Ren immediately froze up. A look of surprise and awkwardness appeared on his face. He was hoping that evening he could quickly go to sleep and forget about the stresses of the past day. She had unfortunately put a dampener on those plans. "Oh, h-hey Tae" She gave him a sly, seductive smile.

"You poor thing," Tae says standing up. "With that broken nose, and could it be that your medicine had a few... side effects." Ren was still shocked at how aggressive Tae was acting. She began to walk over to him. As he stared at her curvy figure wrapped up in her attractive purple dress, as she approached him slowly, swaying her hips seductively.

Ren was excited at the prospects of the aura Tae was exuding. He felt tension brewing in his pants. "I must apologize for any trouble I may have caused you." Ren examined her body in greater detail as she moved even closer. Her top was low cut showing the cleavage of Tae's rather large bust. He didn't notice any outline of a bra underneath the alluring fabric of her dree. His body grew all the more tense. Tae allowed his eyes to wander over her body.

"I normally try not to flaunt these too much, I don't like people staring. But I don't mind you getting a look at their true size." She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards his bed. He soon fell onto it alongside Tae who straddled his thigh. She leaned in and whispered into his ear, "Let's continue from where we left off, shall we." She pressed her lips against Ren's. Her arms wrapped around his head. He tried to pull away to offer his thoughts.

"Tae I don't kno-" She cut him off by pulling his lips to hers. And this time she wasn't letting go.

Her tongue found it's way into his mouth as they began to wrestle with their tongues. Her experience showed as her tongue dominated his as he desperately tried to learn what he was supposed to do. His experience was regrettably limited. So, he decided to make up for his lack of knowledge with enthusiasm. Ren enforced his desire to take control of the situation and pressed her down against the bed so that he was on top of her.

"Someone's excited." Tae panted before continuing to make out with Ren.

'In for a penny, in for a pound' He thought, as he decided to get risky and reached to fondle Tae's tit. As his fingers wrapped roughly around her breast, he memorised the feeling of it's soft, luscious nature. Her already hard nipple pressed into his palm and Ren immediately resolved that he wanted to get his mouth on it as soon as he possibly could.

This elicited a moan from the doctor. She began to play with the button on Ren's trousers with one hand, the other firmly on the back of his head. It eventually came undone, and she began to pull his trousers down. Ren did the same to her, leaving her in just her top and her purple and black lingerie panties. Ren was left in his shirt and boxers , with his erection jutting out making a tent. Tae took it upon herself to begin stroking it. She was amazed at the true length of it, as she only got a quick feel the day before, but she could now tell that it was huge. It only served to increase her arousal.

'My my, what do we have here?'

The sounds of vibration cut through the dusty air of the attic

Ren's phone was ringing. They stopped kissing. They looked at the phone. Tae looked annoyed.

'Are you kidding me right now?'

"Should I get that?" Tae continued to look annoyed.

"Just do it."

Makoto sat inside the diner that was now more akin to a pleasant, warmly lit cell, at least to her. The embarrassment that she now faced was unbearable. 'Who goes to a diner and forgets their wallet.' Makoto admonished herself. The stares she received as she had to explain to the waitress that she had no money was enough embarrassment fuel to last her the rest of year. She allowed herself to slouch over the table and rest her face in her hands, a glum expression plastered over it.

Even more embarrassing for her was the fact that she had to call upon Ren, who she already couldn't face after what he said to her earlier, but she had no one else she could ask as her sister would most probably murder her. She completely regretted rushing out of the house trying to get him out of her mind. What was she supposed to do now? She had lost all hope of ever being able to maybe have a relationship with him, not she had much hope to begin with. Then again… 'You're really pretty… like beautiful'. These words replayed in her head once again: and once again her entire face went red, causing her to bury her face in her hands.

'I can't believe I've been reduced to such a pitiful state.'

Ren was not happy about being called away. He was so close to getting laid, and yet his kindness had forsaken him. He knew Makoto couldn't ask anyone else; but he was slightly regretting telling he that he was all better after that afternoon's incident. But he couldn't let her down. He definitely couldn't let her get chewed out by the police because her sister would kill her, and she couldn't tell her sister because she would also kill her. And then kill him. But he knew he couldn't chew her out about it. 'I mean, we all make mistakes; though some of those mistakes ends up preventing their friends from getting laid.'

Ren felt a lot less angry when he saw how Makoto was when he came to bail her out. The sheer guilt and innocence on her her face was something he had never witnessed.

When she saw him, she tried to become more composed and say something. Her confidence waned as she shrunk under his annoyingly neutral gaze.

"S-sorry about this..." She shamefully slipped out as he pulled out his wallet to pay the price owed.

