Prologue: Making the Heart Grow Fonder?

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I once heard a saying like that, though I don’t really remember where I first heard it. Apparently it was used in an old song, so maybe that’s where I heard it before.

It seems, though, that the phrase is an old English saying—and that the saying itself has a story of its own. The more I looked into it, the more I realized that these kinds of phrases had histories that went way, way back.

In any case, even though I was pretty much on board with what the saying proposed, I also had to wonder if it still applied in our modern age.

Didn’t the phrase emerge precisely because, in the olden days, lovers couldn’t see each other as frequently as they wanted to?

But maybe today it’s really that people can see each other a little too easily.

Even when we couldn’t physically be together, we still could communicate and talk to each other at the drop of a hat. Plus, with cameras, we could see each other anytime we wanted. Of course, there were schedules we had to take into account, but we were certainly in an age where we could see the person we wanted to much more easily than when the saying first emerged.

But a new question arose from all this convenience: Was it really possible, then, to cultivate love in modern relationships?

If absence made our affection grow, then was it possible for presence to stunt its growth? Taking it a step further, could we say that an era where it was easier than ever to see our lovers was also an era in which it was difficult to cultivate love?

Well, maybe now I was starting to sound a little sophistic.

Still, the saying implied that you were supposed to nurture your feelings for the other even when you couldn’t see them, all so that those feelings could turn into something special when you were finally able to reunite. And in that was the further implication that just as absence made the heart grow fonder, presence made the heart grow fonder as well. That was probably how we were actually supposed to interpret it.

After all, people back then probably felt strongly about each other because they could neither communicate with nor see each other so easily, but if they could have seen each other, they probably would have. And even in the present day, if you didn’t communicate with each other while you were apart when you had the means to, then the affection you held for each other would probably end up fading. Your partner would probably get upset and wonder why you weren’t calling them.

So, to put it in a more modern way, we should make sure to cultivate our feelings for our partners by contacting each other even more when we were apart than when we were together. The most important thing of all was how we felt about the other person. That had to be the same, no matter how much time passed.

Revisit the old and learn the new...might not be the most accurate way to describe how to square things, but nonetheless, it was important to see how an old saying might fit into present times. If the core meaning were the same, then even if the words we used to express them were different, the idea would still remain.

“And that’s why while I’m at my grandparents’ house I’m always going to be in touch,” Nanami said in conclusion.

“Right...though I never thought you would be the one telling me something like this,” I told her.

Usually I was the one to go on and on about logic like this, but this time it was Nanami’s comment that spurred me to consider this question. Her perspective was different from mine, so her ideas always felt fresh and new to me. Maybe Nanami had started picking up some of my logical tendencies too.

Nanami herself seemed a little proud of her declaration as she stood beside me, stirring a pot. I, on the other hand, was next to her mixing some eggs. In that moment, I was glad that our kitchen was large enough for the two of us to stand in and cook together.

We were making breakfast—though we weren’t making a full-fledged meal. Just one item per person.

It was the morning after Nanami had spent the night at my house, also known as the day after Christmas, where we had spent a momentous evening sleeping together in the same bed during her overnight stay.

Given the deeply emotional nature of the occasion, I had to repeat myself: Last night, Nanami and I spent the night together at my house. Though given that I couldn’t do anything, all we really did was just sleep next to each other. Actually, I should probably clarify that I didn’t do anything.

Just remembering it was making my face red. But in any case, it was the morning after such a memorable day. Shoot, I really went on and on about how commemorative all this really is. I feel like I’m being kind of annoying.

Maybe I should stop now. After all, you could argue that this same day was one where I was pretty pathetic, since even though Nanami and I had slept in the same bed, I didn’t do anything.

In any case, we woke up together, and we decided to take a walk in the snow to go get breakfast at the convenience store. Mainly per my request.

We had picked up a bunch of things at the store and, once we got back home and sat down to eat, Nanami raised her hand and said, “How about I make at least some soup or something?”

We’d only bought sandwiches and other such things at the convenience store, and since we’d finished off the soup from the night before, we didn’t actually have any side dishes left.

I told her I’d feel bad if she ended up having to make us something, but she only responded by saying, “But...by tomorrow I’ll be away from you. So I want you to eat my cooking before that.”

Nanami then added with a shy smile, “Even though it’s not like the last time or anything.” Seeing that embarrassed smile on her face, though, had me feeling something very close to remorse.

She was absolutely right. Only then did I realize my error...or, rather, I realized only then the fact that I’d forgotten about our pending time apart.

That brief parting had more weight to it than any possible guilt I’d feel at her cooking right now. It was true: I wouldn’t be able to eat Nanami’s cooking starting tomorrow. If that were the case, then maybe cooking should be an option.

The thought had me visibly morose, prompting Nanami to cheer me up and start making some soup with the ingredients we’d bought at the store. At that sight, I couldn’t stay down for long—and I also couldn’t leave Nanami to do the cooking while I just sat around and did nothing.

They say that difficult times are often opportunities to be seized. If that were the case...

“Then maybe I’ll make an omelet,” I said, deciding to use what little was left in the fridge to make something myself. In response to my sudden decision, Nanami smiled happily.

And—here we were.

You might think that it had been meaningless to go to the convenience store if we were going to cook at home anyway, but that wasn’t necessarily the case. When I had peered into the fridge earlier, there really wasn’t much inside. We didn’t even have bread. So in the end, it was good that we’d gone out to the store.

I was glad that there were at least enough ingredients to cook up an omelet. I mixed up the eggs as I seasoned them and poured the slightly sweetened mixture into an omelet pan.

With a gentle sizzle, the egg mixture spread in the pan, bubbles rising in the liquid as it heated through. I then mixed the egg batter slightly and folded it toward me once it was cooked. The specialized pan made the process easy.

Once I had a small cluster of egg on one side of the pan, I added more egg mixture into the pan and proceeded to fold the eggs over once again.

“You’ve gotten so good at that, Yoshin,” Nanami complimented me as she peered into the pan and watched me repeat the process.

I thought I’d improved because I’d practiced, but I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten that good.

“Thanks. It’s all because of you,” I replied.

“I’m not sure I’ve had anything to do with it, though,” Nanami said with mild confusion. But I’d only worked so hard because I wanted Nanami to eat the food I made, so to me, it was accurate to say my improvements were all thanks to her.

When I told Nanami that, she swayed from side to side, pressing her palms to her cheeks as though she were embarrassed.

Yeah, she’s adorable.

Add egg, fold. Add egg, fold. After doing that a couple more times, I had formed a nice little omelet on one side of the pan.

I was all out of the egg mixture, so I turned up the heat a bit. This wasn’t a trick or anything; I just preferred having the outside of the omelet be browned a bit.

The ideal omelet was probably one that was nice and yellow, without any kind of grill marks. Still, my brain just found omelets to be tastier this way.

Yeah, this one wasn’t too bad. Actually, today’s omelet turned out pretty good. Sometimes, when I turned the heat up like this, I ended up burning the surface a little too much.

I placed the omelet on a paper towel to let it rest a bit. I had once tried to cut an omelet right after I took it off the pan and nearly burned myself. Ever since then, I made sure to let the omelet cool a bit before I cut it.

Nanami seemed almost done with the soup too, so once she finished, we could have breakfast. By this point, I was getting pretty hungry.

“Still can’t crack an egg with one hand, though. I’ve got a long way to go,” I suddenly found myself murmuring.

“What kind of a goal is that, exactly?” Nanami asked, adding, “It’s not like cracking an egg with one hand makes it tastier. I only learned how to do that recently.”

“Oh, really? It seemed as though you’d been doing it forever.”

When she showed it to me before, she did it so naturally it seemed like it was no big deal for her, like it didn’t even require any skill. I guess that was what made it seem even cooler.

Here I was, thinking that she’d mastered the technique after cooking for many, many years. I was thus surprised to learn that it was a new thing for her too. Still, it’s cool that she can do it at all. But wait...what’s going on?

“What’s wrong, Nanami?” I asked, noticing that she was now refusing to look at me. She seemed sheepish, almost flustered.

I kept watching her because this was not a reaction she often had. Nanami, though, seemed to misunderstand my intentions, because she continued to look away from me as she opened her mouth to speak.

“Actually, I...practiced it because I wanted you to think that I was cool.”

What kind of an adorable reason was that? It sounded like something an elementary school boy would say. While Nanami’s face flushed a deeper and deeper red at the confession, my smile broadened in direct proportion to the red hue of her cheeks.

When Nanami finally resigned herself to looking at me, she was pouting in frustration.

“You really were cool,” I emphasized.

“Jeez, why would you say something like that now? Dummy...”

Now fully embarrassed, Nanami pounded my chest with her fist, though without much strength at all. I couldn’t stop grinning at this side of her I was seeing, one that she rarely showed me. But...I see. She wanted to seem cool, huh?

I often told her that she was cute, but now that I thought about it, I realized that I hadn’t really told her that she was cool. Though if she wanted me to, I would say it as often as she desired.

“But wait, you wanted me to think that you were cool?” I questioned.

“Huh? Don’t you remember?” Nanami asked. “We were at home watching a cooking video, and you said yourself that it was cool.”

“Wait... Did I really say that?”

I didn’t remember it at all, but it did seem like she had practiced just because I said something. To be honest, when we were just relaxing at home together, a lot of the conversations we had kind of blurred into one fuzzy memory after a while.

Nanami, too, seemed to realize that I genuinely didn’t remember, so she didn’t pursue the matter further. Though if I really did say that, then it seemed wrong for me to have forgotten it.

“Then I’ll just have to say how cool you are more often,” I muttered.

“No, I mean, I wasn’t that serious about... It was just something you said one time, so it’s not like I’m super shocked that you don’t remember,” she said.

“But doesn’t it seem kind of irresponsible of me?” I asked.

“If you take responsibility for every little conversation you have, you’re gonna wear yourself out...”

Maybe she was right. I didn’t remember it, after all. Plus, Nanami seemed to have taken the whole thing quite casually too. That probably meant that I should take more responsibility in times that actually mattered. If I were constantly worried, I might lose sight of things when they mattered most.

Still, if being called cool made Nanami happy, then I should say it more often. Simple as that.

“And actually, there’s something I realized after hearing you say I was cool,” Nanami suddenly said with a raised index finger. She then closed her lips once, as though to build up the drama.

I wondered what she realized, but I waited quietly until Nanami opened her mouth to speak again. She took her sweet time replying; she knew I was waiting for her.

Nanami then pointed toward me and, with a serious expression on her face, murmured, “I like it more when you say that I’m cute, than when you say that I’m cool.”

Yeah okay, I’ll have to tell her she’s cute way, way more than I have been.

And that was the profound resolution I came to make that morning.

♢♢♢

The two of us had breakfast after that, and then my parents came home, accompanied for some reason by Tomoko-san and Genichiro-san. Apparently they had come to pick up Nanami, because Genichiro-san’s car was parked outside.

Aside from that, they just confirmed some things with us...namely, that we hadn’t done anything the night before. Given that we really hadn’t done anything, I was able to tell them confidently that everything was as it should be.

Fortunately, the adults believed what we said, thus bringing our Christmas together to a close.

“Okay, Yoshin. I’ll see you soon,” Nanami said to me.

“Yeah. Take care. We’ll meet up after we both get back,” I replied.

“Right. And then we’ll have our hot springs trip!”

Nanami said this as she smiled at me brightly, obviously excited about our upcoming trip. That’s right. We’re going on that trip. I’ll have to get around to making those arrangements.

Nanami waved at me from inside Genichiro-san’s car, slowly moving away. I waved back at her, and even when the car was no longer in sight, I couldn’t stop myself from looking in the direction she had gone.

From now on, I wasn’t going to be able to see her for a while. I felt an emptiness inside, like someone had gouged a gaping hole in my chest—one that wasn’t going to be filled in so easily.

My days without Nanami had finally begun.

“Yoshin, you look like you’re never going to see her again, but I’d like to remind you that you’re only going to be separated for about a week. It’s really not that long.”

Needless to say, I ignored my mom’s uncalled-for comment.

Chapter 1: A Change Unnoticed

“Okay, Yoshin. I’m off. I’ll be in touch,” Nanami said.

“Yeah. Take care, okay?”

“I’ll bring back souvenirs. What would you like? Snacks and stuff?”

“The best souvenir you could get me is to have you home safe and sound.”

“In that case, maybe I’ll get you a dragon key chain. Guys like that kind of stuff, right?”

“Where do you learn something like that?!”

I never thought I would hear Nanami mention dragon key chains. The sight of me in shock was making her giggle.

Nanami waved at me, and I waved back from the other side of the phone screen. Since Tomoko-san and the others were with her, I had the chance to say hello to them earlier as well.

I hadn’t seen them since Christmas... No, wait, Christmas was yesterday. I guess I got to see them then too. Maybe because I was seeing them now through a screen, it somehow felt like it had been a long time since I saw them.

“Onii-chan, don’t go cheating around, okay? And I’ll keep my eye on onee-chan, so that you have nothing to worry about,” Saya-chan said to me.

“I wouldn’t do that, and neither would Nanami,” I muttered at Saya-chan.

“That’s true. By the way, I was the one who told onee-chan about the dragon key chain, so don’t worry about it,” she added.

“You were the one to tell her that?!” I shouted.

It was the kind of reveal that had me unsure whether I should be relieved or even more concerned upon hearing it. It made me wonder whether Saya-chan now had a boyfriend too, but it seemed she had heard it from a friend as well. Apparently the friend was a girl, but one who was versed in such tidbits. Maybe it was the friend who had a boyfriend. Saya-chan seemed to have spent Christmas with that friend as well.

“Saya... How dare you make such insinuations to Yoshin?!” I heard Nanami yell.

“Ow, ow, ow! Onee-chan, don’t grab my head like that! Should onii-chan really be seeing such a violent side of you?” Saya-chan retaliated.

“Yoshin will accept me no matter what form I take.”

“Why are you talking like you’re some nonhuman heroine?!” Saya-chan hollered.

It felt like it had been a while since I last saw the two of them messing with each other like this. Not to mention Nanami doing the clawhold on Saya-chan was quite the sight...though I wasn’t sure if it could be called that when Nanami was doing it from behind. Is this that violent heroine thing that was trending before?

Though I wasn’t sure if this could be called violence to begin with. It was, after all, Saya-chan’s own doing.

Oh, Saya-chan was tapping out now. She didn’t seem that remorseful, though, given that she was saying while she was tapping, “I wouldn’t suspect you guys to do that, but it’s such a trope in a situation like this!”

Nanami reiterated that neither one of us would cheat on the other, tightening her grip on Saya-chan’s head. Wow, it’s looking pretty chaotic here. Still, cheating...cheating, huh? Yeah, we definitely wouldn’t do that. Though...is that just me being cocky?

Believing in the other person was admirable, but blind faith wasn’t. It seemed difficult to strike the right balance. Though I guess that was why consistent and open communication was so important.

“Nanami, how about we dial it back a bit, before Saya-chan’s skull cracks?” I suggested.

For now, I thought it best to display concern for Saya-chan’s head. That actually sounded kind of rude, but I couldn’t help worrying about her physical safety.

“Huh? But, I mean, Saya was the one who brought up the idea of us cheating,” Nanami protested.

“You’re right, but since neither of us would ever do something like that, it’s okay.”

“I guess so...”

“Thinking about it now, though, why do people cheat on their partners?” I continued. “Maybe if we actually think about that, we’ll have a lot less to worry about.”

“Think about...cheating?” Nanami asked.

There was a saying that went, “Know thy enemy and know thyself. Then you need not fear a hundred battles.” In other words, rather than fearing the idea and avoiding the discussion of it, we should instead face it head-on and understand cheating fully.

Just haphazardly declaring that we weren’t going to cheat seemed too close to just tossing a veil over an unpleasant issue...or turning a blind eye to it. Or perhaps it was similar to the tendency we had to dwell on the exact thing we adamantly denied. It was probably important to actually think about it, precisely because—even though this sounded like a contradiction—I could confidently state that I would never do it.

If anything, Nanami really was the only person I was interested in being particularly kind to.

Getting back on topic, though, I legitimately failed to understand the psychology behind cheating. But I could vaguely imagine it. A sense of imagination was important, after all. So it made sense to brainstorm all the things that might motivate someone to cheat.

“Isn’t that just because you don’t let him bang you?” Saya-chan said.

“Saya?!”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Onee-chan, stop! I’m making sounds that a girl definitely shouldn’t!”

Saya-chan’s comment seemed completely baseless. In response, Nanami seemed to have tightened her hold on her head, and now Saya-chan seemed to be in even greater pain than before.

Oh, and now it seemed Nanami had finally let go and was even apologizing. Saya-chan, on the other hand, was feeling the back of her head to make sure it was still there. Don’t worry, it is.

But truthfully, what Saya-chan said could probably be considered one of the factors leading someone to cheat on their partner. Not being able to fully respond to a partner’s feelings—or, to put it differently, satisfy their desires—was understandably a problem.

It also seemed like satisfying them too much was also a problem, though. Hitting the right balance seemed like a challenge. Still, if that was the thought process, then at least this time around...

“It should be fine for us, then,” I uttered.

And at that, the two on the other side of the screen froze.

Taking what we did on Christmas into account—even if it hadn’t ended up in any direct contact—I felt like everything was going to be fine between me and Nanami.

“Well...I guess that’s true,” Nanami also said, smiling, as though relieved.

Saya-chan, on the other hand, was now looking back and forth between us, until she finally asked, “Wait...did you guys finally do it?”

We haven’t, actually. Still, Nanami and I looked at each other and smiled, as though whatever we did do was to be kept a secret between the two of us.

“No, but we’re keeping things to ourselves this time,” I said.

“That’s right. It’s a secret,” Nanami echoed.

I heard Saya-chan boo at our remarks, but unfortunately for her, I had no intention of sharing what really happened.

“Okay, Yoshin. I’ll see you soon,” Nanami finally said.

“Yeah. Take care...and have a good time,” I returned.

We’d ended up talking for longer than we’d intended. Everyone seemed to be preparing to leave, and I saw Saya-chan was now rushing to get on her way.

I felt a pang in my chest, like I was watching the last episode of a series I liked, or the end of an emotional film. I didn’t want to let go of Nanami just yet.

As I remained staring, unable to hang up on our call, Nanami seemed to prepare herself for something, and...

There was a soft smooching sound, followed immediately by the end of our conversation. Nanami had thrown a kiss at me. I was so caught off guard that I couldn’t even react. Plus, whatever sadness I was feeling was completely blown away by that single act.

Even when I thought to say something, Nanami had already hung up. I was so shocked, nearly frozen by it, that I couldn’t even move my hands to call her again.

But even if I called her back, what would I do then? Was I supposed to confirm with her that she did, in fact, throw me a kiss? That would be both meaningless and embarrassing. Nanami probably hung up on me because she felt embarrassed about what she did too.

Wow, my cheeks are burning. Like, it’s still chilly, but my body is feeling super warm right now. I’m even starting to sweat in weird places.

We’d kissed each other enough times—if anything, we’d done stuff even beyond that—so to feel so bashful about a single blown kiss was strange.

If someone were to see me now, they would definitely make fun of me. But I was probably feeling this way because generally it was embarrassing to do things we didn’t normally do.

I guess it also meant that we still had room for new experiences.

When I looked down, I saw my own face reflected on the black screen of my phone. I looked like a total mess.

“Jeez...”

Seeing my own face like that made me realize more strongly the fact that Nanami had left. She had finally, really departed. And now I wouldn’t be able to see her for a while...an entire week, in fact.

With this small device in my hand, I would be able to see Nanami’s face anytime I wanted. So it’s not like I literally couldn’t see her. But strangely, that didn’t stop me from feeling depressed.

We were apart when we were working our part-time jobs over the summer, but this was different. It was mysterious, almost indescribably so.

I turned over on my bed and, still feeling jumbled up, looked at my phone again. The screen displayed the current time.

“Still, isn’t 4 a.m. a tad too early...?”

It was still dark outside—too early to call it morning, yet too late to call it nighttime. I’d been told that Nanami’s family was heading out early because of the possibility of the roads getting congested, but...

I wasn’t sure if I was feeling cold because of the temperature or because of all my emotions.

No, it actually is cold. I should get under the covers for a bit.

Now that I had seen Nanami off, maybe I should get a bit more shut-eye...though it wasn’t a bad idea to stay awake either—because the truth was that Nanami’s blown kiss had shocked me completely awake.

For starters, I should get out of bed once I’d warmed up a bit. That was what I told myself as I continued wiggling around in my bed like a large, lonely caterpillar.

♢♢♢

On the same day that Nanami and her family left for her relatives’ house, my parents and I set off for my grandparents’ house as well.

We had actually been planning to leave the next day, but my mom arranged for us to leave a day earlier, just so I would get to see Nanami slightly earlier too.

Nanami and I weren’t going to be able to return on the same day, as I was going to be home slightly earlier than she would. It’s not like we would have been able to see each other immediately after coming home in the first place. But still, it would be huge for me to be able to be the one to welcome Nanami home.

Not that she was coming home to me, necessarily. But it was nice that I could greet her upon her return.

The purpose of our visit to my grandparents’ house was to spend time with them, see our other relatives, and have a few good meals with the entire family. Oh, and I was pretty sure we were supposed to help them shovel snow; I think I remember chatting about doing some heavy-duty chores while we were there.

My mom also had to help prepare for the New Year’s holiday and cook the traditional osechi food for the first of January. She’d be busy this trip.

My grandparents always told us to focus on relaxing when we visited them, but my parents always ended up doing things anyway. They said being idle was actually far less relaxing than having something to do.

As for me, the more chores I did, the more New Year’s money I got, so that was my main reason for helping out. I had to guess that wasn’t an uncommon motivation.

Wait, it was okay for a high schooler to still get New Year’s money, right?

I mean, I got some last year, but this year I had my job and so had earned a certain amount of income. Was it okay for me to still get New Year’s money, even then?

Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and get whatever folks were willing to give me.

To clarify, this year we were going to my mom’s parents’ house. My dad’s parents lived relatively close to us, so until last year, we visited them pretty regularly and helped out with shoveling their snow, too, which also got me some extra cash. It was why I was able to have a bit of savings even if I didn’t work at all.

In any case, our frequent visits to my paternal grandparents were the reason we were only visiting my mom’s side of the family during the winter holiday.

As a sidenote, I hadn’t told either set of grandparents that I now had a girlfriend. That was because I was too embarrassed to, of course, but...

“Did you by chance...tell grandpa and grandma?” I asked my mom.

“That you have a girlfriend? I told them because they asked,” my mom answered, as if nothing were the matter. Well, of course. There’s no way she wouldn’t tell them...

It was just that, since about last year, my grandpa and grandma had been asking me, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

Until around middle school, they really only said stuff like, “How’ve you been,” “Glad you’re here,” and “We don’t have much, but you can relax.”

But just as soon as I started high school, bam. I used to just tell them no way would I ever get a girlfriend, but then here I was, a year later...

And since we had suddenly changed our plans to come visit earlier, of course my mom would have to explain what was going on.

I couldn’t get upset at her for having told them without consulting me, so I decided just to confirm one thing by asking, “Did grandpa and grandma say anything?”

“They mentioned wanting to see their great-grandchild next year. And that they’d pay for the wedding, so you don’t need to worry about anything,” she replied.

They’re totally getting way ahead of themselves! And the money part makes it sound too serious. Looks like my grandparents are skipping a little too far ahead...

Though somehow their comment about a great-grandkid convinced me that they, in fact, were my mom’s parents.

“They’re really looking forward to it, you know,” my mom reiterated.

“I guess that’s just how it is,” I sighed. “Wait, are our other relatives coming this year too?”

“Of course. But grandpa and grandma are really looking forward to you being the star of the show this year.”

Grandpa, grandma... Please don’t get too worked up. I don’t think I can handle it.

So now, not only was I dealing with them, but with relatives I only saw once a year—people whose faces and names I didn’t even really remember. I mean, they came every year; it wasn’t like they were suddenly not going to show up this year or anything.

I guess the only saving grace was that there wasn’t anyone else who was about my age.

“Well, looks like I’ll just have to while away the time,” I mumbled.

I didn’t know what I was so concerned about, given that Nanami wasn’t even here with me.

Worst-case scenario, I’d just spend time playing games. Last year, too, my parents and my relatives were all talking among themselves, so that was how I spent most of my time anyway. Adults had their own topics to talk about, and they were probably too old to be interested in relationship gossip the way high schoolers were. Once I explained to my grandparents what was going on, surely no one was going to think twice about my dating life.

Thinking that helped me believe I could get through this now. I might sound coldhearted saying this, but it was probably best just to do whatever I needed to do until it was time to head back home.

Of course, in that moment, I had no idea what I was getting into. I was totally wrong, in fact.

Adults actually turned out to be way more curious about young people’s love lives than I ever realized. And that curiosity was only amplified when it came to young people they were related to.

In that moment, though, I was riding in the back of my parents’ car completely carefree, without any idea of what awaited me.

♢♢♢

Traveling by car took a toll on your physical well-being; being in a car for extended periods of time could really immobilize the body.

When I got out of the car and was finally able to move around a bit, all the different parts of my body that had been fixed in place for so long made loud cracking noises.

Would I still get this stiff in a larger car? Or is this just what happens in any car, period? When it came time for me to buy a car of my own, I would have to think about this question seriously. I knew I wanted me and Nanami to go driving together someday. Maybe I should start with a rental first?

In any case, we finally made it to our destination: my grandparents’ house.

As soon as our car pulled up, grandpa and grandma came out to greet us, as though they’d timed their approach just right. There was snow on the ground, though, so I was worried they’d slip and fall. I hadn’t seen the two of them in a while, but they didn’t seem to have changed much at all. They weren’t bent over at the waist, hunched, nor did they seem to have any kind of difficulty walking either.

I also noticed that they were wearing matching sweaters. Still all lovey-dovey even in their old age? I did recognize the sweaters, though, so maybe I just hadn’t noticed them ever wearing them together until now.

The two of them greeted us, their faces all smiles. In any case, I was glad to see them both doing well, especially given how much time had passed since I last saw them.

I got out of the car once we parked and was still stretching when my grandpa came over to talk to me.

That’s funny—usually he goes over to talk to my dad first, I thought to myself.

“Yoshin, you came,” he said.

“Yeah, grandpa. I’m here,” I replied.

He might have sounded brusque, but he looked overjoyed to see me. My grandpa was just a man of few words.

“You didn’t have to come all this way, you know,” he continued.

“?!”

Never mind what I just said; despite the smile on his face, the first thing grandpa said to me was that I didn’t need to be here. His expression and his comment were a total mismatch.

“Wh-What do you mean, grandpa?” I asked.

But even as I stood there completely confused, grandpa simply turned away from me and walked over to my dad instead. I’d heard a lot about how much my grandparents had been looking forward to seeing me, but our first exchange felt rather anticlimactic.

My dad was getting our bags out of the trunk, and grandpa went over to give him a hand. Yeah, I should probably do that too.

Grandma was talking to my mom while my dad handed a bag over to grandpa. Even though it looked heavy, grandpa carried it off with no problem at all.

I, too, grabbed some of the luggage and entered my grandparents’ house with it. Their house was really quite large. A long time ago they told me that living in the countryside allowed them to own a lot of land.

Once I stepped inside, edging into the entryway, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia; here I was, in scenery I hadn’t seen in a year. The first time I’d visited, I spent so much time just exploring the house because it just seemed so huge.

I wasn’t alone that time, though. Back then, I’m pretty sure I...

In my moment of nostalgia, I heard a voice call to me from inside the house. It was a voice different from my grandparents’; it was one of a young woman.

“Well, if it isn’t Yoshin. You came, huh?”

I looked toward the voice and saw a woman standing in the entryway. She was tall, and I could tell that even if I hadn’t been crouching slightly in the entryway, she would’ve been looking down at me. Her limbs were long and slender, in perfect proportion to her height. Based on how tall she was, she looked like she could be a basketball player—but she seemed more delicate, rather than athletic.

Actually, even though she appeared delicate physically, her sharp, strong-willed gaze betrayed no weakness at all. In fact, she was staring at me with a single-mindedness that reminded me of a predator locked on their prey. I could feel a part of me getting defensive, like I actually feared that she might attack me.

Um... Who is this, again?

Those were the words that sprang into my brain as soon as I saw her face. Hey, wait a minute. I feel like I’ve seen these bird-of-prey-eyes before. Oh, that’s right—from that time I was just thinking about, when I was exploring the house...

“Um...yeah. Here I am, nee-chan,” I finally said.

Having now remembered, I called the woman in front of me “nee-chan.”

Of course, she wasn’t an actual older sister. Since she was at my grandparents’ house, she was obviously one of my relatives. I was pretty sure that she was the daughter of my mom’s younger brother. She was a little bit older than me, so she was probably a university student. Or maybe she was already working?

