... He really hoped his teachers couldn't tell he was thinking about what aniki had been doing with his tongue.
After classes were over, he was dragged out to the street courts by Yanagisawa and Kisarazu-senpai, who both said that he seemed distracted and was he having any trouble with girls because it looked like he was. Yuuta stammered his way through an unconvincing denial-but-thank-you-for-your-concern, and spent the rest of the afternoon paranoid that everyone could see that he was having indecent thoughts about his brother. He lost his game with Fudoumine's Ibu miserably, which was embarrassing because the last time they'd met, Shinji had done his best to ignore him, and now Yuuta had lost to him! It was better to have lost than for him to be thinking too carefully about what Yuuta might think of aniki, though...
When his senpai finally decided to head back to St Rudolph, Atsushi pulled Yuuta aside for a moment and said "If a girl's throwing you this far off your game, you should talk to someone about it." He threw off Yuuta's feeble protestations with a comradely pat on the back. "It doesn't have to be me – just choose someone who you don't mind talking to about private things. As long as it's not Yanagisawa. He gets stuck just on the word 'girl', and you can never get him to shut up after that."
Yuuta nodded, and mumbled something along the lines of "I'll think about it", but really, he knew that he didn't want to discuss it with anyone right now. This was private – or, at least, just between him and aniki. Yuuta thought he should probably be strong enough to cope with working things out on his own, and even if he wasn't, it had to be better than talking too much and accidentally sharing information that no one would want to hear. The thought that the sisters at the chapel were always there for pastoral care did cross his mind, but only very briefly. It would be a fiasco if he went, and although Yuuta wanted to be famous on his own merits, being known as the boy who'd accidentally told the sisters at his Catholic school that he wanted to do naughty things with his brother was not how he wanted to do it.
It sucked that his tennis was off. He was going to have to do some extra-hard thinking on his own tonight so that his game would get back on track, since there was no way he could avoid playing tennis again until he went home on Friday. He didn't really want to have to avoid playing tennis, either. It was (he had thought) the only thing in his life at the moment that made proper, actual sense; but now it, too, had fallen, it seemed. Why wasn't it Friday already! Yuuta didn't want to have to have a Talk with Mizuki at the end of tomorrow's practice about why he was missing more balls than he was hitting. He especially didn't want to have a Talk with Mizuki about Ways They Could Overcome It, because Mizuki was really far too good at guessing what was wrong with people, and Yuuta didn't want to be at the mercy of that sort of skill for too long, or any time at all at the moment. He hoped Kisarazu-senpai wouldn't mention anything about "girl troubles" to Mizuki, because while Yuuta didn't think Mizuki knew that much about girls, he was very sure that his senpai would take it upon himself to help him anyway, and everything would start to come crashing down once he was unable to spin a complex series of lies about a girl in his class or some other such story. Yuuta was terrible at lying.
When they got back to school, they all headed to the dining hall (food was more important than showering) and Yuuta was spared any more talk of anything to do with romance (or even just sex, which Yuuta knew was different, though he still wasn't sure quite how yet). The main topic of discussion ended up being what they'd be doing during the holidays; Yuuta stayed as quiet as he could and ate his pizza. Someone – someone – would always start teasing him if his brother was mentioned at all in conversation, and Yuuta didn't think he could manage to fend it off properly today when there was actually reason to be teasing him about aniki this evening, even if no one knew it but him.
He survived until dessert, which was unfortunately not pie. Strawberry shortcake was, he wanted to think, just as good, but really it wasn't, because firstly, it wasn't pie, and secondly, it made him think about aniki, although he wasn't sure quite why. Perhaps the popcorn in his dream had been strawberry-flavoured... it certainly sounded like something his subconscious would create for him. But that was bad, because his subconscious had created other things for him as well, and oh no – he suddenly remembered exactly what it was that aniki had been doing in his dream, triggered by the strawberry, and someone was bound to notice his ears turning red if he didn't escape right now...!
Hastily announcing something about needing a shower, Yuuta managed to make his exit and steal (although that was really too harsh a word) Nomura's shortcake from his plate as he passed, for extra rations. He'd missed dinner the previous night, and he was a growing boy, after all. Just, he wished, as he hurried back to his room, that he was in control of what grew and when! A shower was impossible now, because he'd end up thinking about what it was that aniki had done in his dream, and augh, he had to stop thinking about it! Not because he didn't enjoy thinking about it, but because that was the problem. He was curious about the way he was feeling, but Yuuta thought that he wasn't yet at the stage where he could just let go and run with exactly what his body wanted him to do. He still needed to think about it a little more.
