Adachi to Shimamura - Volume SS1 - Chapter 12

Soft and New

 “HASHTAG DATE NIGHT! Whooo!”

I leaned in for a photo, holding up a peace sign, and heard a mangled “Wooogh!” beside me as Adachi swiftly recoiled. I normally didn’t notice our height difference, since she was always slouching, but now I started to suspect she’d grown even taller somehow. Her movements were so stiff, I could practically hear her bones creak; it made me chuckle.

“Remember, always ask before you post pics on social media,” I quipped.

“I…I know that!”

“While we’re at it, we may as well actually take this photo, huh? Whooo!”

I again struck a casual pose. Meanwhile, Adachi timidly formed a peace sign, her shoulders bunched around her ears, her smile half-formed. How very…photogenic. “Da…da…ni…!”

“Ah, yes. Dadani, my favorite bottled water.”

I paused to consider whether it’d be mean to preserve her silly expression in a photo. Two seconds later I concluded, Nah. I snapped the pic, then immediately navigated to it to have a look.

“Hmmm…” On top of Adachi’s mugging, I’d forgotten to smile too. Surely we could do better than this.

“Wh-what was that for?” she asked, utterly flustered by my spontaneity. 

Grinning, I put my phone back into my pocket. “I was just trying to make this feel more like a real date.”

Window shopping at the mall had been our weekend pastime since well before we started dating. After all, this small town didn’t have much else to offer. Did big-city girls ever mill around aimlessly like this? It seemed like it’d be exhausting to track down something new and exciting every single time you went out.

“A real date…” 

She raised a hand to shoulder height, her fingers squeezing empty air, then stood up straight. I’d never have guessed the quality of our time together had any impact on her posture, but Adachi contained multitudes. 

We were bound to encounter other people from our high school, but I was too lazy to remove myself from Adachi’s personal bubble. Instead, I walked shoulder to shoulder with her, taking big steps to match her pace. Thanks to the air conditioning, I didn’t need to let go of her sweaty hand either. 

“We must be pretty confident to do this, huh?” I mused aloud with a grin. 

A less-than-confident Adachi stiffly rotated her head to look at me. “Uh…do what?”

“Goof off while everyone else studies for college entrance exams.” 

During summer break, we’d been hanging out at least twice a week; Adachi initiated each time. If we’d ever gone a full week or two without seeing each other—not that that was likely—would I have gotten lonely enough to invite her out? Yeah, maybe. At that point, my goal was to always live true to myself.

“Oh… Well, we could go back to your place and study!” she suggested hastily.

“No, I’m not going to study with you.”

“Wh-why not?”

Because that wouldn’t work. With our textbooks out in front of us, my mind would inevitably wander in search of entertainment, and I’d get distracted. I’d learned that the last time we tried it. 

Instead of just telling her that, I smirked and pointed at her chin. “Because Ada-cheechee will get hor-neenee.” 

Swiftly reminded of the incident a few days earlier, Adachi blushed so bright, it almost looked like she’d been crying tears of blood. It was the most beautiful shade of red in all the world—to me, at least. But as I waxed poetic to myself, she started smacking me, raining her excess embarrassment down onto my back and shoulders. It was the first time I’d ever experienced a sudden shower while indoors.

“Ow! Stop!” I joked, laughing it off. 

In all sincerity, I could probably have studied just fine with Hino or Nagafuji. When it came to Adachi, though, I’d prefer to look for a more fun activity. She brought out my mischievous side in a way no one else could hope to replicate. For that matter, she brought out a lot of things—just by being uniquely her. 

On second thought, scratch that. Nagafuji would probably cause chaos of her own. In some ways, she was more of an unidentified life-form than any blue-haired alien. 

Meanwhile, Adachi’s smacking continued unabated. She’d usually have stopped by now, right? Concerned about the bruise that was liable to form on my shoulder, and half-wishing I’d brought an umbrella, I looked up at her—and she grabbed my face with both hands, squishing my cheeks flat.

“Mmfgh!”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to study with me. But…”

“Mm-hmm?” 

As sweat rolled down from her scalp, her expression hardened. “That doesn’t mean you can study with anyone else either.”

Once again, her emotions shackled me down. At this point, I’d lost track of how many chains I was buried in. In the beginning, her jealousy had been utterly perplexing, but before I knew it, I’d grown attached to it. Our relationship seeped into my every blood vessel like an analeptic. 

“Ha ha!”

“It’s not funny.” She squished my cheeks harder, the way I typically did to Yashiro.

“Mmffgghh!” For the first time, I discovered what it was like to be on the receiving end; in other words, I was having a great time. I could feel body heat from the slightest movement of Adachi’s fingers, which sent something dripping down my neck.

“I won’t, okay? I won’t study for a single second!”

“Wait, that…uh…that seems like a bad idea.” 

Timidly, Adachi retracted her hand. I stared at it for a moment. Then, on a whim, I leaned against her shoulder and linked my arm in hers. Nuzzling my cheek against her bicep, I felt a silly laugh slip out. In that moment, everything seemed to shine.

Adachi flinched at first, but held her ground as scarlet crept over her face once more, this time all the way to the tips of her ears. The sight was a relief, really. “Sh-Shimamura, you’re not normally this…”

“This what?”

As usual, her eyes darted and her knees knocked. After combing through her vocabulary for a moment, she tossed out, “Flirty?”

Yes—to shed my former self who would only ever melt lazily in the summer sun, I’d begun to flirt with a new future. 

“I mean, we are on a date, you know.” I rested my weight against the slightly—well, more than slightly—taller frame of my girlfriend, entrusting my everything to her.

“Gaaaaah!”

Unfortunately, my everything pushed her off-balance, and we very nearly toppled to the ground.