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Shinobu never stops considering Mayoi a fellow ninja.

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Between Shinobu's flair for entertaining younger kids (as well as RST giving him a lot of experience with and affection for children) and Mayoi's love of watching cute kids learning and growing (although he acts pretty weird about it right now, I think as he ages and matures, he'll recategorize that affinity for juniors as a genuine love and care for children..... and will still probably love fellow adults who are his juniors too lol) they would definitely want at least one kid in the future.

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They both help each other get ready in the mornings after a sleepover. Mayoi does a lot of helping Shinobu first since Shinobu stays groggy for longer + Mayoi is usually awake a little earlier to just enjoy the calmness of morning cuddles. So Mayoi is more awake by the time they're getting out of bed and helps Shinobu get dressed and stuff (every time, Shinobu lets Mayoi do a little more for him) and then Shinobu tries to help Mayoi out in return when he's more awake.

Part of it is that Shinobu likes to braid their hair from the back and Mayoi never takes it out, so it's a little obvious when they've had a sleepover and ykw THEY DGAF !!!!!! god bless cheesy cute couples. Anyway, when they both start living together, Shinobu continues to do Mayoi's hair every day and slowly changes Mayoi's main hairstyle from a sidebraid to a backbraid. In return Mayoi pets his little head and give Shinobu mini braids on his bangs for fun (when they have the time) just to pamper him for no reason :] Shinobu says their braiding is part of their ninja practices because they're "practicing the ninja art of knot-tying."

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Poor Shinobu is probably going to have to be the one to properly confess because Mayoi casually confesses to Shinobu every day of his life. Shinobu starts crushing early on and then forms the craziest "what if he is just flirting with me as a friend" thoughts for months until SOMEONE tells him he's dense and encourages him to ask Mayoi out.

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Mayoi is convinced, either by themself or by well-meaning friends, that their affections for Shinobu go a little overboard, so they end up going to Shinobu to sort of apologize and promise to cut back on the affection with maybe a bouquet of flowers cuz this guy doesn't know how to be normal about anything.

Shinobu sees Mayoi coming to him with something to say and some flowers, and deep down he's hoping he'll be properly, officially, asked to be their lover, but instead, it's the opposite. In an attempt to reassure Mayoi that he doesn't mind how affectionate they are, Shinobu ends up confessing that he's in love with them in the midst of it.

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There is a beautiful world out there where Shinobu is a normal, well-adjusted, level-headed human and simply asks Mayoi out the moment he realizes he has a crush because literally in what universe would Mayoi reject him.

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There is also a more expanded version of that last one where Shinobu is preeeetty sure Mayoi will not reject him, so he actually DOESN'T ask him out immediately. He spends a lot of time planning out and saving up for a really good first date.

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These losers will be like "date idea: we make out in a ditch with a phone playing brown noise."

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Shinobu's really interested in Mayoi-centered dates since the Ninja Association meetings are essentially Shinobu-centered dates at times. He wants to hear/see Mayoi get really passionate about the things he loves as much as Mayoi wants to hear Shinobu be passionate about what he loves.

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Mayoi's really bad at explicitly setting up dates because they're really insecure about how much they impose themself onto Shinobu, which is how they end up in scenarios where they baaaasically set up a date with Shinobu, but because they never said it was a date, Shinobu brings half of ES as guests.

When they do properly start dating and calling each other lovers, Shinobu gets in the habit of asking "Mayoi-dono, are you suggesting a date?" constantly to prevent any future misunderstandings.

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After Mayoi graduates, they go on many more dates together to make up for the lack of thier Ninja Association meetings.

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Some of the dates Shinobu plans are surprisingly structured and cheesily romantic. He always feels like his level of affection falls short since his partner is..... Mayoi (world's most affectionate guy)..... so he sometimes likes to plan dates where he specifically places Mayoi in a role of being the one who only recieves affection (although heaven knows Mayoi will find a way to dote on Shinobu no matter what) and takes the opportunity to over-pamper him.

Since Shinobu's also bad with social cues (always missing the chance to be romantic even on dates) and pretty shy, these dates allow him to fully prepare to be romantic.

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Not mysn related, but I like to think that in Shinobu's first year, he had a little crush on Morisawa. He hasn't told anyone other than Yuta and Mayoi.

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He's not as good at showing affection as Mayoi, but he is still always thinking about him and tries to include him in everything, or otherwise do things for him, as much as possible as his own form of affection. Citation: Literally every time there's something he can't do he's like "I know just the guy ^_^" and it's always damn Mayoi + Shinobu inviting Mayoi to his other circles.

