My Stepsister is My Ex-Girlfriend - Volume 12 - Chapter 3.2

Kogure Kawanami: Running Away to Osaka Part 2

“Hot!” I cried as soon as the takoyaki entered my mouth.

Minami giggled from next to me. “Of course it is! Come on, you gotta blow on it first,” she said, demonstrating.

As I blew on it, suddenly Minami’s mouth was right by mine, blowing on it too.

“Wha—”

Our mouths were so close together, they could touch. I panicked and leaned back. Seeing this made her giggle again.

“Bet it’s cool enough now.”

“You could’ve made me drop it...” I complained before eating it, blowing air out as I did. “It’s good...”

“I totally understand why it’s in the Michelin Guide.”

“This tastes so Michelin-esque. Way to go, Michelin Guide.”

“Are you even tasting the food yourself or are you just eating the experience someone else fed you?”

“Oh, that’s from a manga, right? I think I read it online.”

Minami began eating her takoyaki too, blowing air out as she did. “So good!” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“It tastes so much better than the frozen ones or the ones sold in chain stores.”

“I wonder how they make them so fluffy. No matter how much I try to make them this way at home, they never turn out like this.”

We spent some time talking about the takoyaki. In the triangle-shaped park we were sitting in, there were concrete benches. Around us were other tourists, street performers break dancing, and tons of other young people.

I felt like the two of us stuck out. Not only were we high schoolers, but we’d also come dressed in the same clothes we’d worn for our reunion, and had come from Kyoto. But I was sure that was all in my head. Nobody seemed to give us a second thought at all and instead were focused on the stalls around here. Nobody was looking at me. Nobody had feelings for me. Every time I thought about that, it felt like my heart got a little lighter.

“So where to next? You’re still hungry, right?” Minami asked after eating, taking out her phone.

“How about we try other takoyaki places? There are a bunch around here, right?”

“Oh, good idea! Let’s do it!”

After that, we went around eating takoyaki, octopus crackers, and other snacks. We went to secondhand clothing stores and even played a crane game in the basement of one of the malls. I didn’t have to think about anything. I didn’t have to be afraid of anything. It was like I’d returned to being a kid and time just flew by, but eventually...the sun set.

The sky turned a shade of orange and I suddenly began to feel a sense of desolation and unease welling up inside me. We...have to go home soon, don’t we. We’d come here without telling anyone. We probably needed to apologize to our reunion group.

“Don’t wanna go back yet?” Minami asked, judging what I was thinking from my expression. “That’s fine. We can stay here longer. That was the plan from the start anyway.”

“Huh? But we need to get going or else it’ll be the middle of the night. We’re obviously high schoolers. We’ll get caught immediately for staying out this late.”

“We’ll be good, don’t worry. I already thought about that,” she said while looking at her phone. Then she took me by the hand and started leading me somewhere. “This way.”

We moved from the American Village to Namba. We walked past a freakishly large Takashimaya and after that, the number of people began to decrease.

“Should be around here...” Minami muttered, looking around.

This seemed to be a kinda sketchy area. There were signs for “Rest,” “Lodging,” “Stay,” “Hourly Rate,” “Bachelorette Party,” “2900 Yen,” “8000 Yen,” and... “No Minors.”

“W-Wait, is this—”

“So I heard from a bit of a ‘bad’ upperclassman about this.” Minami grinned as if she’d successfully pulled off a prank. “I asked her if there were any kind of ‘bad’ hotels where minors could stay, and voilà.”

We were in a love hotel area. There were as many as far as the eye could see, lined up right up against each other. They were even closer together than the ramen shops on the ramen street in Kyoto.

“I think it’s not too far away now,” she said.

I nervously followed Minami. After passing by a completely pink building that looked like a castle made of candy, which really felt like a stereotypical love hotel, there was suddenly a building that looked like it was the home of a midsize company’s office, but it had the words “Rest” and “Lodging” flashing on it. I might have never noticed it if we’d kept walking. We passed by the signs that people of our age shouldn’t have been used to seeing, and when our surroundings changed, Minami stopped.

