notes: from a request on tumblr, 'Satoshi realizing Mayaka's skirt is a bit shorter than the other girls's. And he deciding he likes it.'
unrulers
"What's your type, Fukube?"
Satoshi looks away from the soccer field where the girls are conducting their portion of gym class.
"Type of food? Type of book? Type of fish?"
"Type of girl," Yanai corrects him with a disappointed sigh.
Satoshi raises an eyebrow. No one in class has ever asked him about his opinions on girls before. "I don't really think about things like that," he gives his friend an easy laugh. Yanai isn't convinced, because his expression is one of upfront disbelief. "How can our resident know-it-all know nothing about the girls in Kamiyama? Do you know how many potential girlfriends there are in our year?"
"There are a hundred and twenty girls and about a hundred and fifty-two boys in our year," Satoshi offers helpfully.
Yanai's shoulders sag even further. He runs a determined hand through his short hair.
"I don't buy it, Fukube! You're a cheeky guy!" He punches Satoshi's shoulder lightly. "You must have a list of things you look for in a girl! You're odd, but you're still a guy like us at the end of the day."
Before Satoshi has to think of an answer to that, the gym teacher thankfully blows his whistle. Satoshi immediately jumps off the bench. He would rather run five laps around the field than reply Yanai's pestering any day.
It's not so much that he doesn't have a list. It's more like Satoshi never really needed one. There's Mayaka, after all. Satoshi turns the tap and splashes the running water onto his face, washing away the unnecessary thought from his mind as the bell signaling the end of the period rings across the campus. Satoshi grabs his towel off the sink and jogs back to join the rest of the boys in his class, taking extra care not to wander near to Yanai on their three minute walk back to the classrooms.
Still, Yanai's question leaves an impression on Satoshi. He can't shake off the urge to collect and compile the list of traits the girls in Kamiyama share and don't share now. It's a habit of being a database, Satoshi concedes. He starts with the girls in his class. Ordering them in terms of height, hair length, whether or not they've pierced their ears, their best and/or favourite subjects, and the ways they tie their hair. Houtarou suggests collating the number of times they announce 'I'm curious!' every day but Satoshi rejects that since there would be only one anomaly in the whole female population.
He offers the compiled statistics to Yanai after two week's worth of investigation.
His friend verges on tears of joy and Satoshi takes one thoughtful step away from him.
"You're a genius, Fukube!"
"Thank you!" He allows himself one proud bow.
"But!" Yanai suddenly raises a clenched fist in the air. "You forgot one important thing!"
"Really?" Satoshi lends Yanai more than sixty percent of his attention for the first time this month.
He feels an arm hook his shoulders and usher him to one corner of the half-empty classroom. Satoshi feels like he's participating in something illegal as Yanai lowers his voice into a confidential whisper.
"Skirt length."
And that's how Satoshi learns that Mayaka's skirt is shorter than most of the first year girls in Kamiyama. The fact shouldn't stick to his mind, but it does, and Satoshi likes to think that he possesses fantastic social skills and decision-making. So, one afternoon during a Classics Club meeting that requires Houtaoru and Chitanda to go scouting in the library for old newspapers, he looks up from his current book and informs Mayaka, sitting across the table from him, that: "Your skirt is shorter than seventy five percent of the girls in school!" He smiles a little at the end.
Mayaka, to her credit, doesn't immediately burst out in rage. She moves one hand off the table and under its surface, presumably to mat her skirt down. Satoshi tells himself not to check. "It's not on purpose! I had to get the smallest skirt since I can't fit into the normal skirt size and it just happened to be short after I sent it for tailoring!" she explains, cheeks heating into that familiar shade of red Satoshi has grown used to after all these years.
"Ah, I see." He nods. He wonders how small her waist is, and remembers the time at the public swimming pool where he almost got a chance to hold her, and immediately flushes the thought out of his head with a wide grin in Mayaka's direction. "That makes sense."
"I'm still angry you looked," the girl tells him, unfaltering like she's always been.
"Just because it's you, Fuku-chan, doesn't mean you can," Mayaka adds, softening, and Satoshi takes a long breath to compose himself and keep the corner of his lips up. He hopes Mayaka doesn't hear it.
"I know," he chuckles. "I'm sorry?"
Mayaka buries her face into her book so all he can see now is the crown of her head. And Satoshi thinks he won't have a list of what he likes about girls for Yanai anytime soon because he still hasn't finished the list of reasons why Mayaka can make him smile without even trying.