I couldn’t remember when I last saw her. I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen her last year, or even the last few years. So this was our first meeting in a long while.

The woman that I called nee-chan smiled happily at the way I addressed her. I then noticed what was probably a cigarette between her lips, emitting a tiny trail of smoke. An e-cig? But I don’t smell any smoke.

“Oh my, you actually remembered? I’ve gotta say, onee-chan is very happy to hear that,” she said to me.

“Well, to be honest...I only just remembered right now. It’s been a while,” I replied.

“You’re too honest for your own good, as always. Moments like these, just say that there’s no way you’d forget, just to keep the other person happy,” she continued. It was hard to tell if she was being calculating or kind. But either way it didn’t make sense to me to lie to her. I couldn’t even remember her actual name; all I knew was that I used to call her nee-chan. I couldn’t very well ask her her real name now, could I? If I just went with nee-chan, though, it would prevent a lot of problems, so I decided to stick with that.

“Is everyone else here already?” I asked. “Do you know how many are coming?”

“It’s kind of a mixed bag this year. More of the kiddos are grown up, so not as many of them are coming around,” she explained.

Is that how things are going? Wouldn’t that make grandpa and grandma feel sad? Is that why grandpa told me that I didn’t have to visit? If so, then it’s probably best that at least I’m here. This way grandpa and grandma won’t have to feel lonely.

I walked into the house proper, still carrying my bags. As I went deeper into the house I found a few of my relatives already settled and chatting with each other. Nee-chan silently followed me, and I absently wondered if she had nothing else to do. Not that it mattered.

I’d never really spoken with my relatives before, so I felt awkward not knowing what I was supposed to do in a situation like this. It was probably safe enough to at least greet them.

“Hello. It’s nice to see you,” I managed.

When I said that to them, though, they all looked at me in shock. Huh? What’s going on? Nee-chan, though, was grinning, seemingly enjoying the show.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I thought maybe I’d interrupted their conversation, so I quickly bowed and proceeded to place my bags where they wouldn’t get in the way of people. My parents were close behind me, talking with grandpa.

What did I even do here in the past? I felt like last year I started playing my game as soon as I arrived, but I couldn’t really remember.

In any case, I sat down in an open spot and took out my phone, to let Nanami know that we’d all arrived safely, only to discover...

“Shoot, reception is terrible...”

It wasn’t that there was zero signal or that I was outside the service area entirely; the signal was just oddly weak, slowing down access to just about everything.

I remembered then that last year I had been playing games with a super weak signal too. In fact, reception had been so bad that it stressed me out, to the point that by the second half of our stay, I’d stopped playing games entirely.

Well, even if I couldn’t play games here, as long as I could contact people, then that was enough. After I got in touch with Nanami, maybe I could try contacting Baron-san and everyone else as well.

“What, Yo, is the reception bad?”

Whoa, that scared me. I didn’t even realize that grandpa was standing right behind me. The more shocking thing, actually, was that he was asking me about phone signals. I had the impression that he wasn’t really well-versed in stuff like this.

“Uh...yeah, I think the signal’s kind of weak. But it’s just for a few days, so I can...”

“Just use the Wi-Fi. It’s real speedy,” he said.

“You have Wi-Fi?!” I exclaimed.

What I had just heard might make it into the top three in a list of words least likely to come out of my grandpa’s mouth. How did he know about Wi-Fi? I sat there, head tilted in wonder at the fact that there was Wi-Fi in this house, while grandpa followed up with another surprise attack.

“I’ve been playing FPS games lately to prevent memory loss. Interacting with the young’uns is a fun plus too,” he revealed.

Grandpa’s playing FPS games?!

Seemingly paying no mind to how my mouth was now gaping open in shock, grandpa proceeded to tell me the Wi-Fi password and other information, clearly nudging me to add the network to my phone. I rushed to connect to it through my phone settings.

Wow... It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I actually had managed to connect. In fact, I had the sneaking suspicion that grandpa’s Wi-Fi actually was a faster connection than the one we had at home. The connection was super smooth, with none of the lag that I sometimes got when I was at home. Not even in my dreams would I have imagined that I would be experiencing superior network connectivity while staying at my grandparents’ house.

Maybe I should message Nanami now, to let her know that we arrived safely. She had been messaging me since just a while ago, but since she was also with relatives, I hadn’t been able to call her.

Suddenly, though, grandpa remarked, “So I hear you have a girlfriend.”

“Um...yeah, I do,” I replied.

I was sitting there with the grin on my face I always had after contacting Nanami, when I realized that grandpa—who I hadn’t even realized was sitting next to me—was looking at me with a warm smile on his face.

Nee-chan seemed to find this discovery shocking, as she shouted, “Huh?! Yoshin’s got a girlfriend?!” She continued with more exclamations and was really starting to cause a ruckus, but grandpa just ignored her.

“Is she a nice girl?” he asked.

“Yeah, she’s really, really nice. She’s a wonderful woman,” I replied.

“I see,” grandpa murmured, seeming to savor what I shared with him. I really didn’t think he would be so happy for me.

From what my mom told me, I had thought that he might pepper me more with questions, but looking at him now, grandpa didn’t seem to be interested in doing any of that. Maybe that was meant to be grandma’s job.

“If you had wanted to spend time with your girlfriend, you didn’t have to come all the way out here,” grandpa said.

“Huh?” I couldn’t help letting out.

“Instead of coming all the way out here to the countryside with nothing to do, it probably would have been a lot more fun to have spent the holidays with your girlfriend,” he continued, with a slightly lonesome expression on his face. Oh, I see. So that was what he meant earlier.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want me here; he was being considerate and thinking about my welfare.

“This big grandkid over here didn’t show her face for years, but now that she’s been dumped by her boyfriend, she’s finally come around again,” he said.

“You’re outing me and dragging me into this at the same time?!” Nee-chan—who still had been clamoring in the background—instantly protested against grandpa’s remark, but he didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

I see, so that’s why I hadn’t seen her for a few years. Wow, seriously...?

I gave her a sympathetic look, but she immediately shouted at me not to take pity on her...and then disappeared. I see. So she was dumped, huh?

“Wait, is that why other people aren’t here either?” I asked.

“That’s often the reason, at least. Most of the kids want to spend New Year’s with their boyfriends and girlfriends, so they choose not to come,” grandpa explained.

“I see,” I said quietly. “Doesn’t that make you feel lonely?”

I remembered the sad look on his face earlier and couldn’t stop myself from asking. Grandpa, though, just laughed heartily and, placing his hand on my head, said, “We’re happy as long as our grandkids are happy. Next time, don’t force yourself to come.”

It wasn’t often he treated me this way, so I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed.

Grandpa’s hand felt rough and large on my head. The multitude of scars over his hands told a rich history—but most importantly, they felt very warm.

“But seeing how considerate you’re being right now... I guess you’ve met a nice girl and grown up,” he said.

“You think I’ve changed that much?” I asked.

His words felt similar to when Nanami praised me, but I admit that I couldn’t always identify my own change and development. Grandpa just laughed, though, and said that I had changed indeed.

But, yeah... In that respect, I guess I probably had changed.

“I’m gonna go with Akira-kun to melt some of the snow that’s piled up, so you should just sit and relax,” grandpa finally said.

“No, I’m here, so I should help too,” I replied.

“Yeah? In that case, you can look forward to a nice, hefty envelope of New Year’s money.”

“I’m already in high school. You really think it’s okay for me to still get one?” I asked.

“That college girl’s still trying to get it, so you don’t need to worry about a thing.”

So nee-chan’s in college, huh? Plus she’s making sure that she still gets her hands on some New Year’s cash. Honestly, I kind of had to admire that.

I stood up slowly, while secretly resolving to show off just how much I’d changed...in a good way, of course.

♢♢♢

“Yo-shin... Show a pic of your girlfriend to your nee-chan...”

“Shut up, you drunk.”

“Yoshin is being so cold to me?!”

She literally reeks of alcohol. What is up with this total delinquent of a college student? How old is she, anyway? She’s drinking, so she must at least be an adult, right?

Although my reply to her sounded pretty bad, I also knew that nee-chan was probably saying what everyone else in the room was thinking; everyone seemed interested in our exchange.

Nee-chan was starting to mumble something along the lines of, “He used to be so adorable...well, okay, maybe not...but now Yoshin’s totally normal...”

Jeez, isn’t she the one who’s being totally rude here?

“Really, though, I was so surprised when Yoshin-kun actually greeted me earlier,” one of my aunts remarked.

“He was getting quieter and quieter each year, so it’s nice to get to talk with him like this,” someone else commented.

“I guess boys really do change when they get a girlfriend, eh?” another said.

They were totally going into gossip mode. It was probably better for me to keep my mouth shut.

Apparently the reason my relatives had been so shocked at my greeting earlier was because it was remarkably different behavior than they had expected from me based on how I was last year. What had I even been like last year?

But even if I couldn’t remember the specifics, I could pretty easily imagine just how terrible I was. A lot of my behavior then probably had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t anyone around who was my age. I must not have talked at all and just played games all day. Or I had probably just been helping out grandpa.

“So how long have you two been together?” I heard nee-chan ask.

Jeez, look at this drunk getting all up in my business again. But wait. Why is she the only one so trashed? None of the other adults seem all that affected by the alcohol. Maybe I should just take this as a lesson for the future.

“I guess about nine months?” I answered. “We started dating this past spring.”

“That’s nice, that’s nice... But you know, once you’ve been together for a while, the flame just kind of fizzles out...like it did for me,” nee-chan bemoaned.

“And what exactly am I supposed to say to that?” I muttered.

Nee-chan, meanwhile, had given a thumbs-up on each hand and pointed them to herself when she said “me.” Because she had her hands raised in the air, she looked almost like she was trying to strike some kind of victory pose.

Oh, and now the drunk nee-chan was getting picked up by the armpits by some aunties and whisked away somewhere. Apparently, the story was that she had recently gotten dumped by a guy she had been dating for about four years.

Man, now she’s straight-up bawling while our aunties are consoling her, but she’s still got a death grip on that bottle of sake. I think she’s gonna keep drinking. Still, I guess you really can break up with someone, even after dating for four whole years. That’s honestly pretty disturbing to know.

I sipped on my oolong tea and brought some food to my mouth, just to take my mind off of things. Tonight’s dinner was a smorgasbord of local seafood, a varied collection of winter delicacies. Among them were fish I didn’t often see, some braised and some fried. The fresh ones were served up as sashimi. They were clearly of the season; the flesh was plump and absolutely delectable.

There were also fish whose names I’d never heard before. What in the world was a “dance of the willow”? Why in the world would a fish have the word “of” in its name?

The adults were enjoying the feast with beer and sake, while I, as the only minor present, was having my meal with oolong tea. Grandpa, too, was sipping on his sake. My parents were drinking as well. Oh, boy... They were getting peppered with questions now too.

“Yo-chan, this is tasty too. Try some.”

“Oh, grandma...thanks,” I said, realizing that my grandma was now sitting next to me.

She handed me a warm bowl that contained soup, white steam rising out of it—fish soup, complete with flesh and bones. It honestly looked wonderful.

I brought the bowl to my lips, warm broth filling my mouth. The scent of miso and the sweetness of the fish immediately entered my nose. It didn’t smell fishy at all; in fact, it smelled almost refreshing.

“Wow, this is good,” I said to her.

The soup looked like it also contained carrots, daikon, and...maybe konjac? I was pretty sure this was a local specialty with a particular name, though something told me that using miso or salt for the seasoning changed the name of the soup too.

But as long as it was tasty I guessed none of that stuff really mattered. Maybe I could ask grandma to teach me how to make it, though, so that I could cook it for Nanami one of these days.

Grandma smiled at me happily as she watched me pretty much devour the soup.

I had been helping out grandpa and my dad during the day, so I hadn’t had a chance to talk much with her yet. It was also kind of rare for grandma to be so near me at all, actually, smiling like this. I felt like when we visited she usually talked with my mom and the others instead.

“So, what is your girlfriend like?” grandma finally asked.

Well of course that’s where we’d end up. I stopped my hand holding the soup mid-sip. Grandma didn’t ask me anything else; she seemed to be waiting for me to speak up. Is she not gonna let me off the hook until I answer? Though I guess there was no problem with me telling her a little bit about Nanami.

“She’s a really wonderful and...adorable person,” I shared. “Sometimes I feel like she’s too good for me, but I also can’t think of anyone better for me than her.”

“My, my, my. Is she that wonderful? And adorable?” grandma repeated.

Words like those weren’t nearly enough to describe Nanami, and yet these clichéd expressions were all I could come up with. I wanted to curse my poor excuse for a vocabulary. How could I have better described her? Should I have simply said that she was the best woman in the world for me?

Regardless, grandma seemed overjoyed, and also like she was enjoying herself. There was a satisfaction there too—like something she had long awaited had finally arrived.

I, too, couldn’t possibly feel bad about the fact that grandma seemed so happy over my meager response. Maybe she just really liked talking about dating and relationships. She didn’t seem terribly interested in nee-chan’s breakup story, though.

“Do you have any photos of her on your phone? Or, better yet, aren’t you going to video call her?” grandma asked, then added, “I wonder if she’s on social media.”

“I do have photos, but...wait, grandma, you can use a smartphone?” I blurted out, my heart skipping a beat at her mention of video calls. The reason, of course, was that I was planning to do it later tonight in secret. But that was beside the point; I had no idea my grandma even knew about things like that.

As I sat there wrestling with my surprise over my grandma knowing about social meda, she delivered yet another shocking remark.

“Well, of course—I need my smartphone to support my favorite idols.”

Excuse me? I froze at her sudden mention of supporting idols. Wait, grandma’s a fangirl? Wait, of whom? I was too afraid to hear more, though, so I decided to step away from the subject entirely.

“You know, Yoshin, I would really love to chat with your girlfriend,” grandma suggested, ending with a graceful, yet forceful laugh that I couldn’t seem to resist.

“Why do you wanna see her so much?” I asked after a moment of silence.

“I mean, given how much you’ve changed, she must be a lovely young lady. I know meeting her in person would be difficult, so I thought at least we could do a video chat,” she replied.

I knew I had been told this earlier, but...had I really changed that much?

“You were always very kind, but you were also so quiet. I really worried about you,” grandma explained. “Though now you could also stand to be a bit heartier when it comes to romantic relationships.”

“What does hearty even mean...?”

It wasn’t a word I often heard used to describe approaches to romance, but since my mom was apparently like that, grandma seemed to think that I might be that way as well.

I had zero desire to hear what kinds of relationships my mom used to be in, so I decided to bring the topic back to Nanami.

“Then...if she says yes,” I muttered.

“My, my—yes, that would be lovely. If she doesn’t want to, then I won’t force her,” grandma said, pressing her palms together giddily as she stood up and made her way back to where grandpa and the other adults were, possibly to report to them the conversation she had just had with me.

If Nanami says yes, huh...?

I had a vague feeling that Nanami wouldn’t say no, and that we would end up having that video call. All I could do for now was to focus on bringing another fresh piece of sashimi up to my mouth.

♢♢♢

“Definitely! I wanna talk to your grandparents too!” Nanami exclaimed.

“Right. I knew you would say that,” I sighed.

Just as the family dinner was reaching its final peak, so to speak, I slipped away to the room where my parents and I were going to be sleeping. There, I called Nanami.

As expected, she had eagerly said yes to my request.

Even though I was grateful that she wanted to speak to my grandparents, I also couldn’t help feeling embarrassed about it. Not that I was embarrassed about Nanami; never, please don’t misunderstand me.

“Actually, my relatives were also saying they wanted to talk to you,” Nanami continued.

“Seriously?! Is the same thing happening over there too?!” I shouted.

Even though I should have expected it, I couldn’t help holding my head in my hands at the revelation. I mean, now I have to meet Nanami’s relatives all of a sudden? Isn’t that kind of a tall order?

I managed to calm down and try again. “What I meant to ask was, what did your grandparents say, exactly?”

“Basically they were saying that since I used to be so uncomfortable around guys, if you managed to change me, then you must be a pretty amazing guy yourself. So they want to meet you and say thank you,” she explained.

“An amazing guy? But it’s not like I’ve done anything I should be thanked for.”

“I told them that you were the most wonderful man on earth.”

“Why would you do that?!” I shouted again.

I told her that she was building me up too much, but Nanami just declared proudly that it was nothing but the truth.

I couldn’t bring myself to say the same—that Nanami was the best woman in the world—but that was because I couldn’t make such a declaration without getting super embarrassed.

Anyway, since I’d gotten Nanami’s permission, maybe it was time for me to go get my grandparents.

“Then, I’ll have you meet my grandpa and grandma...and that’s it,” I said.

“Aw, why? I really wanted to introduce myself to your entire extended family as your fiancée,” Nanami teased.

“Wow, you really had quite the bombshell up your sleeve. Please don’t; it’s only gonna add more fuel to the family gossip.”

And with that, I stood up to go get my grandparents—only to have the door to the room violently open on me.

“Yo-shin, what are you doing? How could you leave your onee-chan behind? Callin’ your girl, aren’t you? I’m looking for a younger man, so hurry up and introduce me to your high school buddies already!”

It was nee-chan. She had burst through the door and immediately let loose everything she was thinking—everything. Apparently, she had been looking for me, bottle of sake still firmly clutched in her hand.

“Huh?! You have an older sister?!” Nanami exclaimed.

“No, she’s my older cousin,” I stated.

Cousin...cousin, right? I’d only referred to her as a relative before, so I couldn’t be sure of the proper label, but calling her “cousin” was probably okay for now.

“Oh shoot, you really are talking to your girlfriend. Wait, are you on a video call? I wanna say hi too,” nee-chan said.

“Stop, I told her I’d introduce her to grandpa and grandma, but I didn’t mention...”

“O-Oh, hello! I’m Nanami Barato, and I have the pleasure of dating Yoshin-kun. It’s so wonderful to meet you,” Nanami said on the other end of the line.

“Nanami-chan, huh? She sounds cute. I wonder what she’s like,” nee-chan said, hearing Nanami’s voice and adopting an expression that indicated that there was no way she wouldn’t be butting in on the conversation.

Her smile was one that an auntie might direct toward a niece or nephew. Though I wouldn’t say that out loud, because if I did, nee-chan would probably kill me.

Giving up on resisting, I switched the phone to a video call and turned it toward nee-chan. As soon as she saw Nanami, though, nee-chan’s smile was wiped off of her face, replaced instead by an expression of shock. She then looked back and forth between me and Nanami, her mouth opening and closing like a carp in a pond.

That’s odd. I tilted my head in slight confusion. Nee-chan turned to me and spoke—in a voice so low that it seemed more like a rumble traveling from the depths of hell than my sloshed cousin talking to me.

“She’s a freakin babe, man. Wait, what did you, I mean, how...wait, for real? Your girlfriend? Excuse me? Does she actually exist? Is Nanami-chan an actual human...?!”

Please don’t question the existence of my girlfriend.

Like a boxer who’d just taken a critical hit to the face, nee-chan let her head sway from side to side as the rest of her slowly slid down to the floor. She then turned toward Nanami and sat down on her heels, straightening her posture. She even put her bottle of sake off to one side.

“I’m Toka Tobetsu, Yoshin’s cousin. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” nee-chan said, bowing deeply while kneeling on the floor. Nanami bowed back immediately, seeming mildly flustered.

Wait, what in the world is going on here?

“Nee-chan, are you drunk?” I whispered.

“I am completely sober, my dude. It’s just that if I don’t sit right in front of a beauty like this, I’ll probably face divine punishment,” she replied.

What kind of logic was that? Still, it was true that nee-chan’s attitude and posture were so proper that I could almost convince myself that I had merely imagined her previous drunkenness. I wasn’t sure if all adults could switch modes so quickly, or if this was just a skill particular to nee-chan.

“The pleasure’s all mine. I’m Nanami Barato,” Nanami repeated. “It really is nice to meet you, Toka-san.”

“A pretty girl just called me by my name,” nee-chan murmured emotionally. Yeah, she’s still drunk, isn’t she? After that, the two of them continued introducing themselves to each other and chatting... No, hang on now...

“Wait, even though you were together for four whole years?” I heard Nanami ask.

“Exactly... He dumped me... He said it was because I still wouldn’t let him sleep with me. But, I mean...”

How are they having a life counseling session already? Or is it relationship counseling? It sounds like they’re talking about stuff I shouldn’t be listening to, though. Maybe I should step outside... Oh, right—grandpa and grandma. Maybe I should take this opportunity to go get them.

I felt reluctant to leave Nanami to take care of a drunk, but I slipped out of the room and went to find my grandparents anyway.

The banquet was nearly over, and folks were starting to clean up. If that were the case, I thought maybe it was better to wait until later, but...

“What? You’re on the line with your girlfriend right now?!”

“Go, go, go! Leave the cleaning to us!”

“Good luck, dad! Make a good impression, all right?!”

My entire extended family was altogether a little too supportive. Maybe because my grandparents wanted to talk with Nanami too, but they decided to take the rest of our family up on their kindness and leave the cleaning to everyone else. They even seemed a bit giddy.

I was about to arrive back at the room with my grandparents in tow when nee-chan stepped out of it. Her face seemed bright, refreshed, and full of hope. Her eyes, which had looked dead earlier, had seemingly returned to life.

“Thank you, Yoshin... Have a good life with Nanami-chan...”

That was what nee-chan said to me with a brilliant smile on her face before saluting me and walking away. What in the world was going on?

“Huh? What happened to her?”

Grandpa and grandma said that in confusion, but nee-chan had probably just been cheered up by relationship advice she heard from Nanami, though the whole situation—a (drunk) college student getting advice from a high schooler—seemed a little dubious to me.

My phone was still connected when we entered the room, with Nanami smiling when she saw me...and looking slightly nervous when she spotted my grandparents.

“Nanami, I know this is sudden, but these are my grandparents. Grandpa, grandma—this is Nanami Barato-san, my girlfriend,” I said.

“I-It’s wonderful to meet you both. My name is Nanami Barato, and I have the pleasure of being in a relationship with Yoshin-kun,” Nanami replied.

Hearing her introduction, my grandparents smiled happily. My grandpa, in fact, was smiling in a way I’d never seen before. His usual smile consisted of him moving only his mouth, but right now, he seemed to be smiling with his whole face.

I was happy to think that meeting Nanami made him feel that way.

“Nanami Barato-san... Thank you for your thoughtful greeting. I’m Yoshin’s grandfather, Shinori.”

“And I’m his grandmother, Nobuka. Oh my, what a lovely young lady. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Having sat down in front of the phone, my grandparents giddily introduced themselves to Nanami...which then prompted me to secretly note their names for future reference. I mean, I only ever referred to them as grandpa and grandma, so I really hadn’t thought much about what their actual names were. Do people normally know their grandparents’ names?

“Goodness, for Yo to be dating someone so lovely. I guess in the year we didn’t see him, he did quite the growing up,” grandpa remarked.

“It’s so true. I was so surprised to hear that Yo-chan, of all people, had a girlfriend, but I’m even more shocked meeting her,” grandma added.

“Yo-chan,” I heard Nanami mutter to herself.

Shoot, I’d forgotten to ask my grandparents not to refer to me as that beforehand. There weren’t that many people who called me “Yo,” so I’d completely forgotten about it.

Just as I thought, Nanami was glancing at me and grinning. I had a feeling she was most definitely going to call me Yo-chan the next time I saw her.

My grandparents made small talk with Nanami for a bit after that, but maybe because they had only just met each other, every now and then there were lulls in the conversation. Grandpa wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, though he did seem to be carrying on just fine with Nanami.

After a while the conversation came to a pause...and I heard my grandparents speak in a much different tone of voice than their usual.

“I’m so happy for you, Yo...that you’ve found someone who sees all the good things in you,” grandpa murmured.

“Really...to have snagged such a wonderful young woman,” grandma also said with a quivering smile.

“Hey, guys...don’t cry, now,” I said in a panic.

My grandparents excused their sudden tears as their old age making them more susceptible to crying. Though a part of me wondered if this kind of occasion really warranted tears, I also wanted to somehow tell my past self that he really needed to put more of an effort into making friends.

Both of my grandparents had probably just been really worried about me.

Grandpa clasped his knees firmly and bowed deeply to Nanami, saying, “Nanami-san, please look after Yo.”

“I’d like to ask the same,” grandma followed suit.

My grandparents both had their foreheads almost to the floor. I thought such a sight would fluster Nanami, but...she remained unexpectedly calm.

And, with a gentle smile on her face, she, too, bowed deeply toward my grandparents and said, “Thank you—for allowing me to be a part of your family.”

Her words sounded like they were being said to my grandparents—but also to me. When Nanami looked up, she winked at me.

Nanami had totally won over my grandparents, but I felt like she had also totally locked me in too. I had already given up on trying to stop all this from happening, but now, with this meeting, I felt like our relationship had really gone to another level.

Grandpa, on the other hand, was so moved with pride and gratitude that he kept slapping my back really hard. It actually really hurt.

“Yo, don’t you dare let her get away. You won’t find such a wonderful girl like this so easily,” he said to me.

“If there’s any way we can support you two, don’t hesitate to ask. We’d be happy to help,” grandma said, then asked Nanami, “Oh, are you on social media? I’m on...”

Seeing my grandparents praise Nanami so highly and, after just one meeting, value her so much, made me feel both joy and surprise. Grandma was even trying to exchange contact info with Nanami already. For my grandma, she sure was proactive.

At least the introductions had gone well. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about what grandma said, about them helping us.

“Actually,” I started, “I know you’ve only just mentioned it, but I wonder if we can ask for your help with one thing.”

Although my grandparents and even Nanami all tilted their heads at first, they listened quietly to the idea that I had just come up with.

Interlude: Let’s Get Them on Our Side

I didn’t expect to go to my grandparents’ house and then meet Yoshin’s grandpa and grandma while I was there. Not just that, but to have Yoshin make such a request, to boot.

Prompted by Yoshin’s unexpected suggestion, I found myself on another video chat with him the very next day.

“Yoshin, these...are my grandparents. Grandpa, grandma, this is my boyfriend, Yoshin Misumai-kun,” I said.

“I-It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Yoshin Misumai, and I’m honored to be dating Nanami-san,” Yoshin replied.

He seemed slightly nervous as he introduced himself to my grandparents. I felt almost like I was somehow watching myself from the day before.

My grandparents, on the other hand, were all smiles as they listened to Yoshin’s greeting.

“I see, I see... So you’re Nanami-chan’s boyfriend, eh? I thought Nanami-chan was still a little girl, but I guess she’s already getting married,” my grandpa murmured.

“No, dear, I think it’s a little too early for that still. Wait...it is, isn’t it?” my grandma said in a questionable attempt to console him. “Besides, we should introduce ourselves too. Otherwise Misumai-kun won’t know what to do.”

Grandpa, why are you already about to start crying? Seriously, it’s too early; I wouldn’t mind marriage happening in the future at all, but now’s not the time yet. But wait, why are they jumping the gun like that in the first place? I only said that we were going out. Or did Saya or mom say something weird to them?

“I’m Nanami-chan’s grandpa, Kotaro.”

“And I’m Nanami-chan’s grandma, Chizuru. Feel free to call me Chizu-chan.”

Grandma?! Oh, jeez, now Yoshin doesn’t know what to say. Obviously it’s a little jarring to have your girlfriend’s grandma say something like that all of a sudden.

“So. We heard you have a favor you want to ask us.”

Oh, grandpa’s getting the ball rolling. Yoshin looks relieved, though.

As if to prepare himself for the discussion about to take place, Yoshin sat up straight.

“Actually, I would like to go on a trip with Nanami-san during this winter break,” he began.

“I see, a trip,” grandpa repeated.

And with that, Yoshin began to explain the situation.

We had recently been lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to go on a trip to the hot springs. We were thinking of going during this winter break, and currently, Yoshin was looking up lodging and other arrangements.

The question we now faced was how to convince our parents to let us go. Would they actually let us spend the night outside the house, just the two of us?

At first, Yoshin and I thought that our parents would be incapable of making any kind of sound judgment while they were drunk during all the New Year’s festivities, so we were planning to ask them for their permission then, at such an opportune time.

That had a major pitfall, though; if they told us once they sobered up that we actually couldn’t go, then that would be that.

Another idea we had was to call on our friends for help. Hatsumi and the others had offered to be our alibis in our time of need, and we had seriously considered taking them up on that offer.

But it was actually a pretty risky option. Even though it was just a two-day, one-night trip, we were spending the night out, and at a traditional Japanese ryokan at the hot springs, at that. If we were to be found out, there was a possibility that we would cause problems for the ryokan staff too.

It was one thing for there to be risk involved for us; it was an entirely different—and unacceptable—thing to cause trouble for others. So that idea was a no-go as well.