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Shinobu "flirts" by not rejecting Mayoi's flirting. Whenever Mayoi says something crazy like "i hope we get married tomorrow and have 30 kids and start making out RIGHT NOW and be in each others' will and have our ashes mixed together when we die," Shinobu responding with "but we can't make out right now, we're in public :[ !!!" that's his own loser way of flirting cuz he doesn't know what he's damn doing.

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Shinobu has a pretty bad jealousy problem as a result of being so heavily pampered and favorited by Mayoi.

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Not only did Shinobu start his social transition at a very young age, he also decided to go stealth immediately. Although he is forever grateful for the support he's gotten and doesn't regret introducing himself to yumenosaki as a guy, having a lot of it happen so fast definitely made him feel subconsciously pressured to be a very binary trans man. He felt as though the moment he gets percieved as less than 100% boyish boy, that's as good as being percieved as a girl again, which is the last thing he wanted.

This worked really well at first; finally having his peers automatically assume he's a boy and treat him as such did WONDERS for him. But, during his second year, he started noticing he still felt a fundamental disconnect with other guys. He instinctively buried away that feeling since his internalized transphobia told him, "you're either a man or a woman, and you feel less miserable as a man, so you must continue forward as a binary trans man." It wasn't until he met Mayoi that he started to deconstruct those types of thoughts.

Mayoi, having had a lot of time for introspection already, had already come to the conclusion that he was neither a Just a Guy nor Just a Girl when they started having deeper conversations about gender with Shinobu. Hearing Mayoi talk so openly about being nonbinary to him and also exchanging his own thoughts about gender in return made Shinobu sit with himself more and come to the conclusion of his own genderqueer identity. Not much changed since he still very much enjoys his masculinity, but having closure among himself and his friends made him feel much more at ease and fulfilled with his gender presentation.

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Coming up with Mayoi headcanons is hard not only cuz Shinobu's the one i project onto more, but also cuz the romance writes itself when u look at any Mayoi dialogue ever

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I think Mayoi could be calling himself Shinobu's wife and the mom of his household in a sort of cisheteronormative distancing way like "Yeah of course Shinobu wants a wife, he's just a normal guy," which isn't helped by the fact that gay marriage isn't legal in Japan yet as of me writing this. It would then expand to "the only way he can imagine a future with us is if he pretends im a girl cuz hed never love me how i am so i should try and fit my fantasies into that role." So, a sort of self deprecating internalized homophobia thought process.

And then Shinobu one day says "I don't mind if you like calling yourself a wife, but you know you can call yourself a husband too, right?" And then Mayoi starts doing just that and starts to feel more giddy and nervous because thinking of himself as Shinobu's husband makes the whole situation feel more real and reachable instead of him just being a loser spouting out nonsense. He still says wife sometimes, but now it's more from the heart and not forced.

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Mayoi could easily become a dance teacher after retiring from idol work. He would love and cherish every student and have a framed picture of every class he's had on his wall. He'd even bring them home-baked sweets after stressful permormances.

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SHINOBU:

PRIMARY: Squirrel. For obvious reasons. enstars itself already makes the association and it's cute as shit, I think of shinobu every time i see a squirrel now and that's maybe the most beautiful thing ever. paired with skunk

Little Frog. For obvious reasons

Firefly. Little lightning bug for cute shinobu !!!!! A lone miracle illuminating the darkness! Plus, if you put a picture of a firefly and a picture of the Ninja Clan chibi side by side it's like the same thing. paired with moth

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MAYOI:

PRIMARY: Skunk. Originally made just to pair with squirrel Shinobu, but now it's standalone my biggest animal association for Mayoi. Cute little critter who just minds its own business and is so helpful and loving and awesome whose defense mechanism is fleeing while probably leaving a bad taste(smell) in your mouth. And yet, their biggest associations from strangers is to be afraid of them and only thinking of their defense mechanisms instead of all the rest of their beauty....... little Mayoi animal.... paired with squirrel

Moth. I say black witch moth just because they look a little purple in a few images (and super delicate complicated patterning) and the fact that the name is super Mayoi-coded, but they're just a moth in general. paired with firefly

Bat. For obvious reasons, but also a fruit bat specifically because Mayoi likes sweet things and also has a fruit as his favorite food.

Literally any animal that balls up. Isopods, armadillos, hedgehogs, etc. I just think Mayoi would love to ball.

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