Kazuo Kiriyama was standing outside of his house. Yutaka peered out of his bedroom window, jabbing one finger down toward Kiriyama, his face screwed in some expression of fear or hilarity, Shinji didn't really know.

"Oh, fuck all of this," he muttered, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and heading straight for Kiriyama. "What do you want?"

Kiriyama pulled out his phone.

"You saw the picture. I know. Still doesn't answer my question, unless you've somehow developed the capability to care about people and don't want your little minions giving me handjobs," Shinji snapped. Kiriyama ignored his speech and worked at finding the picture. At least, Shinji assumed it was the picture – he glanced back up at Yutaka, who waved his arms around like a drowning sailor, and by the time he was done making faces at his closest friend, Kiriyama had found it.

"Do I want this experience?" Kiriyama asked, the question sounding more like a statement than anything else. He pointed at the picture of Shinji. Shinji scowled and ran his tongue over his teeth, wondering how it would feel once Numai got rid of a few of them. Targeting Yutaka or not, he had no doubt they'd come after him, too.

"You mean, having Tsukioka help you get off?" Shinji asked. "Ask him. I'm sure he'd do it."

"In general," Kiriyama said. "Would it be useful?"

"Be more useful to learn how to do it," Shinji said, the words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them. Kiriyama's brows furrowed a centimeter. "It's just pleasure, man. The best use of the nether regions."

"Would I care?" Kiriyama asked, and he seemed to be almost asking himself. He shook his head, and turned back to Shinji. The picture was still there, glaring at him – his own upturned face, sweat beading down his throat – either it was of a remarkably high quality or Shinji was remembering the time too well. The worst part was that he kind of wanted to go find Tsukioka again for some relief – he either hadn't tried very hard with girls lately or he'd been unlucky (it was most likely the former), and he'd jacked off on his own too many times over the past few days. It was times like this when he wondered if he had a problem.

But either way, Kiriyama wasn't his problem. He would be a problem, if Numai saw him hanging around here, but right now, Shinji thought he could get him to leave. "That's for you to figure out. Why'd you come to me, anyway? Your Zuki," Shinji said, dropping that stupid revolting nickname Tsukioka had tried to get people to use back in middle school. "knows a hell of a lot more than male pleasure than I do. I can tell you what noises a girl makes if you eat her out right, or what kind of girl really wants to be fucked hard, but he's your lifeline for the men."

Kiriyama nodded and finally, finally shut the phone. Shinji pushed past him and headed inside, making a beeline for his room and Yutaka, who met him halfway.

"Shinji-"

"Listen, midget," Shinji said, wondering if he sounded too harsh when Yutaka winced. Whatever. He'd apologize later, what he was saying now was important. "You've got to be careful. Numai cornered me after practice, said that he might come after you – especially if Kiriyama keeps hanging around me, he might get the wrong idea and go for you. Why you? Because he's too scared of me."

Noting Yutaka's worried look, he kept going.

"But I'll protect you, right? Just telling you, stick close to me so they can't touch you, ever," Shinji said, feeling a hot rush of anger running through him. It felt close to horniness, and he pushed it down. Damn, you need to get laid, Mimura, if you're feeling like this with Yutaka in the room. "I'll protect you."

"I know," Yutaka said, giving him a smile. There was still something lurking behind Yutaka's eyes, something that Shinji didn't like. "I know, Mim. You're the best."

"There's the little man I know and love," Shinji said, grabbing Yutaka around the neck and messing up his hair. Yutaka tensed, and Shinji let go of him. "Okay, what's up. You're not freaked about the Numai thing, right? Because we literally just went over this-"

"Are you gay, then?"

Shinji blinked a few times, unsure why Yutaka was asking this.

Yutaka seemed to sense his hesitation and kept talking. "I mean, that picture, Tsukioka sent it, so Tsukioka took it, and you said he gave you a handjob, so-"

"So you don't want me touching you, because you think I'm gay?" Shinji asked, crossing his arms. Yutaka stared at the floor. "Jesus. Even – even if I was, it's not like I'm suddenly going to want to fuck you. You're Yutaka."

"But are you?"

Shinji's mouth felt dry, even though he had an answer. No. No, I'm not gay. Because he wasn't. He was still sure that he liked girls; hell, the shit he'd used to get off these past few days had been porn involving girls. But would it be lying to him if he said no? Obviously not, right? Because he wasn't gay. He was… he was something else. Fucking bisexual, or whatever.

"No," Shinji said. "I'm not gay. It was an accident. Like you falling in that trash can this morning."

Yutaka's mouth dropped open. "How'd you even know about that?"

