Playing with Ice and Fire

Thawing the Ice

So, as some of you know by now, our Discord server is hosting a writing event about smut, and this is what I came up with. However, we were given a limit of 8,008 words for the smut itself and a limit of 10k words for the buildup. But you guys know me, those numbers are child's play for a crazy bastard like myself. HOWEVER, it was also mentioned that the fic itself doesn't need to be the one that's submitted, but rather the specific chapter. For now, you guys can enjoy this two-chapter buildup to the smut because I will publish that on the 19th, when the actual competition starts in our server. See you guys then!

Ayanokouji Kiyotaka never thought of himself as someone who could love another person.

However, that didn't mean he wanted to be that way.

There was always an underlying desire within him to feel this particular emotion, because it's an instrumental part of a certain goal that he had.

Unfortunately, being a test subject in a facility had stripped him of all his emotions that it may well be impossible for him to experience love for the rest of his life.

He didn't expect to be hit with an opportunity out of nowhere, in the form of three particular words that he never thought he would hear from a certain girl who was his classmate.

"...I'm sorry, would you mind repeating what you just told me?" he asked the person before him.

"Did you damage your ears somewhere?" Horikita Suzune deadpanned, her cheeks bearing a tint of red. "Clearly you have a problem in your hearing if you can't even understand what I just said."

"Can you blame me for it? You say something that's completely out of character for someone like you and you expect me not to react appropriately?"

The raven-haired girl frowned at him, but she seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

Taking a deep breath, Suzune pushed away her growing embarrassment and decided to just say those words again. She had nothing to lose anyway, maybe except for her pride.

"I... like you, Ayanokouji-kun."

Kiyotaka blinked in surprise. He was surprised at her guts to admit such a thing, let alone doing it twice.

"Well, color me surprised. I didn't expect for someone to actually confess her feelings for me, let alone you."

"Believe me when I tell you that I wouldn't have done this if my brother never gave me the idea. The only reason I'm standing before you, saying these embarrassing words, is because of him."

That caused the young man to stare at her in confusion. Were they actually set up by her own brother before he left the school for good?

"Wait, your brother told you to do this before he left the school?"

"...not exactly," she shook her head, which only confused him even more. "He said that he noticed the 'bizarre' relationship between us and even went as far as to claim that we are around each other too much."

"I can kind of see his point, but what does that have to do with confessing your feelings."

"He then told me that I was... interested in you as a romantic partner."

"Did her brother really tell her that? He must have meant it as a joke but of course, Horikita took it seriously."

Kiyotaka didn't know whether to be impressed or disappointed at his classmate letting herself fall for an obvious fib.

"Well, I'm surprised that your immediate thought wasn't ignoring whatever your brother said because there's no way you'd even be remotely interested in me."