Cold

Saiki was perfectly used to be being called "cold."

After being the way he was for so long, it was almost expected, and even appreciated in a way. It was some reassurance that he was keeping a comfortable distance, and it never upset anyone significantly, so every time one of his friends scoffed at him or rolled their eyes, he laughed a little inside.

Maybe that was what made him cold.

And again, it was perfectly fine being cold, since his friends were warm enough to balance things out. If properly admitting it'd, he'd think it pleasant. Another part of what made everything work.

His friends' advances were varying, both in pleasantness and intrusiveness. They all had their own special ways of annoying him; Akechi and Kaidou invited him out more often than he'd like, and Teruhashi would as well. There were morning 'hellos' from Kuboyasu and occasionally Yumehara, as well as Saiko's passive-aggressive lunch invitations. And there were more, unmentioned but still irritating.

And currently, after reluctantly agreeing to a weekend outing with his friends, he was outside the school enduring one of Nendou's patented way-too-strong, pushing-all-the-life-out-of-you, why-the-hell-are-you-squeezing-me-this-hard-it's-not-as-if-I-owe-you-money hugs.

And hey, he was used to these, but what was a little annoying is that he had no tact when it came to these— scooping him up like a rather displeased cat in front of all of their friends while they went on about how close they were, while a couple of them warned him about squeezing too hard.

Nendou was an aggressive hugger, and everyone knew this.

There was always a strange flinch that came after a sudden approach, except from Saiki, since he was more used to this than anyone. For a normal person, it might've been painful... But Nendou was pure and kind, annoyingly so even, so this inhumane assualt wasn't often rejected.

Even so, his friends would comment on how strange he looked just standing there, enduring whatever pain they assumed, and of course, he was called "cold." It was common fact of life that typically when people were hugged, especially by someone they were close with, which for 17 years, Saiki had completely ignored.

"Hehe. He's always stiff as a board, eh?" Kuboyasu nudged Kaidou with his elbow. "It's still funny."

Is that mocking? Are you... mocking me...? Kuboyasu...? Hmm...? Am I funny to you?

Kaidou and Aiura chuckled in response to Kuboyasu's half-whispered comment; Saiki leered blades.

Fine.

After a quick moment of hesitation, Saiki slowly but surely brought an arm up to halfly and pathetically return the embrace. It was almost sad, actually, how much he sucked at it. Anyway, it was mostly to shut Kuboyasu up, and he figured it would've been normal enough, since Nendou was always over the top with these things.

But then Saiki gave him a little "pat pat."

And Nendou gasped.

"Buddy...?" Nendou was obviously pleasantly surprised, but his friends had more mixed reactions. Kuboyasu and Kaidou laughed, while everyone else, except for Hairo and Akechi, were split into fits of fist-pumping and groaning.

"It took this long just for me to lose...?" Aiura slapped her forehead. "Damn it."

'Why 'damn it?' What happened?'

Nendou finally let go of Saiki and held him by the shoulders.

"Heh. Guess I won." Nendou dusted off his hands and shouted over to Kaidou. "Hey, shrimp! What's my prize?"

Saiki, still confused, pointed to Nendou. 'What is he talking about...?'

"Hmm. Maybe in this case, it might've been smart to place a wa–" Before Akechi could finish his sentence, Kaidou put a hand up to his mouth.

'What?'

Akechi calmly moved his hand away. "That was uncalled for, Kaidou-kun. And rude, too. Though I can see where you're coming from; I can completely understand why you may want to keep this between yourselves, or at least hide it from Kusuo-kun over there, since he—"

"If you get it, then shut up already!" Toritsuka pleaded.

"For the record, it wasn't my idea." Aiura pointed to Kaidou and Kuboyasu. "Twas them, squire!"

'Are you–'

"They placed bets on who you would warm up to first," said Hairo, looking down in shame. "I told them not to!" He bowed down at an absurb angle. "It's not right to bet on someone else's personal business!"

Good old Hairo.

"but we could all admit, you're kind of..." Hairo rubbed the back of his neck.

Never mind.

"You don't like anyone very much, Saiki-kun!" Yumehara tittered nervously. "You don't hug anyone, so we kinda joked about betting on it, and then, well..."

"Then those two idiots started writing crap down."

"Hey, you were the first to place a bet, sweetheart," Kuboyasu leered. "We just made sure things stayed fair."

'You did what...?'

"Hairo-kun and I didn't participate, if that's any comfort to you." Akechi smiled, annoyingly so... "He felt it would've been wrong and well, I'm not one for gambling away money. Especially on something I couldn't properly predict. Even so, I made a guess, keeping it to myself, and it proved to be correct!" He laughed. "I might've fared well, had I gone along with it after all."

His soul left his body.

"I bet that it'd be Aketoumi, cause you guys are like, besties or whatever." Aiura sighed. "But I was wrong, so..."

"Yumehara-san half-jokingly bet on Toritsuka-kun, since she doesn't really know who you're close to," said Akechi.

"And after being around him for two seconds," Yumehara scoffed into Toritsuka's direction, "I learned that was a mistake. Now I owe 1000¥, and I was horribly wrong!"

At least I'm worth a lot.

"Kaidou-kun, Kuboyasu-kun, and Teruhashi-san all bet on Nendou-kun being the first one you'd finally let past your cold exterior." Akechi pointed around him. "Figuratively, of course. And I guessed it as well, since you've been closest to him during your recent school years."

Nope, back to being angry.

'So... Not only did you bet on me, but one of you voted on Toritsuka...?' He glared at them. It seemed that that fact made him madder than anything else.

"Actually, there were two votes for Toritsuka." Aiura snickered while Toritsuka protested. "Toripori, being the dumbass that he is, voted for himself."

"Oh yeah!" Kaidou laughed along.

'...'

"Don't just–! It was supposed to be a joke, I swear!" Toritsuka hid his face in his hands.

"Yeah, right! You know what this moron did?" Aiura rested her hand on her hip. "We were like, 'Hey, Toritsuka! Who do you vote for?' and this idiot does fricking jazz hands and goes, 'Meeeeeeee!' So to reward him for being stupid, we made him go through with it. It totally paid off, like...."

Saiki glared.

"Saiki-san, really, it was just a joke! Please don't kill me!"

The collective looks on his friends faces weren't amusing enough to spare regret.

Maybe it wasn't so bad to be called cold.