Chinese dynasties' worth of scholars combined. He practically has a spot reserved for him at Tokyo University - hell, that spot had been reserved for him since his high school entrance exams. And now the admissions staff from all the top universities are groveling at his feet and fetching scholarships for him like well-trained dogs.
Yuuri glances down at the mutts lying down beside him, Zinter to the left, Cianfrocco to the right. They sense this and roll over, presenting their bellies for rubs. See? Yuuri has dogs, too. Real ones, even.
Well, he thinks, even if he's a failure of a student compared to Murata and Shori, and he constantly makes his parents worry for his future, and he can't even play baseball anymore because the school won't allow third year students to get involved in extracurricular activities... Even though his life is hell right now, at least his dogs still love him.
Wait a minute. When did Zinter crawl into Murata's lap? Zinter, you traitor!
"Shibuya, you've been stuck on that problem for half an hour. Where's your head?"
Yuuri sighs and slumps down, burying his head into Cianfrocco's fur. "Cianfrocco, you still love me, right? You'll still love me even when my academic career ends with a big boom, like the aftermath of a cherry bomb thrown in the toilet..."
"You're not going to bomb this. Think positive."
"Mmff."
"All right, fine. Think negative, then. It's not just your future at stake, but that of an entire kingdom. What do you think is going to happen once the people of Shin Makoku discover that their king is of below average intelligence? How will the foreign diplomats view a country ruled by someone whose grades are only good enough for community college?"
"...They already know. That's why I have Gwendal."
Murata, exasperated, closes the book in front of him. "Come on," he says, getting up and tugging on Yuuri to follow, "You're not going to get anything done at this rate. Let's take a break."
The dogs whine at the loss of cuddles, but Yuuri has turned into a zombie from too much studying, and now he doesn't have the energy to pay any attention to them. It's like what happens when one repeatedly tries to slam a metaphorical square block into a metaphorical round peg: broken pieces of metaphorical wood and painful metaphorical splinters.
Yuuri's brain likes baseball and TV and video games; it doesn't like differential equations. Now it's turned mushy and unpalatable to the point where even other zombies wouldn't want to eat it, so he mindlessly allows Murata to pull him along to wherever it is they're going.
-oOo-
It's still Saturday evening. Normally, two of the "good kids" wouldn't be out playing around when it was so close to exam time, nor would they step foot in this part of town even if it weren't. Nevertheless, here they are, and Yuuri, who can no longer pretend that they took the wrong bus, has switched to pretending that they took a wrong turn a couple blocks back.
"Murata, what are we doing here? Are we lost? This place is suspicious."
"It's fine. Trust me, I know where I'm going."
"You sure about that? Because I've made up my mind to throw you to the wolves if it looks like we're about to get mugged."
"Don't lie, Shibuya, you're too nice to do that to your friend. Besides, we're more likely to get propositioned than mugged."
Yuuri pouts and grumbles petulantly, "You don't have to outrun the zombies, just your slowest friend. Ahem. That would be you, Murata."
"No, that would be you." Murata counters with a vicious flick to Yuuri's forehead. "Unlike a certain justice-obsessed someone, I've actually sacrificed you before. So. You face the werewolf zombie muggers with me, or we do a calculus cram session until you die."
There's no arguing with Murata when his glasses gleam in that special way that says he might not be able to hurt you physically, but he sure as hell can (and will) emotionally torture and/or embarrass you for the rest of your life. And into the next, because he'll still remember.
"Can't you at least tell me where we're going? What we're doing?"
"We're going in there," Murata says, pointing to a sex shop. "And we're going to get you a present."
NO!
Everything screeches to a halt. Yuuri freezes in place. Murata cannot be involved in his sex life! That is bad! That is nothing but all kinds of bad! Please, no! Anything but that!
"Um..." Yuuri's voice is wavering; his face is twitching. "...Pass. I'll pass."
"Don't be a prude. We're eighteen, which means we're legally allowed to purchase R18 materials."
"I'm eighteen. You're... old. Hypothetically speaking, if I was going to buy porn, I'd do it over the internet so nobody would recognize my face."
"And you'd have it delivered in an inconspicuous package that would arrive while you were at school, and Mama-san would be the one to receive it."
"But it wouldn't, because I wouldn't buy porn. If I really wanted that kind of stuff, I'd just raid Shori's stash."
"Oh, of course. Because you'd be okay with finding out what kind of fantasies your brother has. Let me tell you since you don't seem to have noticed, but that guy has a thing for sibling inces-"
"Aaaaaah!" Yuuri fervently claps his hands over his ears. "I didn't hear you! You never said that!"
Murata rolls his eyes and, while Yuuri is still shouting, drags him into the store... where dildos line the walls. And Yuuri's instinctual reaction is to let go of his ears in order to cover his eyes.
"Come on, Shibuya. You're no virgin, and you're not traumatized by seeing fake penises on the walls."
"I'm also not completely depraved like you and my brother. Normal people aren't usually mentally prepared to get an eyeful of fake penises when they first walk into a store!"
"See? You're fine if you're still making comebacks." Murata pats his friend's back in a consoling manner that isn't consoling at all. "Now let's get down to business. I'm going to help you get your revenge on Lord Weller."
-oOo-
"It's a good stress reliever."
"Uh huh."
"You need to relax, let out some steam..."
"Sure."
"We go to Shin Makoku, you get in some quality time with your boyfriend using these to spice things up a bit, and when we get back, you'll be refreshed and ready for the exam. Brilliant plan, right?"
"Yeah..."
"We'll take this, too."
"NO."
"It's not as hard as it looks, really. I'll teach you the basics."
"I said NO."
"Shibuya, Shibuya... How is someone like you going to have your wicked way with someone like Lord Weller if you don't tie him down first?"
"I give up on the revenge plot; I was never serious about it in the first place. Can we stop now? I'm about to die of embarrassment."
"You can't say that with a whip still in your hand."
"Aah!" Yuuri finally notices what he's been holding and drops it.
"Besides, you're not Japanese unless you know Japanese rope bondage."
"What the hell! Murata, we're supposed to say something like, 'You're not Japanese unless you drink green tea' or 'You're not Japanese unless you pray to Mt. Fuji'. What does rope bondage have to do with anything?"
Murata smirks in self-satisfaction. "It's a national specialty."