The Intimacy Institution
Hello, wonderful people. I'm IKilledMyDogLastNight483 (and just so we're clear, no, I did not kill any dog ever) and I'm from this weird little country in Europe that doesn't have English as its first language, so if my grammar or my wording sucks, you know why etc. etc.
So this is The Intimacy Institution, glad that someone actually READ it. I'll update as often as I can, even though I have school and other things to attend to as well. I like reviews and messages, feel free to ask about anything. Alright alright, read ^^
Chapter 2
"What do you mean there's no more room on the heterosexual route?" Aoba asked Yoshie when he reached her office. He'd walked straight to her after he apparently went wrong in Mizuki's room.
"It is as I said. All male spaces on the heterosexual route are occupied, so we had to move you to another route," the secretary said extenuating to the upset man in front of her desk.
"Then what route is that?" Aoba asked.
"The bisexual one," Yoshie answered. The what?
"There must be some kind of mistake, I'm not gay!" Aoba said stubbornly.
"Bisexual, Aoba-san," she corrected. "We tried our best to get you a satisfying route with the rooms we had left. If you don't like it, then maybe someone on the homosexual route might want to switch?"
"N-no no, no need for that," Aoba then said. "I'll take the room. Sorry for the trouble Yoshie-san," he bowed deeply, but Yoshie shook it off and smiled at him.
"Don't worry about it, Aoba-san. Come, let's find you your room," she said, and Aoba followed her out of the office.
"Here we are, Aoba-san. Would it be okay for me to call you Aoba-kun?" Yoshie asked as she handed him the key when they stood outside a room for the second time. This room was on the third floor on the right side, room number 92, the second one from the hall, so easy to remember.
"Sure, whatever you like," Aoba said politely. He was really ashamed of himself, the way he acted earlier, so he wanted to be nicer to her from now on. She seemed to be fine with it though.
"Great. Now, if you need anything, you know where I am," she said and went back to her office once again.
Aoba let out a relieved sigh, because now he was finally alone. He turned the key in the lock and a click was heard. He opened up the door and switched the lights on as soon as he entered.
What a place. The room was huge with giant windows on the opposite side of the door and a view over a lovely garden. A crystal chandelier, a smaller version of the one in the hall, hung from the ceiling and lit the entire room up. On the right side was a big round king-sized bed with pillows and covers of all shapes and sizes nicely placed around it. On the left side there was a big wooden desk that looked extremely expensive, and next to that a walk-in-closet behind nice white slide doors. The walls were painted white with a tint of pink in it, and it fit very well in with the white furniture and dark wooden panels. It was truly exquisite, and Aoba was almost hypnotized by its completion.
He walked inside and sat his bag on a comfy chair in the middle of the room. He looked around to look at everything and checked the closet out. It had all types of clothes: jacket, shirts, pants, even caps. But what surprised Aoba was that they all were in the same white color with blue lines all over it. He guessed it was probably a kind of uniform they had to wear, so he put out a pair of sweatpants, a blue tank top and a jacket out so he could wear them in the morning. He opened another door and saw a shining bathroom. Literally, it was so clean the countertops and porcelain objects shone with an almost unnatural light when he turned on the light. It had shampoos and soaps already, even some for a bubble bath for the bathtub. He closed the door carefully again and went back to the big room.
It was getting darker outside, and he noticed he was very tired. He took his shoes, jacket and pants off and put them in his bag and then threw himself on the big bed. It was super soft, and he felt like he was flying. He wondered a bit why they were that soft, but was too tired to think more about it. He double-clapped and the lights turned off, and then he dozed off to sleep.
Aoba was gently awoken in the night by some noise coming from outside of his window. Singing? In the middle of the night? Aoba's room was still very dark, but he was afraid that if he turned on the lights, the song would go away. He lay perfectly still and listened carefully to the song from outside of the window.
"Sway, sway, swaying in between the waves," he heard. It sounded so beautiful, almost like a dream. Then it suddenly stopped, and Aoba looked out of his window. Only the moon was visible in the night, so he lay down again and fell back asleep.