"Don't worry about it." Ren assured her, to which Makoto just shyly nodded. Ren paid the waitress and began to walk out of the diner into the chilly street. They began to walk to the station when Ren looked back to see Makoto shivering, with her head down clearly still ashamed. He let out a sigh.

He turned around and took off his jacket. He handed it to her. She saw and blushed. "I-Im fine" She says meekly not making eye contact.

"No you're not. Put it on." Makoto reluctantly obeyed. Her cheeks were completely red, both from the strangely cold night, and from embarrassment. Embarrassed was all Makoto seemed to feel that day.

"Thanks... for everything..."

"It's okay." Ren responded, before letting out a small amused sigh and an equally small smile. "I have to ask, who forgets their wallet when going out to a diner?"

Makoto responded with a small chuckle of her own.

"I know, I don't know how I could be so careless."

"Can I ask what exactly caused you to come all the way out here on your own?"

Makoto paused for a second. "I just needed to get out of the house. I was just feeling kind of... claustrophobic. And, I... had a lot on my mind."

sigh "Can't say I don't know that feeling." They took a few more steps.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything by calling you out here."

"Oh, I wasn't doing anything special" 'Lies'

"Oh, that's good to hear. I'd hate to have ruined any plans you had."

'Is she psychic? Is she being sarcastic?' But as he turned to look at her face, he could tell she was being serious. Of course, he thought, there's no way she could've known about... her...

"It's fine, even if I was, I'll always do what I can to help you out." Ren reassured. It was truthful, of course, Makoto was one of his closest friends and they'd been together through thick and thin.

'But could she have chosen a worse time?!' He pushed those thoughts out his head, as she gave him an affectionate smile. Her perfectly proportioned face looked so pleasing to him in the bright neon light shooting out from all sides as they continued towards station square.

Makoto continued forwards, with a small stoic smile on her face. The power of her composed exterior successfully disguised the inner turmoil that she was facing internally. Ren's cool words had a strong effect and she struggled against curling up into a ball right there and then.

'How is he so cool all the time?' Makoto was dying inside at how charming Ren managed to be whilst acting so casual. She normally didn't pay attention to such things as romantic relationships with guys her age. Well, until Ren came along.

He was always so mature when compared to the other guys she knew, especially Ryuji and Yusuke. His maturity, his bravery, his intelligent nature; all of these things came together to forge an incredibly attractive person to Makoto. But most importantly, she valued his honesty more than anything. His powerful sense of justice and his desire for truth was the most appealing thing to her that there could be in a person. And when he said she looked beautiful it set her heart aflame. She'd heard those words before from desperate confessions of love from classmates of hers, but they meant do much more to her when they came from her raven haired friend.

'He's like my own knight in shining armour.' She laughed at her own thoughts before looking at his glasses covered face.

'How could I ever even start to get mad at that face.' Ren thought as he looked at the deep red of her eyes that shot out at him as they stuck out from from the otherwise pale white of her face.

'How does she even look that good all the time, she doesn't seem to be that interested in makeup.' Ren pondered quietly as they soon reached the station. 'At least, not nearly as much as Ann or Haru.' Her interest in fashion wasn't nearly as pronounced as say Ann, a model, but she always had such a dignified look to him.

Ren brought her all the way back to her home where she would sneak in. She handed him back the jacket, not making eye contact. The words kept playing over in her head 'beautiful'. "Sorry again. For wasting your evening" she said as he began to quietly walk away. "Don't worry about it." he simply responded.

"Hey Ren." Ren turned around. She plucked up the courage despite her incredible nerves. Not even her speeches in front of the entire school made her this nervous. She took a deep breath.

"Do I look pretty to you?" Ren paused looking at her with an slightly confused appearance on his face. Makoto suddenly felt very self conscious, and folded her arms and looked at the ground, away from his pondering grey eyes.

"The other day, when we were studying, and you weren't feeling too great, you said... something among those lines. So I was j-just wondering what you meant by that."

'She looks way too cute right now.'

"No." A look of sadness and disappointment descended on her face.

"Beautiful." He said turning around, away from her shocked expression. Her heart rate flew off the rails as he walked away like an action hero from an explosion.

'I can't believe I just said that.' But it worked. Makoto's heart was about explode. Such simple words had such an extreme effect on her.

'He thinks I'm beautiful.' She entered back into her home, happy to find that her sister was still out working for once. 'He really thinks I'm beautiful.' The words repeated in her head. She entered her bedroom, flopped down onto her bed and tried to hide the glee on her face.

'Look at me, I'm like a blushing maiden.' She laughed to no one but herself. As much as her feelings tore her apart, she couldn't help but revel in the new emotions she was experiencing. For now, she was able to ignore the elephant in the room between them, the inevitable question that had to be asked; and more importantly answered.

She went asleep as she spent a lot of that day, red, with Ren on her mind.

Ren, however, was conflicted.


Expanded dialogue (08/02/21)