We were about to give up and just ask them straight out. After all, nothing had happened when we had spent the night together on Christmas, so surely they would give us permission this time too...

Just as we were thinking that, though, Yoshin came up with one final idea.

“Let’s get our grandparents on our side.”

Yoshin and I had talked about convincing our parents after we were done with our respective family visits, but he then came up with the idea of talking to our parents while we were on our respective visits. He had come up with this idea yesterday, in fact—the idea had come to him when his grandma offered to help if we needed anything.

Apparently what his grandmother had in mind when she offered to support us was something entirely different, but she willingly agreed to help us with this anyway.

“I was thinking more like money for the wedding and taking care of your children.”

We had no good response to her remark. Plus it made me think twice about laughing at the comments that my grandparents had just made too.

Regardless, it was heartening to know that we now had allies who were willing to help us in that respect in the future as well. After all, it felt like something that was both far off in the future—and yet maybe not so far off.

I’d also heard that nowadays weddings didn’t have to be all that expensive, and that there were some couples who intentionally kept their wedding small and spent more money on the honeymoon...

“And that’s where we’re at currently,” I heard Yoshin say, bringing me back from my reverie. “So, we were hoping that you might be willing to help us convince them.”

“I see,” my grandpa said with a considering hum.

“Oh, my. How nice,” my grandma sighed beside him.

It seemed Yoshin had finished explaining the situation while I was lost in thought. Grandpa had his arms crossed, his face stern, while grandma was holding her palm up to her cheek.

This might be harder than we thought?

Yoshin must have detected the possible challenge from across the screen, because he fell silent on the other end. Trying to explain any more would feel like we were being too pushy, so it was probably best that we simply waited for my grandparents’ decision.

The silence, though, felt overwhelming. Why isn’t grandpa saying anything? He was all smiles until a minute ago too! Now he’s got his arms crossed and looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Is he angry that we’re trying to spend the night out? But wait, grandma’s grinning at grandpa. Usually when I get yelled at, it’s by the both of them, so this is kind of rare.

“Misumai-kun, can I ask you a question?” grandpa suddenly started.

“Y-Yes! As many as you’d like,” Yoshin responded.

Grandpa closed one eye and raised an index finger as he looked at Yoshin with a serious gaze. He seemed to be gauging Yoshin—not just as my boyfriend, maybe not even just as a fellow man, but as an individual human being.

I didn’t know what grandpa was going to ask. I felt like an eternity had already passed while I waited for him to speak, and I couldn’t help swallowing hard. I was even starting to sweat; I could feel a droplet traveling down my cheek.

After a long while, my grandpa opened his mouth and asked, “On this trip, will you be...conceiving our great-grandchild?”

Just as grandpa finished speaking, my grandma’s fist rammed into grandpa’s skull. A dull thunk echoed through the room as both Yoshin and I fell silent.

Grandma’s hand had moved so fast that Yoshin was even rubbing his eyes, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened.

After a moment’s delay...

“What are you saying, grandpa?!” I shouted, projecting the full extent of my disbelief at my grandpa as he held his head in pain. Jeez, look at Yoshin! He looks like his entire life’s just flashed before his eyes!

“That really hurts, dear. Why would you do that?” grandpa asked.

“It’s because you made such a vulgar remark—though it’s been a while since your last one,” grandma replied.

“What are you talking about? It’s an important question—it’s directly related to whether we’ll be meeting our great-grandkids next year,” grandpa protested.

“They’re still students,” grandma stated.

“After fifteen you’re pretty much already an adult. And we’d support them with everything we’ve got, so there’s nothing to worry about,” grandpa said.

My grandparents then started bickering, completely ignoring me and Yoshin, the very people they were fighting about. Yoshin, though flustered, raised his voice in order to stop them, even though he couldn’t ultimately bring himself to finish his sentence.

“U-Um! We haven’t, um...done anything like...”

“You haven’t?” my grandpa asked after a slight pause. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“What? Nothing?” my grandma gasped.

Both grandpa and grandma let out cries of surprise and turned to look at me. I felt slightly embarrassed but brought myself to nod in silence.

That’s right—we haven’t done anything. We’ve only ever kissed. My grandparents continued to look back and forth between me and Yoshin, their eyes widening in surprise.

“You...got balls down there, right?” my grandpa mumbled.

Oh, grandpa just got punched again. Plus that one made a really nice sound. Full and deep. A part of me was surprised that I was getting to watch my grandparents interact like this. I guess there were always hints of it before, but never anything so blatant as now.

“Maybe it’s just the times, eh? When we were high schoolers, all the guys and gals were competing to see who could do it first,” my grandpa muttered.

“You just had way too many troublemakers around you,” my grandma declared.

“I guess someone like you, who went to a school for proper ladies, just thinks a little differently,” grandpa sighed, then added, “even though you ended up going along with a guy like me.”

“You’re right, getting ensnared by you was one of the greatest errors of my life,” grandma replied.

Despite their heated quarrel, I couldn’t sense any actual malice coming from either one of them. It seemed more like they were making jokes and laughing together than really fighting. Actually, I’d never even heard my grandparents share stories like this before, and now I began to want to hear about how the two of them met.

Because they continued arguing and ignoring us, though, I decided to help Yoshin, who continued to look pretty helpless from the other side of the screen.

“Well they really told us, huh?” I said to him.

“Maybe it’s just a generational thing,” he mumbled.

“If you’d just gone and made a move on me earlier, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Wait, how is it possible that I’m being chastised for not making a move?”

It certainly is possible, I thought, though I also didn’t have any regrets about the decision we made that day. But that was separate from the issue at hand.

I’d never pass on an opportunity to tease him. Speaking of which, I’d forgotten to call him “Yo-chan.” I guess I could save that for our next date.

Yoshin himself was trembling at the discovery of just how proactive past generations were, but I couldn’t be so sure if that was the case; it was possible that my grandparents were just unique.

For now, I watched the back-and-forth between my grandparents while also teasing Yoshin a little, which I hadn’t been able to do for a while. After some time, though, my grandpa turned toward Yoshin once again.

“Hm, well. To sum up, we’re not averse to cooperating,” grandpa said.

“Really? Thank you so much,” Yoshin replied.

“Except, if we are going to help, then there’s something else I want to ask you.”

Oh, grandma’s got her fist ready. Yoshin looked terrified of what was about to come out of grandpa’s mouth, but he still asked grandpa to continue.

“We talked earlier about Nanami getting married and everything, but—and I know this doesn’t sound too pleasant—this is just a high school romance. We have no way of knowing what’ll happen in the future. People your age are more likely to break up and find someone else at the drop of a hat than stay together for all that long,” grandpa said.

He spoke a lot more casually than earlier, but also somewhat brusquely. It was the first time I’d heard him talk that way.

Grandma, though, didn’t seem like she was going to say or do anything; in fact, she had relaxed the fist that she had had at the ready.

“And in that high school relationship of yours, when you say that you want to go off on an overnight trip...what exactly do you want out of your relationship with Nanami-chan?” grandpa asked.

“I want to be with her forever. I want to be with her through everything about our respective futures,” Yoshin replied without missing a beat.

Grandpa seemed not to have been ready for such a response, because he opened his eyes wide in surprise. He must have expected Yoshin to hesitate a bit, because he genuinely seemed at a loss for words.

After that initial moment of shock, though, grandpa’s lips curled up into a grin.

“You see, I’m a bit old-fashioned. I like guys who talk less and do more,” he said.

“I’m prepared to do anything for Nanami,” Yoshin replied.

“You idiot, don’t say something like that so lightly,” grandpa said, then added, “though I do like a man with guts.”

Grandpa seemed to be enjoying himself. Maybe he liked these kinds of exchanges. What kind of conversations had he had with my own dad?

This seemed almost like a stress interview, but Yoshin never lost the seriousness in his expression. Seeing him, grandpa laughed even more.

“Well, you never know with feelings. But if you do break up with her, do it clean. The right kind of breakup can help you grow emotionally,” grandpa remarked.

“That could be a problem,” Yoshin murmured.

Huh? It could? I couldn’t help furrowing my brows at Yoshin’s comment. As I sat there wondering what the problem was exactly...

“I don’t intend to break up with Nanami, so I guess I’ve already hit my emotional peak,” Yoshin stated.

And that was when Yoshin finally let his serious expression fade away and laughed. It seemed slightly performative, but even that was kind of cool.

Grandpa, grandma, and I fell silent upon hearing Yoshin’s remark.

Maybe Yoshin was overcome by embarrassment too, because he shrank down and said, “Just kidding.” Even that was adorable, though. Had he been in the room with us, I most definitely would have leaped in for a hug and pushed him down onto the floor.

And after another lengthy silence...

Both my grandparents burst out laughing, so loud that it nearly echoed throughout the house. It was amused, pleased laughter, filled with so much joy that anyone watching us could see it instantly.

Yoshin, of course, seemed mortified at being laughed at, but...

“Why, you really are an interesting one,” grandpa began, “but like I said earlier, I don’t trust people just based on what they say. I’ll need you to prove yourself to me with your actions.”

“Y-Yes, I completely understand,” Yoshin replied.

“I’ll look forward to hearing what you did for Nanami-chan during the trip...as a souvenir for us,” grandpa added.

Yoshin bowed happily in thanks to my grandpa’s request. Grandma seemed really happy too. Except...

Huh? Does this mean that we have to tell grandpa and grandma what we do on our trip?

♢♢♢

This was how we managed to get our grandparents on our side, but obviously, we still had quite an uphill battle in front of us in trying to convince our own parents.

But even then, our parents finally gave us the okay, and despite all our twists and turns, we were able to get permission to go on our hot springs trip.

Chapter 2: The First Time in a Kimono

After having spent several days at my grandparents’ house, the new year was just about to begin.

Even though I regularly stayed awake past midnight, just the fact that I was doing so on the very last day of the year gave me a strange feeling. When the moment struck, it would be a new year—and even though a new year didn’t actually change anything, at least the way we felt might change.

Apparently, when I was a kid, I would claim that I would stay up until midnight, only to fall asleep somewhere along the way. Nowadays, though, it was normal for me to stay awake until quite late.

I could hear the countdown starting.

Five...four...three...two...one...

The moment we hit zero, I heard adults loudly wishing each other happy New Year, accompanied by cheers and the sounds of glasses clinking.

They had invited me to join them, but—just for this moment—I declined, because...

“Happy New Year. I look forward to spending it with you,” I said, bowing slightly to Nanami on the other side of the phone screen.

“Happy New Year. I look forward to it as well,” Nanami replied. She bowed to me too, and then we both giggled at each other.

That’s right, for this moment...I wanted to celebrate the new year with just me and Nanami.

When I touched my glass of oolong tea to my phone screen, Nanami brought her cup to her phone as well. There was no sound, but we were able to still toast each other across the screen.

“But seriously...the new year already, huh?” Nanami murmured.

“Yeah, it really went by so fast,” I joined.

I’d heard that years passed by quickly when you got older, but even as high school students, it really did feel like the previous year happened very fast. It went by in a flash, or maybe it was more like a rage of turbulent waves...

“I feel like this year... I mean, I guess it’s already last year,” I corrected myself. “I felt like last year was a year of many changes.”

“Yeah, I feel like I changed a lot too,” Nanami sighed.

After all, Nanami and I had started dating; of course it had been a year full of changes. If this were a game, we had basically maxed out our limits to the point where we essentially rewrote our fundamental character traits.

I wasn’t sure if that was the appropriate way to describe it, but either way, it was a year in which we both went through many shifts and transformations.

“So what was your biggest change?” Nanami asked, her eyes twinkling as if she had great expectations for my response. Her look from across the screen seemed particularly calculated.

I had a feeling I knew what she wanted me to say, but I couldn’t be sure. I thought I had a pretty good guess, but if I was wrong, I’d just have to apologize profusely.

“Well, of course there’s this girl that I like,” I replied.

“Oh? Is that so?” Nanami remarked slowly.

Hm? I thought that would make her happy, but that’s not quite the reaction I had in mind. Still, Nanami didn’t seem upset; if anything, she was smiling and still seemed to be in a good mood.

“Is the girl cute?” she asked.

“Huh? Um, yes...she’s very cute.”

Of course, I wasn’t just talking about this girl in front of her; I was talking to the girl herself. I didn’t know what Nanami’s intentions were, but she continued peppering me with questions.

“And what do you like about this girl?” Nanami asked.

“Her eyes, I think?” I answered. “She has beautiful eyes, and she always looks straight at me with them.”

“Are her eyes the only thing you like about her?”

“Of course not. Let’s see, I know this might be kind of cliché, but she’s a really thoughtful person. She always thinks about me, and when I’m with her, I feel really warm.”

“Does she have big boobs?”

“Wow, the conversation suddenly took a crass turn,” I let out. “But, yeah, they are...they’re quite large...”

“Do you like big boobs?”

“Why are you asking such a question?! I mean, yes...I do.”

Jeez, don’t be the one to say it and get embarrassed by it. I feel like someone’s just knocked the wind out of me. And Nanami’s face is completely red.

“Um, uh...do you ever want to do sexy things with her?” Nanami continued.

“If I have to be honest, yes.”

What’s going on right now? Is this some weird game? Those kinds of things exist, right? Where you ask a genie in a magic lamp a bunch of questions? But seriously, what is happening? Oh, but look, she’s totally at her limit. We should stop.

Nanami cleared her throat in an attempt to collect herself, even though her ears were nonetheless completely red. “And are you talking to this person right now too?” Nanami asked.

All righty, then. I guess I can play along for a bit longer.

“Uh, yes. She’s basically interrogating me right now,” I replied.

“Is that annoying you?”

“That’s the kind of question where you get upset as soon as I say ‘yes.’ Though I guess I find even that to be cute about you.”

Oh, now she’s pouting a little, even though I’m pretty sure she was thinking it herself. Maybe it’s time I say something that’s on my mind too.

“I think the biggest event of last year is that I got a girlfriend who is adorable and wonderful—someone who likes to tease me sometimes, who’s super curious about pretty much anything sexual, but when it comes down to it gets all embarrassed about it,” I said.

Nanami was smiling from ear to ear, and inevitably I couldn’t help smiling myself.

“Tee hee, the biggest thing that happened to me last year is that I got a wonderful boyfriend like you too,” Nanami replied.

It was actually pretty embarrassing to hear her say that so frankly. I was able to say things in the question and answer session earlier, so what was the deal with hearing Nanami’s response now?

She must have sensed my awkwardness, though; she immediately began to enjoy the situation even more.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if this New Year’s Eve we could spend it with just the two of us?” Nanami suggested.

“They say that the devil laughs whenever you talk about next year... No, wait. Did I get that wrong?” I said, suddenly unsure.

“Oh, who cares? We can all laugh and have fun,” Nanami said. “Besides, I’m talking about this year already.”

She was right; technically it was already the new year, so whatever devil was listening should probably leave us be and not laugh at us.

Didn’t grandpa tell me that next time, I didn’t need to force myself to come visit for New Year’s and could be with my girlfriend instead? That got me thinking about Nanami’s family. Was there a chance of them actually being against the idea of her spending time with me around New Year’s?

“Oh, I think my grandpa was saying something like that too,” she shared instead.

“Really? They wouldn’t be sad if you didn’t go?” I asked.

“If anything, they told me I should spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with you, and tell them all about it later.”

Come to think of it, I guess they told me something similar when I first talked to them: They looked forward to hearing stories about things Nanami and I did. Did they like hearing stuff like that? If that were the case, though, was it really okay for me and Nanami to spend this year’s New Year’s Eve together, just the two of us?

“Hey, Yo-shin! Stop trying to make out with your girlfriend and come say hi!”

Suddenly, though, I heard nee-chan calling to me from outside the room.

Nanami was looking behind her too, her family having called out to her to come ring in the new year with them. How funny that both of us were being called away at the same time.

“I can’t believe you have such a beautiful sister figure in your life,” Nanami murmured.

“I didn’t even remember she existed until today,” I confessed. “It was like, ‘Oh, right, there she is.’”

“I guess I don’t have anything to worry about, then—but your reaction is kind of troubling,” Nanami mumbled.

I couldn’t help it. Nee-chan had barely come around here lately. Our meeting today was the first in a very long time. But since she was here because her longtime boyfriend had dumped her, it didn’t seem right to say anything about it.

“Oh, but I heard her thanking you after you two talked. What’d you say to her?” I asked.

“It was a small thing, really, but I guess it meant a lot to her. I just told her that if we don’t say what’s on our minds, we can create pretty big misunderstandings,” Nanami explained.

“I see,” I muttered.

I really disliked the idea of having misunderstandings, so I always made an effort to talk about things honestly and openly. But maybe that was a more difficult thing to do than I realized.

Well, then. I guess it was time for me to rejoin my relatives. I was sad to leave, but I probably had to end my phone conversation with Nanami pretty soon.

Besides, I’d be able to get some New Year’s money... No, wait, I guess that was for tomorrow.

“You head back soon?” Nanami asked.

“Yeah, the day after tomorrow...or, I guess technically it’s already tomorrow. My parents have work,” I answered.

“I see. I’m leaving a day later, so...let’s have a New Year’s date when we’re both back, okay? I already miss you a bunch, but we just have to wait a little bit longer,” she said.

“Yeah, I wanna see you too,” I said, then added, “Have a safe trip back, okay?”

And just as I was about to hang up the phone...

“Don’t forget your New Year’s treats,” Nanami said.

“Huh?”

Just for a moment, Nanami tugged on the neckline of her shirt and put her chest area on display. I couldn’t see her underwear; instead, I saw her brilliant skin.

It really was over in the blink of an eye, as Nanami reached out to tap her screen and our phone conversation came to an abrupt end. Next thing I knew, I was staring at my idiotic face reflected in the blank screen of my phone.

I thought I was seeing things. Well, I mean, it wasn’t like I saw everything, but...

“You really shouldn’t be doing things like that...”

I admonished Nanami quietly, even though she wouldn’t be able to hear me. Besides, what was that about “New Year’s treats”? It sounded almost like a dad joke.

As I left the room, trying to cool down my suddenly blazing hot face, I found myself thinking about the other naughty things Nanami might do in the near future.

♢♢♢

My family...or, rather, my relatives had an interesting custom: We gave out New Year’s money not on the first day of the new year, but on the second.

Apparently it was tied to the superstition that spending money on January 1st led to all sorts of other expenses for the rest of the year. I wondered where such a superstition even came from.

It wasn’t like I really believed in it, but I had been told of it my whole life, so I no longer spent money on New Year’s Day either. Not even on phone games.

Any expenses, therefore, had to be on the second or after. Which was why I was going to get my New Year’s money just before we left my grandparents’ house.

“Here you go, Yo-chan—your New Year’s money. We put a little extra in there, so you can use it for your trip,” grandma said.

“Thanks, grandma and grandpa,” I returned, taking the colorful money envelope and placing it carefully in my bag. I was hesitant to open it in front of them, so I decided to wait until later.

After that, I received New Year’s money from all my other relatives as well, but...every single one of them handed me the envelope saying, “Use it for your trip with your girlfriend, okay?” Yeah, somehow my entire family seemed to know about our upcoming trip. But given the fact that just yesterday I had talked about it with my parents, I should have expected this to happen.

Ultimately, my parents decided that they would look at my and Nanami’s trip with a permissive outlook. With the way the conversation with them went, I felt like getting both sets of grandparents on our side ended up being a really wise move.

“Seriously. I can’t believe you got my parents in on it,” my mom was saying, not quite a hundred percent on board with the idea of the trip. My dad was by her side, trying to placate her.

“What are you talking about, Shinobu?” my grandpa said to my mom. “A trip with just the two of them is like child’s play. When you were a student, you and Akira-kun did much—”

“Stop right there!” my mom interrupted him loudly.

It was truly heartening to have someone around who knew about my mother’s past, but I didn’t expect them to be so well-versed that they could pretty much stop my mom in her tracks. To say that my and Nanami’s trip was like child’s play, though... What in the world did my mom do back in the day?

I couldn’t help but be curious, but I also really didn’t want to hear stuff like that about my own parents.

“In any case,” my mom said, “we’ll talk more when we get home.”

“I know. That’s what we agreed on, after all,” I replied.

That was the primary reason we couldn’t get my parents to agree to our trip after yesterday’s discussion. Even though we had the support of my grandparents and all my other relatives, my parents said they would make their final decision once they’d had the chance to talk with all the parties concerned. I admit I wanted my parents to have just given their okay yesterday, but I understood that they couldn’t come to a decision before talking to Nanami and her family.

Given how we spent Christmas, my parents were probably going to agree on the condition that nothing would happen between me and Nanami while on the trip. If anything, it was startling how, at Christmas—well, this was probably because they had been drunk—they were pretty much egging us on to do it, and yet when they were completely sober and logical, they were so difficult to win over.

Maybe I should have approached them yesterday while they were drinking, just like I’d originally planned. Maybe the combination of alcohol and grandpa would’ve been enough to close the deal.

Well, it was too late either way. I should just be happy that we had made some progress.

Also, there was another surprising incident surrounding the New Year’s money.

“Here, Yoshin—this is for you,” nee-chan said.

“Huh?” I uttered after a moment of stunned silence.

It was an envelope of New Year’s money from nee-chan, which was completely unexpected. Wasn’t this my first time ever getting New Year’s money from her? Though I guess that was normal, given that she was still a student.

Wait, she is still a student. And wasn’t she asking for New Year’s money of her own from grandpa?

“It’s not much, but you can put it toward your trip with Nanami-chan. Make sure you have fun, okay?” she added.

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Nothing,” she answered. “I figured if I gave you New Year’s money now, you’d give some to my future kids down the line. Obviously I’ll give you and Nanami-chan’s kids New Year’s money too.”

What is this person even saying?

How did she even arrive at this idea of my and Nanami’s future children? This was beyond just getting ahead of things. How exactly was I supposed to respond?

“Um, yeah... Then I’ll gladly take it,” I said, hesitantly reaching out and taking the envelope from her.

“Tell Nanami-chan I said hi. And tell her I said thanks too,” she replied, a bright smile on her face. It seemed like ever since they had their chat, whenever another relative asked nee-chan about Nanami, she would sing her praises to almost no end.

Seriously, what in the world did Nanami say to her? It was almost like Nanami had completely captured nee-chan’s heart. And not just nee-chan; all my relatives spoke positively of Nanami too.

“Yo... Don’t force yourself to come at the end of this year, all right?” my grandpa said to me.

“You still talking about that, grandpa?” I replied.

“I’ll say it as many times as I want. Make sure to spend the end of the year with your girlfriend. You’re already an adult. There’s no need to come all the way here with your parents anymore,” he continued.

Grandpa was pretty stubborn too. But if I didn’t come this year, they’d be greeting the new year with none of their grandkids around. Even this year it was just me and nee-chan.

Still, it was no use arguing with him here. If that were the case...

“Next year, I’ll introduce you to Nanami. Not on a video call, but...in person. I’ll get my driver’s license, and we’ll come by car,” I said.

“Is that so,” grandpa said, smiling happily. I would spend the end of the year with Nanami, and once we were done with university entrance exams, I would get my driver’s license and bring her to visit my grandparents. That would be a lot more fun than just not showing up.

“Will you be bringing our great-grandkids too?” my grandpa asked.

“It’s way too early for that,” I replied immediately, eliciting a disappointed sigh—followed by a laugh—from him. It was refreshing to see my normally stoic grandpa like this.

I heard my parents calling for me from the entryway; it seemed we were heading out soon. I should get in the car, I told myself.

“I’ll see you soon, grandpa,” I said.

“Yup. You take care,” he replied.

I felt like I had been able to grow closer to my grandpa during this visit. And with that, all our relatives saw us off, and my parents and I set off on our journey back home.

I was certain that we had been sent off just like that last year, but I couldn’t remember it at all. A part of me already knew that this year’s visit, however, would be something I’d never forget.

Because everyone was waving to us, I waved back too—which actually seemed to surprise them a bit. It was probably because I didn’t wave back to them last year.

“Yoshin, about your trip,” my mom suddenly started.

“Oh, yeah,” I let out.

“I really do wish you’d told us about it earlier,” she said with a sigh.

Ah, yeah. Sorry about that. Things had been hectic, and so I had neglected to bring it up. Though I might have mentioned to them once that I wanted to go on such a trip. As parents, though, I could understand that they probably had many reservations about me and Nanami doing something like this.

“At this point, I’m not going to stop you two from going. But I’d like to get both families to the table and confirm some details together first,” she continued.

Wait a second. Considering the cautious way our discussion went yesterday, this resolution felt like it had arrived a little too smoothly. I glanced at my dad in the driver’s seat and saw him with a wry smile on his face.

“What are your conditions?” I asked.

“Just that you keep things appropriate for high schoolers,” she said, then turned to my dad and asked, “Why are you laughing?”

“Oh, I was just remembering a few things...and just hearing you say ‘appropriate for high schoolers’ was a bit...you know,” he remarked.

My mom pinched my dad’s cheek even as he continued driving. Jeez, now they’re flirting right in front of my eyes.

My mom ultimately giving her permission to let us go on our trip probably had something to do with what grandpa said earlier—about what my parents had done when they were in high school. Not that I was going to ask.

This meant that I had been able to successfully convince my parents, but...I wondered how Nanami was doing on her end.

Man, I really want to see Nanami. I leaned my head against the back of my seat and prepared for the long drive ahead of us.

♢♢♢

It had gone dark by the time we arrived home. Luckily it hadn’t snowed while we were on the road, but there was a significant amount of it piled up on the ground around our house.

It had probably collected over time while we were away at my grandparents’. Mutually agreeing that we just get on and shovel some of it, my dad and I worked together for a bit to clear the area, and then I took a bath to warm myself up.

When I got out, I sprawled out on my own bed and started up my game, both actions feeling a little new given that it had been a while since I had done either of them. I had ended up not being able to play much of my game at all while I was visiting my grandparents’ house.

Canyon: Anybody here?

Baron: Oh, Canyon-kun. Happy New Year.

Canyon: Happy New Year to you too, Baron-san. Is it just you that’s online?

Baron: Yeah, I guess New Year’s means fewer people are logged on.

The game had a New Year’s event, but since our team was mostly made up of casual players, the first three days of the year usually saw fewer people online. Peach-san, too, stayed logged in, but was for the most part idle.

Maybe I should at least check out the New Year’s event, though, since I was here.

Canyon: Speaking of, did you go visit your family for the holidays?

Baron: Hm? We didn’t do a family visit. If anything, I just went back to visit my wife.

Oh, right. I forgot that Baron-san worked in a different city from where his wife lived. Was he with his extended family right now?

Canyon: Wanna voice chat?

Baron: Sure thing. It’ll be nice to talk.

I logged out of the game and called Baron-san from my voice chat app. It connected immediately, and soon I heard Baron-san’s voice on the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry, there was actually something I wanted to ask you about,” I explained.

“It’s been a while, huh? Though, at this point, I don’t feel like there’s anything more that I can advise you on,” he replied.

Oh no, that’s not true at all. I still rely on you so much. And so it was that I explained to him how I was planning to go on a hot springs trip with Nanami during winter break.

“Wow, that’s nice! Hot springs, huh? I wanna take time off so that my wife and I can go together too,” he muttered.

“So, I wanted to ask you...is there anything I should be mindful of when going on a trip with my girlfriend?” I asked. “I’ve never been on a trip with just the two of us.”

“Well, if it’s just for two days and one night, I think you can just do what you always do. Though maybe the most important thing to consider for this kind of thing is confirming your budget and lodging,” he replied.

As I sat there turning his response over in my mind, Baron-san suddenly began letting out a low groan. What’s gotten into him all of a sudden...?

After continuing to growl for a bit, though, he suddenly resumed speaking in a whisper.

“If you get a reservation for anything, you really, really have to make sure it’s right—the right time, the right location, and especially that there isn’t an inn with a similar name that you reserved with instead...”

“Are you...speaking from experience?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “In all honesty, you can pretty much decide what you want to do and things you want to see when you get there. But where you’re gonna stay? That’s the thing you really have to pay attention to.”

His words seemed to carry a ton of weight. The hotel reservation... Indeed, that didn’t seem like the kind of thing you could laugh off if you happened to get it wrong.

Yeah, I seriously need to be careful. Maybe it’s better if I call, instead of trying to do it online. Or should I do both? Maybe I should start looking now.

“But wait, aren’t you two still in high school? Are you getting your parents’ permission?” he asked. “Or are you two gonna go in secret?”

“Luckily, it looks like we’ll be able to get their okay—so we won’t have to sneak off,” I replied.

“Oh, that’s very impressive. I went without telling my parents, so when it all came out it was a huge deal...”

