“Still, as much as we love each other, she likes guys and so do I. So Runa and I can’t go above being best friends. It’s frustrating...and that’s why I want her to find a good match already. A guy she’ll be able to trust with all her heart and who makes her feel calm. A guy she can be with forever. What Runa wants isn’t a hot guy she can brag about to her friends, but one she can really connect with.”
At some point, I found myself quietly and intently listening to Yamana-san like a good boy.
“It might be because of her home environment that she’s looking for a guy like that,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “And yet she’s only ever dated hot, sociable idiots until now with nothing else going for them. You know how she always messages you on LINE every morning and every night?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t hate that or anything, right?”
“No,” I said. “It means she’s thinking about me, which makes me happy.”
Yamana-san gave me a satisfied nod at my reply. “Doesn’t that prove you’re really dating?”
Really? I couldn’t tell since my own dating experience amounted to a month, but if that was what Yamana-san had said, it must’ve been the case.
“Because her ex-boyfriends were trash, there were of course nights and mornings when she couldn’t get in touch with them. And when she started to worry because of that, they’d call her ‘clingy’ and ‘annoying,’ acting like they were the victims. Those guys should really just die already,” said Yamana-san, spitting out that last part in particular.
She followed that up by immediately reaching out to the heap of french fries and bringing one to her mouth.
I thought those were on the house for me...?
“But Runa doesn’t say anything bad about her exes, right? And not just her exes—I’ve never heard her speak poorly about anyone,” added Yamana-san.
“Yeah...”
I was hungry, so I started eating some french fries too.
“Runa likes people, see? She thinks everyone’s a good person and that there’s nobody out there who’s bad deep down. That’s why she believed it when her exes claimed to like her. She went out with them, got betrayed, and got hurt every time.” At that point, Yamana-san paused her french-fry-moving hands for a moment. “Runa has this jinx called ‘the two-month barrier.’”
“‘The two-month barrier’...?”
“Until now, a lot of the guys she dated were cheating on her before they were together for two months. Even when that wasn’t the case, guys would start to gradually get cold toward her during the second month of their relationship, and they’d break up in the third month.”
I see... So that’s why it’s called “the two-month barrier.”
“I think Runa’s worried now, even if she trusts you. She’ll stay that way until you’re past the two-month mark.” With that, Yamana-san looked right at me. “Can you promise me you’ll absolutely avoid doing anything to make Runa worried?”
I gave her a deep nod, and not because I was overwhelmed by her sharp look. “I promise. I won’t do anything to make Shirakawa-san worry,” I said, firmly looking back at her.
Yamana-san stared fixedly at me for a while. “I see,” she eventually said. “That’s a relief.” A broad smile appeared on her face.
Seeing such a childlike, carefree grin on Yamana-san, I felt like it was the first time I had really seen her smile.
Thus, Yamana-san had said what she wanted to me. However, when she got up...
“What do we do about this?” she asked.
She was pointing at Icchi and Nisshi, sprawled out on the table harmoniously beside each other, right in front of us.
“You’re asking me...?”
I want to ask you the same question. You put them in this state, so you take responsibility—but, of course, that was too scary to say out loud.
“Well, it’s looking like they might not wake up until tomorrow,” commented Yamana-san.
“That’s a problem for me!”
“Well...since part of the blame does lie with me ‘making a mistake with the drinks,’ I’ll do something about them after this. They should wake up on their own and go home if I let them sleep for two or three hours.”
“Really...? Okay, I leave them in your care, then.”
I didn’t like the idea of eating or drinking alone in front of two dead-drunk friends, so I entrusted them to Yamana-san and left the izakaya. In the end, I’d only had cola and some french fries.
I was worried about their health, but they were together instead of alone, and they were just sleeping. Plus, Yamana-san was our classmate, so I figured she’d take care of them if something happened.
As I thought about these things while walking down some stairs, my legs started to wobble. I instantly clutched the handrail. My field of view felt narrower than usual, and it was like the world had suddenly grown distant. My chest felt lighter, and I couldn’t tell why, but things felt fun.
Could it be...? Is this because I took a gulp out of Nisshi’s mug earlier?
“Damn...”
And, actually, just how crazy a “mistake” did Yamana-san make with those drinks...?
If I’d gotten this from just a gulp, I couldn’t really say Icchi and Nisshi were bad at holding their drink. Though it was also possible I was just extraordinarily bad at it myself...
Oh well. I’m going home, getting into a bath, and then going to bed after this, so as long as my parents don’t find out, it should be fine.
As I thought that, my phone vibrated in my pocket. When I checked it, I saw there was an incoming LINE call from Kurose-san.
“What’s this about...?”
Is she calling me because I’ve kept her hanging for an answer? But what do I tell her...?
I felt bolder than usual, so I ended up pressing the answer button without thinking too much.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Ah, hello. Ryuto?!”
