Prologue
Three years ago, at the end of both March and my second year of high school, it had been my birthday. Cherry blossom petals had been falling in a flurry. As we’d stood on the bank of the Arakawa River, Runa had said to me, bashfully...
“I wanna have sex...if it’s with you.”
The warm, amorous tone of her voice and the rosiness of her cheeks had reminded me of cherry blossoms. Her lowered eyelashes had cast shadows over her pink skin...
“This is the first time I’ve felt this way in my whole life...”
The number of times she’d blinked when she’d said it, and the exact moments when she had... All of that was burned into the back of my retinas in great detail. It was like a scene in a movie I’d rewatched over and over.
Yet even now, I still reached out for my memory of the past—the memory of those madly boisterous days of my youth.
***
On our way back from the riverbank, my mind had been adrift.
“I wanna have sex...if it’s with you.”
The only things swirling around in my head were the words Runa had just said to me. My heart had been pounding for a long time. The way it kept beating at a high pace was putting me into a prolonged state of calm excitement, as though a light fever had become my normal body temperature.
I’d been holding Runa’s right hand with my left, worrying that she might pick up on my excitement from my left hand. The thought made me feel bashful.
With red faces, Runa and I both maintained the silence. We returned to the vicinity of Station A and then walked through the nearby shopping district.
Something in the area caught my eye, making my heart skip a beat.
Hotel “The Earth”
Rest: 9,000 yen
Stay: 16,500 yen
That was what was written on the hotel’s flashy sign.
I looked at Runa involuntarily, and our eyes met. The fact she then awkwardly averted hers told me she’d been looking at the sign too.
“Th-That’s pretty expensive...” I said, trying not to be too obvious. I figured that it would’ve been worse to say nothing at all in this situation.
“Nine thousand for just a rest...” Runa replied.
“Yeah... Maybe it’s because it’s next to the station?”
Well, great, I thought to myself. Spending the night at that inn in Enoshima had been much cheaper. I didn’t have that much money on me.
“Your grandma is home today...right?” I asked, well aware that the flow of our conversation was putting my ulterior motives out in the open.
Runa nodded apologetically. “Yeah... My dad’s there too.”
“R-Right...”
Runa’s father was a salesman, so his days off were irregular. That meant he was sometimes home on weekdays.
However, when I gave it more thought, perhaps this turn of events was actually convenient for us. I recalled what Sekiya-san had once told me, after our school trip, when I’d asked him rather directly about his night with Yamana-san.
“Is it hard the first time?”
“Who knows...? It was my first time with a girl who’d never done it before. You wouldn’t want to force things if your girlfriend’s in pain, right? Especially since mine is still a minor.”
“You even care about that, huh.”
“Well, you know. Soliciting minors is a crime and all.”
After we’d parted ways, I’d looked up what Japanese law said on the subject. Specifically, “inko-jorei”—the ordinance on sexual misconduct.
“No one is allowed to engage in indecent sexual acts with minors.”
What does “indecent” mean...?
Who does “no one” apply to...?
Did that apply to me? I was a minor too. Could I not have loving sex with Runa, who was also a minor like me?
It didn’t make sense, so I went digging further and came upon a site that explained things in more detail.
Basically, even two minors having sex could be against the law. However, it didn’t apply to those who were engaged to be married or those who were “in a serious relationship equivalent to being engaged.”
The part about a “serious relationship equivalent to being engaged” had made me rack my brains. I intended to marry Runa eventually, and I believed that she had the same thing in mind.
But given what the law said, could we prove it? As hard as it was to imagine, if, for some inexplicable reason, a cop were to burst into the room while we were doing it in a hotel and accused us of breaking the law, wouldn’t we need an adult to prove that our relationship was serious?
That meant that, before we did something like that, I figured we ought to tell Runa’s father about our plans to marry.
“So... What now?” Runa asked reservedly once we reached the station.
I want to have sex.
I could tell that my face said as much. And it was clear to me that Runa felt the same way. And that was precisely why I said...
“I’ll walk you home.”
Obviously, I couldn’t just say, “I want to ask your father for permission to have sex with you,” so I gave myself an excuse to go to her house.
“Huh...? O-Okay.” An unconcealed look of dejection appeared on Runa’s face. She must’ve thought I was ending our date already.
That’s not how it is, Runa. Just wait for it.
