-know thy enemy-
It's laughable, the way they enter the library, neither of them like students rushing to meet friends or study partners but rather like spies off to recon missions. The private study room is austerely furnished, with only a large wooden table surrounded by chairs. Gakushuu does not so much as walk as slide in, checking around and behind him before opening the door.
"Hey, Asano-kun." Karma waves at him cheerily with the end of his pencil. Gakushuu stiffens. Perhaps he hadn't expected Karma to be there so early.
"Akabane," he says blandly upon entering, without preface or honorific, as if merely passing him in the corridor. He sets his white bookbag on the table—as free of wrinkles as if it had been ironed and pressed just like his uniform—and takes out a hefty stack of paperclipped practice exams.
"So, why the sudden invitation to study together with a Class-E delinquent?" Karma drawls, his chair tilted back on two feet.
Asano hmphs, speaking as he separates out the piles of paper. "With your poor performance on last semester's finals, no one would have expected you to take second place on midterms this semester. There are even rumors floating around that you're shooting for first on finals. Taking heed of that, I thought we would both do well to observe each other's abilities, for planning purposes. It wouldn't be fun otherwise. And you know what they say." The principal's son grins, his eyes suddenly wide and gleaming violet. "Know thy enemy."
Karma sucks in a tiny breath, biting the end of his eraser to keep from betraying himself. That right there was not bloodlust, but something very close, a lance of a glare that would have shorn through students of a weaker character.
"Shall we start with math?" Gakushuu pleasantly hands him a practice test.
They spend nearly an hour that way, and from there to science, and on to history. Papers fly. Eraser shavings accumulate. Karma finishes the last short answer on the English practice test fifteen seconds before Gakushuu does, and uses that time to fold his paper into an airplane and send it flying into the opposite wall. Gakushuu smugly points out an argumentative fallacy in one of his Japanese essays. Karma shows him an acronym for remembering conversion factors in chemistry.
With Gakushuu this close, Karma can sense the sharpness that both draws other students to its point and cuts a swath through them. The skin on his arms and neck tingles, like the feeling he gets before a fight, even in the absence of bloodlust. The concentration and efficiency Gakushuu applies when answering test problems is devilish. It thrills him. It will be a pleasure to best that intensity with a mere flick of his hand.
When the clock strikes three hours into their session and Karma is just thinking about skipping out to go to the vending machine, Gakushuu reaches into his bag and pulls out two pearly apples.
Karma stares. It's not the fact that Gakushuu thought ahead to bring them that amuses him, or even the fact that apples are the standard emblem of teacher's pets. Something about that vanilla choice of fruit so suits Gakushuu that Karma almost laughs. What a smart boy, he thinks. What a model son.
I wonder what I could do to him.
"This room is reserved for five hours," Gakushuu says smoothly. "Obviously I would bring sustenance. You can eat as you work. Why did you get 31.5 for question four while I got 45.0?"
At one point, after one too many correct answers on Karma's part, Gakushuu snaps his pencil in half between his thumb and middle finger.
It has become clear over the past four hours that Akabane Karma's intelligence is not born of tricks, shortcuts, or flukes. Rather, the darker-haired boy's intelligence is itself crafty, tackling problems from unseen angles and skipping over those that cause others to stumble; sometimes it fumbles a detail or fails to show its work, but it is most definitely present, and looming. When Karma swiftly dismantles a convoluted English sentence and shows Gakushuu an entirely different way to approach it, the prodigy sits back and studies him with deceptive calm.
"Is this something your teacher in Class E taught you?"
"Among other things," Karma hums.
He doesn't expect Gakushuu's next movement, a lurch forward to grab him by the lapels of his blazer. He would make a good assassin, Karma thinks, with those reflexes. "What is going on in Class 3-E?" Gakushuu demands. "All this year, not just now. You all are hiding something."
Karma smirks. He can smell apples on Gakushuu's breath. "It's a secret."
"As the Student Council President, I demand to know."
