And so Yūto Shō carried Sato Ruri piggyback-style out toward the complex gates. The two of them had dawdled so long at his apartment that the night had thickened into that dead-quiet stretch after midnight, so they didn't cross paths with more than a stray cat or two.
Feeling the girl press her cheek against the broad plane of his back, Yūto Shō's mouth curled into a smirk. He let out a theatrical sigh. "Ugh, Sato-san, you're heavier than you look."
Riding on his back, Ruri ground her molars hard enough to spark, her voice a strangled hiss like Bakugo mid-tantrum. "Put me down! Right now!"
Yūto Shō only chuckled. "Nah, it's actually pretty comfortable carrying you. Hey — has anyone ever given you a piggyback before?"
She hesitated, lashes fluttering against his shirt. "When I was little. Mom. And my older sister."
"So I'm the first boy to carry you like this?" He tossed the line out casually, fishing.
Her whole face bloomed red at that. She didn't answer.
Inside his chest, Yūto Shō felt a spark of surprise. The girl's attitude after losing her first time was genuinely intriguing — coy, prickly, but not repulsed. If he asked her to be his girlfriend right this moment, the odds felt higher than a gacha SSR pull on a discount banner.
But he didn't ask. He let the thread die, kept walking, kept her weight balanced on his back, silent as a monk on pilgrimage.
Ruri wavered, then softly — almost against her will — pressed her tender cheek against him again. His back was warm. Solid. Her expression drifted, went hazy at the edges.
Even though he'd bullied her, filled her up over and over, and then blackmailed her into not showering afterward — why was her chest this hot? Why didn't she hate him the way she was supposed to? It was like trying to hate Levi Ackerman — the anger just kept slipping through her fingers.
They reached the bus stop outside the complex just as a bus rolled up, empty as a Monday morning classroom. Yūto Shō stepped aboard with her still on his back.
Embarrassment surged through Ruri, and she wriggled down off him despite the tearing ache between her thighs. Playing it off like nothing was wrong, she hobbled toward the pole near the rear exit, hand gripping the metal, pearly teeth digging into her lower lip like she was holding back a Chidori's worth of pressure.
Yūto Shō's eyes glittered. He drifted up right behind her.
"You—" she shot him a glare — and right then the bus jerked into motion. Inertia yanked her forward; her grip nearly slipped, her torso lurched, and worst of all her carefully clenched belly muscles betrayed her for a treacherous half-second.
Disaster incoming.
But a pair of arms caught her waist just in time. Yūto Shō dipped his mouth to her ear, breath hot as ramen steam. "Careful. What if it leaked out?"
Her ear went scalding. She whispered back, mortified, "It won't."
"Ohhh, so confident. But I do believe in Sato-san. I'm sure you can hold it in all the way home. That kind of determination — very main-character energy."
His tone was praise-a-child sweet, and to her utter horror, some tiny stupid part of Ruri preened at it. Her chin tilted up on reflex. "Well, obviously—"
She froze mid-word. Then ducked her head, mortified. She was clenching a load of Yūto Shō's cum inside her on a public bus and he was praising her like she'd aced a kanji test — and she'd liked it. Kill her. Just Isekai her out of this reality.
Behind her, Yūto Shō smiled to himself. The driver up front was locked onto the road, oblivious. The devil on Yūto Shō's shoulder cracked its knuckles. He pressed his palm flat against the back of her skirt and began to slowly, deliberately knead.
He watched her ears twitch like a startled rabbit's — a spooked Chocobo, fluffing up in alarm.
Was he seriously doing this to her on a bus? Did he not understand the situation her body was in right now? His broad hand worked the fabric against the swell of her behind, and beneath the faint sting she felt an infuriating, humiliating spark of good. Her tightly-strung body wanted to melt into it. Which was the last thing she could afford.
"Stop it — right now!" Her whisper trembled, pitched so low the driver couldn't catch it. She turned her face pointedly toward the window, terrified he'd glimpse her expression in the rearview mirror. Her reflection stared back, cheeks flushed the color of a Pokémon Center wall.
"Don't relax, though," Yūto Shō murmured, sliding an arm around her slender waist — the kind of waist you could span with two hands — playing it up as a couple's embrace for anyone watching. His other hand kept up its mischief through her skirt. "If something spills, I'm not cleaning it up."
Ruri's face went panic-bright, but he wouldn't stop, and she couldn't exactly wrestle him off in public. All she could do was clamp her jaw, throw her shoulders back, suck her tummy in, and stare glassy-eyed at the streetlights smearing past like the ending credits of a Makoto Shinkai film. Every muscle from her ribs to her thighs was locked down in a full-body Kamehameha of restraint.
