Lying in bed between their sleeping bodies, Shizuka found herself contemplating her predicament.
It was not a case of regret. Far from it. She loved having Otogi and Honda around and having them both as her boyfriends. She didn't regret a single thing about their situation. The only thing she disliked was how others perceived such a relationship.
Most girls her age counted themselves lucky to have a boyfriend, and any girl would have died to have two attractive men vying for her affections. Choosing between those men would be difficult, true, but no one would go so far as to choose both. Such a girl would be shouted down by her friends as selfish, cruel, an indecisive slut who was stringing both men along and using them for her own bitchy enjoyment. Shizuka had already been on the receiving end of more than one judgmental stare from her peers, heard girls in her school muttering behind her back in the hallways, had boys ask if they could be number three in her "little harem". One girl had even gone so far as to ask if Shizuka was making enough money with her "night job", laughing nasally with her group of identically-dressed friends as they walked past the shocked brunette. She hadn't told Otogi or Honda (or, well, anyone) about the incident, or any of the reactions she'd gotten once the word had spread that she'd been seen kissing them while they'd been having a picnic lunch in the park. The teen didn't want to alarm her boyfriends or, heaven forbid, cause her older brother (who wasn't sure about his sister's relationship in the first place) to be jailed for attacking the kids who'd been shallow enough to make those comments.
Shizuka wished that she could tell those people about her relationship. She wished she could tell them how she had indeed been unable to choose between the sleek, forward Otogi Ryuuji and the softer, quieter Honda Hiroto, but not because she was "indecisive". Rather, Shizuka had found traits in both boys that she'd loved and hated. When the idea had popped into her mind to date both, rather than force herself to make a decision, she'd been worried. What if they'd continued to fight for her affections, or had condemned her as an indecisive slut? What if they had balked at the idea of being in a relationship with not just a girl, but another boy, especially a boy who had just been their rival for said girl? The anxiety had eaten her up inside, had given her stomach pains and headaches and made her just plain miserable.
The girl supposed she was lucky that Otogi and Honda had noticed after a few days, where she had been jumpy, irritable, and had had an uncharacteristic frown plastered to her face. When they'd managed to coax the reason for her mood out of her, Shizuka had been surprised to see that they were not angry, or hurt, but merely confused.
"You want a threesome?" Hiroto had asked, sounding so unsure at the words leaving his mouth.
Shizuka had hesitated, worried that continuing down this path would ruin her relationship with the young men, but she'd nodded in the end, had confirmed their suspicions.
And Ryuuji had grinned, turning his gaze away from the girl to fix it on his rival. "I'm game," he'd said coolly, and had laughed when Honda had blushed beet-red and stammered that he wasn't gay, but he'd give it a shot as well.
From there, the relationship between the three had escalated. Shizuka had found a certain sense of safety and comfort in the shared embraces, in the messy-but-heated kisses that never made much sense but were always pleasant. She relished the feeling of those four hands roaming over her torso beneath her shirt, and loved watching both boys touch each other's chests. The cuddles were, perhaps, the best part of their strange relationship, because nothing made Shizuka feel more secure and wanted than the two sets of arms that embraced her, even if Honda had a tendency to snore when he slept. She supposed that sex, when they had it, would be just as messy and confusing as kissing, but as enjoyable as the cuddles had been thus far. She'd find out soon enough, if the increase in shirtless make-out sessions were any indicator.
It was a shame, she thought as she felt Otogi mutter something in his sleep as his arm stretched across her chest to grab Honda and pull them all closer together, that others couldn't understand the magic of what she had with Otogi and Honda. If they couldn't, or wouldn't, accept that it was possible for a girl to be in a loving, committed relationship with two men at the same time, and for those men to be in a relationship together as well, then that was just their loss. The brunette snuggled her face into Honda's vaguely muscular chest, ignoring the tickle of chest hair against her cheeks and nose. For now, she was comfortable, safe, and content.
And, really, what more could a girl want?