What were you thinking? Rather, isn’t that a worse mistake than accidentally booking the wrong hotel could ever be? He says that it was fine back then, but it definitely seems like the wrong move to try to go on a trip in secret.

I continued hearing various warnings and stories of failure from Baron-san, but...

“Baron-san, how did you manage to endure those times when you couldn’t see your wife?” I asked.

“I couldn’t endure it,” he answered.

Indeed, his response to the other question that I’d been wanting to ask was immediate. The fact that, actually, he couldn’t stand being apart from his wife was of much interest to me.

“Though it did make me happy to learn that my wife felt the same way,” he continued. “That’s why I call her every day, and I send photos, and I go and see her on my occasional days off.”

“Do you go by car?” I followed up.

“Yeah. Though now that I think about it, I probably used to push myself pretty hard. Like, if I had a day off, I’d drive all night so that I could see her first thing in the morning.”

That did sound pretty tough. I guess it just meant that he wanted to see her so much that he was willing to ignore exhaustion and whatever caution he might have had just to be able to do so.

Had I been able to drive, I might have done something similar just to see Nanami while we were both away visiting family.

“You know how people say that absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Baron-san asked.

His question made my heart skip a beat. It was something that Nanami had said to me, something I had been thinking about myself. I wasn’t expecting to hear it now, though.

“It’s not about whether we see the other person or not. Love doesn’t grow if we don’t take action to grow it,” he said. “It was this relationship that helped me realize that.”

“It doesn’t grow, you say,” I repeated.

“I mean, growing something is in and of itself an act that you have to do consciously. That’s why you should cherish the time in your life when you can see your girlfriend whenever you want,” Baron-san concluded, adding that that was only possible when you were still a student. He sounded wistful when he said so. He also told me that that was why he was all for couples going on trips while they were in high school.

I was grateful for his encouragement, because hearing this kind of opinion from an adult made me think that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

After that, I continued getting more advice from Baron-san about going on trips. As we spoke Peach-san dropped by, and I got to say hi to her too. I also checked out the game’s seasonal event.

I was finally able to feel like I had come home.

But talking with everyone is making me want to see Nanami even more. Maybe I should follow Baron-san’s advice here...

“I feel like I suddenly want to see my girlfriend, so I think I’ll go give her a call,” I said.

“Oh, that’s nice. Call her to your heart’s content,” Baron-san replied.

“Please tell Shichimi-chan I say hello,” Peach-san added.

I hung up on our conversation and proceeded to call Nanami. She should still be up at this hour. She was coming home the next day, and I wasn’t afraid to admit that, if possible, I wanted to see her then too.

I heard the ringback tone several times before Nanami picked up.

“Hello? What’s up, Yoshin? Are you home?” I heard her say.

“Oh, yeah. I got home a little while ago. Now I’m just lying around on my bed,” I replied.

“That’s so nice. I wanna lie on my bed too when I get home...with you,” she murmured.

“We’re gonna lie around together?” I muttered.

I tried imagining it, but I couldn’t quite picture what we would do as we lay there together. Would we just chat while lying down, or would we do something specific?

We’d slept together before, but we’d never just lazied about in bed. Did it mean that we would be next to each other, each of us doing our own thing, or did it imply us doing something together?

No, doing something together could only mean one thing. I should just assume that lying around on the bed just meant being lazy and doing nothing.

“Then how about we lie around on the bed together when you get back?” I suggested.

“Huh?!”

I heard Nanami emit a really strange sound. As I lay there, thinking that Nanami was the one who started it with the whole lying around thing...I began to hear various voices in the background.

Words like “how bold” and whatnot, spoken in women’s voices. Wait, don’t tell me...

“Nanami, are you by chance...on speakerphone right now?” I asked Nanami.

“Um, yes, well... I just, you know...”

Ah...right, yes. The scary thing about the telephone was that you couldn’t quite know what kind of situation the other person was in when you called them. But I couldn’t be at fault here, could I?

Because Nanami was on speakerphone with everyone around her, I could hear her being teased by several different people. I even heard someone question the fact that we hadn’t done anything yet. No, that part is actually true.

“D-Don’t worry! My dad isn’t here! We’re just having one last family girls’ get-together!”

Was that really nothing to worry about? And just what kind of a “girls’ get-together” was that? Oh, I thought I heard Saya-chan’s voice in the background too.

“Well, I guess I’ll hear all the details when you come home,” I said. “I was kind of wondering what time you get back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Some time in the afternoon. Maybe two? We’re leaving pretty early,” Nanami said.

“I see. It’s just that, I was wondering, if you weren’t too tired, of course, if it might be possible for me to see you a—”

“Yes!” Nanami exclaimed.

Wow... She’s all for it. I knew I wanted to see her, but to know that she felt the same way filled me with joy.

I felt like the cheers in the background had gotten louder too.

“If anything, I need to charge up on my Yoshin battery because I’m tired. I wanna squeeze you. Kiss you. And more,” Nanami declared.

All her desires were spilling out of her mouth! And she had said them all in one breath, in a calm voice, with no inflection whatsoever.

“In that case, I’ll go welcome you home,” I said.

“Okay. I’ll look forward to it,” she replied.

Nanami seemed giddy, but I also heard someone give an approving whistle in the background. Oh, I could hear Nanami’s angry voice now.

I felt bad about interrupting their girls’ get-together, so I thought I should end the conversation. But right when I was about to, I started getting asked questions by the people who were there.

After I answered a few, though, Nanami became too embarrassed and abruptly ended the call.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow! I’ll call you, okay?!” she shouted, hanging up before I could respond.

“I’m looking forward to it too,” I murmured.

I knew my words couldn’t reach Nanami, but even so, I looked down at my phone and smiled.

♢♢♢

On the day when I was to see Nanami for the first time in what felt like an eternity, I also had a morning shift at my part-time job.

The restaurant was closed for New Year’s, but it opened again on the 3rd for special service—though I guess it was primarily Yu-senpai that made it special. The supposedly special event, where we all worked wearing traditional Japanese attire, was to continue until the 7th of the month. I felt like the last time I had worn such a traditional outfit was when I had my yukata date with Nanami.

Even though I was all fidgety because I knew I was going to see Nanami later, I did my best to push the excitement aside while I was working. Apparently everyone around me still totally saw that I was giddy about something, though, and so the owners and senpai teased me about it a little bit.

Oh, as a sidenote, the restaurant did great business even though it was New Year’s—mostly because of all the customers who came to see Yu-senpai and Shoichi-senpai wearing traditional outfits.

“Then I’ll be off,” I said to everyone as I ended my shift at the end of lunch.

“All righty! Tell Nami-chan we say hi,” Yu-senpai and the others said as they saw me off. And with that, I left the restaurant and headed to Nanami’s house.

Maybe because I was getting to see Nanami for the first time after our time apart, but there was a definite bounce to my step. I had to be careful, though; it was especially in times like these that one might get into an accident.

Boy, I really was on cloud nine.

When I texted Nanami to let her know that I had gotten off work and was headed toward her house, she let me know that she had already arrived back home. Except...

Nanami: I’m gonna get ready now, so come on the slow side!

What was she getting ready for, exactly? Despite having no idea what she might be planning, I simply listened to her request and took my time getting to her house. I haven’t forgotten anything, have I? I had my souvenir for Nanami, and I was dressed okay too. Yeah, everything seemed fine. I planned to just go back home in the event that I had forgotten anything, but I seemed to be in good shape.

We had fewer hours of daylight because it was winter, but right now it was still light out. I could make a nice walk out of going to Nanami’s house.

Not long after, though, I received a follow-up message from Nanami.

Nanami: Okay, all set. Come anytime!

By the time I got that message, I was nearly at her house. I daresay it was perfect timing. Just the thought of getting to see Nanami again brought a sudden tightness in my chest.

I remembered this feeling. It was similar to the nervousness I had felt when I was about to go into my part-time job for the first time. Why, though, was I feeling nervous about seeing Nanami all of a sudden? We’d only been apart for about a week or so...though I also knew that it wasn’t just about the time apart.

With every step I took, my heart seemed to beat faster. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t just the cold outside air giving me a chilly feeling either.

By the time I arrived at and stood in front of Nanami’s house, my heart was practically trying to jump out of my chest. With one final thundering jolt, though, my heartbeat gradually returned to normal.

I breathed in once, deeply, and then rang her doorbell.

“Oh hello, Yoshin-kun. Come on in—the door’s open.”

I heard Tomoko-san’s voice through the intercom. Oh? I guess I just assumed that Nanami would be the one to answer.

When I turned the knob, the front door opened with a loud click.

“Hello,” I called out, though there was no response. But the moment I walked through the door I encountered a surprise.

“Nanami?” I squeaked after a slight pause.

“Welcome,” Nanami said to me.

What I saw upon entering was the figure of Nanami, bowing to me from just inside the entryway, sitting on her heels with the back of her hands facing me and just her index, middle, and ring fingers touching the floor.

That alone would have just been an overly formal greeting on her part. What surprised me, though, was what she was wearing.

Nanami was dressed in a bright red kimono.

Although red is often considered the color of passion, there was something comforting about seeing it right then. The kimono, with its white and yellow design, suited Nanami perfectly. She also had her hair up and tied behind her, pinned with a flower-shaped hair ornament that matched the color of the kimono. Nanami greeted me with a graceful smile and an elegant tilt to her head.

“Hello,” I finally let out.

“Tee hee, are you surprised?” she asked.

I realized then that I had just repeated myself. I mean, I was surprised—like, a lot. I wasn’t expecting to be greeted like this at all.

Nanami slowly stood up, allowing me to see her figure in full. I looked more closely at her kimono and noticed the subtle gold thread mixed into the design, as well as the butterflies and flowers scattered across the fabric.

As if to show off her attire, Nanami raised both arms slightly and turned slowly in place. The long sleeves of her kimono swayed, making her look like an actual butterfly floating through the sky.

She was both adorable and gorgeous, and though it was an overused comment, I couldn’t help but think that the kimono suited her extremely well.

“What do you think?” Nanami asked, looking up at me and soliciting my opinion. Shoot, she looks so cute that I just wanna squeeze her. But maybe I’m not allowed, since that’ll mess up her kimono.

“You look, so pretty, it’s perfect,” I managed to say.

“Why do you sound like a robot...?” Nanami asked.

She was honestly so cute that I lost access to my word bank, but if I’d acted normal, I probably would have leaped in for a hug. I guess my brain was scrambling for a way to suppress my desires.

Was everyone in the Barato family wearing a kimono today? If that were the case, I would really look out of place in my regular clothes.

Just as I was wondering that, though...

“What are you two doing in the entryway? Have him come in,” Tomoko-san said.

“Happy New Year, onii-chan!” Saya-chan joined in.

Wait, Tomoko-san was wearing normal clothes and an apron. Saya-chan was wearing regular clothes too. Huh? Is it just Nanami in a kimono?

While I stared at Nanami with slight befuddlement, Tomoko-san gave Nanami a look of mild exasperation. Nanami caught her mother’s glance and looked away from her slightly.

“Nanami got a few kimono from her grandmother, so she got all excited and said that she was going to show them to you now,” Tomoko-san explained, “even though I told her that she should just wear it on her date instead.”

“I helped her put them on,” Saya-chan added, a look of triumph on her face as she puffed out her chest with pride.

“Jeez! You didn’t need to say any of that!” Nanami shouted in protest at the two of them.

Wow, seeing everything as usual with Nanami and her family is actually really comforting. It was a relaxing thought, so much so that the earlier nervousness I had felt seemed like something I had just imagined.

“Happy New Year, again,” I said to everyone. “I look forward to being able to spend another year with all of you.”

It was important to start the year off on the right foot with a proper greeting, especially with people who were close to you. I nearly forgot because Nanami caught me off guard, but I was certain it wasn’t wrong for me to still try to get it right.

So, even though I kind of messed up the order, I gave my New Year’s greeting to the Barato family—to which everyone replied in kind with a smile.

Wait, isn’t there one person missing?

“Where’s Genichiro-san today?” I asked.

“He’s gone out for a bit, but I think he’ll be back soon,” Tomoko-san replied.

I see. Then I guess I’ll have to give him my New Year’s greeting the next time he’s home.

Thinking that, I continued, “These are souvenirs for your family. They’re snacks from my mom’s hometown,” and handed Tomoko-san the gifts I brought from my grandparents’ house.

“Oh my, that’s so sweet of you. I’ll take them up to Nanami’s room later,” she said.

Nanami and I then left the rest of the Baratos as the two of us went to her room. I walked behind Nanami, my eyes following her, still feeling a little strange to see someone in a kimono inside the house.

When we were going up the stairs to Nanami’s room, because of the steps...the lower half of her body ended up being right in my field of vision. As in...her butt and stuff. I mean, it was totally a surprise; I swear I wasn’t aiming for this deliberately.

Every time she took a step up, her hips swayed from side to side. Maybe because she was wearing a kimono, but I couldn’t see her underwear through it at all.

Since she didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss, I tried to get to her room without saying anything. But just as I resolved to stay silent and pretend to be nonchalant, Nanami turned around and looked at me.

“You perv,” she said with a toothy grin. I couldn’t help turning scarlet. How was it that, when she covered her hips with her hands in an exaggerated scolding manner, she looked even more erotic?

More importantly, Nanami was definitely doing it on purpose.

“Oh, by the way—just like when I was wearing my yukata, I’m wearing underwear right now too,” she said.

“I’m not concerned about that...”

Even as I thought to myself how much I didn’t need to hear that specific piece of information, we finished climbing the short staircase and reached Nanami’s room in no time. And I was in no way disappointed to get there so soon. No, really.

“Here, come on in!” Nanami said excitedly.

“Thank you for having me,” I muttered. I knew I said this every time I entered Nanami’s room, but no matter how many times I had visited, I always felt the need to be somewhat proper.

Even though I hadn’t seen Nanami’s room in a week, it was the same as it had always been. That fact somehow put me at ease.

Nanami entered, kimono and all, and a part of me thought she was going to sit down on her bed as usual. But instead, she remained standing and gestured for me to come over.

“Aren’t you gonna sit down?” I asked.

“It’s actually kind of a pain to wear a kimono at home, so I thought I’d take it off,” she replied.

That made sense. In fact, it actually seemed like the most logical thing to do. A kimono could be pretty unforgiving, and every little move had a tendency to shift it out of place.

Hm? Why is Nanami still wearing it, then?

“I’ll step outside for a minute,” I offered.

“No, actually...before I take it off, there’s something I wanna try,” she intimated.

Something she wanted to try? Was it something she could only do in a kimono? In a kimono... Was it some kind of a traditional Japanese game? It was New Year’s, after all.

I was picturing something rather peaceful in my mind, so I wasn’t at all expecting to hear what Nanami said next.

“Don’t you wanna try some obi spinning?” she asked.

Obi spinning? I couldn’t quite parse the unfamiliar term Nanami just said, although she seemed surprised that I had never heard of it before.

“Wait, you don’t know? That thing where you pull on the obi and spin someone?” she asked.

“Oh, that thing they do in those old comedy sketches?” I remarked.

“Yeah, yeah. That thing where you’re like, ‘Oh my!’” Nanami added.

The obi spin was when someone pulled on the obi sash of a woman’s kimono and spun her around like a top. I must have seen something like it on TV a long time ago. There might even have been a scene like that in an anime too.

I see, so that was why Nanami was still wearing her kimono—because she wanted to do that. Hey, wait a minute...

“Why do you wanna do something like that?” I asked.

“I was watching an old TV show with my grandpa when I was visiting family, and I thought it would be fun if you did that to me,” she replied.

“But why?”

“Hmmm...just because?”

Was that something that was even okay to do? After all, wasn’t it just basically undressing a woman? Was I allowed to do that, especially with a kimono?

Nanami was quietly—but excitedly—starting to loosen the edge of her obi in preparation for the spinning. Wait, is it seriously, seriously okay to do this?

It seemed, though, that a kimono came loose when you didn’t want it to, but refused to budge when you did. Nonetheless, Nanami asked me one simple question, as though to seduce me even with her back to me.

“Don’t you want to try?” she suggested.

To be honest, I did.

I mean, putting the sexual aspect of it aside, it seemed like it could be fun. There was a certain kind of silliness about it; after all, it was a common thing in comedy sketches. Besides, if you were really going to do something sexual, then you probably wouldn’t be standing there spinning someone by her obi. No matter how you looked at it, something like an obi spin was for a different purpose entirely.

That was why I ultimately decided to take Nanami up on her seductive offer.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

“That’s the spirit,” she returned, with an excited grin on her face. I responded with a wide grin myself.

We then looked for the end of her obi, and once we found it, I grabbed it firmly.

“Oh, when you pull, make sure you ask, ‘What could be the problem,’ okay?” Nanami requested.

“What in the world?” I muttered.

“Apparently that’s the beauty of the whole thing.”

I see, if that was the case, then I should do it even if it was a little embarrassing. Well, it was embarrassing. But if that was the beauty of it, then I had no choice.

“Wh-What could be the problem?” I murmured.

Shoot, I spoke too softly. Nanami seemed dissatisfied too, and even though I’d pulled her obi, she didn’t move at all.

Wait a minute: If I was the only one pulling, then I would have to put a lot of force into it to actually spin her. This was something that definitely required the woman in the kimono to cooperate too. Honestly, this whole thing was really just the woman spinning on her own.

Fine, then. Here we go again.

“What could be the problem?” I announced.

“Oh my!” Nanami exclaimed.

If I did it too suddenly, Nanami could get hurt, so I pulled the obi cautiously. Nanami then began to turn slowly as well. There wasn’t any of the resistance I felt earlier, and I was able to pull the sash smoothly.

Nanami raised her hands, as if in surrender, and she spun gingerly in time with my movements. The lines we spoke were silly indeed, but Nanami seemed to be enjoying herself.

And yeah, okay, I was having fun too. Actually, it was quite a lot of fun.

As Nanami turned, I pulled on the obi to keep up with her. The obi started to feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. And thinking about it in that way, we probably wouldn’t have been able to pull this off if we hadn’t worked in unison. There were even moments when we got stuck, and the spinning had to slow down. But it was less about us getting stuck than it was about me not doing a lot of pulling in my day-to-day life, so even this little diversion was taking a toll on me physically. Even though I worked out, I seemed to have muscles left that I still needed to develop.

This whole spinning business was getting to be a lot of fun, so I thought to do it one last time, when...

“Huh? Is that it?” I let out.

It seemed that, a good three spins later, the obi had been completely pulled off of Nanami’s body. All that was left in my hands was the rather long piece of fabric that was her obi. Nanami seemed not to have expected this outcome either, because she seemed somewhat taken aback herself.

She had a cord under the obi, so the kimono still covered her without coming apart at all. I felt slightly disappointed... No, no way. Nope. I wasn’t disappointed at all.

If anything, I didn’t know what I should do next. The whole obi spinning thing ended much more quickly than I was expecting.

“Oh my!”

Just as I started to feel truly lost, Nanami began to spin once more—of her own free will, even though there was no more obi. While I stood there, clutching her obi and feeling perplexed, Nanami continued to turn and turn until she moved over to the bed...

And plopped down on it with a light thud.

“Hm? Aren’t you gonna join me?” she asked, gesturing from the bed for me to join her.

“Um...aren’t you gonna change?” I responded with yet another question. For a lack of anything else I could think of doing, I walked over to her with her obi still in my hands.

Nanami, still wearing her kimono, was tapping the spot close to her on the bed; I sighed and laid down next to her.

At once the guilt began to sink in. Was it really okay for us to be doing something like this when she was in her kimono? But strangely enough, just the sight of Nanami’s smile made me think that there was nothing to worry about.

“Hee hee, we finally get to lie around on the bed together,” Nanami murmured.

“You mean the thing you mentioned yesterday?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s been a minute, so I wanted to be close to you like this.”

I couldn’t help but reach out and touch Nanami’s cheek. I did it without thinking, but maybe if she was wearing makeup, I shouldn’t have touched her face so casually.

Despite my concerns, though, Nanami took my hand and firmly rubbed her cheek against it, her soft skin gliding against mine.

Actually, wasn’t she saying yesterday about another thing she wanted to do?

“Do you wanna try hugging too?” I asked.

“Mm...maybe after I’ve changed,” she replied.

Nanami then sat up on the bed and loosened the cord that was holding her kimono in place. Won’t that make her kimono fall open...?

Instead of taking off her kimono, though, Nanami only loosened it slightly. What is she doing? I also sat up and gazed at her.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked. “Your kimono’s gonna come undone.”

“Well, in that game you were playing before, wasn’t there a girl who had her kimono half off like this?” she asked. “It’s harder than it looks.”

Ah, right. There were characters with their kimono open to expose their chest areas, as well as other characters arranging their kimono in rather sexy ways.

Seeing Nanami now, though, made me realize that it was actually quite difficult to dress in that way.

“Dang it, and here I was, planning to give you more of your New Year’s treats,” Nanami muttered.

“You don’t have to bother yourself with things like that...”

Apparently this was all Nanami wanting to be nice to me. Maybe she gave up because of the difficulty, though, because in the end she just stood up with her loosened kimono.

“Wait here while I go get changed,” she said as she was about to step out of her room...

Only to come face-to-face with Tomoko-san the moment she opened the door.

Tomoko-san stood frozen in a pose that indicated she was just about to knock. Nanami faced her with the top of her kimono scandalously open. And here I sat, holding Nanami’s obi in my hands.

Oh, I forgot to give it back.

Tomoko-san looked at Nanami, then at me. Then she seemed to take a moment to think...until finally she raised her index finger with a smile on her face.

“The first intercourse of the year?” she suggested.

“It’s not like that!”

The moment I heard Nanami scream, it really hit me that we had finally returned to our usual routine.

♢♢♢

This might sound contradictory, but hear me out: I had my first ever experience of seeing Nanami for the first time in a long while.

It’s a confusing way to put it, I know. But Nanami and I usually saw each other every day, and even when we didn’t see each other, we were only ever apart for about a day or two.

Reuniting with someone that I was used to seeing regularly was a very fresh feeling for me. It reaffirmed just how much I liked Nanami.

Though being greeted by her in a kimono gave me a bit of a shock. After all, I wasn’t expecting her to meet me with such formality.

Plus, today was the day of our date.

We had talked about what we would do for our first date after reuniting, and since neither one of us had gone to the shrine for hatsumode to welcome the new year while visiting our relatives, we decided to do that together as our main event today.

We were going to the shrine for the first time in a long time too. The last time we visited was probably during our date at the end of the dare period.

This, too, was yet another “first in a while” occasion. Lately I had been feeling like there were many moments of me reliving past experiences.

Thinking of it this way, the idea of something being the “first in a while” was indeed a strange phenomenon. It was something we had already experienced, and yet it sometimes felt like we were going through it like we’d never gone through it before.

So, today’s date was just a series of such pseudo-firsts. And the last of them was meeting up for our date outside of the house.

On our more recent dates, we had gone to each other’s houses first or headed to our destination together from a shared starting point. That was why we decided that, this time, we wanted to meet each other at the location of our date instead.

And there was another thing that was new. Today’s date...was a kimono date.

There was a reason for this: While visiting my grandparents, I had received two sets of kimono from them, and when I told Nanami about what my grandparents had given me, she told me that she wanted us to wear kimono the next time we went out on a date.

My grandpa and grandma had gifted one to me because I’d gotten a girlfriend. Apparently it was a kimono that my grandpa used to wear.

I wasn’t expecting to receive such a gift, of course. And on top of that first set, they gave me a second one too, saying that they hadn’t had a chance to give me my birthday present yet. The fact that kimono were expensive made me hesitant to receive them, but they practically forced them on me. I was grateful, almost to the point of nerves.

I couldn’t have guessed, then, that the kimono would come into use so quickly like this. Grandpa, I’ll call you soon and thank you for these.

So that was how I came to be waiting for Nanami, wearing my new kimono.

I wasn’t wearing a hakama, just a dark gray kimono with an obi that was almost white, plus a navy blue haori jacket on top. Since just that would have left me feeling too cold, I also had on a traditional Japanese-style coat along with sandals appropriate for wearing with a kimono in the snow.

I honestly had no idea that I would be able to assemble an entire kimono outfit during my visit to my grandparents.

In any case, wearing traditional clothes that I wasn’t accustomed to made it difficult for me to move around, and it even made my neck and shoulders hurt. I had a moment of belated admiration for how naturally Nanami had been able to move around yesterday while wearing her kimono. Though I guess she did take it off after a while.

Well, then. I arrived at our meeting spot slightly early, but it seemed Nanami hadn’t arrived yet. I was glad that I wouldn’t have to worry about her getting here early and potentially getting hit on while waiting for me. I felt like things had gotten somewhat dangerous out in public lately, so the less cause for concern there was, the better.

We were meeting inside the train station, but seeing other men and women wearing kimono made me wonder if they were all going on kimono dates as well. I had been nervous about potentially standing out if I wore a kimono out in public, but it seemed like there wasn’t anything to worry about there. A kimono date was definitely something that we could only easily go on around New Year’s, when there was a larger number of people out and about wearing them.

Just as I wondered when Nanami would arrive...I noticed a particularly eye-catching woman approaching me.

She was wearing a blue kimono with a flower pattern that was different from the one I saw yesterday, paired with a whitish obi. Her outfit was finished off with a white, fluffy scarf. She must have been wearing layers underneath her kimono, because she wasn’t wearing a coat on top.

Nanami had her long hair in a braid, adorned with a flower ornament and draped down her front over one shoulder. She also had on a pair of large, round glasses that she didn’t usually wear. The rimless glasses matched the kimono in an unexpected way and did an excellent job of bringing out Nanami’s charms.

Nanami was looking around casually, and at first glance, she appeared like a cool and collected beauty. As soon as she saw me, though, her expression changed immediately.

My heart skipped at the bright, full-bloom smile that spread across her face. It was all I could do to raise my hand slightly and respond with a small greeting.

Nanami ran up to me in her snow shoes for the kimono and, excitedly taking my hands, remarked, “The kimono looks great on you, Yoshin. You look so handsome.”

I wasn’t expecting her to compliment me like that first thing, so I was dumbfounded. Rather, I should have been the one to compliment her first, and I felt like she totally beat me to it.

“You look beautiful too,” I said. “This kimono is different from the one you wore yesterday, right?”

My compliment, though belated, seemed to delight Nanami, who giggled with her palms together in front of her chest. Because she was wearing a furisode kimono, the long sleeves swayed with the movements of her hands. I had half expected her to have her hair up, but today she had it down in a braid. That, too, swayed along with her body.

“Yeah, I got a few. I wanted to try wearing a couple of them,” she confessed.

The red one yesterday looked great on Nanami, but I had to admit that today’s blue kimono also suited her very well. All the accessories had probably been chosen by Nanami too. I felt like I hadn’t seen Nanami wearing glasses recently either. This, too, was another “in a while.”

“Did you wait long?” Nanami asked.

“Not really. I just got here a moment ago,” I replied.

“Really? But your hands are so cold,” she said as she lifted my hand that she still held in hers and entwined her fingers with mine. When tangled together, our fingers and palms seemed to form some sort of warmth-seeking creature. Nanami’s hand was soft and smooth, and my hand moved along hers without encountering any blemishes. Had she applied something to her hands too?

“And your ears are cold,” Nanami continued, removing her fingers from my hands and now touching my ears with them.

“I-I really didn’t wait that long,” I stammered, my spine tingling at the faint sensation of warmth against my ears.

Nanami was standing quite close to me, and since we didn’t have much of a height difference, her face ended up coming very close to mine.

She really looked so beautiful today. I wondered if she had put something on her eyelashes as well. They appeared to be longer than usual. The glasses she wore, I was pretty sure, were not a prescription, as the beautiful eyes I loved so much stared at me without any magnification. She seemed to have light makeup on, and when I looked down at her peach-colored lips, I saw that they were slick with a glossy shine. My cheeks grew hot from the realization that those were the lips that I always kissed.

Nanami must have noticed me looking at her, because our eyes suddenly met. Her hand let go of my ears and touched a finger to her lips. When I opened my eyes wide in surprise, questioning, she whispered, in a voice only audible to me, “Later, okay?”

She had been smiling like an innocent young girl until a moment ago, but the smile she had on her face now was that of an alluring seductress.

I marveled at the wide range of her sensuality. It really was true, then, that a woman could change drastically based solely on the expression of her face.

Maybe Nanami’s current allure also had something to do with the fact that she was wearing a kimono. It wasn’t a revealing outfit at all, and yet it remained mysteriously sexy.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered.

“Oh? Never mind, then,” Nanami replied nonchalantly at my attempt to play dumb. I had a feeling I would never be able to beat her at this game. Except that Nanami also tended to implode when she went too far, like she did yesterday when her mom mentioned intercourse.