“This is it.”

It was like it was disguised to blend into the city. At first glance, I never would’ve thought it was a hotel. It looked like a normal building’s normal tenants secretly put up a board with rates on it. It was made in a way that the entrance wasn’t visible like with public bathrooms, but it practically screamed “shady.”

“Are you serious about this place?”

“Don’t be so freaked out. It’ll be okay as long as we act like we belong,” Minami answered, much more enthusiastic than I, who was having second thoughts.

Minami wrapped her arm around mine and forcefully dragged me toward the entrance. It was a little dark here, and as we entered, there were some lit-up buttons like the ones you saw on vending machines in the middle of the night. There were about twenty or so buttons, each with a different room and rate on them.

“Which one should we go to?”

As she casually browsed the list, I felt frozen in place from nerves. There were some buttons that were lit and others that weren’t. The ones that were lit were the ones that were vacant, which meant that the ones that weren’t lit were the ones being used.

“A-A cheap one’s probably good enough, right?” I said, trying to hide my nerves by acting unfazed.

Calm down. Calm down. It doesn’t look like anyone works the front. We won’t run into anyone on the way to the room. There’s nothing to worry about. We’re just sleeping here. It’s not any different than a normal hotel, so calm down. Calm down.

“’Kay, then let’s do this one.”

Minami used her slender fingers to press one of the buttons to confirm the room we wanted. It then printed out a receipt with the room number and dropped a key. I guess you pay later? Minami took the receipt and the room key and we walked deeper into the dimly lit entrance hall.

We got on the elevator at the end; it hummed for a little bit as we moved up, and once it stopped, the doors opened to an empty hall. Heading in, I could tell how stiff my joints had gotten with every step I took. I tried to quiet my breathing so Minami wouldn’t notice.

“I think this is it,” Minami said, checking the number on the door against the one on the receipt. She was proven right when the key opened it successfully. “Sheesh, it’s dark.”

The moonlight lit a faint way forward for us. When we entered the room and shut the door, the lights didn’t turn on. I’m guessing the switch is somewhere around here. As we walked through the darkness, I noticed a singular full-size bed. I reflexively gulped and moved to the side of the bed, noticing a control console on a side table.

“Is that it?”

As I approached it I squinted, examining the control panel. It seemed that you could control the brightness and colors of the lights from it. It was completely different from normal hotels. For now, I slowly increased the brightness of the lights.

“Whoa!”

Now able to fully see the entire room, Minami let out a sound of amazement. The walls were covered in a tacky wallpaper with flower patterns. The room was overall as big as a studio apartment. There was one bed, a round table, two chairs, and a disco ball-looking type of light above. The room was a tight fit with everything in it, but the even more surprising thing was...

“Whoa, look at this! You can totally see inside!”

The bathing area with the bathtub and shower was right by the bed, and instead of a wall separating the two, there was only a pane of clear glass. The white bathtub was totally visible just from sitting on the bed. Minami, excited, ran inside the bathing area and gave me a peace sign from inside. All I could do was return that with a forced smile. It was completely erotic in here. There was nothing here that wasn’t erotic. Did all adults do dirty things in this kinda atmosphere? I’d thought I understood what it meant to be an adult, but now I wasn’t so confident.

Minami returned from the bathroom and hopped onto the bed to sit.

“I love it! It’s exactly what I thought a love hotel would be like! Hm?”

Minami’s eyes fell onto the pillow. I followed her gaze and gulped, seeing what was next to it. There was a cylindrical shaped object...

“Oh, this is the kinda thing you use for shoulder massages!” Minami said without any hesitation, looking at me with a grin. “What’s this doing here? Do you think people get massages here?”

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you? You know what it is.”

“Do I?” she asked playfully. “Who knows.”