As we walked through the usual peaceful residential area, I was secretly burning with resolve.
When we arrived at her house, Runa put her hand on the gate without a word and turned toward me.
“Ah, wait a moment, Runa.”
“Oh...?” She cocked her head as she looked at me.
“Sir, I’m giving serious consideration to my future with Runa-san.”
When I simulated the situation in my mind, saying the words I intended to say, my mental version of Runa’s father sighed and gave the following reply.
“So what? You’re still in high school. You can say things like that all you like. How do you plan to make my daughter happy? I want to hear how exactly you envision it.”
In that mental exchange, I was left speechless. In a few days, I’d be a high school senior. I was going to have to study with all I had and greatly improve my grades, doing whatever I could to get within range of being accepted into Houo University. And even if my efforts were to pay off and I got in, I’d still only be a university student.
All this time, Runa’s father had been working a full-time job, earning money, and raising his daughter. I felt like nothing I could say to him would be convincing in the slightest.
Besides, the last time I’d seen him had been on New Year’s, after my and Runa’s first shrine visit of the year. Back then, I’d barged in on them and asked him to hold off on letting his future wife move in. Recalling that I’d won that argument, I felt like it was going to be my turn to take a beating. The thought of it made me tremble.
“What is it, Ryuto?”
Runa’s voice brought me back to my senses.
“Well, uh, I mean...”
Now what...? Cold sweat formed on my skin as I considered what to do next, but I noticed that my phone was vibrating in my pocket.
“Oh...?”
Pretty much all my friends were introverts like me, so I almost never got calls without advance warning. It kept ringing, so I couldn’t ignore it. I pulled it out and looked at the screen.
“Dad...?”
The call was from my father, of course. That was unusual too, because even in my family, everyone was an introvert.
“It’s your father? You should take it, it might be important,” Runa said considerately.
“R-Right.” I tapped the button to answer the call.
“Hey, have you heard? Things are bad.” My father sounded restless. It was unusual for him as he was the quiet, taciturn type. “Your mother will be having surgery for cancer.”
My vision turned pure white. “Huh...?”
My father then told me when my mother would be admitted into the hospital and went over some other details, but barely any of it registered as I stood there in a daze before cutting the call.
“Ryuto...” Runa looked at me with sympathetic eyes. She must’ve heard what my father had said, as she’d been standing nearby.
“I’m sorry, Runa...” I replied. My mouth felt dry.
Runa gazed straight at me and nodded, a look of understanding on her face. “That’s okay. You should hurry home and be with your mom.”
“Yeah... Thanks.”
I turned around and walked away, putting Runa’s house behind me. As I walked to the station, hanging my head, I recalled the memories of my mother from when I’d been a kid, and before I knew it, my vision had grown blurry.
Naturally, the regret of not having done the deed with Runa was far from my mind at this point.
However, when I got home and stepped into the living room, it was anticlimactic. My mother was acting normally. The kitchen faced the living room, and as she stood in there, getting ready to start making dinner, she looked just the same as always.
“Oh, welcome back,” she said, looking surprised. “I didn’t think you’d be home so soon. Weren’t you on a date?”
“Dad called... Said you have cancer...”
My mother frowned. “Oh, great, he even called you? Well, I guess he probably didn’t know you were on a date.” She wiped her hands and came out of the kitchen into the living room, where I was standing. “It’s not cancer. It’s what’s called ‘cervical dysplasia’—an abnormality that’s a precursor to cervical cancer. A surgeon is going to cut it out before it turns into cancer. We found it on my yearly checkup.”
“So...it’s nothing major?” I asked.
“For now, no. Though apparently, sometimes it can progress unexpectedly quickly, and by the time you have surgery, it’s already turned into cancer and they can’t remove all of it.” Seeing a look of concern appear on my face once again, my mother switched to a cheerful tone. “But really, the doctor said it’s usually fine for women my age and at this stage of dysplasia, so don’t make such a face.”
I hadn’t been aware of what expression I’d been making, but it couldn’t have been a pleasant one. People had always told me I’d taken after my mother, so the prospect of my face becoming a memento of her was filling me with a mix of heart-wrenching emotions.
She smiled cheerfully as though to dispel my gloom. “You’re such a gentle boy. You remind me of your father.”
I remained silent.
“He got all flustered, thinking it’s his fault,” my mother then added with a slightly bashful smile.