…

They walked to school together the next morning, and Shinji felt marginally better. Mostly it was the thought of having to protect Yutaka that did it; something else to take his mind off the fact that Sho Tsukioka had given him a handjob and all of their former classmates knew about it. But this walk to school was normal. Shinji was maybe paying a bit more attention to the girls than he did in a normal situation, but that was because he was seriously wanting to get laid like, ten or twelve times right about now. The condoms in his wallet were practically burning a hole in his ass, and when he saw a whore of the 'baby face, rocking body' variety peeking her way around the school, he practically shoved Yutaka into another garbage can and headed for her.

But it was Yoshimi Yahagi, one of Souma's girls. Shinji paused, his hand halfway to his wallet to pull out a condom.

"Yahagi," he said, surprised. "What're you doing here? Do you go to school here?"

He shifted, a little uncomfortable.

"Souma around?"

Hey, even if Yahagi wasn't going to give him any, he was almost one-hundred-percent sure that Souma would help him out.

"I was just looking for Yoji," Yahagi said. She looked uncomfortable, and that irritating picture flashed through Shinji's head again. "He goes here, and he said he'd meet me before school, but he hasn't… have you seen him?"

"Nope, sorry," Shinji said, rocking back on his heels. Now that he was sure she wouldn't be giving him anything, he was entirely disinterested in her, but he wasn't enough of a dick to completely leave her hanging. "I didn't know he went to school here. Maybe he's in Yutaka's class, but I think I would've seen him…"

Yahagi frowned. "Maybe I read the address wrong," she said, pulling out her phone and frowning. Shinji hesitated between wanting to leave and feeling like he should help, but when he saw tears start to well up in her eyes, he took that as his cue to leave.

"I've got to get to class, sorry," he said, ducking out of there before he could get trapped in some tear-fest. It might have killed this need he had, but he was not willing to sit through tears just for that. So instead he headed into class and he tried not to imagine how the girl who sat in front of him would look naked. It wasn't working. He was imagining. It was a nice picture, really, but not if he wanted to get through the day without severely embarrassing himself. Damn it, he needed to get laid.

So after basketball practice, he went to the one place he knew he wouldn't have to work at all for it. Practice hadn't done anything to help it, nothing at all – it was so distracting, and ever since he'd accepted that he was fucking bisexual or whatever, he'd been noticing it more. And of course there was Shuuya, fucking up everything he'd tried to shove down for so long, laughing and shaking his hair back from his eyes. Tanaka telling him he'd need to get a headband or something, and Shuuya just making that face. And then changing and everything after, and Shinji mostly trying to get in and out of there as fast as possible, ignoring his phone making noise in his front pocket.

So he ended up in the same place he'd been before, when he'd seen Tsukioka. It took him a while to find him, but apparently, Tsukioka whored himself out over a couple of blocks, because he was there. He grinned widely when he saw Shinji, and Shinji grimaced.

"I wasn't actually sure I'd see you again," Tsukioka said. He was gloating. Shinji wanted to hit him. "But I guess you wanted some more?"

Shinji opened his mouth, but then shut it, deciding that anything he managed to say would be useless at the moment. So he just looked, and Tsukioka must have seen it, because he grabbed Shinji's collar and pulled him after him until they were in the same apartment as before. Shinji knew that the apartment must have been Tsukioka's home, or someplace that he just kept around to fuck dudes in, but it was still weird to be shoved up against the same damn door.

There was that same feeling this time, that feeling of utter helplessness, but this time he'd take just about anything, even if it meant that Tsukioka was going to pin his hands up by his head and not leave him any room to breathe and keep kissing him, kissing him while grinding up against him. It was tamer than Shinji had thought it was going to be, but soon he lost almost every ability to think he had.

"I love this," Tsukioka said, once they were done. Again, they hadn't actually fucked – Tsukioka hadn't tried, he apparently didn't want to push his luck, but Shinji was exhausted and disgustingly satisfied. He didn't look at Tsukioka as he retrieved the pieces of clothes he'd lost during their… whatever the hell it was session. "You know how many times I followed you home last year, just wishing this would happen?"

He did know, actually, and he'd been creeped the fuck out. But he wasn't going to say anything. He was just going to get dressed and leave, that was it – just get dressed and leave, Mim, don't give him any more satisfaction than you already have, you're just here because you haven't gotten laid enough in the past… week? Five days? Fuck. I don't even know. I needed it. That was it. And he was willing to give it up, because he's got this… thing. But, fuck, who wouldn't have a thing for Shinji Mimura? The Third Man. Everyone's got a thing for me. Everyone. And it's not bad to indulge him sometimes, right? It's like… charity. Charity, that's right.

Just… charity.

I needed a little bit of a warm-up on Shinji and I had this chapter nearly finished, so wow, an update for Screw?!