Minami turned it on and it began to vibrate. Just as I noticed that my eyes were gravitating toward her lower half, I quickly looked away. This place is crazy... Every part of this place is practically screaming at you to do it. Then my eyes fell to the side table where there were two thin, square pieces of packaging. When I’d turned on the lights it’d been too dark for me to notice them, but they’d been here the entire time. I could feel myself losing my mind. In order to not be too close to Minami, who had climbed completely on the bed to sit on her knees, I sat in a chair.

“Tired?” she asked.

“Well, yeah, we pretty much walked all day.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sweaty. I think I’ll take a shower.”

My head spun to her and I saw that she was grinning and giggling teasingly. Behind me was a bathroom which had nothing but a transparent glass wall, which left nothing to the imagination in regard to what was going on behind it.

“You can see everything anyway, so you might as well take one with me, right?”

“N-No way!” I yelled, putting my head in my hand while looking at the blackout curtains that we’d tightly closed. “I’ll face that way, so take your bath.”

“Who cares if you look? I mean, what haven’t you seen at this point?”

“I’m not gonna look! There’s nothing there that I wanna see anyway at this point!”

“There’s probably more for you to see than you think. Come on, let’s go,” Minami said, getting off the bed.

Then she entered the bathroom and disappeared behind the door. She really has no shame... I mean, yeah, I’ve seen her naked before, but who wants to be stared at when they’re naked? Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Minami and the color of her skin as she entered the bathing area. I panicked and turned my back to her. She wasn’t the type of person to think about wearing a bath towel first to see how things were.

“Hmm...how do I turn on the hot water... Oh, is this it? Yeesh, that’s cold!”

In the next moment, I heard the sound of running water from behind me. As long as I didn’t turn around, I wouldn’t see anything, but if I nudged my head just a little bit one way I’d be able to see everything very easily.

I’d be able to see how her hair hung around the nape of her neck. I’d be able to see her breasts. I’d be able to see her tight waist. I’d be able to see her nicely shaped butt. I’d be able to see her legs toned from sports. No! Stop! Don’t imagine any of this! I could clearly imagine all these parts of her because I’d seen them before. But we were only here to sleep for the night. We’re not doing anything tonight. Not tonight. Not tonight. Not tonight. I repeated this to myself over and over again like a chant and eventually I heard the water stop.

“You can look now.”

I sighed with relief. It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I turned around, relaxed, but standing behind the glass was Akatsuki Minami in all her naked glory.

“Gah!”

“You fell for it!” Minami smiled like a predator catching its prey by attracting it with a sweet smell. “You won’t get this chance every day, so you should get a good look. You’re gonna make me lose confidence in my body,” she said.

She was somewhat more mature than she’d been in my imagination. She pressed up against the glass as if to show herself off to me. This was the first time I’d seen her naked since the Arima hot springs. Her naked body had more than just sex appeal. She was beautiful—elegant, even. But even so, my body’s primal urges couldn’t help but react. I felt a heat as hot as magma rise up from within me.

“Wh-What confidence? Who would care about your childlike body?”

I was somehow able to tear my eyes away, but Minami began cackling.

“You’re not fooling anyone! You were staring holes into me like you wanted something.”

Dammit. This is the mistake of a lifetime. It’d all happened so fast that I was taken off guard and had stared for a lot longer than I’d meant to. Outside of my vision, I heard her wet footsteps as she left the bathroom. Then she put on a loose bathrobe and came out. Her hair that was usually tied up into a ponytail was completely down.

“Wanna take a bath?” she asked.

“Like hell am I taking one in there!”

“I won’t peek, okay? You should take one—you’re kinda sweaty.”

I am? I guess I have to take a shower, then... I switched with Minami and went into the bathroom, and took off my clothes. As I peeked into the bath area, I looked out through the glass into the bedroom and saw Minami sitting with her back turned, drying her hair.

Okay... I made up my mind and walked into the bath area and began showering inside the wet bathtub. I can’t calm down... We’re not even taking a shower together, but the thought that someone might be able to see me while I’m showering is nerve-racking. Plus, I was still recovering from the shock of seeing her naked body and I could feel it in every last part of my body. I couldn’t help but feel restless.