Though I got caught up in Nanami’s implosion yesterday too, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how mortifying it was to have Tomoko-san say something like that to us. I shouldn’t even bring it up, though, because it would probably put Nanami on edge again.

“Shall we go, then?” I asked instead.

Nanami happily took the hand that I offered to escort her. The people around us, too, seemed to have all met up with the counterparts they were waiting for and began to head in the same direction we were headed.

Our destination and purpose were probably the same: to go on a hatsumode, the first visit to the shrine in the new year.

When we stepped outside of the train station, blue sky spread out above us. Though there was snow scattered on the ground, there was a sense of warmth hidden within the cool air.

“I’m so glad the weather turned out nice,” Nanami commented.

“Seriously. The sun feels so good on my skin,” I replied.

We walked along the winter path like the two of us were taking a little stroll. I was worried that the path might be frozen, but it seemed more packed with snow than ice and therefore not terribly slippery. We were wearing shoes designed for snow, so I thought we would be okay regardless—but one could never be too cautious. I wanted to avoid slipping on ice and messing up my kimono.

“So, about the trip,” Nanami began. “Your folks are comfortable with the idea?”

“Yeah, my parents gave their okay. But they still want to talk it over with your family too,” I answered.

“Oh, your parents too? My mom and dad said the same thing.”

“I’m sure they talk to each other, so they probably already started discussing it.”

Nanami smiled wryly as she agreed with my last comment. Yeah, come to think of it, they have each other’s contact info, so they’ve probably already traded some opinions on the matter.

“When exactly did you tell them about the trip?” I asked.

“Me? I asked them about it as soon as my grandparents said that they were willing to help,” Nanami replied.

I had failed to consider this ahead of time, but Nanami and I hadn’t discussed the timing at which to bring up the trip with our respective parents. Nanami had talked to hers immediately, while I spoke to mine the next day, and as a result there was an unfortunate time lag in the release of information. More specifically, my mom had ended up asking me before I even told her, “Are you going on a trip...with Nanami-san?”

And because I ended up explaining things only then, my parents yelled at me—mainly that I should have shared all this with them earlier.

“My parents hadn’t yelled at me like that in a long time...though I was definitely in the wrong,” I mumbled.

“I’m really sorry about that. I just got a little carried away,” Nanami apologized.

I felt mildly pathetic remembering the whole affair. I mean, my parents yelled at me from time to time, but not to that extent.

I grew more depressed the more I remembered the incident, and Nanami patted my head in an attempt to console me. I felt somewhat embarrassed having her do that while we walked, but I had to admit it also made me feel better.

“There, there,” Nanami cooed. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all my fault.”

“Hold on, I can’t shift all the blame to you,” I protested.

I was this close to giving in to her babying, but I managed to muster up the last bit of self-control to stop myself. And in any case, it wasn’t good to just linger on my failures, so I needed to switch gears somehow.

“Either way, we should be genuinely happy that they ended up giving us their okay,” I suggested.

“You’re right,” Nanami agreed. “What should we do about lodging?”

“I picked out a few, so maybe we can decide together soon. I specifically checked the ones that we’d still be able to reserve in the second half of winter break.”

“You already looked into all that?” Nanami asked.

Lodging, first and foremost. Because of Baron-san’s advice, I had started with the things I could move on first. It also helped that I had a lot of fun doing it.

We also had to look up transportation to and from the hot springs, what was around the area, and what we wanted to go see. There were many decisions to make, but we could take care of those things little by little. Making these plans was a part of the fun of taking a trip, after all.

“I think I’ll have fun no matter where I go, as long as I’m with you,” Nanami murmured.

“I feel the same way, of course,” I mumbled.

“Besides, when you go on a hot springs trip with your partner...”

I didn’t hear the rest of that sentence come out of Nanami’s mouth. Hm? When I looked over at her, wondering what was going on, I saw that she was now looking down at her feet.

Did I say something weird?

“What do you wanna do for your hatsumode?” Nanami suddenly asked.

“That was pretty abrupt,” I couldn’t help commenting. I mean, when she suddenly went from hot springs to shrine visits, there was no way I could keep myself from saying something. I guess Nanami recognized that too, because she just giggled as if to gloss over the subject.

I was curious about what she was going to say, but if she didn’t want to say it, then maybe it was better for me not to press the issue. That was what I was thinking, but then Nanami sighed, as if already resigned to explaining.

“So, you know how I was having that girls’ get-together with my relatives?” she began. “Some older girls and aunties were there too.”

“Oh, right. Even I ended up taking part in it a little,” I recalled.

Had something happened then? When I looked at Nanami quizzically, she moved to hold her head in her hands. Was it something that bad...?

“Well, one of my cousins who’s a college student...started talking about how couples who go on hot springs trips probably don’t even come out of their room all that much,” Nanami continued.

“Huh? Why not?” I asked.

“Because, um...”

Nanami spoke, one word at a time, as though she had great reservations about saying more.

“When you’re all by yourself at a hot springs hotel, you’re just...basically doing it the whole time...”

I was not expecting those words to come out of her mouth. That was a comment to which I had zero response. But wait, Nanami said that this cousin of hers was in college. Was that normal for college students? That was way too disturbing.

“And after that,” Nanami resumed.

“There’s more?!” I shouted.

I had assumed that that was the end, but Nanami had endless stories to share. As she talked, she herself began quivering a bit. It was both sad and adorable to watch her—but at a certain point it just got to be too much, and I had to tell her, “Maybe we should stop talking about this.”

If I had to be honest, I wanted to watch her like that for a bit longer—but then she started describing things that were definitely not appropriate for us to be discussing in public.

“In any case, if we started talking about things like that, there’s no way we would get our parents’ permission to go on this trip,” I said. “So let’s seal these thoughts away in the back of our minds.”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, I’m so glad my mom and Saya weren’t there,” Nanami agreed.

That definitely was something to be grateful for. If the conversation had gone in that direction... Actually, was there a possibility that Tomoko-san might still have given us her okay...?

Yeah, it was probably better for us not to find out.

“Actually,” I began, “to answer your previous question—usually when I visit the shrine for a hatsumode, I basically just pray and call it a day. Do you do something else on top of that?”

“Well, I do say my prayers at the shrine, but I also love going shopping afterward,” Nanami said.

“Shopping, huh? But don’t shops usually reopen for business on the second day of the new year? You don’t go then?” I asked.

“Oh, I tend not to go on the first day because it’s always so crowded then. Though I’m usually still at my grandparents’ house then, so it’s not like I would be there anyway.”

That made sense. Being stuck in a throng of people wasn’t the most pleasant experience in the world. It had been crowded when we were out on Christmas Day, but we had managed to get through it because it was only for a short period of time. With that in mind, it was a good idea to go to the shrine today. There weren’t that many people here, it seemed.

After a brief walk, the torii gate of the shrine we were headed to came into view.

It was spring the last time we were here. The cherry blossoms were in bloom then, and I could still remember the beauty of the sunlight hitting the torii gate just so. Nanami and I had slowly walked through those cherry blossoms back then, too, on our way to the shrine together. It was one of the most salient memories I could recall.

I never thought that, just a few months later, the same scenery would look so different. Maybe we should have visited in the summer and fall too.

“Hey Yoshin, you remember this place?” Nanami spoke up.

“Hm? I do. This is the same path we walked on our shrine date, right?” I said.

“Yeah, exactly. We went to the zoo that day too, and then, when we stopped by the park, you nearly fell into the water,” she said, then added, “A lot’s happened since, huh?”

“Wow, you remember it so well,” I remarked. “Did I really almost fall in? I can’t recall that at all.”

Nanami looked into the distance, murmuring that she remembered so much about that time. I saw that she was looking at the torii gate. We had passed through it back then too.

“And that’s the torii for cutting ties, right?” she asked.

That’s right, we had to be careful when we went through that gate. The torii for cutting ties... It was said that if two people didn’t want their relationship to be severed, they had to make sure to walk through this gate separately.

That was why we were going to pass through the gate one by one. The story must be well-known, because we saw other couples going through the gate separately as well. As far as I could see, everyone around us was walking through the gate on their own.

“Last time you went first, so this time I’ll go,” Nanami offered.

“Did I? In that case, I’ll go second,” I agreed.

We arrived at the gate and looked up, our eyes taking in the snow piled on top of the gate. The strong sunlight, pure white snow, and the deep red of the torii all made for a picturesque view. The sun had lit up the gate in springtime as well, but right now, the sunlit winter snow made it practically sparkle.

In front of the gate, Nanami took a step away from me, and then another one forward. She walked on the edge of the path to walk through the torii, and after taking a few more steps, stopped.

She then turned slowly and gestured to me from the other side.

Seeing someone calling me over from the other side of a torii felt strange indeed. That someone being Nanami in a kimono gave the whole moment a sense of fantasy. If we had done this closer to sunset, would the whole thing seem less pretty and more eerie?

I stepped through the torii myself, feeling as though I was somehow stepping into an unfamiliar world. It was an oddly spiritual thing.

This was our second time going through this torii, but I hoped that doing this would help us to sever our ties to any evil lingering around us.

If this were an isekai tensei story, maybe we would have had some sort of spectacular fantasy moment, like stepping straight into a different world instead of just the other side of the gate.

This was reality, though, and as both passed through the torii, one after the other, we only ended up on the other side of the gate. In front of me was only Nanami, waiting for me with open arms.

When I took her hand, Nanami looked at me with a perplexed expression.

“That’s weird,” she mumbled.

“Huh? Is something the matter?” I asked.

I thought that maybe I had done something incorrectly according to shrine manners, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Nanami was even touching me around my legs.

As I stood there, confused, Nanami mumbled, “You didn’t trip...”

It seemed Nanami had been waiting for me with her arms open because she thought I was going to trip. Wait, wasn’t it kind of difficult for her to catch me like that, though? It was true that I might trip on the snowy path and fall, but...

No, wait. Now I remember.

“Weren’t you the one who fell over last time? Like something had gotten caught in your legs?” I recalled.

“Right, right. I thought that maybe the gods had done something back then to get me to fall into your arms,” Nanami said. “Maybe that’s not going to happen this time.”

“It’s New Year’s, so maybe the gods are holding back right now,” I suggested.

Nanami seemed bummed out by my potential explanation. After that, though, we headed toward the main hall of the shrine, only to find it to be completely different from what we had seen last time we were here.

The path that led straight to the main hall was the same, but the trees that lined it had lost all their leaves and blossoms, standing with only bare branches instead. There was snow on those branches, though, making them appear as though they had white, crystalline flowers all over them. From time to time, bits of snow on the branches even fell to the ground, like real petals would have. Now resting on the ground, the petallike pieces of snow seemed to make the road glitter. This was probably also due to the day’s beautiful weather, with a cloudless blue sky spread out above us. And with the scenery as it was—with the trees against the white and blue backdrop of sky and snow—the path ahead almost seemed like something from a religious painting, a sacred landscape unfurling in front of us.

The last time we were here, there were cherry blossoms in bloom. But even now, in the middle of winter, it seemed that flowers were still everywhere.

It was through this landscape that Nanami and I slowly walked together. The other couples were also looking around, walking at a similar pace, most likely due to the snow.

“If it was gonna look so different now, I wished we’d come here in the summer and fall too,” Nanami murmured.

“I was just thinking that,” I confessed. “Maybe we can try coming more than once this year.”

It might not be the trendiest place to visit on a date, but coming in the summer and fall might be a good idea; with university entrance exams and other stuff coming up, we could really use some wishing and praying.

As we headed toward the main hall, we stopped from time to time to take pictures together with the snowy landscape in our background, just like the other couples were doing. Nanami also managed to find some photos of the shrine online as it had been on New Year’s Day.

“Wow, apparently there’s a ton of people who come here on the first of January,” she muttered.

“Yikes, the path looks flooded with people. It really was a great idea to come today instead,” I said.

The air was still and quiet today, as there were far fewer visitors today compared to what we saw in the photos. Everything was generally quiet when it was snowing. I heard that snow actually absorbed sound, so that might have something to do with it too. It wasn’t completely silent, though; there was wind today, rustling through the trees and occasionally jostling clumps of snow to the ground. There were other couples around us, but we couldn’t hear them talking. That meant that they probably couldn’t hear us talking either.

As we continued on our way, the main hall emerged in all its solemnity. Seeing it in the snow only made it more beautiful.

“Remember how,” Nanami began, “when we came last time, we told each other what we wished for?”

“Oh, that’s right. I guess we did tell each other, didn’t we,” I murmured.

At the time, we both said we wished for us to be with each other forever. Though I had actually wished for the gods to watch over me as I did my best to make Nanami happy.

Maybe it was because of our prayers and promises, but here I was, still able to be with Nanami like this...

“Apparently, if you tell other people what you wished for, your wish doesn’t come true,” Nanami said.

Wait, really?!

When I opened my eyes wide in shock, Nanami just giggled awkwardly. Apparently she learned that when she looked it up, but only after we had each told the other our wish.

Back then, I had done a lot of research on the proper etiquette when praying and worshipping at a shrine, but I hadn’t thought to look up things like that. Hey, but wait a minute...

“Huh? But our wishes came true, didn’t they?” I couldn’t help asking.

Our wish was for us to stay together forever. That wish came true—because here we were now, still together. That meant that our wish did come true, but maybe it just meant that your wish could be granted even if you told it to someone else. Besides, all of this was just superstition anyway.

“Actually, when I told you what my wish was that time, it wasn’t actually what I claimed it was,” Nanami confessed.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I actually told the gods that I would come clean with you about everything and then confess to you one more time, and that I would work really hard so that we could stay together. So I prayed to them to watch over me and protect me through all that,” she said.

Nanami was laughing softly, but she must have recalled what it was like back then, because even as she laughed there was a little furrow between her eyebrows. Maybe she was remembering what she was feeling at the time.

I, too, looked toward the main hall before us. Back then, I had wished that...

“In that sense, I did the same thing,” I confessed. “I actually prayed for the gods to back me up, because I was going to confess to you myself.”

That’s right. I had thought that I had wished for us to stay together, but that wasn’t exactly right. What I had wanted was for us to restart our relationship. Thinking of what I felt back then sent a dull pain through my chest. Back then, I really didn’t know if the confession would go well. It had seemed like a total gamble.

Well, what do you know, I guess both of us had kept our true wishes tucked away in our hearts. Not to say that was why our wishes came true, though.

“Between the people who think wishes should be said out loud and the people who think they should be kept secret, I’m sure there’s plenty of room for debate. So maybe we don’t really have to worry about it too much,” Nanami concluded.

“I see, I didn’t know that... Wait, then why did you even bring it up?” I inquired.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was remembering the last time we were here and just felt like sharing it all of a sudden. We’re here now to make another wish, after all.”

“Maybe we should give thanks first, then,” I suggested.

I wasn’t certain if the gods had really intervened to make our wishes come true last year, but I couldn’t help but feel that thinking that was important.

Hearing Nanami’s explanation just now also made me realize that making a wish come true was, more than divine intervention or superstition, really up to us and our own efforts. That probably went for the wishes we would make today too. Saying them out loud or keeping them to ourselves probably wouldn’t change that.

What was truly important was to never be complacent with what we had, to always strive to improve on whatever we could. It was a fundamental, but very important, practice. Now that I remembered how I felt back then, I really had to continue making the same amount of effort now as before.

The moment I made that decision, I saw the main hall sparkle as it reflected the light of the sun. The light shone particularly brightly upon my face, as though it approved of my intentions.

A part of me thought that maybe the light had been like this last time we were here too. Maybe because we were at a shrine, but I couldn’t help interpreting every little thing happening as something mystical. Not that I was that religious of a person or anything.

“What do you wanna do this time, then? Do you want to tell each other what we wished for?” I asked.

“Mm, how about we keep it a secret...and then, at our hatsumode next year, we tell each other whether our wish came true or not?” Nanami suggested.

It did seem more fun to change things up a bit. It also served as a pledge for us to return together next year too. Yeah, let’s do that, then.

We had stopped our walk to chat, and now we resumed our steps.

Because of the recent snowfall that had stopped only just yesterday, everywhere we could see was filled with both fresh snow and slightly older snow that had already been trodden upon. Without much thought, I stepped right into the fresh snow that no one had walked on yet. When I did, a unique sound came from my snow shoes—that of fine cloth being rubbed together. A tiny bit of snow had stuck onto the exposed part of my foot, then melted from contact with my body heat and soaked into my sock. The cold, damp fabric stuck to my skin.

“What are you doing?” Nanami asked.

“I guess I just wanted to try doing this,” I admitted.

“Oh, me too,” Nanami said, copying me and stepping into the snow. “Oh, cold! Shoot, my socks got a little wet.” Even as she furrowed her brows, though, Nanami laughed happily.

Socks... Are we supposed to call it that when we’re wearing kimono? Or do we call them tabi socks?

We were wearing zori sandals meant for cold weather, the kind with the toes covered. The heel was exposed, though, so if we stepped in snow, of course it would get wet.

As I stood there thinking that I really should have done all this while wearing normal shoes, I noticed that Nanami was staring down at her feet. What’s she thinking...?

“Do you want to...take my wet socks off for me later?” she asked.

“What are you talking about...?”

Nanami asked her question as if making some kind of a proposal. Have I ever tried taking off her socks before? No, wait—I shouldn’t be trying to do such a thing at all right now.

“But wait, if they’re wet, maybe they’ll smell weird. That would be embarrassing. I can’t have that,” Nanami mumbled to herself.

“But it’s okay for me to take them off...?” I had to ask.

It didn’t make any sense to me, but I felt like we had encountered something like this before—it reminded me of how she was okay with having her breasts touched, but not her stomach. Maybe this was just some mysterious girl thing I would never understand.

More importantly, weren’t we being far too occupied with carnal matters, even while at a shrine? I became consumed with worry that we were being way too inappropriate considering our surroundings and were on the fast track to incurring some kind of karmic burden when I heard the loud splat of a large clump of snow fall from a tree down to the ground.

I feel like the gods are scolding us. I’m sorry.

When I pulled myself together and faced forward once more, I noticed a modest line leading up to the main hall. Nanami and I first went through the purification steps at the entrance and then waited in line until finally it was our turn to pray.

I closed my eyes and brought my palms together, and began by giving my thanks to the gods.

Because of you, I’ve been able to stay with Nanami. Thank you for looking over us. I’m going to work hard to move our relationship forward. Please continue to protect us. Also, please, please...please help me make sure that I can suppress my carnal desires. It’s been super bad lately. So, please. I beg you. I’ll work really hard at it for the next year...no, until I graduate!

I made my wish like I was praying—and hard. I mean, I knew that all this really came down to me and my self-discipline. Still, I felt the need to ask the gods for help. I should spend every day thinking that the gods were always watching me, just so I would be able to control myself.

“Whew,” I let out when I finished praying.

I opened my eyes and glanced over at Nanami. She must have done the exact same thing in that moment, because our eyes met while we both had our palms together in prayer. My heart skipped a beat, but she and I both said nothing, instead lowering our hands and stepping away, giving our spot to the next couple that was waiting in line.

As we left the grounds of the main hall, we both breathed in—and out—deeply.

“You seemed like you were praying pretty fervently back there,” Nanami observed.

“You saw?” I asked.

Nanami answered by separating her thumb and index finger the slightest bit. Darn, she really saw me, I realized, growing slightly embarrassed.

“I, uh, guess I was just busy asking the gods to watch over a bunch of stuff,” I replied.

“Oh, I see,” Nanami murmured. “I wished for the same thing too.”

We didn’t share with each other the specifics of what we wanted the gods to watch over. What did Nanami wish for, exactly? I guess that would become clear during our hatsumode next year. No spoilers allowed for now.

“Since we’re here, should we draw our omikuji fortune?” I suggested.

“Sounds good. Let’s see who can get great fortune,” Nanami declared.

“Now it sounds like a competition,” I muttered with a grin.

I also kind of agreed with Nanami when she said that it would be cool to draw bad fortune too. I never had before, and I admit I wanted to draw it at least once in my life.

So, we tried drawing our omikuji, but...

“Romance: Act now, do not hesitate.”

That was what was written on the omikuji I drew.

Um, gods? Wait, is that what you’re really trying to tell me?

Interlude: To Each Their Own Hatsumode

After Yoshin and I drew our omikuji fortunes at our hatsumode date, Yoshin suddenly became distressed. He cradled his head in his hands and started moaning, “What? Seriously...?”

Did he just get a bad fortune or something?

As for me...

“Romance: The time is ripe. Moving forward will bring good fortune.”

I didn’t get great fortune, but still, there were some very good things written on the slip of paper I drew. The time is ripe... That’s right, if it was, then it was okay for me to continue moving forward. I felt like I’d just gotten the okay from the gods to do precisely that.

What I wished for during my shrine visit was for the gods to watch over me because I intended to move things forward with Yoshin. Also, um...to not punish me too much if I ended up making a few wrong moves. That kind of thing.

How things would turn out from here on depended on my own efforts. I really did have to be careful about divine punishment, though. I definitely, definitely wasn’t going to do anything that would make me too ashamed to be seen in public. So, please...

“Yoshin, what did you get?” I asked.

“Oh, uh...I got fair fortune,” he answered.

“Hey, that’s pretty good! I got slight fortune. May the gods bless me too,” I said, taking Yoshin’s hands and rubbing them within mine. I mean, fair fortune is better than slight fortune, right? Oh, but now Yoshin’s getting all flustered.

Yoshin’s ears grew red as I stood there rubbing his hands. The flush probably wasn’t just because it was cold.

After that, we tied our omikuji onto a stand set up nearby and went to buy omamori charms.

At the building where the charms were sold—I guess it was called a “juyosho”—there were many charms and amulets on display, with several shrine maidens working and walking around the place.

“What kind of charm are you gonna get, Yoshin?” I asked.

“I think I’ll start with one for my studies. I mean, I really cannot afford to get failing marks anymore. I have to study hard,” he muttered.

“I see. In that case,” I said. I turned to one of the maidens and said, “I’ll take this one.”

“Huh? No, you shouldn’t...”

“I kind of wanted us to exchange charms,” I murmured.

I felt like the charms would be more effective that way. Or rather, I felt like doing that would make it possible to give him a charm infused not just with the gods’ powers, but also my feelings too.

Did the official etiquette have anything to say about this? Was it not allowed? I started to get a little worried and glanced over at the shrine maiden staffing the store, but all she did was smile at me.

Does this mean...that it’s okay?

“Then...which charm do you want, Nanami?” Yoshin asked.

“Well...I kind of want the romance one, but maybe the studies or college acceptance ones would be better,” I muttered.

I’d just finished my hatsumode, but I was already having a difficult time suppressing my wishes. But charms were always so cute—I could never decide which one to get so easily. And the thought that Yoshin would be buying me one made it even more difficult to choose.

“In that case, may I suggest something like this?” the shrine maiden spoke.

What she recommended to us upon hearing our exchange was a charm in the form of a phone strap, decorated with a crystal and other small items. Apparently, it was a charm meant to bring good luck. It was also quite cute.

“That seems nice,” Yoshin remarked. “Then...I’ll take that one.”

In response to Yoshin’s request, the shrine maiden placed the charm inside a small, pretty bag.

A shrine maiden... That was what she was, right? Her outfit was so, so cute. She had on a white top with a bright red hakama on the bottom. Even the red underlayer peeking out from the edge of the white top was cute.

She had her hair tied behind her neck, and when she moved, I caught glimpses of a ribbon in such a pale shade of pink it was nearly white. The look, all told, was simply adorable.

A furisode kimono was gorgeous and pretty, but a shrine maiden’s uniform had such a simple attractiveness to it. Maybe because I’d been wearing a lot of traditional Japanese outfits lately, but I suddenly had the urge to wear a shrine maiden’s uniform too.

Did Yoshin like these kinds of outfits too? Should I try bringing one on our next trip? Or would it take up too much space in my luggage?

“Nanami, what’s wrong?” Yoshin asked.

Shoot, I’d gotten too distracted. Yoshin was peering into my face, looking concerned.

“Oh, no, I was just thinking about how cute the shrine maiden’s outfit was,” I managed to respond.

The shrine maiden herself seemed delighted by my comment, and Yoshin glanced over at her uniform as well. Seeing him look at another girl like that, though, gave me a weird feeling.

Wait, why am I feeling this way? I was the one who said it first.

“You’re right, it’d probably look good on you too,” Yoshin stated.

“Then...shall I try wearing it sometime?” I suggested.

Hee hee, hearing him compliment me shooed away all those weird feelings. But maybe I really should try wearing something like that. For a part-time job or something? Oh, now the shrine maiden’s looking at us like she’s watching a super heartwarming scene. Wait, is it just me, or are the other couples around us looking at us like that too?

Having grown slightly embarrassed from all the attention, Yoshin and I quickly left the premises...and then we turned to each other and exchanged the charms that we had bought.

“Just to reiterate,” Yoshin began, “I look forward to spending this coming year with you.”

“Yeah. Same to you,” I replied.

The exchange made me realize once again that a new year had begun. I mean, we had technically already exchanged our greetings for the holiday season, but there was something about this moment, this day, that made me think that our new year had finally, truly begun.

“Well then, shall we take a break and get something sweet? Apparently there’s some kind of exclusive snack here,” Yoshin suggested.

“Oh, I think I read that somewhere,” I agreed.

Apparently it was freshly grilled mochi. It was so nice to get to eat something that was made right on the spot. It was supposed to be sold nearby, too, so it seemed perfect for a little break. Just as I was thinking that, though...

“Hm? Wait, isn’t that Hatsumi and everyone?” I let out.

“Huh? Oh, you’re right,” Yoshin said.

Some ways away was Hatsumi and Ayumi, both wearing furisode kimono, walking with their respective boyfriends. Oh? Are they on a double date right now?

Not wanting to bother them, I stood there silently, trying to decide what to do...when my two friends noticed me and Yoshin.

“Hey, if it isn’t Nanami and Misumai. Are you two on a date?” Hatsumi asked.

“Oh Nanami, your kimono is so pretty,” Ayumi sighed.

Hatsumi and Ayumi had trotted toward us, while Oto-nii and Shu-nii followed at a slower pace. Although the girls were wearing furisode kimono, their boyfriends were in regular clothes.

“Hey, you two. It’s been a while, huh? How’ve you been?” Oto-nii asked us.

“It really has been a while. I guess since the summer?” Shu-nii confirmed.

“It’s so nice to see you both,” Yoshin said to them.

It really did feel like I was seeing Oto-nii and Shu-nii for the first time in a really long time. Before, I used to always tag along with Hatsumi and Ayumi and hang out with them on occasions like this.

Now that I think about it, was I just a fifth wheel all those times we went out?

Nevertheless, I said cheerily, “You both look so pretty in your kimono too!”

Hatsumi wore a vivid kimono of red and black, while Ayumi wore one in yellow with patterns of flowers in full bloom, dotted with splashes of black. They both looked incredible in their kimono of choice.

I was kind of glad I ended up not wearing my red kimono today. I would’ve ended up unintentionally twinning with Hatsumi, and she looked a lot better in a red kimono than I did.

“Really? You think so?” Hatsumi asked, uncertain, but then ended with an embarrassed “Thanks.”

Meanwhile, Ayumi lamented, “I wanna show more skin. This outfit isn’t revealing at all.” In contrast to Hatsumi’s mild embarrassment at being complimented, Ayumi seemed like she was about ready to take off her kimono entirely. I mean, she was right that a kimono wasn’t terribly revealing, but still. It just seemed like Ayumi had been wanting to take her clothes off more and more lately.

Oh, her kimono’s come undone a bit! Just as soon as it did, though, Shu-nii fixed it at lightning speed. Jeez, that was fast.

“All right, now, Ayumi. Let’s not do that,” he said exasperatedly.

“Boo. I wanna wear it in the oiran style,” Ayumi complained, pouting.

The oiran style? A courtesan? Does she mean all sexy and stuff, like when I wore my kimono with my shoulders out? But it’s snowing right now. It’s so cold. She’s totally gonna catch cold.

“Are you all on a date as well?” Yoshin asked.

“Oh, yeah. Since Shu and I came back, we figured we’d take Hatsu and Ayu out,” Oto-nii replied. “What about you guys?”

“We both just got back from visiting family, so today is our first date of the new year,” Yoshin explained.

Our first date... That’s right, our hatsumode date is our first date of the year. Maybe that’s why I felt so renewed earlier.

Yoshin and I had arrived a little while ago and had just finished exchanging our charms. It seemed that Oto-nii and the others had come by car and were just about to go visit the shrine. Maybe Oto-nii was wearing regular clothes because he was driving.

“But, wow, it’s so cool that both of you guys are wearing kimono,” Hatsumi murmured, looking at me and Yoshin.

“Seriously... It would’ve been so nice if our boyfriends wore kimono too,” Ayumi muttered.

