Tempest
“ADACHI, CAN I RIDE on you for a sec?”
At first, I didn’t understand what Shimamura was asking. Ride on me? Ride? I pictured myself as a bicycle, carrying her along on my back.
“Uhh…”
We were at her house, in our usual spot upstairs: the second-floor study room. One moment, we were discussing how we should probably try to get out of the house more, and now she was asking this—as if the idea had struck her out of the blue.
“H-how?” I asked.
“Just lie down real quick. On your stomach.”
“Oookay…”
As instructed, I flopped onto the floor. Where exactly was she going to climb on…? Was I supposed to suggest a spot? And why did she want me on my stomach for this? Confused, I stared blankly at a point on the wall low enough that I wouldn’t normally have examined it.
A shadow fell over the floor in front of me.
I heard her approach…felt her approach…and in a few moments, a humanoid mass of warmth loomed over me, its outline blurring into pure softness. A beat later, a realization struck me like a brick to the skull, and a jolt of electricity sent sparks shooting from my eyes.
“Kah…khaaah…!” A strangled yelp crawled up my throat. There was so much pressure on my eyes, I thought they might pop. Shimamura was now quite literally straddling me—riding on top of me.
Riding? Yes, riding! She’s riding my body—my back! This is the closest I’ve ever been to her clothes, her skin, her—gthppt! Somehow, I managed to bite the tongue of my inner voice.
The backs of my thighs throbbed as if I’d grown two more hearts, while my actual heart stopped beating completely. It felt like my throat had ripped open and begun leaking sallow fluid. My ears rang louder and louder, the sound reverberating inside my skull until I was queasy.
That torture proved that what was happening was real. Shimamura’s real-life body was overlapping with mine, her legs pinning mine down, her stomach and…other areas…pressed right against my back.
“Ttkkttkktgg…” An unintelligible, throaty grunt pushed past my teeth, rippling the blood pooling inside my mouth.
“Hunh. So this is what it feels like.”
What what feels like? What what what what what what? Whaaaaaaat?!
“As an older sister, I’m used to having people climb on me, but never the other way around.”
I heard Shimamura talking, but my jaw flapped uselessly, unable to produce a single word in response. My forearms shook harder and harder with each passing second until my whole body quaked. Why now, when she and I were closer than ever, was I suddenly acting like I’d caught the flu? I should’ve been over the moon, yet it felt like this was taking years off my life.
“I see why they fall asleep so fast!” she continued. “The warmth is comforting, isn’t it?”
If I fell asleep right now, I’d either shrivel up or start bleeding out. Either way, I wouldn’t wake again.
“Whnfnnngfgfff?”
“What was that?”
“Whnfnnngfgfff?”
“I don’t know how in the world you made that exact sound twice.”
I felt her laugh above me, though at what, I wasn’t sure. I was trying my best to ask her a question, but it wasn’t working.
Then I felt night engulfing me, starting at the backs of my ears, as if the sun were setting behind them. Belatedly, I realized I must’ve subconsciously cut off a few senses, since if I accepted all these stimuli indiscriminately, it was liable to break my brain.
“I guess the warmth really changes depending on whether you’re on top or…” She fell silent for a moment as it occurred to her what she was saying. “Ah.”
Then she wriggled—wriggled!—on top of me. I felt something bulge in the vicinity of my temples. Her hands grasped my shoulders as she leaned in for the kill, forcing my numbed senses to bounce back in self-defense.
“We’re really cuddled up right now, huh?” she whispered into my ear.
This was the finishing blow.
What happened to me after that is beyond my ability to describe in words. All I can say is this: It cracked me open like an egg.
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