"Ah-ah." He lets Gakushuu see his tongue. "You know pulling the authority card won't work with me. I'm more likely to answer if the question is coming from Asano-kun."
"What does that mean?"
If you crawl on your knees in front of me. If you beg. If you abase yourself.
Karma lifts an eyebrow. "I don't care if you're the student council president. What can you offer me in exchange for answering? Certainly not much in the way of study help, as I don't plan to take my finals worrying about how you're doing on every question compared to me. In a sense, I've been giving you free information here on how my mind works (don't worry, I'll still beat you anyways), so I expect to be compensated."
Gakushuu's fingers twitch on the table, and the hand on Karma's collar tightens.
"For example…"
Karma has done a lot of things at Kunugigaoka Junior High School that a normal student would consider risky. Dangerous. Out-of-bounds, even for Class E. Perhaps none is as deviant as this: grabbing the principal's son's collar with one hand, taking the nape of his neck in the other, and pressing their mouths together. Gakushuu's mouth is open (perhaps in shock), but Karma doesn't probe too deeply, instead focusing on his bottom lip, which he takes between his teeth and sucks until Gakushuu gasps. He bites it softly as he pulls back.
"Like that," he whispers in the other's ear, "ne?"
Both of their hands fall from each other's collars.
Gakushuu scoffs. His cheeks are faintly red, his eyes still a little too wide. "That certainly wasn't something I offered. You just took it."
"Did I? Well then, give me something else." He plays with the end of Gakushuu's necktie, twisting his finger around it and then looping it over the boy's shoulder.
Gakushuu swipes it back into place, crushing Karma's finger in the process. "Absolutely not."
"But didn't you want to know thy enemy?" Karma leans over his chair, one of his hands next to Gakushuu's thigh. "Though there's another sense to knowing. Or haven't you covered the Bible in your precious Class A history lessons?"
Before Gakushuu's eyes can narrow, Karma grabs his shoulder and knocks him out of his seat, throwing himself down with him so he can partly cushion the fall. He pins Gakushuu's legs immediately afterwards so that he's sitting astride him on the floor. An assassin's move.
"Akabane!" Gakushuu pulls his tie sharply, exuding anger but not bloodlust. "Where did you learn that? It was in Class E, wasn't it?"
"Did you forget I was a delinquent long before I joined Class E?"
"That's not simple delinquent's fighting."
Karma shifts his weight back, and holds still for a moment as he realizes his crotch is right against Gakushuu's through the heavy material of their uniform pants. Suddenly everything seems a little more vivid, a little more urgent. "No, it's not. If you want to know about Class E so badly, why don't you ask your dad?"
Gakushuu's eyes flare. Karma blocks the hand that goes for his throat. He doesn't catch the other that shoots for his side and shoves him to the ground, while one of Gakushuu's legs twists between his to pin it down.
Karma laughs in delight. This isn't any assassin's trick, it's pure martial arts expertise.
The next he looks up, Gakushuu's eyes boring down on him are like sulfurous lamplights beckoning the road to Hell. Keeping Karma's legs pinned, the other boy leans down, and their mouths collide. Where Karma had flirted, Gakushuu goes for the kill. His tongue fills Karma's mouth and pierces it, claiming every corner.
Karma closes his eyes. He can feel Gakushuu's bangs tickling his eyelids. Concentrated, efficient, intense like he is in studying and competing, Gakushuu moves to the hollow of Karma's throat and scrapes his teeth across it. One of his hands pulls Karma's hair. The pleasure he takes in reducing Karma to gasps is evident.
And Karma allows himself to be indiscreet, knowing he has Gakushuu's full attention. This is the last test, he thinks, and a gambit. He had a look at the room reservations schedule before coming in. Right when their reservation ends, another group has reserved the room: five members of Class 3-A. He wonders if he can make their dear Asano-kun forget the passage of time itself, so that the door opens on a sight his classmates will really have cause to gasp at.
(Unfortunately, Gakushuu remembers to clean up on time, though he neglects to pop his collar to hide the marks left on his neck. At least they match his hair, Karma thinks. And, there's always next time.)