Oh, they’re both stealing glances at Oto-nii and Shu-nii. The boyfriends in question, though, were pretending not to notice as they complimented Yoshin on his kimono attire. But...though I didn’t know exactly why, I couldn’t imagine my friends’ boyfriends actually agreeing to wear kimono. At the end of the day, they were both pretty shy.

“We’re gonna drive over and make another stop. What are you guys gonna do?” Oto-nii asked.

“Hatsumi and Oto-nii are gonna hole up in a hotel,” Ayumi announced.

“We are not!”

Oh, Hatsumi and Oto-nii totally jinxed each other. Ayumi, on the other hand, was hanging on Shu-nii’s arm and asking him if they weren’t going to do the same. Shu-nii, on his part, was desperately looking in the opposite direction.

“That’s kind of you to invite us, but today I’m thinking of spending time with Nanami, just the two of us. It’s been a while since we were able to,” Yoshin replied. “Next time would be great.”

“Oh, I see,” Oto-nii muttered, his hand at his chin as though Yoshin’s response had impressed him. He then glanced at Hatsumi and asked, “Did you want the two of us to just be together too?”

“Whatever,” Hatsumi whispered.

Oh, Hatsumi is being a total girly girl right now. She looks so adorable, turning red and not even looking at his face... No, don’t kick him just because you’re embarrassed. How can you kick him and make such an awesome sound in a kimono? Even Oto-nii is laughing.

“And were you okay not being alone with Shu-nii?” I asked Ayumi.

“I’m gonna stay over at his house tonight, so it’s fine,” she said.

Wow, a V sign too. She looks so breezy about the whole thing. She’s even pushing out her boobs, even though kimono are supposed to make our chests look flatter. Maybe, in a way, these two are the ones who’ve gone the farthest out of all of us. More importantly, though, Ayumi’s boobs have gotten really big. Are they even bigger than mine?

“We’re gonna do it for the first time this year,” Ayumi also added.

Oh, Shu-nii’s speechless. Ayumi proceeded to ask me and Yoshin if we weren’t going to do the same, but we denied it very loudly—and in unison, to boot.

Actually...it’s a little worrisome that Shu-nii isn’t denying it. Wait, are you guys actually gonna do it?

♢♢♢

“Let’s hang out again soon, all right?” Oto-nii said.

Yoshin and I ended up walking around the shrine a bit with our friends, going our separate ways at the steps once they had finished their prayers. Yoshin and I continued waving at them until they were out of sight.

I felt like it had been a really long time since I had last chatted with all four of them, even despite the fact that I used to always hang out with them before. Life’s full of changes, I guess.

“It sure would be nice to have a car, huh?” Yoshin murmured.

Hm, looks like Yoshin’s getting all fired up about one day getting a car. Probably ’cause Oto-nii was telling him about how nice it is to have one.

I had heard people talk about how young people in Japan nowadays weren’t all that interested in cars anymore, but there were still those who wanted one.

“We should go on a road trip when I get my license,” Yoshin concluded.

“That sounds awesome,” I replied. “Even a little cruise around town would be fun.”

Me in the passenger seat while Yoshin was behind the wheel... Going around and visiting a bunch of places seemed so fun. And if I also got my license, then we would be able to take turns driving. Not to mention that if we were able to drive, we’d be able to go to a bunch more places and do a lot more things for our dates too.

“It’s a little later than we thought it’d be, but do you still want to get that snack?” Yoshin suggested.

“Yeah, let’s! But now I’m wondering if we’ll run into anyone else from our class or not,” I remarked.

“Who knows? I feel like most people would’ve come sometime during the first three days of the new year.”

Yoshin seemed to think that we weren’t going to see anyone else, but I couldn’t help but think that his words were just foreshadowing yet another encounter with a classmate. Was I overthinking it, though? I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to see people or anything.

We continued walking, and—contrary to my expectations—managed to reach our destination without running into anyone else. Oh, I guess it wasn’t a foreshadowing, then.

We found ourselves at a simple, wooden structure that stood quietly before us, one with a triangular roof. The wood used for the exterior had a gentle hue, and overall, the building itself had an almost quaint feel to it. The walls were made of glass, though, making it possible for us to see inside the store. Snow was piled on the roof and eaves, giving the structure a decorative touch of white.

I had read beforehand that we could possibly face long lines here, but today it seemed like we would be able to get inside relatively quickly.

“Oh, it already smells so good,” I said.

“You’re right, it smells kind of toasty,” Yoshin added.

The scent was both savory and sweet. Was it grilled mochi we were smelling?

There were lots of different sweets on display inside the shop, but I couldn’t yet tell where they were grilling the mochi. Oh, someone’s grilling it in the back. And someone’s buying some right now too.

“Can we get two, please?” I asked when I got to the front of the line.

“Coming right up,” the shopkeeper replied cheerily.

As soon as we ordered, I saw someone flip small, round mochis over a griddle, revealing pristine grill marks across the mochi’s toasted white surface.

When I was handed the mochi, I felt its hot, squishy texture against my fingertips. Wow, it’s super hot. The red bean paste inside has got to be piping hot too.

“I guess I shouldn’t try to feed this to you, huh?” I said to Yoshin.

“Yeah, we’re definitely gonna burn our mouths,” he commented.

It seemed the paste inside this mochi was the type that still had bits of bean left in it. Hot bean paste could get you pretty bad and cause some serious burns. This was definitely something you had to eat at your own pace.

One of the shopkeepers told us that we could help ourselves to tea, so Yoshin and I each got a cup and sat ourselves in some seats placed in front of the store.

There were only three tables and chairs total, but luckily one of them had opened up, so we sat down, put our cups of tea down...and without a moment to spare, bit into our mochi.

I’d read that you had to enjoy this snack fresh, but the hot mochi was still crispy on the outside, its natural gooeyness making a perfect combination with the soft, sweet bean paste. Maybe because it was warm, but the gentle sweetness spread smoothly throughout my mouth, followed by the aroma of the grilled mochi. I washed each mouthful down with a sip of tea. Its fragrant and simple taste somehow made me feel at ease. Yoshin and I both set our cups down on the table at the same time and sighed with relieved happiness.

The weather was nice, the sun a soothing warmth on our skin. We were sitting there together, next to each other, enjoying our mochi and tea. When I glanced up at the sky, marveling at just how lovely the weather was today, the wind suddenly picked up. It shook a strand of my hair loose and made it fall on my face. Yoshin reached over and fixed my hair, and we both smiled at each other as we looked up at the sky again and took another bite out of our mochi.

I felt like I was relaxing at my grandmother’s house, having tea on the porch. Even though we were just sitting there quietly, not even talking to each other...I still couldn’t help but feel happy and fulfilled.

“I feel so content right now,” Yoshin muttered out of the blue.

It tickled me that he was feeling the same way. I scooted closer to him in my seat and snuggled up against him.

As we sat there, enjoying our sweet moment together...

“Oh, it’s Nanami-chan.”

“Oh, hello, master.”

Kotoha-chan and Teshikaga-kun suddenly appeared before us. Kotoha-chan was wearing a furisode kimono and holding a soft serve in her hand. Yoshin and I were stunned, but the two of them waved and walked toward us. Kotoha-chan, how can you be eating soft serve when it’s so cold out...? On the other hand, Teshikaga-kun had what looked like a giant senbei cracker in his hand.

“You’re both visiting the shrine together?” Yoshin asked Teshikaga-kun.

“Yes, we wrote our wishes on ema boards at a different shrine,” he explained.

With Yoshin and Teshikaga-kun having their own exchange, I turned to Kotoha-chan to study her furisode outfit. Her kimono was a refreshing combination of green and white, and she had styled her hair in a side ponytail. Her figure, in her properly and neatly put together kimono, looked both modest and sexy at the same time. The large flower ornament she wore added to the overall elegance of her look.

“Kotoha-chan, you look so nice in a kimono,” I couldn’t help saying.

“Thanks,” she replied. “But aren’t you the one who looks really good in a kimono right now?”

“You think so? I don’t look fat in it to you? I tried to wear it so that I wouldn’t look that way,” I confessed.

“Oh, I guess it’s tough to wear a kimono when you’re well-endowed, huh? Would it be better to just embrace it and emphasize your chest, then?” she suggested.

Does that mean...I’m supposed to put my boobs on display? Wait, like in the oiran style? I know Ayumi mentioned it, but is that styling really that popular? And am I just seeing things, or are Kotoha-chan’s eyes full-on gleaming right now? She’s eating her ice cream like she’s trying to hide it...or maybe, by hiding them so explicitly, she’s emphasizing it more?

When I glanced in the direction that Kotoha-chan was looking, I saw Teshikaga-kun. Kotoha-chan had become a massive carnivore lately, which reminded me...

“So...how was Christmas?” I asked.

Oh, her ice-cream cone cracked. She must’ve tightened her grip too suddenly. Yeah, say no more. I guess...nothing happened, huh?

Kotoha-chan’s ice cream was now dripping onto her hand, but she managed to continue lapping it up so as to not get any of it on her kimono.

Um, is there a reason she has to eat it in such an erotic way?

“That spineless delinquent, in the middle of it all...the end...gone in...”

Her mutterings sounded more than slightly disturbing, so I decided to change the subject.

“A-Are you gonna visit the shrine today, Kotoha-chan? Or have you done that already?” I asked.

“Oh, um...we wrote our ema boards at a different shrine, and then we also came here to pray. We heard that the other shrine had more influence over relationship stuff,” she explained.

Kotoha-chan showed me a photo as she said, “See this?” It was of a heart-shaped ema board, with a wish from her and Teshikaga-kun written on it, one on each side.

What the. This is super adorable.

“It’s not too far from here. If you guys aren’t doing anything after this, why don’t you go check it out?” she suggested.

“That might be a good idea...”

Oh, Teshikaga-kun was showing Yoshin his phone too, so maybe they were looking at the same thing we were. Kotoha-chan and I looked at each other and snuck up on them. Oh, yeah. They’re totally looking at it too.

“It really was a pretty ema board. Kotoha was quite happy about it,” Teshikaga-kun was saying.

“Wow, it’s shaped like a heart, huh? What did you end up wishing for?” Yoshin asked.

“Um, for me to...have more courage in my relationship with Kotoha.”

I couldn’t help but be amused when Yoshin let out a loud “ah,” like he knew exactly what Teshikaga-kun was talking about. Teshikaga-kun, too, was smiling awkwardly as he looked away from his phone and somewhere in the distance.

Oh, Kotoha-chan is pouting.

“Taku-chan... I keep telling you that I’m good whenever,” she said.

Teshikaga-kun startled and slowly turned toward us. His expression was less that of the delinquent he so often was mistaken for, and more of a child that was being scolded.

It would be a lie if I said I didn’t think she had him under her thumb. Though, to be fair, this particular situation did seem to be an exception between the two of them.

From there, the two of them linked arms and said that they were going to go ahead and pray at this shrine, so we decided to part ways.

As we watched them walk away, Yoshin muttered, “Do you wanna try going to the other shrine they mentioned?”

“Huh? Really? Aren’t you tired?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Plus, don’t you wanna try writing on a heart-shaped ema board?”

Yoshin also added that he wanted to be able to spend more time with me. Once he said that I realized that I felt the same way, and I could feel myself smiling. Still, I wasn’t expecting Yoshin to be the one to suggest our next stop.

Seeing him look slightly embarrassed was so endearing, that I couldn’t keep myself from giving him a peck on the forehead right as he was trying to stand up.

His stunned face was honestly so funny, but then I also started to get a little embarrassed—so I stood up too and ran off ahead of him.

Chapter 3: Off to the Hot Springs

I had no memories from last winter break that were worthy of special mention.

About the only thing I did that time was visit my grandparents. And since I wasn’t even working back then, I really had had all the time in the world and nothing to fill it with. Though, given that I had played games all day, I guess I wasn’t really doing nothing.

Even if school was out, working people didn’t get that many days off; on weekdays, therefore, I spent most of the day by myself. After all, there was snow piled up outside, and it was super cold, so it was perfectly natural for me to stay holed up inside the house, where it was warm and cozy. If I did go out, it was only to the neighborhood convenience store. And on the days when it was snowing, even that seemed too much of a hassle.

To think, then, that someone like me was making plans to go on a trip with my girlfriend. But anyway, despite the fact that in winter I was usually too lazy to go anywhere, now I was even looking forward to traveling with Nanami.

Maybe I shouldn’t still be so surprised by any of this. I mean, I didn’t even want to go on our class trip before. But really, despite everything, now I even found preparing for the trip to be enjoyable. It was probably because preparing meant I got to talk to Nanami about all sorts of things as we steadily made decisions on what we would do.

“What kind of ryokan do you think would be good?” Nanami wondered out loud.

“This ryokan seems really posh, but this one looks like it has really good food...and this one over here seems to have great hot springs,” I observed.

Nanami and I were sitting in the Barato family living room, searching for ryokans on our phones and talking about which place might be the best choice for us to book. A computer might have made things easier, but Nanami didn’t have one. Plus, on a phone, we could sit relatively close to each other.

And also in the living room...

“I think this ryokan seems quite lovely. It even has a family bath,” Tomoko-san offered.

“I like this one! I prefer a hotel over a ryokan anyway. The buffet here looks amazing,” Saya-chan commented.

“Personally, I would go with this ryokan. It looks like it has an open-air bath on the rooftop,” Genichiro-san joined in.

The rest of the Baratos were adding their two cents to the discussion. If two heads were better than one, then surely having five heads involved must yield some incredible results. Though it seemed like everyone was giving input on the kind of lodging they individually wanted to stay at. Um, you guys aren’t actually coming along, are you?

With looks of mild incredulity on both our faces, Nanami and I nonetheless noted what her family said about the ryokans in our phones to refer back to later.

Until now, I’d never noticed just how many ryokans and hotels were out there. Just a quick search yielded a huge number of hits. Perks and advantages ranged from their famed hot springs and high-quality food to their picturesque locations and easy accessibility. Each venue had so many different characteristics, with many of them also offering packages for couples and families.

How Nanami and I had ended up in this situation was relatively simple: I came to explain the details of the trip to the Barato family.

Even though we had already gotten permission from both sets of parents to go on this trip, the simple fact that I was taking the Baratos’ daughter away surely meant that I needed to explain things to them myself. Though maybe it wasn’t quite right to say that I was taking Nanami away, exactly.

Because Nanami had informed them of our trip already, my own discussion with her parents didn’t take terribly long. We went over how we’d managed to get the pair of tickets, why we wanted to go on the trip...

I also told them definitively that we wouldn’t do anything questionable during the trip, and how I hoped that our time together during Christmas had hopefully served as proof that I would keep my word. We were probably able to get their okay in the first place because of all our previous efforts.

From there, we quickly transitioned to looking at our various lodging options—and for some reason, everyone in the Barato household was approaching the issue as though they themselves were staying at the lodging.

Mom: Your father and I recommend this ryokan.

Why was even my mom messaging me now? Her recommendation was a long-established hot springs ryokan, one that was known for the various meat dishes they offered on their menu.

I guess, in this case, I should just be happy that they approved of this trip at all.

After a while of looking at different options and actually calling up some of the hotels...

“I didn’t realize we would have so many ryokans to choose from,” I muttered.

The pair of tickets we had had us choosing from a list of ryokans and certain packages each one offered, but even then, there was still a sizable number of options left.

It was possible to make reservations online or by phone, but since we wanted to be able to ask some questions prior to booking anything, this time we decided to actually call the hotels beforehand. When we did, we found that most places would allow us to stay as long as we had parental consent, and that of the ones available to us, only a few hotels declined our requests for potential reservations. For those places, the deciding factor in not being able to let us stay seemed to be the fact that we were a couple.

“We can stay because we have the tickets, but then we end up also needing consent forms and stuff, huh?” Nanami also sighed.

Given that we were both minors, it made perfect sense. Apparently we needed to jump through a few hoops before we could really make a reservation, like filling out different forms and having our parents actually talk to someone at the ryokan. Had we both been eighteen, we wouldn’t have needed anyone’s permission. As the party in question, I couldn’t help but wonder why a single year made so much difference.

It was only a year, and yet it was also a whole year. I guess I just had to accept it and move on—even though that sentiment sounded like a line from some epic special effects movie. Still, a rule was a rule was a rule.

When Nanami learned that we wouldn’t need consent forms if we were both eighteen, though...

“You mean, after our birthdays next year, there would be nothing holding us back?” she murmured, looking at me with eyes that glinted much like a predator’s would when sizing up prey. I got shivers up my spine and couldn’t help but feel like she was going to eat me up.

Except that potential had its own challenge as well.

“I don’t turn eighteen until the end of the year, though, so it’ll be almost a full year from now,” I reminded her.

“Oh...”

Of course, even if Nanami was eighteen, I would still only be seventeen for a while after that—which meant that I would still need permission from my parents. It honestly wasn’t like we would be able to stay all we wanted at a hotel the moment one of us came of age.

“But at least I wouldn’t be a minor, right?” Nanami pressed.

“Right, you’d become an adult before I would.”

“In that case, wouldn’t I be able to stay at a hotel with you as your guardian?”

“Is that even allowed...?”

Nanami was suggesting quite the loophole. Wait, was it perhaps actually legitimate? As in, could two high schoolers really stay at a hotel, as long as one of them claimed to be the other’s guardian? Being a minor was just a numbers game, and legally speaking, a person became an adult the moment they turned eighteen. So, technically speaking, what Nanami was thinking wasn’t wrong.

But as a man, having my girlfriend be my guardian felt kind of pathetic. It sounded like I was under her protection or something.

Wait, though—did that mean that next year, I, who would still be a minor, would be dating Nanami, who was an adult? That sounded kind of wrong. Put it that way, and it seemed like we were doing something immoral, or at the very least, just not allowed.

“Nanami, should you really be saying things like this in front of us?” Tomoko-san asked.

“While the both of you are still in high school, I would like you to ask us for permission first,” Genichiro-san added.

Nanami and I both startled at the same time and then slowly turned our heads in the direction of the voices...and looked right at Nanami’s parents.

Yeah, staying at a hotel is not something to discuss in front of our parents, is it? This was my first time hearing Tomoko-san sound so scandalized. Genichiro-san, too, had a very stern look on his face. Maybe they looked this way in reaction to Nanami’s remark, though. They were both staring at her instead of me, after all.

Still, Nanami and I both turned red. Saya-chan, though, was grinning from ear to ear. She even egged us on, saying that we should definitely go stay at a hotel as often as we could.

“Right—let’s not go randomly staying at hotels, even after we turn eighteen,” I declared.

“Okay, fine,” Nanami mumbled, pouting and sounding unhappy about it. But for the sake of upholding both the trust Nanami’s parents had in me and my own reliability, I had to say it.

Nanami being proactive like this was business as usual, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I learned a thing or two from it. But if I also became aggressive like that, would it ruin the balance we had achieved so far? I felt both of us being so gung ho would gradually wear away at the dynamic between us. In that case, it was probably better to maintain what we had now.

Nanami comes for me, and I hold back. That dynamic was also probably a big reason Tomoko-san and the other adults were letting us spend the night out together at all.

“So, which lodging are you thinking of choosing? We’d probably have to call them as well,” Tomoko-san said.

That’s right—we didn’t have the time to keep yapping about weird possibilities; we had to decide, and fast. We were supposed to make our reservations a minimum of ten days in advance, so if we didn’t decide today, it would be cutting it really close. Even if our winter break was pretty long, if we dillydallied and ended up not being able to stay anywhere, that would be straight-up bad. Our tickets were good until the summer or so, but I didn’t want to postpone this trip until then. If we were gonna go to the hot springs, I felt like winter was better for it. Though maybe I only thought that because of the image I had in my head of hot springs.

So, Nanami and I discussed once again all the possible places to stay, and from our shared list, we chose a hot springs inn that featured a truly beautiful view of the snowscape. It was a ryokan rather than a hotel, and one that seemed quaint, but also tasteful.

Plus both Nanami’s and my parents had suggested that we should try staying at a ryokan instead of a hotel.

“A ryokan would have staff members who’ll come into your room from time to time, so doing anything questionable will be pretty difficult.”

Or so they said.

I didn’t know what they meant at first, but apparently it was rare for anyone to come to your room personally if you stayed at a hotel, whereas at a ryokan, the staff would come to set up your futon and stuff, which meant that there would be people coming and going from time to time over the course of your stay. Though I guess it also depended on the room you were staying in. With that in mind, it made sense that our parents would tell us to stay at a ryokan.

And so, one of the conditions for our trip became that we stay at a hot springs ryokan. Though Saya-chan insisted on our behalf that a hotel should still be fine too—her reasoning being that she believed Nanami wouldn’t be able to bring herself to do anything anyway even if there weren’t any possibility of being interrupted. But that was an entirely separate matter.

“Then let’s do this one,” I said when Nanami and I finally decided. “Is it okay if I call them?”

“Could you? That would be great,” Nanami replied.

“In that case, maybe I’ll go ahead and call them right now,” I said as I began to dial with a certain level of excitement.

For some reason, people always went quiet around you when you made a phone call. The entirety of Nanami’s family was even staring at me. Was this just what happened in this kind of situation?

The whole time that the ringback tone was sounding, I found myself feeling oddly nervous.

If we really managed to decide on our lodging now, we would have even more things to prepare after that. We’d have to have our parents write up consent forms, confirm everything with the hotel, figure out all the other things we no doubt needed...

And after that, we’d have to actually shop for all our necessities. We already had bags that we used for our class trip, and given that this outing would only be a two-day, one-night trip, maybe we wouldn’t need so much luggage to begin with.

The ringback tone stopped momentarily, and the receptionist at the ryokan picked up. I had already called earlier to check whether we would be able to stay, so I began this call with just a brief explanation. When I told the staff that we had gotten our parents’ approval, they explained that we would simply need additional consent forms to secure our reservation. And during the conversation...

“I’m sorry, Tomoko-san, can you tell me your phone number?” I asked.

“Oh my, hitting on a middle-aged woman like me?” she feigned shock.

No, ma’am. This is definitely not the time for a shtick like that. Nanami was glaring at us furiously, though, so Tomoko-san quickly told me her number, adding that she was just kidding around.

When I relayed the information to the staff and hung up, Tomoko-san’s phone rang next. My parents were probably getting a phone call right about now too.

On my end, I was nearly finished with the reservation, and all I had left to do was to get a confirmation from the inn.

“Hey, so, the person my mom is talking to,” Nanami began.

“Oh, yeah. It’s someone from the ryokan. Since we’re staying in the same room, they have to check directly with the parents too,” I explained.

Because the pair of tickets we were using this time around was for a single room rather than for two separate rooms, apparently there were additional things the ryokan staff needed to check. I felt a little bad that the ryokan staff had to go through all this trouble too. Apparently we could have paid extra to get separate rooms, but...

“I wonder if that would have been better,” I mumbled.

It was pretty much a done deal that Nanami and I wouldn’t be able to do anything even if we did stay in the same room, so even if we had tried to book different rooms, it wouldn’t have really changed the trip that much.

But if that were the case, then it would be the same even if we did stay in the same room. Plus, if we could be in the same room, it just didn’t seem to make sense to pay extra just to be in separate rooms. Or, maybe that was just my own desires talking.

If I wanted to demonstrate how sincere I was, then maybe it actually was better to get a second room, even if it was more expensive? Jeez, I felt like I was going in circles.

“What would have been better?” Nanami asked.

“Hm? Oh, it’s just that we had the option to book separate rooms. All we needed to do was pay a little more. And if we did that, we wouldn’t have needed all this additional verification.”

“What do you mean? We won a hot springs trip for two, so of course it’s better to stay in the same room,” Nanami disagreed. “And if it’s just confirming, our parents are happy to do it.”

She added that the extra cost would be a waste, and then she bent down and proceeded to lay herself across my knees, as though to protest the fact that I had even suggested getting two separate rooms for us.

With her splayed out face down on my lap like a cat, I could feel all her softness seeping into my legs. Wow, she really is super soft. I extended my legs with her now on top of me in order to make her position more comfortable, but I couldn’t help worrying that it might still hurt for her to be lying on my legs like this.

Nanami, however, seemed to be entirely unconcerned for her comfort, just flipping over onto her back and lying there like an animal with its belly exposed to the heavens. She seemed to be in complete relaxation mode. She was just in regular loungewear, so her top slid up to reveal her navel.

I was suddenly overcome by the urge to touch that slip of belly, but I had to hold myself back. I couldn’t do that while Tomoko-san was on the phone next to me. Meanwhile Saya-chan, at the sight of her older sister in total relaxation, looked completely exasperated. Genichiro-san seemed more nostalgic, looking somewhere in the distance.

“Yes, then I’ll leave the rest to you. Thank you,” Tomoko-san said as she hung up the phone. She touched the tips of her thumb and index finger to indicate to us that everything went a-okay, but when she saw Nanami lying down on my lap, her jaw dropped.

Several moments later, I received a call on my phone, the number being that of the ryokan I’d called earlier.

“Hello?” I said as I picked up.

They were calling back to tell me that they had been able to get in touch with both sets of parents and that there was no further issue in terms of the reservation. All we had left to do was to write up the consent forms and send them off before our stay. They went on to say that bringing them on the day of was fine, but that they would deeply appreciate receiving them beforehand. I should probably email them ahead of time—though I hadn’t used email to contact anyone in a long time, so I didn’t quite remember how to do it.

“Thank you. I look forward to our stay,” I said, then hung up after hearing their parting greeting expressing the same sentiment in kind. This didn’t quite take care of all our preparations, but at least now we had ourselves a place to stay. As long as that was taken care of, I felt like everything else was somehow manageable. Now we could move on to planning the actual itinerary of the trip.

“We have successfully reserved a ryokan,” I announced to Nanami.

“Oh, thank you very much!” she replied while still lying in my lap, reaching up to try to pat me on the head. Being unable to quite reach my head, though, she just ended up with her hands awkwardly in the air.

I took those hands in mine and, squeezing them a tiny bit, said, “The trip is gonna be so much fun, huh?”

“Yeah, seriously,” she replied as she drew my hands toward her own face, the squishiness of her cheeks against my hands both comforting and familiar.

“Before you go, you’ll have to get a lot of things ready,” we heard Tomoko-san say, accompanied by a hearty clap. Nanami, her eyes having slipped almost shut some time while I was petting her cheeks, seemed to wake up and come to her senses a bit, slowly letting go of my hands and sitting up.

I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed to be separated from the weight and sensation of Nanami against my lap. Still, Nanami and I were probably getting too intimate with each other while her entire family was still in the room with us. We were being more handsy than usual because we hadn’t seen each other for some time.

Seeing Nanami sit up and away from me made me want to be closer to her. Maybe we could cuddle up when we went back to her room later.

Tomoko-san was looking at us with a satiated look on her face, but then she raised her index finger as though she had suddenly remembered something.

“By the way, if you do something naughty while you’re on your trip, the ryokan will contact us about it—so make sure you absolutely keep yourselves from doing anything close to that,” she warned.

She then added that she trusted us to be good, but that even so, we probably didn’t want our parents to find out what we were up to in that kind of fashion. But she giggled while she said that, so she was probably still enjoying herself.

Genichiro-san, on his part, had a disgruntled look on his face. Saya-chan was grinning as though she were teasing us, or perhaps even expecting something to happen between me and Nanami.

Seeing each member of the Barato family clearly expressed how they felt about our trip, all Nanami and I could do was look at each other with wry smiles on our respective faces.

♢♢♢

Time passed relentlessly, and even more so during two types of circumstances: when it was during something fun or before something that one was looking forward to.

Having finished most of our homework for winter break, we made various preparations over several days and finally found ourselves on the day of our departure.

Preparations...didn’t involve too much shopping, given that we were only going on a two-day, one-night trip. We were able to reuse items we’d purchased for our Hawaii trip, and in general didn’t need to bring as much clothing. Worst-case scenario, we could buy things at our destination too. Plus, we could also speak Japanese there. Just having that in particular took a lot of weight off our shoulders. Still, we needed to prepare such that we wouldn’t need to spend more money during our trip than we had to.

“Fwah...”

“Jeez, Yoshin. That’s quite a big yawn,” Nanami remarked.

“Yeah, last night I was too excited about our trip, so I couldn’t sleep,” I claimed.

“The trip is only starting, so you can’t be feeling sleepy already...fwah...”

Oh, Nanami’s yawning too. I know seeing someone yawn makes you want to yawn too, but I feel like this is just Nanami being sleepy too.

We were both tearing up from our respective yawns, and Nanami even dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, though she also stuck her tongue out at me as if she’d been caught in the middle of a prank.

It seemed Nanami had also been too excited to sleep well last night.

Didn’t we fall asleep while chatting on the phone yesterday, you ask? No, we didn’t, and there were several reasons for that.

In my case, I was getting a pretty serious talking-to from my parents. It was really something to behold.