A quick wash later, I pushed my wet hair out of my face and opened my eyes. I felt a little better now. The urges that had bubbled up inside me not too long ago had gone away with the water down the drain. But when I turned around, I saw Minami ogling me through the glass.

“Hey!”

I turned around, quickly thinking to at least cover my front half. Minami was sitting slovenly cross-legged in the robe and was observing my naked body on top of that.

“You’ve grown...”

“I don’t need your commentary!”

“You’ve got some good muscles, kid. Ten out of ten.”

“Don’t score me!”

This damn dirty girl... I can’t let my guard down around her at all. Right now we were in a space where nobody could see us. It was just me and her. I had no doubt that within the confines of this small room, we could live the way we wanted to.

After that, the two of us ate the food we’d bought from the convenience store before coming here and then lay on the bed while watching videos on our phones. Ultimately, after changing our positions a lot, I ended up with Minami’s head on my shoulder.

“So, I heard from a friend, but...” she started.

“Yeah?”

“Girls with big boobs can use them to prop up their phone.”

“Sounds convenient.”

“I know, right?”

It seemed that the fatigue from walking around all day had finally caught up with me. It was so strong that it felt like my head was trapped in a spider’s web. I couldn’t work up the motivation to move even a single finger. Eventually I left my phone on my chest and stopped looking at it, letting it autoplay because it was too annoying to look at in this position. At a certain point, a video of a VTuber giving commentary on a game I hadn’t heard about started. This was a comfortable lethargy. When was the last time that I was able to just relax like this and give into my fatigue? I couldn’t even remember the last time I simply felt tired.

Oh, I see. I haven’t been sleeping. All this time, I’ve just been fainting as if I were disconnecting from the world, letting go of my consciousness. But none of that was sleep. I didn’t rest. I just couldn’t stand the world anymore.

I didn’t have to be afraid here. I was free here. I didn’t have to pay attention to anyone. I didn’t have to be disappointed in myself. I didn’t have to hate my past. I didn’t have to feel like there was no future for me. I could just live on impulse.

“Hey, Ko-kun?” Suddenly, I heard Minami’s nostalgic voice in my ear. Her porcelain hand was on my shoulder. “Have...you already noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Immediately as I said this, Minami moved her head and softly pressed her lips against mine, but I didn’t burst into hives. This soft, warm feeling was so nostalgic.

“You’re...already cured,” she whispered quietly. “You don’t have to be scared about people showing you affection anymore. You don’t have to be scared of facing your own emotions. You’ve been free for a while now.”

“Yeah, sure I am...” Even with the truth thrust in my face, I couldn’t accept this. “But what about Makoto? The pain I felt from her was real. It was like the world turned upside down. I couldn’t see straight and my insides turned out...”

“You just haven’t realized it yourself yet. You still think you haven’t been healed yet.”

“There’s no way that’s...”

But then her lips pressed on mine again as if to override anything further I was going to say.

“I’ll keep doing this until you realize it yourself,” Minami said, her face close to mine. Then she hugged me. “I love you.”

She whispered it right into my ear as if to make it go directly to my brain. “I love you. I love you so, so much. I’m so sorry for all the horrible things I did back then. I regret what I did, and I’ve learned from it... I know sometimes I can have an awkward or sharp attitude around you, but it’s just because I’ve never stopped loving you...”

Each time I heard her profess her love, for some reason, tears beaded up in my eyes and started sliding down my cheeks. I didn’t know why. I really didn’t. Most likely, I was sad. Sad that A-chan had done this to me, and that I’d become allergic to affection. When we were just childhood friends, I never thought that things would turn out like this between the two of us.

“I love you, Ko-kun... That’s really it. You may not believe me, but—”

I couldn’t withstand the sadness. I embraced her small body and got on top of her. Her hair spread across the pillow and in the midst of it, her moist eyes were looking right at me. Her bathrobe got messed up and her breasts peeked out from underneath the loosened collar. From underneath the gap in the robe, I could see her sky blue panties with a small ribbon at the waistband.