At exactly 8 o'clock in the morning he was woken up by a message on his coil. Or rather, an alarm clock he didn't set up himself. Wonder if this place hacked into my coil or something. He sat up in his bed and looked down at it. It showed a little panda-thing who spoke:
"Good morning, Aoba-kun! Welcome to your first day on the Intimacy Institute. Hurray!" confetti and fireworks blew up around it, and it danced around a little before it continued.
"You and the other attendees are going to meet up in the cafeteria area on the 1st floor to the right or left – you decide! – of the stairs and then just follow the signs, it is the easiest thing! Be sure to wear the clothes from your new closets when you're not in your room! ~
In the eating area you will have some DELICIOUS breakfast and meet up with your route mates, isn't that great?" I guess?
"You will also be briefed on where you have to go from there; you will receive a schedule and be shown around a little, yay! The real program won't start until tomorrow, so you have time to get settled in and get comfortable around your new route mates. You're gonna need it!" It winked and jumped around a little more.
"That's all! Remember: at 9 in the eating area, see you there!" it finished and then the coil turned black again.
"What a weird panda…" Aoba mumbled to himself, but then got out of bed and went to the pure white bathroom. He took a long warm bath and felt amazing when he got out. He then dressed himself in the clothes he found yesterday. He took a quick glace of himself in the mirror, ruffled the long blue hair a bit, then picked his bag up and left the room.
"Down all the stairs, then either to the right or left side…" Aoba mumbled when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He was a bit nervous that he might not be able to find it, but then he saw all the signs put up everywhere, and that calmed him some. He walked fast as he turned right and around the corner, but then he felt something hard.
"Ow!" he said, and then looked up. He'd just walked into some dude! How embarrassing.
"I'm very, very sorry, I wasn't seeing where I was going, and…" he began, but then took a better look at the man he'd almost run over just now. He was only a bit taller than Aoba, and pretty slim. He had blonde hair and a weird green hat that matched his black/white/green outfit. He looked like a walking fashion disaster, even though it also looked kind of cool. He looked directly at Aoba, who could now see all the piercings in his face.
"It's fine," he said emotionless.
"But I just rammed into you, didn't it…" Aoba began, but was interrupted yet again.
"I said, it's fine," He then walked away again, in the opposite direction of everyone else, but Aoba only thought about how he could still walk. He had run into him full speed; he even humped a tiny bit himself now. But he decided not to think too much of it, after all he wasn't in uniform anyways.
The cafeteria was huge. Like really huge. The panda was right: no matter what way you went, you would find it. It was the whole back of the château and filled both the first and second floor, where a small balcony was set around the walls. The style was, you guessed it, as sophisticated and unique as the rest of the place, and it was simply breathtaking. Light from the outside shone through the great windows and lit everything up crystal-like. Aoba stood for a whole minute and just took in the details of this incredible place. Then he noticed that there were people already gathering by the tables around, so he figured he might want to find out where he was supposed to sit.
The room had 4 big and long tables in the middle that stood 10 feet from each other and then 2 half their size to the left side of the room. On the far right wall stood a long table with food of all kinds, from Japanese to American to Italian to Scandinavian.
Aoba was starving, and ran up to the table immediately and filled a plate with all kinds of food: soft rice and a soy fish sauce, bread filled with cheese and ham, pancakes as thick as his hand and a weird round pastry that tasted like chocolate and rum. He looked around, and it didn't seem that people sat by their routes, but just wherever they wanted. That gave him a chance to sit by whoever he wanted, and he thought he might go find Mizuki.
Mizuki sat by one of the last tables by a bunch of other people. He had his arm around the girl from yesterday, who clung tightly to him. Aoba came up to them and Mizuki waved at him.
"Aoba, hey!" he said cheerfully. The girl in his arm turned away from Aoba with a loud 'hmph!', obviously still mad at him from yesterday.
"Oh yes, this is Usui, my, well, girlfriend, but you already kind of know that," Mizuki laughed, and Aoba smiled a bit, mostly just to be polite. The people at the table started whispering, and Aoba felt extremely uncomfortable.
"Uhm, you don't have room for one more, do you?" he asked awkwardly.