Even if his body seemed already to have decided for him.
And his brain.
There really wasn't much left of him to make a stand. And he didn't know if he wanted to make one anyway. Why was this all so confusing! It was wrong to be thinking about aniki like this, but he couldn't stop! Part of him wanted someone else to just make a decision for him, so that he wouldn't have to live with the inner monologue anymore, but the only person who had that power right now was aniki, and letting him decide anything was a bad idea. Even if letting him do that would lead to the wonderful thing in the dream...
It was lucky that there were random people in the corridor right now, because otherwise Yuuta would have whacked his head repeatedly against the wall to make the thought chains stop. He was then saved from doing that in the privacy of his own room, too, by a small box that had been left outside his door, as it derailed all sorts of thoughts altogether. It was perfectly square, and wrapped in toilet roll, which seemed a strange choice of concealment, but Yuuta certainly wasn't going to pass negative judgement immediately (he had had to wrap Mizuki's last birthday present in tin foil, after all).
There was a battered-looking tag attached to the top with sellotape. It said, in pink writing, "From a well-wisher".
Yuuta's first thought was that a pink pen would attribute the box firmly to Mizuki, but would Mizuki-senpai ever wrap something in toilet roll? And, furthermore, would Mizuki-senpai ever give a gift anonymously? That went against everything Yuuta knew about him...
Letting himself into his room, holding Nomura's shortcake in his mouth so he could both hold the box and not fumble his key, Yuuta sat down on his bed and set the box on his knees. He was thankful that it had, if only temporarily, distracted him from thinking about aniki and his dream. Maybe he could actually have his shower after this!
He took a bite of the shortcake and then set it down carefully on his bedside table, not wanting to lose a single crumb, before seeing to the box. Toilet roll, he had to admit, was certainly easier to rip off than fancy wrapping.
The mystery gift was a magic eight ball.
The box said things in English that Yuuta didn't understand, but once he removed the packaging, it seemed that the actual ball was in Japanese, which was... good, he supposed. But... why a magic eight ball? Who on earth did he even know in school that would give him a magic eight ball?
The why was explained when he discovered that the battered-looking tag had something written on the reverse side. It said "To help you in your decisions".
... Who knew that he had an important decision to make? Important questions to ask? Worries harboured in his bosom? (No, actually that was something Mizuki-senpai would say...) It was a little bit creepy, not least because none of the gift looked at all as if aniki had had anything to do with it. Yuuta would have been relieved if it had been aniki, because it felt like something aniki would give him, as some sort of stupid joke.
Why did life just keep getting weirder!
There was obviously going to be no acceptable answer to this question, now or ever, so, allowing himself a very small sigh, Yuuta turned his attention to his brand new magic eight ball. Maybe it would be rewarding to ask it his questions about aniki.
"Ball, am I falling in love with my brother?" He said this very quietly, and his eyes flicked to both the window and door as he did, just in case.
The ball replied, "Signs point to yes".
Okay, it was just a stupid ball. And... well, maybe he could deal with falling in love with aniki. Maybe.
"Ball, does aniki love me?"
"Without a doubt".
That, he probably already knew. But it was nice to make sure. Not that a children's toy could actually make sure for him, of course. But...
"Ball, is aniki going to tell me he loves me on Friday?"
"Cannot predict now".
That figured. Aniki was definitely unpredictable, and he probably had some sort of anti-eight ball aura or something. Time for a different question.
"Ball, is anything going to happen between aniki and me this summer?"
The ball replied, "Better not tell you now".
That sounded... ominous? And as if something was going to happen. Yuuta reminded himself that it was just a toy, but he couldn't help feeling as if something had been decided anyway. Was he powerless to stop whatever it was that was happening to them? He could just refuse to give in, maybe, and he could just refuse to think about it whenever it crept into his mind, but was it worth it, when his entire body, and even a fortune-telling device, were telling him to run with his instincts? Yuuta didn't know if he should deny nature; would he end up unhappy if he refused himself what he wanted? Even if what he seemed to want was something he shouldn't?
"Reply hazy, try again".
Just after he'd chucked the eight ball into a random corner, his phone beeped.
"Don't let falling in love with me distract you from tennis!" Because of course someone from the street courts had told aniki that he'd lost to Ibu-san.
That night, Yuuta had dreams that he most definitely did remember in the morning.