At first, I didn’t understand what she meant, but then I recalled hearing that cervical cancer was caused by an STD. That must’ve been what my mother was talking about.
While I hadn’t had much interest in how my parents had met, I remembered that they’d been in the same class in college. My father had been my mother’s first boyfriend too.
“There’s vaccines now to prevent it, though. I wish there’d been one when I was young—then it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“Huh...”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me.”
I’d given a half-hearted reply, given the mildly awkward nature of the topic, but my mother had taken issue with it.
“It’s not somebody else’s problem. Boys can be vaccinated against HPV too,” she added.
“Eh?”
“Don’t ‘eh?’ me either. Sheesh, you need to be more aware of these things,” she said in exasperation.
Feeling ill at ease, I left the living room.
“HPV vaccine...?” I uttered to myself, looking it up on my phone in my room.
What I found was as follows: The human papillomavirus—the cause of cervical cancer—was transmitted through sex. And to effectively prevent it, both women and men needed to be vaccinated against it.
Q. Can it be transmitted when wearing a condom?
A. Condoms can help prevent it, but the human papillomavirus can be transmitted through hands too.
“Well, damn...”
This meant there was always a risk.
“He got all flustered, thinking it’s his fault.”
My mother couldn’t have gotten it from anyone other than my father, for sure. Runa had dated other guys before me, so even if she were to get cervical cancer in the future, it wouldn’t necessarily be my fault. But if our relationship was going to become sexual, there would be no guarantee that I wouldn’t be the source of infection.
“There’s vaccines now to prevent it, though.”
If sex could potentially put your loved one at risk of dying, and if you could do something to lower that risk to whatever extent possible... Perhaps it was worth considering.
I lay down on the bed and sighed deeply. There were even more things to do now before I could have sex with Runa. Was I just overthinking it?
Still, the more I treasured Runa, the more difficult it became for me to simply come onto her like in an eromanga.
“This is such a pain...”
I felt fed up with my personality. Sometimes I’d even wanted to become a whole different person. It would’ve felt so great if I could’ve followed my instincts, had sex with Runa, and we could’ve fully expressed our love for each other.
But alas, I could only dream about such things. Back then, at the very least.
I sighed deeply once more, at which point my phone vibrated—there was a message from Runa.
How’s your mother?
Oh. She’d been worried too—probably ever since the end of our date.
“You’re such a gentle boy. You remind me of your father.”
I couldn’t really tell if I was gentle or not, but Runa certainly was.
Since my mother’s situation had turned out to be less serious than expected, I got up and called Runa to explain.
“I see... So if the surgery goes well, there won’t be anything to worry about anymore?” Runa asked, her voice becoming somewhat more cheerful after my explanation.
“Yeah. Sorry I made you worried.”
“No, don’t apologize. I’m sure your family was more shocked than me.”
“Thanks...”
Runa was really a kind person.
“Hey, Ryuto...” she suddenly began, seeming to find it difficult to say what she wanted to. “I know what I said earlier today, but...”
What she said?
“I wanna have sex...if it’s with you.”
Was she talking about that?
“We don’t have to do it right away, right?” she asked.
“Huh...?”
“From what Nicole told me, when Sekiya-san first got into that kind of relationship with someone, he couldn’t study for months. His grades tanked. She said that was why he didn’t want to advance their relationship until he got into college.”
Her words made me recall what Sekiya-san had told me too.
“I was in rabbit mode for about half a year with the girl I first slept with.”
“Besides, I can just see how things would go. If we did it once, we’d end up heading over to each other’s houses or to love hotels whenever we had time and going at it like rabbits for about three months. And when I finally got back to my senses and restored my humanity, my exams would already be over. And in more ways than one.”
“I don’t want you to become like that...” Runa said. “You’re going to cram school and are gonna study hard for your university entrance exams, so it’s like I’d be getting in the way of that... I’ve been thinking that I shouldn’t have said what I said.”
“I-I’d be fine...probably.”
At the very least, I saw myself as being more rational than Sekiya-san.
“But it would be your first time, right? How can you know how it’ll go until you try it? And then if you do try it and become like that, it’d be too late...”
Don’t worry, it’s not like that. So let’s have sex right now!
Only I couldn’t have the confidence to say that because I had all that stuff about the law and HPV vaccines on my mind. And looking back on it now, when I had to prepare to study in earnest, it hadn’t felt like the right time to deal with those issues.