"Oh, sadly no. Sorry, Aoba," Mizuki said with a sad expression, but Aoba waved it off.
"It's fine, I'll just see if I can find Koujaku," he said and walked off. As he looked around, he could hear laughter from the table behind him, but he didn't want to let it get to him.
"Aoba! Over here!" he heard, and he turned in the direction that the voice came from. Koujaku sat by one of the big tables and patted a spot next to him. Aoba smiled and went to sit down by his friend.
"Big place, huh?" Koujaku said with his usual playful tone.
"Hell yeah, it's huge," Aoba answered and began eating his food. The panda was right; it really was delicious.
"So, on the way here I saw a scheme of our routes, you know, one with the names on, and I couldn't help but notice you weren't on the heterosexual one? Like, if you're not into that, you can just tell me…" he started awkwardly, but Aoba stopped him.
"No no no, it's not like that! They were out of space, so I'm on the bisexual route," he explained, and Koujaku nodded understandingly.
"Oh, I see. That's why you're wearing that symbol-thing, isn't it?" he asked, and Aoba looked down at his jacket and noticed a little badge with a male/female symbol on it. He looked at Koujaku, who was also wearing the blue set from the closets with a male symbol on it. I see, the heterosexual route.
"Yup, that's it," Aoba answered with a grin.
"Sure you wouldn't want to try the homo route out a bit?" Koujaku joked, but Aoba shoved him.
"Shut up, you hippo!"
"I was only joking," he said and smiled sincerely. Aoba softened and took a bite of his bread.
"Uhm, excuse me?" they then heard a deep voise say. They turned to the stranger, a young man at about Aoba's age, who stood in the obligatory blue holding a tray of food. "Can I sit here? The other seats are mostly taken," he asked.
"Sure, sit down, pal!" Koujaku said, and the young man nodded. The two moved aside and the man sat between them.
"I'm Ren, homosexual route," Ren said and shook both the men's hands. As he was beginning to eat, Koujaku sent Aoba a weird look behind his back. Was it because Ren was gay?
"I'm Aoba, and this is Koujaku," Aoba said to Ren and smiled at him. Koujaku remained silent for now.
"Nice to meet you two. I see you took the pancakes too, Aoba-san?" he said and pointed at Aoba's tray.
"Yes I did, they're my favorite," he said. "You can just call me Aoba if you want," he added. He wasn't really a big fan of all the formal pronouns, since everyone was equal here after all. Equal clothes, equal tables, equal rooms with equal facilities…
Which reminded him:
"Hey, did you guys hear something yesterday too?" Aoba asked the two. They just looked weirdly at him, like he was talking backwards.
"I didn't hear anything..?" Koujaku said, and Ren nodded along.
"There was singing? Something about swaying,"
"There was no singing, Aoba," Koujaku repeated. Was he going crazy? Or were the others?
"Ladies and gentlemen!" was heard loudly throughout the room, and all eyes went to the balcony. Toue stood there and held a microphone in his hand.
"Welcome, all, to the Intimacy Institution. A place where everyone, regardless of their sexual preferences – or lack thereof – can explore themselves and each other through our experimenting program and educated teachers. Flyers of the programs here for the different routes can be found on your way out of the cafeteria, in Yoshie-san's office or on your coils, and you will always be told in time where to go next. The staff and I wish you all a nice stay here, and of course, if you need anything I will be at my office," Toue said and then disappeared from the balcony. A wonderful song with violin and piano then came on the speakers, and the background noise of other people talking returned.
"Hmm, thanks Toue-san. You wouldn't run this place if you could do something else, huh?" Koujaku mumbled mockingly to himself, and Aoba spoke:
"He said he would want to run something bigger someday," He remembered that from Toue's office. Koujaku was about to answer, when Ren suddenly tensed up.
"Uh-oh…" he said silently.
"What's wrong, Ren?" Aoba asked, and Ren pointed a person from the crowd out.
"My twin brother…" he said, and just as he did that person turned to their table and waved at them.
Yeah, this chapter was pretty long compared to the first one, but I had so much to write about ^^ Hope y'all like it, byee