They had first talked my ear off about calling them once we arrived at the ryokan and being in touch with them regularly while we were out sightseeing, then reminded me that they would be calling at random to check in on us and that I should, therefore, always stay on my toes. They even told me not to do anything weird to Nanami and not to make her cry.

And then, finally, they told me to stick to her like glue to prevent people from hitting on her, to reach out to any nearby adult if something were to happen, and to not attempt to resolve situations on our own.

After a certain point, it felt much less like a pep talk than it did a reprimand.

Though I did manage to get a rebuttal of my own in at some point. I asked—among other things—why they went out drinking and left us to be by ourselves on Christmas. They claimed then that it was because we had been in touch with them that same day, and they judged that there would be no problems if they let us be and did their thing.

I learned this back when I was at my grandparents’ house, but apparently my mom and dad had done a lot of questionable things when they were young too. It was the first time I realized that adults, especially parents, often put up a front with their kids while inside, they were thinking entirely different things. They probably knew that Nanami and I wouldn’t get up to anything on our own, but as parents, they still had to say what they had to say. That was probably what happened at Christmas too.

And this time as well, they had had to say things to me that were necessary in order for them to fulfill the role of being responsible parents—even if they were about actions that they themselves had done when they were young.

Being an adult honestly seemed pretty tough. Plus, even if their children became aware of their past selves, they still had to be convincing as responsible, no-nonsense adults.

As a result of all of us saying everything we wanted to say, though, my parents and I actually ended up having a really good conversation, like somehow we had managed to have a real heart-to-heart. At least, that was what it felt like.

In all honesty, I felt simultaneously annoyed and grateful about the whole thing.

And so, with my parents and I having come to an understanding, I was setting off on this trip with Nanami. And it turned out...

“Seriously, my parents are so overprotective,” Nanami murmured.

It seemed Tomoko-san and Genichiro-san had sat her down for a conversation last night as well. That, too, would be something I assumed was out of care for us.

“Shall we go, then?” I suggested.

It was early morning, and the two of us were standing on a platform at the train station. Around us were some salarymen, in suits and seemingly on their way to work, but even they were few and far between. My own parents were probably still at home, getting ready to go to work too.

“Wow, a real train trip!” Nanami exclaimed. “I’ve gone by car before, but I’m pretty sure it’s my first time taking a train there.”

Our trip would start on a weekday. Both my parents and Nanami’s had offered to take time off work to drive us to the ryokan, but we politely declined; we felt bad asking them to go out of their way just to make our leisure time easier. Plus, Nanami and I both thought that even the journey there was part of the fun of going on a trip.

And having our parents drive us for a one-night stay would make it feel...like less of a trip.

Had I been the one driving, I’m sure it would have felt different.

We bought tickets for assigned seats on the train, and currently, we were having breakfast inside the station while we waited for our train to arrive. We were trying to catch the very first train of the morning.

“It probably would have been faster if we’d flown,” I muttered.

“Don’t say that now,” Nanami admonished. “Flying would have been too expensive anyway.”

Though a train ride cost a pretty penny too. If we hadn’t had the pair of tickets that we’d won, transportation alone would’ve taken us way past our budget. That fact made me genuinely glad for my part-time job.

Nanami and I were eating sandwiches we’d bought from a vending machine inside the station, swapping them so we could each taste both sandwiches. I’d gotten a tuna sandwich, while Nanami had gotten an egg salad one.

“Oh, this egg salad sandwich is really good. It’s got so much egg,” I remarked.

“The tuna sandwich you got is pretty tasty too. I don’t think I’ve had one in a while,” Nanami said.

“This is fun, isn’t it? Having breakfast like this.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of neat to see all the different sandwiches on sale.”

At first we considered having breakfast at a coffee shop or something, but then we discovered the vending machine and decided that we both wanted to try it. It offered classics, like veggie or ham, as well as heartier ones with pork cutlet or chicken teriyaki. There were even sweet options, like a fruit sandwich, to make up quite a variety on offer.

Once we purchased our selections, we also picked up some fruit juice and found a bench in the station where we could eat together.

It was oddly exciting to do all this.

I looked around and saw some of the salarymen waiting for the train also eating sandwiches, or stowing them away for later. To all these busy adults it was probably just a quick and easy breakfast for when they were on the go, but the thought that with my own purchase I’d temporarily joined their ranks gave me a mild thrill.

Nanami drank the orange juice she’d bought from the vending machine and then licked off a bit of mayonnaise that had gotten on the corner of her lips. The mildly suggestive motion of her tongue, of course, didn’t escape me.

When I looked down, though, I saw that the mayo from my sandwich had gotten on my hand too. How are Nanami’s hands so clean...? Oh, I see, she kept her sandwich in the original plastic wrap. Jeez, why was I fool enough to hold my sandwich directly? Welp, I guess I’ll have to go wash my hands now.

“Oh, Yoshin—your hands are all sticky. Here, I’ll wipe them for you,” Nanami said before promptly cleaning my hands with a wet wipe that she’d pulled out of thin air. Wait, why does it feel like she’s treating me like a child?

“Thanks...though I’m feeling a little embarrassed right now,” I murmured.

“Tee hee, you know, I actually wanted to try doing this,” she confessed.

“You wanted to try doing this?” I asked, motioning to our hands between us.

“You know, like how moms wipe their kids’ hands clean and stuff,” she explained, smiling happily as she continued cleaning my hands. Seems like I really am being treated like a child.

Nanami looked extremely satisfied to wipe my hands clean. Her maternal instincts seemed to have awakened in full force. Maybe the trip had her more excited than usual?

“I know we just ate breakfast, but what are we thinking for lunch?” Nanami asked.

“Hmm...maybe we can eat once we get to our destination. You know, as part of our sightseeing,” I suggested.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” she replied, “though I was also thinking that it might be nice to get an ekiben lunch box from the train station.”

“Ah, true. Yeah, that’s a good idea too,” I murmured.

I had actually never eaten an ekiben before. Eating while still on the train seemed like a lot of fun. But the idea of eating local specialties at our destination was also appealing.

Hm. I can’t seem to decide.

“How about,” I began after a long pause, “we eat our ekiben, and then we also eat when we get there?”

“It’s not too much for you?” Nanami asked suspiciously.

“Don’t you think you can eat more when you’re traveling?” I proposed.

“I’m not so sure that I can...”

Nanami did have a point. In fact, lately I had been eating a lot more than usual because the food I had been sharing with Nanami was so tasty, which meant I had also been working out more in exchange. I was managing to maintain my physique, but if I weren’t careful, I felt like I could let myself go pretty easily. I was also certain that this trip would have us eating a lot of delicious food, so really, if I didn’t watch myself, I could gain weight just from the next couple of days.

I turned to Nanami and said, “Are you worried about getting f—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The ominous aura that Nanami was emitting shut me right up. We were about to set off on a journey; there was no need to say something unnecessary and upset her.

Yup, good idea, Yoshin. Silence was golden. I needed to be more sensitive.

“The train is probably coming soon,” I said, changing the subject. “Shall we make our way over?”

“Yeah...I feel like the moment we sit down on the train I’m gonna knock out,” Nanami said, letting out a yawn.

“It is kind of a long ride. If you’re sleepy, you should take a nap,” I suggested.

“Mm, I’ll be okay. I’ll try to stay awake as much as I can...”

Our train ride was about to begin. Total trip length? Five hours.

Would we be able to stay awake the entire five hours? As Nanami and I slowly boarded the train that pulled into the station, each of us stifled a yawn.

♢♢♢

“So we totally fell asleep,” I muttered.

“We managed to stay up during the first part. But yeah,” Nanami replied.

As our train arrived at our destination, Nanami and I disembarked, sharing a wry smile between us. We honestly were awake for a part of the trip, and in that time we mainly talked to each other as the train gradually pulled farther away from where we lived.

Just sitting next to each other in our assigned seats, chatting and looking at the passing scenery, was so much fun. It was just that the Doto region was pretty far from where we lived. The journey took nearly five hours; it was super long.

I had taken long car rides before, three or four hours long, but a train ride felt totally different. After our Hawaii flight, this was probably the second-longest trip I’d ever taken. As the train trekked on, both Nanami and I gradually said less and less to each other. Nanami was the first one to actually fall asleep, and at first, we both alternated between dozing off and waking up. After a while, though, we just ended up leaning on each other and falling asleep completely.

Not being able to fall asleep easily last night probably had a lot to do with it. I thought being young meant that I could stay up all night, but that turned out to be more difficult than I imagined.

Though maybe it was because I was on a train that I had slept at all. Being on a train with all its steady noises, its rhythmic sways and vibrations... As I sat there, letting my body sink into all those sensations, I found myself falling fast asleep.

I felt like I slept really well, though. I’d heard that the sleep one could get while on a vehicle could be pretty good, but I felt like I had slept better here than when I had slept on a plane.

Now off of the train, both Nanami and I stretched and twisted our bodies, doing our best to loosen muscles stiff from being stationary for so long. With each movement our bodies—gradually cooling in the cold outside air—made all sorts of cracking noises.

“Since we left on the first train, it’s still lunchtime,” Nanami observed. “Good idea for us to leave so early, huh?”

“Yeah, you’re right. We’re finally here,” I murmured.

The sun was high above us, and the weather was fine indeed: a blue sky, with not a single cloud to be seen.

The faint breeze carried a different scent than the one I was used to smelling back in our city. Would there be more of a sea breeze here? The salty, wintry air was a lot colder than we were used to, and even that difference was enough to remind me that we had, indeed, traveled far.

I turned to look at Nanami, who was still stretching.

Today, she was wearing a long winter coat, along with a pair of boots. She had her hair tied back and draped down her front, and she also had on a pair of round glasses. Earlier she had said something about wanting to dress in a way that made her seem more serious and demure. The predominantly white outfit really did help her come off as neat and studious. Her glasses looked particularly good on her as well.

I, on the other hand, looked the same as usual. But I had decided to wear an accessory today, just for fun.

Since we were going to be staying at a ryokan by ourselves, we both tried to look like we were two diligent, upright high schoolers, so that we could give the ryokan staff a good impression of us right off the bat. At the very least, we wouldn’t look like total partyers.

Nanami must have noticed me looking at her, because she then looked slightly embarrassed, but winked at me nonetheless. Oh boy. That’s way too cute.

Now that we had loosened up a bit, we turned our attention to figuring out what we would see first. There wasn’t anything around the train station, but apparently, there was a roadside station only ten minutes away by bus.

A roadside station... I believed they were created to serve as rest areas between cities. Some of them offered exclusive food items that you could only eat there, while others served as tourist attractions.

As for this specific roadside station... Oh, I know this one. It’s one of the places that we’d talked about visiting sometime during our trip. We’d actually use this station to get to our actual destination, but maybe we can check this place out as a kind of advanced reconnaissance mission? We can even get lunch there.

“Since we need to get lunch anyway, shall we try this place?” I said, indicating the roadside station.

“Wow, I haven’t been to a roadside station in a really long time. Eating there makes even the most ordinary food taste good,” Nanami replied.

“Really? I’ve never been to a roadside station before, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Oto-nii used to be really into stamp rallies, and Hatsumi forced us to come along because she said it was too much trying to go with him just by herself,” she explained, looking off into the distance. She had a wry smile on her face, as if even mentioning those past days somehow pained her.

Wait, aren’t they supposed to be good memories? It seems like she’s remembering something unpleasant.

“You wanna hear about it?” Nanami asked slowly.

Yikes, her voice sounds super low. What happened, seriously? Now I really do wanna know.

The roadside station could be reached either by bus or on foot. Taking the bus took just ten minutes, but even walking took only twenty. Given that it was winter, though, we opted to go by bus—and lucky for us, the bus headed in that direction was just about to depart.

There weren’t that many people on the bus; aside from the two of us, there was only a smattering of people aboard. Even that made our trip feel somehow laid-back.

We sat toward the back of the bus, and en route to our destination, I heard from Nanami what had happened with the stamp rally.

It sounded like a world away from the laid-back trip we were on now: a slog at best, and something like a forced military march at worst.

What were they all thinking back then...?

What Nanami and her friends essentially went on was a journey of collecting as many stamps as possible during their days off—with absolutely no sightseeing or enjoying of local specialty foods involved. They had a schedule down to the minute of what they were planning to do, which was essentially an endless repetition of driving and stamping, driving and stamping, driving and stamping. Nanami described the whole thing as hellish.

“I’m impressed you went,” I confided.

“Well, it was fine in the moment because we were all practically high on adrenaline the whole time. Still, looking back, I have no idea what that was all about,” Nanami sighed.

I see, I guess this just means that even with your own car, you shouldn’t try to pack in too much. Yeah, that’s an important lesson.

Nanami seemed to feel the same way, as she vowed—with a worn look on her face—for our trip to be much, much more relaxing.

Yeah, I felt tired just listening to what they went through.

“How about we take it easy on the sightseeing this trip?” I suggested.

“Sounds good. We’re at the hot springs, after all. We should take our sweet time checking things out,” Nanami agreed.

Unexpectedly, over this brief bus ride we seemed to have settled on our approach to this trip. Though I guess we had been planning to relax from the get-go.

Maybe when you were young it seemed more fun to have a really packed schedule, like the one that Soichiro-san and everyone had. But even so, we had to take our specific personalities and other things into consideration.

“Oh, looks like we’re here,” I said.

“That was faster than I thought,” Nanami commented.

The parking lot of the roadside station was big, and the building itself was even larger. It seemed like a rest area placed in a vast, open land—an oasis of sorts.

“Have you been to this roadside station before?” I asked.

“Yeah, actually, for the stamp rally...which is why I don’t remember a thing about it,” she sighed.

Wow, as soon as Nanami brings up that time she looks totally exhausted.

Once inside the station, we saw that there was seafood as well as local delicacies being sold at various vendor stalls. There were lots of souvenirs on sale too, as well as little explanations posted throughout the place about nearby tourist attractions. It almost felt like we were at some kind of a theme park.

So I guess they just skipped all this fun stuff last time, huh? That’s kind of a shame.

“It might be nice to revisit all the roadside stations you went to, but at a more leisurely pace,” I said.

I only brought this up as a way for Nanami to wipe away any negative connotations that she might have lingering about these places. Nanami still looked uncertain about my suggestion, but when I reiterated that we would be sightseeing more leisurely, she became slightly relieved.

She still seemed a bit traumatized by the whole memory, though, because...

“I’m gonna overwrite some of those memories today, right now! Come with me, Yoshin!” Nanami suddenly exclaimed.

“Um, yeah... I mean, of course I’m coming with you...”

“I’m gonna eat soft serve first!”

“Before lunch?!”

Even though I had to stop Nanami from heading straight into the soft serve shop, we still managed to tour around the roadside station. Although we had talked about how we should probably not eat too much while we were visiting, once we found ourselves here, we seemed to forget about our previous decisions and ended up buying all sorts of food items.

All in all, it was a lot of fun.

After enjoying our sightseeing experience, we hopped on the bus again to head to our ryokan. We were a bit early, but it was a reasonable enough time in the afternoon that we should be able to still check in. Once we did that, we could relax in our room for a bit, and then head out to another sightseeing spot afterward.

We wanted to go to the hot springs today too, and we still had dinner to consider. But when we finally arrived at our ryokan, practically trembling in excitement, the only thing that awaited us was a shocking remark from the ryokan staff.

“We are so terribly sorry...but it seems your reservation was never completed.”

“Huh...?!”

Just moments after arriving at our ryokan, we found ourselves in a mix-up of epic proportions.

Chapter 4: A Blessing in Disguise

“Please do enjoy your stay,” said the ryokan staff member, sitting on her heels in a kimono. She bowed to us once before leaving, closing the fusuma door beside her.

“Oh, uh, yes. Thank you so much...”

The fusuma door made no noise as it slid over the threshold in the floor, not even when it hit the column upon its closure. The fusuma was shut in absolute silence; the staff member’s leavetaking was so quiet we didn’t even hear her footsteps as she walked away from our room.

I chalked it up to the work of a professional, and I couldn’t help but admire her fluid movements and gestures.

Just that single act of closing a fusuma was so overwhelmingly graceful to me that the panic I’d felt earlier completely disappeared.

“This room...is incredible,” I heard Nanami utter in disbelief behind me. I, too, turned around and finally got a clearer look at where we had been shown to.

The room was fully outfitted in tatami flooring, with the middle filled by a low table and legless chairs specifically designed for the floor. A few paces away, there were two reclining chairs facing the window.

That was the room in the center of the suite. The connecting room next door was a Western-style room, with two twin beds next to each other. The suite tastefully combined both Japanese and Western designs.

The most noteworthy element of it, however...

“Hey, that thing out there on the veranda...is an open-air bath, right?” Nanami asked.

“Yeah, it sure is. Our room has an open-air bath attached to it,” I confirmed.

It was true: The thing Nanami was pointing to with a mildly incredulous expression on her face was a bath outside of our window. An open-air bath.

This room was clearly, clearly more upscale than the one we had originally reserved. Like, way more upscale.

“This can’t be real,” Nanami murmured.

“I’m pretty sure it is,” I replied.

I pinched my cheek to check and immediately felt a pulling sting. Nanami, too, was pinching my cheek. Ouch. Now both of my cheeks were being pulled. Wait, why both of mine?

I tried pinching Nanami’s cheek too. I didn’t want it to hurt, so I just held it gently between my fingers, but the both of us pinching each other’s faces still made for a strange picture.

I looked around the room once again, just to be sure. Yup, that open-air bath is still there.

There were still two twin beds too. I thought they were twin mattresses, but they actually seemed large enough to be full-sized. A full-sized bed would mean both Nanami and I should be able to sleep together... No, stop. Think no more.

“I never thought they’d show us a room like this,” Nanami muttered.

“Yeah, seriously. I still can’t believe it,” I said.

Only minutes ago I had been deeply, truly panicked. The first thing the staff said to us when we arrived at the ryokan was “Your reservation was never completed.”

To explain how we ended up getting shown to this incredible room required traveling back in time—though it all actually happened not too long ago.

The staff’s comment about our reservation wasn’t exactly accurate. To be more precise, someone on their team had double-booked the same room, and so we had never had a room set aside for us to stay in in the first place.

Though that only came to light today.

“There were...two reservations for the same room?” I had asked.

After the woman at reception gave us the initial shocking news, we also heard an additional explanation from another staff member. I was so surprised that I had to stop myself from blurting out an incredulous, “How could that possibly even happen?”

Apparently, just as I was on the phone with the ryokan making a reservation, another reservation was being made for the same room. I didn’t know the details, but that was what it sounded like. I wasn’t sure if it could be categorized as a human error, but that was what we were eventually told.

“We are so terribly sorry!” the woman in the kimono at the front desk apologized, bowing to us repeatedly.

When they told us we didn’t have a reservation, my very first response was to panic, thinking I had made some kind of a mistake—but I felt relieved that that wasn’t the case.

Nanami and I had looked at each other at that point, wondering if we’d somehow messed up on our end. We both checked our phones to find out whether that was the case. We also verified the name and location of the ryokan, just in case there was another ryokan with the same name in another prefecture. One actually did show up on our search, so for a moment we were horrified that we’d reserved a room at that other inn.

That wasn’t what had happened, of course.

“Um, if that’s the case,” I began as Nanami and I turned to each other again. Did we have nowhere to stay? Did we need to find a room somewhere? Those were the questions that were going through my mind.

Since we were going to use our hotel tickets to pay for this, we hadn’t actually paid yet, nor would we be getting some kind of refund for the mix-up. If we didn’t have a reservation here because of a double-booking, then we certainly couldn’t stay here tonight.

Was there a place nearby that would take our tickets? We’d probably end up having to pay a little out of pocket to make up for whatever difference in cost, though, which was somewhat unfortunate.

I was at a loss. What was I supposed to do? Should I be getting upset or something? What did people normally do in this kind of situation? Confused questions swirled about in my head.

I mean, staying at a hotel was so outside the realm of my usual activity already that I couldn’t even grasp the entirety of what was happening to us now. Getting upset probably wouldn’t help us figure this out either.

Maybe I would’ve been angrier if I were traveling by myself, but right now, Nanami was with me. Getting upset and causing trouble when I was traveling with a woman, and thus ruining the whole trip, seemed like the wrong move. Baron-san had also advised me to avoid getting into arguments while traveling together. Maybe, somehow, these kinds of problems were also part of the fun of traveling?

The advice of others was already helping me out. I guess it was a good thing that I had asked a few people for guidance before leaving. Baron-san, too, had apparently encountered issues like this when he was younger. He had emphasized the importance of securing lodging, and not only that, had told me that not having a place to stay was the worst possible situation we could find ourselves in.

Actually, though, there was more to his story than that.

“The worst thing that can happen is getting into a fight while you’re on the trip. Not having money or a hotel room is not a big deal, compared to getting into a fight—though I guess not having a place to stay is pretty bad.”

I remembered how he said that with a lot of feeling.

Maintaining a positive mood was important—more important than anything else. We could laugh away any problems or simply resolve them, but there was nothing we could do to change the atmosphere of a trip once it soured. Sweetening something gone sour was no simple task. That was why, Baron-san had told me, it was important to consistently work toward making everything as positive and fun as could be.

I couldn’t agree more. If I started a fight, everything would be ruined. Getting upset would be just as bad. I also felt like getting angry in general wouldn’t get me anywhere productive.

It really was important to learn from people who had a wealth of life experiences—or, in other words, had gotten into all sorts of trouble in the past. Because I’d heard their various anecdotes and could reference them to my own experience, I was able to stay relatively calm during this crisis.

Okay. Let’s try to have a constructive discussion, then.

“Well, I guess that can’t be helped,” I began. “In that case, would it be possible for you to tell us of another lodging where we’d be able to use our hotel stay tickets? We’re not familiar with the area, so any guidance you could give would be super helpful.”

“Oh, no, um,” the staff member stammered as she took out a tablet. It displayed the home page of the ryokan that listed the various packages they had available.

I guess nowadays you explained things like this with a tablet, rather than a pamphlet. The future was now, it seemed. Or, if it was just on their home page, maybe this was, in a way, still kind of an old-fashioned approach to things.

“We sincerely apologize, but rather than the room that you had originally reserved, we would be able to prepare this alternative room instead,” the woman said, and then continued by saying that she would be able to prepare it for us if we agreed to it. Um...is that really okay?

The room that was displayed on-screen was part of a package that was much nicer than the one that we had originally selected. The room itself was bigger and looked visibly more luxurious.

Nanami and I looked at each other again and tried to communicate without words.

What do we do? I asked her silently, to which Nanami replied, We don’t really have the budget for it, and it looks super expensive, so maybe we should say no...or so I thought.

Yeah, I caught a glimpse of the price, but the alternate room had quite a hefty price tag on it.

“But, uh...it looks a bit pricier than the plan we reserved with our hotel tickets,” I managed to say.

“Of course, this was an error on our part, so there would be no additional charge,” the woman stated.

Huh? Really? Isn’t there usually an additional fee for something like this? But not this time? Seriously?

Nanami, too, was blinking repeatedly in surprise. Normally, if we were able to stay in a nicer room without having to pay more for it, then we would simply consider that as an act of good luck. I knew it was shallow of me, but I was about to say yes to the offer right away when the staff member spoke up.

“Except that,” she began.

Oh, are there conditions? Maybe we have to write a review or something. Or maybe it’s something to do with the room itself.

I became slightly worried, but what the woman ended up saying had nothing to do with any of that.

“Since you’re both young, it will have to be a room with two twin beds, rather than a full-sized one. As long as you’re comfortable with that,” she concluded.

“Oh, that’s no problem at all,” I replied.

I guess we had told them ahead of time that we were a couple. Of course the bed size would be a concern for them. It’s fine, we’re totally good even if it’s not a full-sized bed. And no, Nanami, please stop trying to negotiate for that. Don’t try to get them to give us a room with a full bed. Please, stop. The staff person looks completely flummoxed and flustered right now.

I had to placate Nanami as she kept trying to get her way, but eventually we decided to take the upgraded room as it was. After that, we checked into the room and showed them the original copies of the consent forms that we had brought from home. I was pretty sure they had called my parents during that process too.

Of course, us agreeing to stay in the new room was separate from the ryokan needing to contact our parents. The staff person called my parents and briefly explained the situation to them, after which she handed the phone over to me.

“If it’s a nice room, then make sure you enjoy it to the fullest,” my mom said. Somehow I had not expected her to be so encouraging. Of course, she reiterated that I was still not to do anything questionable to Nanami.

Yeah, of course I won’t. Getting to stay in a luxurious room has nothing to do with that. There’s no way I’m going to cause problems for the inn now.

Nanami, too, received a phone call, and she now seemed to be talking with Tomoko-san. Nanami kept glancing over at me, even as she was saying something in a raised voice to her mother.

Tomoko-san was most definitely teasing Nanami. It seemed not even a five-hour train ride could stop her from doing that.

Now that we had completed our check-in, we needed to figure out what to do. I thought we were still too early to actually get into the room, so I considered asking them to hold our luggage while we went out somewhere. But apparently our room was already available, and so, even though it was before the official check-in time, the staff led the way...and here we were now.

An upscale suite with a main Japanese-style room and a Western-style room attached to it. I was pretty sure that just spending time in this suite could be a lot of fun. I knew this was a nicer room because they had told us so, but I didn’t think it was this much nicer. I was pretty sure this was the best room I had ever stayed in.

Nanami kept walking around the suite, touching things with her eyes sparkling in awe. I only just noticed that one of the walls of the main room featured a hanging scroll.

The beds looked fluffy too. Sometimes bedding at a ryokan wasn’t the most comfortable, but even the beds here looked high-class. Actually, I guess they would still have beds here, even though it was a ryokan. Regardless, when I brushed my hand against the bedding, it instantly felt as though it was the softest bed I had ever encountered. Soft, but with a good amount of give to it. Once thing was for sure: It was probably more expensive than the bed I slept in at home.

The room we were shown to was also relatively high up in the ryokan building itself. I thought this was a hot springs ryokan, but maybe it was more accurate to call it a hotel. Actually, I really didn’t know what exactly the difference was.

Wait, where did Nanami go? While I was checking the firmness of the bed, Nanami totally disappeared from the room.

“Oh my goodness... Yoshin, this open-air bath is amazing. You can even see a lake from here,” Nanami muttered.

Oh? I guess she had made her way outside, and I didn’t even notice.

Upon stepping out onto the veranda, I saw a bath tucked into the corner, with an entire plumbing system set up neatly behind it. Did this bath get hot springs water too, then?

The open-air bath was on a different level from the veranda, with the tub placed a step above. That slight increase in height seemed to be how you could see the outside while still soaking in the bath.

She wasn’t stepping into the bath, but Nanami was certainly enjoying the view from the veranda anyway. I decided to follow her and check out the outside area too. There was a pair of slippers placed right outside the room, even, seemingly just waiting for me to step into them and go outside.

Wow, the scenery is really incredible. I can see the ocean... No, we’re inland now, so I shouldn’t be able to see the ocean from here. A lake, then? Nanami had called it a lake a moment ago too.

With the lights from the city below glimmering in the distance, the scenery spread out before us was truly spectacular. A cloudless blue sky, snow-covered mountains, and clear blue water dotting the land...all laid out before us. I didn’t have the words to really describe what I was seeing, unfortunately—blue things were just “water” to me. But that didn’t stop me from wondering why landscapes in winter always looked so pretty.

Could I bathe here in the morning with the sunrise at my back, and then bathe here again in the early evening with the sunset in the background? Maybe at night, too, I could soak in the open-air bath while appreciating the stars overhead.

Now that I thought about it, I had this vague impression that I used to enjoy drinking cold beverages in the bath. Maybe I could try doing that in this bath too. Enjoying the view with a glass of juice in hand? Yeah, that seemed like a fun, adult way to enjoy this setup.

Was that something to be done alone, though? It seemed a bit too challenging to try to do it with the two of us.

For all sorts of reasons.

That was when Nanami asked quietly, “Do you wanna try getting in?”

“Huh? Wait...get in, where?” I asked.

Nanami glanced at the open-air bath, and then back at me. Steam was rising from the bath, clearly signaling the difference in temperature between the hot water inside the bath and the cool air outside it.

Just in that moment, a gust of wind brushed against our cheeks, the sudden chill air against our skin making us shiver. Getting into a hot bath in cold weather now actually sounded kind of nice.

Regardless, now I faced an unexpected invitation in an unexpected room. Before we had thought to use the large common bath during our stay, so we hadn’t planned on getting into the bath in our own room.

No, wait. Why am I thinking like we are going to get into the bath here? That’s not going to work. I have got to calm down.

“That’s not gonna work,” I said out loud. “Look, they gave us a room with two twin beds. If something were to happen, it would cause trouble for the ryokan, and our parents would definitely hear about it too.”