“Don’t worry about me,” Runa said. “My feelings toward you won’t change...including how I want to do it with you.” The way she added that last part in a quiet, slightly shy voice had been so cute that I felt the urge to embrace her—unfortunately, this was only a phone call. “I’ll wait. For you to get into Houo.”
“Okay. Thanks, Runa.” With her being this understanding and this supportive of me, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else. “I’ll study hard for those exams.”
And once I hung up...
“Dang iiiiiiiitttttttt!!!”
I opened one of my cram school textbooks and started writing in my notebook, my pen spurred on by my overabundant sex drive.
***
That brings us back to the present.
It was spring, and I’d just started my third year as a university student.
“And that’s how it is,” I said, wrapping up the story I’d been telling Kujibayashi-kun.
We were in a café in Tokyo Tower with a good view of the scenery below. He was sitting across the table from me.
“But then when I finally got into Houo, Runa had new twin sisters, a full-time job, and became super busy. On the rare occasions that we get to see each other these days, one of us will get called away by our families or to work, or the mood just isn’t right to do it at that point... And that’s just how it’s been.”
“Hm,” let out Kujibayashi-kun, who’d been listening with his arms folded. “So, it’s Too Much of Spring.”
“Huh?”
“A novel by Mishima Yukio. It’s about the peaceful ennui of a relationship that lasted too long. The title itself was in vogue for a time.”
“Oh, I see...”
Somehow it felt like an accurate description of our current situation, which was unnerving. I thought about giving it a read sometime.
“Still, I now see what has you so merry today.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That trip you’re taking this summer, to Okinawa... It will be your first time lying with a woman, will it not?”
“Y-Yeah.” I nodded timidly. “D-Did I really look so excited?”
“You would do well to look in a mirror. Because in it, you would find a repulsive face, brimming with lust.”
“C’mon, that’s uncalled for!”
“Thine words mean nothing to me. Not when I know what awaits thou in Okinawa,” he said.
“W-Well...”
Frankly, I really did want to have sex, and that hadn’t changed since the day I’d started dating Runa. The opportunity was finally about to present itself. It would’ve been more strange not to be excited.
This summer, in Okinawa, Runa and I...will have sex for the first time!
“I’m so jealous... ’Tis most aggravating...” muttered Kujibayashi-kun as he looked at me.
“Okay, but wait, I’m still a ‘virgin fiend’ too, for now...”
I said that to smooth things over, but it was crushing to have to remind myself of that fact.
That’s right... I’m a virgin... Even after all this time...
“Even I think it’s weird... We’ve been dating since high school, and I’m about to start my third year of university...” I said in self-deprecation.
Kujibayashi-kun stared at me with a serious look on his face. “The happy normies of this world may find it odd indeed.”
I remained silent, letting him continue.
“But even so, that is only relevant in the material world.” When he finally looked me in the eye again, his face had become far too serious for the topic. “In all likelihood, you two are, in fact, right in the middle of attracting the indistinct together, as your names would imply.”
His words made me remember what he’d once said about my and Runa’s names.
“A moon and a dragon, is it...? Quite the pairing.”
“Both are something indistinct. A moon shines faintly without showing its outlines. A dragon is a fictional creature, and therefore its true form is unknown. That is why when you combine those two kanji, you get the kanji for ‘indistinct.’”
Runa and I...are attracting the indistinct together?
“What is ‘the indistinct’?” I asked.
“You are so considerate of each other that you find it difficult to act. It ties both of you down. If you only look at the matters in front of you, then yes, you are still a virgin fiend like yours truly, and perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say your relationship has seen no development at all. But inside of you two, it most certainly exists.”
He was speaking in riddles. They left me confused, and it probably showed on my face.
One corner of Kujibayashi-kun’s lips lifted, and he hung his head. “As for what ‘it’ is... It would be too impudent for a staunch fiend such as myself to put it into words.”
He looked bashful, and I figured it was difficult for him to say it with me staring at him. I averted my eyes.
By coincidence, the crowd around us had just dispersed. The large window, evenly partitioned with lattice, offered a panoramic view of Tokyo and the blue sky above. It was beautiful enough to take my breath away.
“I do believe some call it ‘love,’ dare I say.”
I was still trembling from the unexpectedly captivating view when Kujibayashi-kun’s words reached my ears.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login