Hearing the voice coming from the other side, I pulled the phone away from my ear to look at the screen again.
“Shirakawa-san?!”
“Aha ha. Surprised? I’m at my mom’s place and my phone ran out of battery. I borrowed Maria’s.”
It was definitely Shirakawa-san. She hadn’t mentioned such plans today.
“Oh, right, we did use up your phone battery yesterday,” I said. “Sorry I borrowed your phone too. You didn’t get to charge it in time?”
“Mm? Oh, nah. It’s fine, though, since I got to call you like this.”
“Did you manage to talk to Kurose-san?” I asked.
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Thanks.”
She did get to visit her home and borrow her phone. I figured their relationship must be slowly headed toward its original state.
“So anyway, Ryuto...” Shirakawa-san’s voice sounded a bit nervous. “I wanna talk to you a little. To see you...alone.”
“Talk to me?”
As I wondered what she meant, I remembered what Yamana-san had just told me.
“I think Runa’s worried now, even if she trusts you. She’ll stay that way until you’re past the two-month mark.”
Come to think of it, Shirakawa-san had acted a little unusual on Enoshima too...
“We’ll still be together like this on our two-month anniversary, right?”
I wondered why she’d said something like that. Was this what she wanted to talk about?
“Okay. Are you heading home, Shirakawa-san? I’m at Station A right now. Want me to go to your place?”
“Huh? No... Um, I’m still not ready to go home. So I’d like to see you at school.”
“At school?” I asked.
“I wanna meet you in private...”
“But at school...? Can we even go there at this time on a Sunday? And I’m not in my uniform, you know...?”
When I’d checked my phone before leaving the izakaya, it had already been past seven at night. The streets were getting dark too, and it was the kind of time when high schoolers worried about the eyes around them.
“It’s okay, I’ll take care of that somehow... So can you go there?”
Before I realized it, Shirakawa-san’s voice sounded feeble and thin, as though she were someone else. It made me worried—I felt like I had to see her as soon as possible.
“All right. I’m heading to the school for now.”
“Okay,” she said. “If something comes up, call this phone... I mean, Maria’s LINE.”
“Got it.”
Something about her words gave me pause, but my head was fuzzy, and I couldn’t give it much thought. I ended the call.
“I wonder what happened to Shirakawa-san...”
I felt uneasy for some reason.
“Can you promise me you’ll absolutely avoid doing anything to make Runa worried?”
“I promise. I won’t do anything to make Shirakawa-san worry.”
Recalling my earlier conversation with Yamana-san, I cut through the crowd in front of the station and briskly walked to the ticket gates.
***
When I got to the school, the campus’s side gate was unlocked. I could see lights on in the staff room through its window, so either the gate was open because a teacher was around, or Shirakawa-san had gotten here before me and somehow opened it, as promised.
Ryuto: I’m here.
Maria: Come to the gym storage room.
“The gym storage room?”
Was she referring to where stuff like mats and vaulting boxes were stored inside the gym? I wondered why she’d picked such a place, but having come this far, I had no choice but to do as she said.
It was dark in the gym, but it was unlocked. The heavy sliding door of the storage room opened without trouble as well.
“Shirakawa-san...?”
There was only one window in the storage room, and it seemed to be far from any streetlights outside. Very little light was coming into the room. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet, so looking around the room, I could see the silhouette of a person sitting far in the back.
“Ryuto,” came Shirakawa-san’s voice. “Come here, Ryuto.”
I did as asked, approaching the silhouette.
“What are you doing in such a...?”
As I began asking that, Shirakawa-san forcefully leaped at me, pressing herself against my chest.
“Sh-Shirakawa-san?”
“Hey, Ryuto,” she whispered into my ear, draping her arms around my neck. “I wanna have sex with you...”
“Huh?!”
What?!
“I imagined how I’ll grow to love you more and want to touch you more... And if we had sex when I really wanted to go all the way, maybe I’d actually feel good both in mind and body, for the first time in my life.”
She said all that yesterday, but already came to feel differently in just a day? Okay, well, if that’s the case... But wait, in this kind of a place?!
While my mind raced, my body was already responding. My lust was accelerated by my lingering horniness from the previous day.
My head felt light and happy, and even though it sensed that something was weird, I embraced Shirakawa-san’s delicate body.
“Is it really okay, Shirakawa-san?” I asked.
When I buried my nose in the nape of her neck, I could sense a sweet, girlish, vanilla-like scent.
“Sure...” she replied.
I could feel her hot breath against my ear as she sighed.
“Shirakawa-san...”
Embracing her again, I ran my hands over her body as if to check her contours. Her wavy, dirty-blonde hair seductively tickled my nostrils.
“Ah...”
Shirakawa-san moaned quietly, as though unable to hold it in anymore. It was extremely hot and aroused me enough to send chills down my spine.
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