Yūto Shō didn't dare push it too far. Just enough teasing to keep her strung tight — not enough to actually make her leak. He wasn't trying to genuinely humiliate her, especially not with a driver five meters away. If she cracked and something showed on her skirt, that would be trouble on a Death Note scale.
Not long after, their stop came. Yūto Shō helped the wobble-legged girl down the steps.
Once on the sidewalk, Ruri kept her head bowed, eyes fixed on her own shoes, taking tiny careful steps like a Heian-era court lady in twelve-layered robes, terrified that any faster pace would collapse her entire defensive formation.
"Huh? Ruri? Yūto Shō? What are you two—?"
A girl mid-jog skidded to a stop nearby, breath fogging faintly in the night air, her face lit with pure Pikachu-shocked surprise. Her gaze eventually landed on Yūto Shō's hand — the one supporting Ruri's arm — and something odd flickered across her features.
Kirei Ryu. Of course it had to be Kirei Ryu.
Ruri went rigid, panic flooding her chest. Because ever since they'd stepped off the bus, Yūto Shō's other hand had slid back to the small of her behind, and she'd been so focused on walking without collapsing that she hadn't shoved him off. Now, with her best friend three feet away staring right at them, her brain short-circuited like Windows 95.
Yūto Shō, meanwhile, was serene as Aizen mid-plan. "Out for a run?" he asked, smile easy.
"Uh — yeah." Kirei blinked, thrown by his composure. Then she couldn't help pointing at the way they were pressed together. "What exactly are you two doing?"
"I, we, I—" Ruri stammered, brain misfiring. And meanwhile Yūto Shō's hand still hadn't left the curve of her behind — his fingers were kneading a soft handful right through the fabric, warm and slow and utterly shameless, and she couldn't say a word about it.
Yūto Shō stepped in smoothly. "Sato-san twisted her ankle, actually. I happened to run into her and I'm walking her home. Unfortunately I can't take her all the way to her door — Kirei-san, if you're free, could you help out?"
His expression was pure protagonist-of-a-shoujo-manga: warm, concerned, sincere. His left hand gently supported Ruri's right arm. His right hand kept groping her ass through her skirt in complete secret defiance.
Kirei's face brightened with understanding, and she nodded. "Yūto Shō, thanks for looking after her. It's really late — you head home, I'll take Ruri from here."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
Yūto Shō's inner demon whined at how efficiently she'd killed the conversation. Reluctantly, he peeled his hand back from Ruri's behind — but not before giving her one last firm, lingering squeeze that made her spine jolt like she'd been Force-lightning'd.
Ruri dropped her chin fast, clamped her teeth, threw her shoulders back and sucked her core in with everything she had. If it were only Yūto Shō here, fine, that was survivable. But an accident right now, in front of Kirei — she'd have to fake her own death and move to another prefecture. Change her name. Become a hermit. Start a mukbang channel under a pseudonym.
She would rather be eaten by a Titan than embarrass herself in front of her best friend.
"I'm heading out. See you." Yūto Shō's hand finally, finally left her skirt. He waved to Kirei, turned to leave, and as he passed close to Ruri, he dropped his voice so only she could hear it:
"Don't let it leak, okay?"
Then he strolled off like an absolute innocent, hands in pockets, whistling something under his breath.
Ruri ground her teeth so hard she probably chipped enamel, but Kirei was already walking toward her, so she plastered on a smile that felt like it was held together with scotch tape and hope.
"Ruri, how did you even twist your ankle? Thank god Yūto Shō found you — a hurt girl alone this late, do you know how dangerous that is?" Kirei stopped in front of her, scolding in that half-motherly best-friend way.
Ruri pressed her thighs together tight, cheeks flaming, and mumbled an excuse. "I wasn't paying attention. Please don't bring it up, I don't want to talk about it."
Kirei didn't press. She reached out to steady her. Ruri flinched back, shaking her head frantically. "No, no — I can walk on my own, really."
Because right now she was carrying a very generous, very warm deposit of Yūto Shō's inheritance deep inside her, and she absolutely could not let Kirei touch her, could not let Kirei stand too close, could not risk a single suspicious whiff or wobble giving her away. She kept a careful half-step of distance and forced her spine straight, sucking in that treacherous belly, muscles locked tight as an Evangelion pilot syncing at 400%.
Ahead of them, the streetlight pooled yellow across the pavement, and Ruri inched forward one careful step at a time, jaw set, dignity clenched harder than anything else.