It had began when their newest member had asked them what love was.

"Why do you ask?" Ayano asked them curiously, and the albino girl chirped, tapping her chin in thought, "Because...oh! Kano told me that whenever Shintaro looks at you, his eyes are filled with 'love,' or something."

Ayano's big sister grin was frozen on her face. Her lips formed a blank, "Eh?" and Mary pouted, then added, her face lit up, "Wait! Kano said 'lust,' not 'love.' Or is that the same thing?"

Ayano's face felt like it was peeling off and flying out the window, and Mary, alarmed, pressed a cool hand to her forehead. "Ayano-nee? You're burning up!" Ayano managed a small nod, and, smiling weakly, ushered her out of the room, wobbled back to her bed, and sat with her face in the pillow for the rest of the day.

"Morning."

Ayano looked up, and Shintaro looked down at her, dispassionately, and that was all it took for her face to explode in red. "H-h-hello." She looked at her hands, and Shintaro ignored her and sat in his seat, tapping his pencil absentmindedly against the desk.

She studied his face raptly out of the side of her vision. What was it? Where was the 'lust' on his face? Ayano shivered a little, looking at his big hands tapping along the desk, and about what they could do, then proceeded to turn even redder for even thinking about it at all. When had she turned into such a pervert?

Shintaro raised his eyebrows at her, the pencil pausing, and Ayano straightened stiffly in her chair, busily pulling up the red scarf over her nose. "What's up?" Oh no, her forehead was turning red, too- he would find out soon enough about how much of a pervert she actually was. "N-n-n-nothing-"

She cleared her throat, once, twice, three times, and he had merely searched her eyes for a while before sighing and looking away. She let out her own sigh of relief, and then his head darted back to her and she had fallen out of her chair.

"What is wrong with you today?" he hissed at her as quietly as he could as people looked over, flabbergasted, pulling her up, her face nearly as red as the scarf tightly wrapped around her face. "Nothing," her voice was muffled, the warmth of his hand lingering on her fingertips, and she set herself to fixing her skirt, then her scarf, and sat primly in her chair, sweating as Shintaro continued to stare penetratingly at her from the side of her vision.

He frowned at her, and he raised his hand, and Ayano flinched. They stared at each other for a while, and then Shintaro's hand lifted to his mouth, and he began to laugh, which was ridiculous, because this was Shintaro. Ayano, bewildered by this rare event, pulled up her scarf up to her forehead and mumbled, sulkily, "I-It's not that funny..."

The chuckles tumbling out of his mouth were quiet, but the grin behind his hand as his shoulders shook was enough to make her lower the scarf, and she felt a giggle escape her mouth, then another, and she felt ridiculous, falling out of her chair and turning so red because she had foolishly believed that Shintaro could actually look at anyone with lust- 'I mean, really,' she thought, amusedly, 'this is Shintaro we're talking about.'

"Alright, enough." He had stopped laughing and grabbed her the tail of her scarf tightly, so she wouldn't escape, and the giggles stopped. His dark eyes almost seemed to flash red in the morning light as he looked at her, and she was almost entranced. "What's wrong?"

Ayano looked at his hand holding her scarf, and was reminded of her perverted thoughts, and turned pink again. "N-nothing," she stammered, trying to pull back her scarf, but all she could seem to think of was Shintaro's big hands. Something snapped in Shintaro's face, and Ayano flinched, afraid he might hit her, but instead he frowned. "I thought we were friends," he let go of her scarf, and he looked away, his words clipped short and cold, as if he had made a decision about her, "but I guess not."

The words were jagged and they planted pins of guilt in her heart, and the tension was more uncomfortable than anything Ayano had experienced. Weren't they just laughing a minute ago? What went wrong? She tried to look into Shintaro's eyes, but all he would let her see was the back of his head, and Ayano looked back at her hands. "We are friends," she said softly, and she almost felt the tears in her eyes.

Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie, and was sure that Shintaro knew it too. How could she properly call him a friend when she was looking at his hands, when she had blushed when Mary had told her that Shintaro looked at him with love in his eyes? It was impossible to play pretend like Shuuya could, she couldn't disappear like Tsubomi, she couldn't freeze him in his tracks like Mary and certainly couldn't read his mind like Kousuke, but she took a deep breath anyway, and readjusted her scarf nervously.

"Shuuya said..." Shintaro stirred, and she plowed on, quickly, before she could stuff the words back in her mouth, "He said that you looked at me with eyes of lust." Shintaro's head didn't move, and Ayano let her face tilt back into the crimson scarf, sure that her face wasn't the proper color a hero's should be, and wasn't even sure if she had acted like a hero in this situation, and her hands wrapped up fistfuls of the black cloth of her skirt, and closed her eyes tight.

"Shintar-"

"Don't look at me right now."

The words piqued her interest, ashamed as she may be, and stood out of her chair, and Shintaro flinched. She watched his back curiously, then a mischievous smile spread on her face, and she rounded to the front of his seat. He quickly turned his neck the other way, and she peeked through the hand covering half of his face, and poked his cheek.

"You're blushing!"

It was a startled half-exclamation, half-question, and Shintaro's nose turned dark red. "Shut up," he whisper-shouted, trying not to attract attention, and Ayano grinned, and her heart soared in her chest, and he pinched her cheek in retribution.

"So are you, idiot." Ayano simply kept grinning, disregarding the pain, and giggled good-naturedly, leaning against his desk while Shintaro poured out a stream of excuses. This time, she didn't really mind that his hands were big.

A/N: all i have to say is that ayano's into hentai hands and shintaro was willing to give them that's literally the moral of this story