“You can do whatever you want to me.” A-chan giggled softly. “Back then, I did whatever I wanted to you, so... This time, you can do whatever you want to me. I won’t feel better unless you do that...”

I was scared, but even so, her gentle eyes and her accepting lips melted my fear away just a little bit. I nervously brought my lips close to hers until they pressed together. Then I did it again, and again, and again. Each time I kissed her, I could feel the twisted knots inside of me unravel one by one. My thoughts disappeared, my emotions disappeared, my rational thought disappeared, until all I had left were my instincts.

“Mm... Nn... Ha...”

Before I knew it, our tongues were intertwining with one another. We were ravenously seeking out each other’s mouths. As she accepted my desires, A-chan moved her hand down, and I felt her cold hand slip under my bathrobe and touch my lower half.

“It’s gotten so big...” she said as she looked down, slightly smiling.

Internally, I was snapping back at her, saying that I bet her body was reacting just as eagerly as mine. As I did, I reached my hand down her robe too.

“Ah! Mmff...”

Her breathing became ragged. A-chan and I both stopped being humans capable of intelligent thought. We became two beasts entangled with each other on the creaking bed. But even so, I didn’t care. If living as a human meant living in a world where I could barely breathe, I’d much rather the easy life of a beast.

“Ah! Mmn! Ko-kun... Ko-kun... Ko-kun!”

Sweat gradually began to break out across her small body as I held her. As she called my name, she tightened her grip on my back as if trying to keep from falling away. Eventually, her back arched as she reached her climax, before dropping back to the bed. Her face was red as if she’d been drinking, and her eyes looked so unfocused, it was like she’d fainted. But even so, she kept them pointed at me.

“Is...that it?” The edges of her saliva-stained pink lips turned up invitingly. “Is that...all you want to do?”

I’d already gone past the point of self-control. Everything that had been held back these past few years, the things I’d diligently kept sealed in, the things I’d stayed away from because of fear... How good would it feel to get back at her for everything she did to me back then?

A desire that I’d long been rejecting grew until it crowded out all other thoughts. This time, I’d kill her with love. After all, she was cute. She had long eyelashes, she had doe-like eyes, and she had soft cheeks. She was very expressive, her every movement was adorable, and she was meek when she wanted to be spoiled.

If anyone had her as a girlfriend, they’d want to love her like a pet. So I could too, right? I could make her feel a lot of love. I could whisper in her ear all night about my love until it was the only thing that occupied her brain. I could ravage her petite body until she understood what she was born for. I could fill her head with joy, pleasure, satisfaction, and submission until it broke. I would do it every day, without listening to her pleas.

The desires and love that were boiling up inside me were things that I’d make her remember forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever.

A-chan slightly raised her knees. Her panties were already down her legs. She offered her perfectly ready self to me. All I needed to do was move forward. The condoms on the side table weren’t even a thought in my head. Right now, all I could think about was if I just moved a little further forward, just a little more, and...

“Dammit...”

Suddenly tears began rolling down my cheeks like rain.

“Ko-kun?”

“I can’t... I can’t do it...”

I felt the strength being drained from me. I buried my head next to hers, staining the pillow with my tears.

“I wanna get back at you... I want to so bad, but...I can’t. Why... Why did it have to be someone like you that I... Dammit... Dammit!”

I loved her. I loved Akatsuki Minami. That was why this was wrong. This kind of future was wrong. I didn’t want this. This wasn’t what I dreamed of. I wanted to treasure her. I wanted to be by her side forever. My family was rarely ever home, but she was always there with me. That was why I... I... I don’t want to run. I didn’t want to run back then because I really...

“It’s okay.” A-chan once again gently embraced me despite how pathetic I was. “I’ll be waiting. I’ll always be waiting for you, no matter how long it takes.”

And then we simply lay in bed holding each other.