A/N: Practice.
Fandom: Kimi Ni Todoke
Characters/pairing: Kento/Ayane, peripheral Kazahaya/Sawako and Kento/Sawako
Genre: General/romance
Summary: In a different reality— Kento falls for Ayane first, and for Sawako later.
Rating: T
Kento likes Ayane because she is everything other girls aren't. Intelligent and willing to show it, cunning (and not-so-willing to show it), pretty and stern. She is more responsible than any of the people he knows; more adult. Ayane is a grown kid at heart. Kento likes her because he likes her. That's pretty much all there is to it, really. But what Ayane lacks in naiveté she exceeds in bitterness, and, well, Kento doesn't like his coffee black. He likes his coffee sickeningly sweet.
He finds Sawako leaning against the gate wall outside, fiddling nervously with the buttons of her jacket, and he knows she's waiting for Kazehaya. That doesn't stop him from striking a conversation: how have you been, I'm fine, thank you, how about the weather? She pulls her bangs behind her ear and Kento feels a little skip in his lungs.
"Sawako," Ayane greets, from behind Kento, and he doesn't know why, but all of a sudden he feels terribly guilty.
"We were just talking," he says, later, when they're two minutes away from her doorstep. Ayane frowns at him, a little confused. "Me and Sadako—by the gate?"
"Oh." She stares at the floor, stops walking. "Are you breaking up with me?" She sounds scandalized.
"What? No - I - " he starts, flustered and embarrassed and - they're not even dating -
"Good," Ayane hisses, right into his ear, and then she pulls him down for a kiss, her cold hands snaking around his scarf and inside his collar, straddling the warm skin of his neck. There's the wet press of her tongue against his, the smell of her expensive perfume permeating his senses, the feel of her cool hair against the sides of his face. It's a very shameful kiss.
She leaves him there, then, walking inside her house without looking back. It takes him a few minutes to regain his bearings, really.
He walks into a discussion a few days later. The group of her girls don't notice him standing by the door of the classroom, and that's probably why they don't stop their aggressiveness from seeping out of their pores.
"Are you dating Kento?" a girl he's never seen before asks Ayane.
"Is that a question or a threat?" she replies evenly, arching her eyebrow. "Why don't you ask him?"
"Because I heard he likes Sadako."
"Her name isn't Sadako," Ayane says calmly, and Kento bites on his lip because she doesn't correct the other part.
"How long have you known?"
"Known what?"
They're sitting in the school cafeteria; she's playing with her straw, drinking her juice slowly. Kento can't tear his gaze away from her mouth, even though he's tried thrice now.
"About Sadako."
"A while."
"Does it bother you?"
She pulls her lips away from the plastic; her tongue darts out to savour the rest of the juice on her mouth. Kento feels his ears heat, feels his hands tighten.
"No girl likes to know she needs to share the affections of a boy with someone else."
"Are we dating?"
"Do you want us to?"
"Yes."
Kento's fingers grab at the sugar packet, and then set it down on the table, unopened. He takes a sip of his coffee (black; he'll get used to it). Ayane's eyes soften when she notices; and just like that, the talk is done.