“Ordinarily, yes. But think about it, Yoshin. On a bed there’ll be evidence, but don’t you think it’ll all get washed away in the bath?” Nanami suggested.

“Just what are you thinking of doing in that bath?!” I shouted.

“Jeez, are you seriously gonna make me say it? You’re such a perv...”

I felt like giving any response here would stir up more trouble than it was worth. Nanami was definitely the more perverted one when it came to stuff like this. How dare she make it seem otherwise?

I looked out toward the scenery beyond the open-air bath, hoping to physically move away from this topic of conversation. I even proceeded to walk toward the edge of the veranda, as if it were absolutely necessary for me to enjoy the view at this very moment.

The open-air bath was surrounded by clear walls that looked like glass, marking how far we could go. We therefore had a great view of the outside—or, more specifically, what was below us. Wait, we’re pretty high up. Like, seriously high.

Suddenly, I was gripped by fear.

Shoot, standing too close to the edge was actually scaring me. The simultaneous realization that this whole time I had been at a high elevation made me even more nervous. I should retreat, if ever so slightly.

I stepped back slowly, but I still felt scared. I didn’t know, before, just how high up we were.

“Are you scared, Yoshin?” Nanami asked quietly.

“Huh?! N-Not at all,” I stammered.

No way, of course I’m scared. Like, seriously frightened. Thinking about how high this place is has me completely spooked.

I tried to play it cool, but Nanami must have seen right through me. If that were the case, then there was no use putting up a front.

“Yeah, I was a little scared just now,” I confessed. “I had no idea how high up we were.”

“In that case, I’ll make sure to be right with you every time you get into this open-air bath,” she said, giggling.

“You still haven’t given up on that? How about we not...”

“Impossible,” Nanami declared.

I see. Are you sure you’re okay with that, Nanami-san?

I was less worried about me getting into the same bath as Nanami than I was about Nanami getting super red when we actually tried it. In this case, she was poised to be both perpetrator and victim.

Paying no mind to my worries, Nanami kept proposing how we should go about doing this, suggesting that we should take a bath in the early evening while enjoying the view.

Okay, okay. I get it. How about we relax for a little bit in the room, and then go sightsee a bit.

I gently pushed along a pouty Nanami until we’d walked back into the room from the veranda. Just in that moment, though, she froze and let out a soft “Oh!”

“Hm? What’s wrong, Nanami?” I asked, having already sensed Nanami had realized something and stopping in my tracks.

Nanami turned around and looked back at the open-air bath with a deep sadness in her gaze. She then looked at me with those same eyes, and then finally at herself.

Looking down at her own body, Nanami said, with much regret and sorrow, “I wasn’t thinking that we’d be able to bathe together, so I didn’t bring my bathing suit.”

“It is winter, I suppose,” I couldn’t help replying.

It wasn’t like we were intending to swim in a pool, so of course we didn’t have our bathing suits with us. Had it been summer, we probably would have brought them with us.

I see, I see. So, Nanami was planning to go in the open-air bath with her bathing suit on. Well, duh. If we’re gonna bathe together, getting in there with our bathing suits on is probably the most we’d be able to manage. There’s no way we’d both go in naked. That’s just too much. Oh, now Nanami’s saying, “Then I guess bathing together would be kind of tough, huh?” and giving up on the idea. I’m glad she’s finally moving on.

Hm? Of course I’m not disappointed. Not at all.

I absolutely, totally am not—so can you please stop grinning at me like that, Nanami-san?

♢♢♢

Unlike summer break, winter break was long—which meant we were able to do more things during its span. But there were more limitations in winter than there were in summer.

Most of those limitations, of course, had to do with the mounds of snow piled up on the ground.

In the summer we could swim at the beach, hike a mountainside, bike, or play any number of sports. But in winter, just getting to the beach or to the trail was a challenge.

Of course it was entirely possible to climb up snowy mountains, but I had a feeling it would be rather difficult for a high schooler to do.

Other outings also depended heavily on the weather: After all, no matter how fun the activity, a sudden snowstorm could turn any outing very dangerous very quickly. Though the same thing could be said for summer beachgoing as well.

Skiing and snowboarding, too, could ruin an otherwise fun trip if you didn’t know the basics and ended up getting a fracture or something. And getting all the gear required for these activities could be pretty costly...though I probably had this negative outlook because I wasn’t terribly good at winter sports. As someone who wasn’t a huge fan of winter sports to start with, a trip like this was better spent sightseeing, walking around town, and hitting up all the spots catering to foodies.

As a sidenote, once we got back from break, our next unit in PE was apparently going to be skiing and other winter sports. Just the thought of it was already kind of bringing me down.

But even though I did feel down about it, I also had something to look forward to: Was it shallow of me to be excited by the idea of seeing Nanami in skiwear?

I’d heard that a woman in skiwear looked three times more attractive than usual, so I couldn’t even imagine how incredible Nanami was going to look. Wait, was it actually three times more? Regardless, it was said that a woman looked more attractive in skiwear, period. Thinking about this was probably the only way I was going to get through the unfortunate circumstance that was skiing.

Let’s get back on topic, though: I was talking about sightseeing in winter.

Sightseeing in winter had a different delight to it than it did in the summer. There were some things you could only see in winter...including what we were seeing now.

“There’s something about being on a ship that just makes me want to start singing,” Nanami remarked.

“Ship and song... Is that some kind of a TV show?” I asked.

Nanami and I were standing on the windy deck of a ship that was sailing through the wintry ocean, the cold sea breeze grazing our cheeks. Maybe because the temperature was low, but the air was piercingly cold, making the two of us huddle up against each other for warmth.

Still, it wasn’t freezing cold; in fact, there was something about the taut air that felt comfortable. Though I was certain that if we were to stay here like this, we would eventually freeze.

Every time I inhaled, the unique scent of salty air filled my nostrils. The cold seemed to take most of the usual unpleasantness out of it, even making it smell rather refreshing.

All we could hear was the rumbling of the ship’s engine and the sound of the waves. It wasn’t like the ship was moving in a steady rhythm, but I still had the urge to try to bounce my body along with its movement anyway.

“You don’t get seasick?” Nanami asked.

“I might have mentioned it before, but I’ve never gotten motion sickness while being in a moving vehicle. It seems like I’m okay on boats too,” I said. “You?”

“I think I’m okay too. It’s swaying more than I thought it would, but the breeze feels nice.”

As we stood on the deck of the ship we observed the scenery around us, feeling the wind chill our skin. There was nothing in the vicinity but water. The ship maintained a steady course in the sea.

Unlike the ocean in summer, I could feel how cold the water was now just by looking at it. I bet if we fell into it, we would be frozen stiff in a matter of moments. It wouldn’t be just our hearts that would stop—our entire bodies would shut down too.

While our surroundings looked somewhat desolate at first, there was an impressive variety of birds flying about all over the place.

Was that...an eagle, rather than a seagull? It was pretty big. Why did large birds always look so cool flying? The eagle continued to fly ahead of us, as if it were guiding our ship.

The weather was lovely today, and in the distance a cloudless blue sky was spread above us.

“Oh, I wonder if that’s it,” Nanami murmured.

“Yeah, I see it too,” I joined.

An empty sky and a brilliant sun. The daylight on our skin felt warm, but the wind blowing against us was so cold it made our bodies tense up. Finally, though, in the cold, blue ocean that stretched as far as the sky, we began to see glimpses of white, cloudlike objects. The farther the ship sailed, the more these cloudlike objects appeared, filling the blue water with white. Those white objects were emitting cold air, as if they were steaming. They bounced about in the ocean, seemingly tossed around by the movement of the ship.

“So this is drift ice, huh?” Nanami remarked. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“There aren’t as many as I thought there would be,” I commented. “No, wait, I guess there’s more up ahead.”

That’s right—we were here on this ship to see drift ice, which had traveled far across the winter ocean to arrive here long before we did.

We were on a two-day, one-night trip. Anyone else might think of this as a minitrip; to us high schoolers, though, it was a pretty big deal.

That was why we wanted to see something that we could only see here—and what we found, after a ton of searching, was the opportunity to see drift ice.

It wasn’t quite a tour, since all it involved was just getting on a ship that set sail a few times a day and seeing it, so really it was a pretty casual affair. Our trip was also scheduled at what was considered the beginning of drift ice season, which meant that we were cutting it pretty close timingwise. Plus, even if we couldn’t make it onto this particular ship, we could just get on the next one. We managed to get on this ship just in time, though, which was pretty lucky for us.

“Oh wow, there’s more coming now,” Nanami observed.

“You’re right... Wait, that’s drift ice? It’s not the ground just moving toward us?” I had to ask.

As the ship continued moving, the drift ice...or, rather, the white blocks of ice that appeared almost like pieces of snow-covered earth, kept increasing. From afar, they really looked like they were just a part of the earth itself.

The ship continued approaching the cluster of drift ice, charging forward with it positioned squarely in its path. We heard the rumbling of the ship’s engine, the splash of the parting waves...and finally, the crushing sound of ice collapsing as it met the oncoming ship.

“Huh? Wait, is this ship going straight into that sheet of ice?” Nanami asked in a panic, raising her voice.

“Sure looks like it,” I muttered, feeling a chill go up my own spine as well. Um, are we seriously gonna plunge right into that thing?

The drift ice that spread before us had cracks in various places, but it was still clustered together pretty densely. Appearancewise, it seemed almost like open ground we could have walked on without any problems, and so the ship looked like it was headed straight into a piece of land—making me and Nanami grip each other’s hands tightly out of nervousness.

Honestly, it was frightening to watch this unfold. But it’s okay, right? Right? Even though I was freaking out inside, I held Nanami’s hand tightly to try to reassure her.

And...the ship charged into the ice head-on.

Both Nanami and I cried out, startled. Other passengers around us were also giving whoops or nervous screams of their own. The difference in reaction probably depended on whether they knew what to expect or not.

The moment we crashed into the ice, the ship leaped and leaned over...or so it felt.

I was so glad I was holding Nanami’s hand. The moment we drove into the ice, she had been gripping mine really tightly, even though the actual resulting jolt from the contact must not have been as huge as we felt it to be. Huge or not, it was a shock we didn’t usually feel. Multiple things then rushed over us all at once: A metallic sound rang out across the water, ominous tremors shook underneath our feet, and the ship swayed, seemingly horizontally and vertically at the same time. Not even a roller coaster felt this overwhelming.

“Are you okay, Nanami?” I asked.

“Yeah—I’m fine, I’m fine. Wow, that was a crazy amount of shaking. It really got me,” she said.

The families around us were also reacting in various ways to the shaking of the ship. There were even some kids clamoring for it to happen all over again.

Wow, the ship tore right into the ice and broke it.

I didn’t know anything about the science behind it, but the ship seemed able to continue sailing forward even after crashing into the drift ice.

I had assumed that drift ice viewing involved standing aboard a ship and looking at the ice from far away. I had no idea it was such an up close experience.

“Oh...!” Nanami suddenly let out.

“Huh?” I also blurted in response.

The ship moved forward, and though the shaking continued, I felt like I was getting used to it. There was a certain pattern to it: It rose, fell, and then swayed. Our ship seemed to be sailing at a steady pace, progressing forward while continuing to crush the ice. Maybe the steadiness was the trick to keeping the ship moving even under these conditions.

“Oh dear, the swaying,” Nanami said rather flatly, matching the sway of the ship as she leaned into me.

Being on a ship’s deck wasn’t the safest place, so of course I helped steady her...but despite her performative need for support, I felt none of her weight against me at all. I guess I could have expected that. You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? When I looked down at her with eyes slightly narrowed, Nanami just stuck her tongue out slightly.

She seemed to have been waiting for an excuse to attach herself to me. The people around us were too engrossed by the drift ice to pay any attention to us, while others on deck were leaning over the railing of the ship and taking photos. I saw families aboard, as well as couples. A part of me wondered if we were the only two people on this ship holding each other so tightly while taking in all this ice around us.

Well, actually, there seemed to be others who were looking at the ice while nestled close to each other too. It was quite cold on the ship, so cuddling together was definitely the warmer option. I guess it wasn’t all that weird for us to be snuggled up like this either.

“Hee hee, it’s so warm,” Nanami murmured.

“We certainly dressed for the weather,” I replied.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” she protested.

Yes, yes—I know. I just wanted to tease you a little. Please don’t pinch my cheek because of it. Come on, how about we pay attention to the ice drifting before us, hmm?

“Don’t seals hang out on drift ice sometimes?” Nanami mentioned.

“Seals? I’ve never seen one in the wild. You mean, they travel on the ice? Wouldn’t that mean they’re stranded somehow?” I asked.

“Well, they are sea creatures. They can swim, so they must be okay.”

Was that true? But to imagine them coming all this way, traveling on drift ice from a distant ocean... I wondered if they had to travel mind-numbingly long distances that way.

Just then, a loud cheer went up all around us. What happened? Is there something interesting out there?

“Oh, look. Aren’t those seals over there?” Nanami said. “Oh my gosh, they are so cute...”

Nanami pointed in the direction everyone was staring in, and I spied a seal with a pattern like sesame seeds over its skin, as well as what appeared to be a small, fluffy, white ball next to it. That white clump...must be a baby seal.

At first glance, the white ball looked as though it was just a cluster of ice. Oh, wait...it’s moving, though.

Every time the fuzz ball moved, the crowd on the boat cheered. In the center of the furry sphere were three black dots. Were those the eyes and nose? The more I looked, the more it appeared to me like some strange, unknown creature.

The white furry animal paid no heed to our presence...or, maybe our ship was too far away to make it feel like it was in any danger, because it carried on without a care in the world. Unlike animals at a zoo, it neither looked at us nor approached us. It truly seemed like an animal of the wild.

“He’s on such a big chunk of ice. Did he come from afar, or is he from around here?” Nanami said out loud.

“Oh, right. There are seals here too, huh? So maybe it didn’t have to travel far to get here,” I joined in.

It was strangely a relief to see the two seals move in unison. They seemed close, and given that one of them was smaller in size, I wondered if they were perhaps parent and child. They moved together along the ice, lying down and rolling about. They really did look like moving balls of fur.

“I guess if there are two of them, they can’t be lonely, right?” I said finally.

If there was just one on the ice, and it came from far away, that would be pretty sad. If there were two of them together, though, then that was somehow reassuring. I had heard somewhere that animals could feel loneliness, and I was certain that seals, too, recognized such emotions. That must be why the two of them were nestled so closely together. Maybe one was raising the other. After all, there was that undeniable difference in size.

“Don’t worry—wherever you go, I’ll always be with you,” Nanami suddenly said.

I blinked several times, not knowing how to respond. I admit that for a moment there I had projected myself onto that imaginary solitary seal, but I certainly didn’t say it out loud. But Nanami must have seen right through me anyway.

“How did you know what I was thinking?” I asked slowly.

“It was all over your face,” Nanami replied, grinning.

I couldn’t help pursing my lips at that. I had no idea Nanami could read me so well.

When I looked back again at the ice, the seals had disappeared from view. Had they dove into the sea? The thought left me with a flicker of sadness. When I gripped more tightly on the railing of the ship, Nanami gently placed her hand on mine.

The ship continued on, pushing through the drift ice.

I took a moment to look around. Our ship was currently in the middle of a body of ice that stretched as far as I could see—almost like Earth had turned completely white. It seemed like the farther we went the less we saw of the ocean itself; ice truly covered much of the space around us, stretching out toward the horizon with seemingly no end. Far off in the distance was another ship, slowly making its way through the drift ice. Seeing another ship make the same journey as us made me realize that the ice we were sailing through was but a small piece of its entirety—a kind of wintry road that continued on forever. I could hardly believe that the ice itself had come from a distant sea. If the next pieces of drift ice I saw had entire buildings erected on top of them, I didn’t think I would be surprised.

Apparently, if you paid a pretty penny, you could even walk on the drift ice. The activity required specialized preparations, it seemed. I was pretty sure you had to wear a wet suit during it too, just in case you fell into the water—in other words, it meant walking on the ice was far too dangerous without preparation and precautions.

Some people seemed to be walking on the ice without explicit permission, but honestly, an accident occurring from this would be a total disaster. Safety had to come first. It was just too reckless otherwise.

There was no need to cause trouble when you were on a trip. It was often said that you could be more shameless while traveling because no one around you knew you or would remember anything, but I thought it was better not to bring shame upon yourself at all if you could help it.

Though I had to admit that a part of me wanted to walk on the ice too. As in, I had a feeling—definitely unwarranted—that I would be able to disembark from the ship and simply walk on the ice like I was walking down the street.

Maybe people without the right preparations walked on the ice not because they were reckless, but because they had a similar feeling that they would be fine. Seeing seals and birds at ease on the ice probably made people believe it more strongly—this sense that if other living beings could do it, a human certainly could too. Not that I would ever try, but still.

“Maybe next time we can try walking on the ice too. I wonder if we could even pet the seals,” Nanami remarked.

“We’d probably just end up looking at them from afar, don’t you think? Though it would be cool to do that next time, in any case,” I said. “I wonder when we could come back again, even though we probably shouldn’t be talking about the next time quite yet.”

“Maybe as a graduation trip? After our entrance exams?” Nanami suggested.

“It would be nice to get my driver’s license... We could come by car then.”

Going on a long-distance drive with Nanami would be a lot of fun. It would be nice to drive to all the places from this trip, and also make stops to places we had traveled to in the past. It wasn’t a distance we could cover in a single day, but at least we would be able to reach more places and have a lot more flexibility in a car than before.

Of course, on such a future trip...

“We’ll stay overnight...right?” Nanami whispered, loud enough only for me to hear, as though she was one step ahead of my thoughts. Even that whisper, though, was covered up by the sounds of the ship. Only the sound of collapsing ice, and the steady churn of our ship pushing through icy waters, echoed around us.

Nanami’s hand, which had been resting on mine until a moment ago, was now gone—and it was only my hand that rested on the ship’s railing.

I was still looking out at sea, but I could feel her gaze on me, as though she were waiting for my reply. And so I said, “Yes, let’s stay overnight.”

As soon as I said it, Nanami entangled her arm with mine and embraced me. Next thing I knew, my hand had separated from the railing entirely.

I turned around to look at how far we’d come. The path our ship had made through the ice exposed the sparkling ocean below, a clear reminder of where we’d been.

I didn’t realize we would leave behind such a clear trace. It appeared like a path, or even a line drawn in the ocean.

“The past, the present, and the future,” I muttered.

“What do you mean?” Nanami asked.

“It’s something I feel like I heard once, from a story or something,” I began. “That the trace left behind by the ship was the past, and us on the ship is the present...and beyond the drift ice lies the future.”

“That’s so poetic,” Nanami said in admiration.

When I asked her if that sounded weird, Nanami said that she liked it. What story was that, anyway? I couldn’t quite recall, but I happened to remember at least that tidbit.

Even though the drift ice was pretty, it belonged to the part of nature that was nevertheless harsh and merciless. And still the ship pressed forward, ice breaking under its hull.

I wished we could face our future in just the same way. Can I do it? I ended up talking about it with Nanami.

“Of course you can,” Nanami replied. “I’ll be with you. Though I guess it’s just a feeling I have.”

“You’re right. That...makes me feel better.”

Although we had nothing concrete on which to base any of this conjecture, when I was with Nanami, I felt like I could do anything. I had this illusion that I was invincible.

The ship continued its journey forward, carrying us through the ice.

♢♢♢

It actually wasn’t possible to see that many places when you were sightseeing. If you were a student, being able to visit even one place was probably a pretty good accomplishment. If I drove I would probably be able to go to a lot more places, but I knew it was no use crying for the moon.

Still, even then, if we came up with a detailed schedule, calculated all the time it took for transportation, and planned things down to the minute...we could probably pack several destinations into our itinerary. Probably.

That would make for a packed schedule, though, which didn’t seem all that fun. And we were amateurs when it came to trip planning, too, so whatever we came up with probably wouldn’t be anything close to a real tour package. That was why I felt that sightseeing was the most enjoyable when ample time had been left aside as a buffer. Getting exhausted would probably negatively affect other parts of the trip, anyway.

Even having said all that, I still felt like we managed to visit a lot of different places today. We saw things we couldn’t usually see, and we experienced things we couldn’t usually experience. That was part of the fun of sightseeing, and as students, this almost felt like another class trip of sorts.

What we were doing after a day of many discoveries, though, was...

“What should we have for dinner tonight?” I asked lazily.

“Hmm, I wonder what sounds good... Oh, hey—how about we try the hot springs too?” Nanami responded in a relaxed manner.

“You mean the communal bath...? Yeah, that sounds good. It’s so big we can really stretch out in it,” I said.

“Right...since we’re not brave enough to use our open-air bath here...”

We were hanging out and relaxing in our room. We weren’t even on our beds; we were sprawled out on the tatami floor instead.

We had forgone all sorts of manners. Nanami was even wearing a skirt, which, in this position, meant that it had flipped up, and she was very nearly flashing me her underwear. I could almost see it, but not quite. It was a very tantalizing situation.

Wait, what did I mean by that? Tantalizing? Did I want to see her underwear? Well, of course I did. But I felt like being able to see it in this situation wouldn’t quite make me happy.

And I, too, was getting my fill of rolling around on the tatami floor—something I couldn’t usually do.

We had hardwood floors and carpeting at my house, so feeling the tatami was both a different and fresh sensation. It was really nice to lie on a tatami mat, actually. I kind of wanted a tatami room at home now.

In fact, I was pretty sure I hadn’t lain around on the floor like this in general in quite some time. I currently had my limbs outstretched and was lying flat on my back. Though I wasn’t sleepy or anything; on the contrary, I was perfectly awake. And neither of us had our phones out; we were just having a slow and steady conversation, exchanging a few words at a time. We were just relaxing as we usually did, but something about it this time felt different. It was precisely because the room we were in was so spacious that we were able to do this in the first place.

Maybe the sweetest luxury of a trip was not the time we spent sightseeing, but rather moments like this.

In the next moment, I heard Nanami shift positions and roll over on the floor.

She had been lying on her back until then, but now she was lying on her stomach. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye and saw the fullness of Nanami’s chest pressed against the tatami.

Wow. What a sight.

“Your skirt’s gonna flip over,” I murmured.

“I’m wearing cute undies today, so it’s fine,” she muttered back.

Even our conversation was going nowhere. I had no idea what was fine, exactly, but even then I simply mumbled back an “Oh I see.”

Our conversation thus had its starts and stops, with occasional pauses of silence. But there was no actual awkwardness between us.

“Besides,” Nanami slowly spoke, “you were really looking up here, weren’t you...at my cleavage.”

Correction. It was a little awkward.

As in, she totally knew what I was doing. I mean, come on...what I could see from the opening of her collar was far too impressive for me not to look at.

Nanami was pointing to the neckline of her outfit—the part that was open like a small window. Though I wasn’t sure if I could call it a window.

“I wonder if this isn’t also a window into society,” Nanami murmured, as if reading my mind.

“I don’t think so...”

That was a rather old phrase she was using. I only knew about it because my dad used it before to refer to the fly of his pants. Didn’t the phrase only refer to men’s clothing, though? A window into society for women would be... No, wait. I probably shouldn’t go further than this.

Nanami was twisting her neck to look down at her chest, but then she looked up at me while still pointing to her collar area and tilted her head in the most frustratingly adorable way possible.

“It’s not that fun to see squished up boobs, though, is it?” she asked.

“They have their own appeal. It’s not fun, exactly. It’s more instinctual,” I explained.

“Hmmm, did you say something? You mean it’s about your instincts?” Nanami asked, then continued, “Oh my goodness, my pervy boyfriend’s gonna assault me.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that... Besides, you’re the one that shows them off now and then. You’re pervier than I am.”

“Calling your own girlfriend a perv? Rude,” Nanami sighed. “But seriously, you really love boobs, don’t you? You must be from the planet boobies...”

“You think that’s just about me, and not just about guys in general? I mean, come on...I only like them because they’re your boobs...”

“I see, because they’re mine...then, do you like my butt too...?”

“I do...”

What the hell is going on here? I mean, it’s a fun conversation, really—but don’t we also sound super dumb? We really are dumb, aren’t we? We’re not just being an adorkable couple now; we’re just straight up an idiot couple at this point.

Our brains seemed to have melted completely. I felt like we could continue talking like this forever, but it really was too brainless of a conversation. And yet, it was so much fun.

Nanami must have realized the same thing I did, because she started giggling so much that her shoulders were quivering.

If we continued talking like this, I was sure that our bodies would follow our brains and melt entirely as well. Would we ever be able to come back?

Maybe Nanami thought that we really were in danger, because she let out a loud cry, planted her palms on the floor, and, while still lying on her stomach, extended her arms.

The sheer force of gravity meant that her clothes were now hanging away from her body—and through the increased opening that gravity made between her clothes and her body, I saw two large mounds also attempting to resist gravity as well.

I knew it was impolite to stare...but I just couldn’t help it.

Nanami looked as though she was about to start doing push-ups...but then she suddenly leaped up. Wow, did she do that with just her upper body? I rubbed my eyes, thinking that perhaps I had only imagined her movement just now. From my perspective of lying on the floor, Nanami standing seemed more like a titan than a teenage girl.

And, with the unsteady gait of a titan, Nanami approached me...and then stood over me right above my waist. I, of course, looked up at Nanami, but I couldn’t make out her expression because her face was in shadow.

Actually, I couldn’t see her face because her chest was blocking my view.

I had heard that more rotund people weren’t able to look down at their toes while standing, but I wasn’t expecting to be able to experience something similar. The impact of it was a bit much.

But perhaps this angle by which I looked up at her was the most delicious of all.

I preferred to continue lying around like this, but I assumed Nanami had stood up because she thought that lying down wouldn’t be a productive use of our time. Since she ended up standing over me, though, maybe that wasn’t the case. But what was she intending to do next?

Without saying a word, Nanami pinched the hem of her skirt...and proceeded to lower herself onto my waist.

The sight of her legs bending as if going into a squat...was strangely arousing.

Wait, is she doing this on purpose?

Nanami took her sweet time lowering herself rather than sitting down in one go. I mean, if she sat on me at once with full force, it probably wouldn’t be good for her either. And it certainly would be bad news for me.

So I held my breath and watched her, until I felt her lower body slowly make contact with the area around my hips. It felt warm, with a slight bit of weight, and...

So soft...

Uh, given that Nanami managed to sit with her skirt layered between her and my body, it wasn’t as though her underwear was in direct contact with me. Still, I could feel her butt on me—and the weight of it was soft, warm, and entirely too pleasant. Because I was lying on my back, I also felt it more strongly through my waist and stomach.

And more importantly...we were in a very dangerous position indeed.

“Have I ever sat on you like this before?” Nanami whispered.

“No?” I gulped.

I felt like she had done this before, though, or maybe she hadn’t... I knew I had definitely given her a piggyback ride before.

“Gosh, I want to remember everything I do with you...so when I can’t remember small stuff like this, it really frustrates me,” she let out.

“I feel that way too, but trying to remember everything is a bit tough, don’t you think?”

Of course I wanted to remember all the things I did with Nanami too, but realistically speaking, we were bound to forget some things. I could remember all the big things, like activities we did together for the first time, but it was inevitable for some of the minute details to get lost in the ether.

Maybe that was why small incidentals always felt fresh and new.

“I wonder if we just always forget things that aren’t all that impactful,” Nanami remarked. “Maybe you’re just too used to me sitting on your crotch like this.”

“Isn’t that a really misleading comment...?”

Nanami giggled and placed both her hands on my stomach, making a point to sandwich her boobs between her arms for emphasis.

She was fully dressed, and not a piece of clothing was out of place. Why, then, did she look so sexy? Not that I even needed an answer to that question, by the way.

“Hm, I guess my boobs just aren’t significant enough for you to remember anymore,” Nanami murmured.

“No, I think they’re plenty significant. You really are being quite forward today, aren’t you?”

I wished she would take it easy, though, given that we really couldn’t do anything like that here. Not that it was okay if we were someplace else.

Also, it was one thing to say that I had gotten used to things, but I personally felt like it was Nanami who was gradually becoming less hesitant to do things like this. Was it a matter of familiarity, or was a certain someone being a bad influence on her...?

“I even learned all these different poses that Kotoha-chan said would be good to try on a guy,” Nanami continued.

I knew it. So it was that pervy little class rep. She wasn’t even being secretive about it anymore; at this point, she might as well have shouted her tendencies to the whole school.

Though I really was curious what kind of poses she had taught Nanami.

“Please don’t listen to what that closeted pervert of a class rep tells you,” I sighed.

“Oh, but Kotoha-chan was saying that, now that she has a boyfriend, she was gonna be more openly...you know, about...things.”

“Openly...what?”

Nanami’s voice had diminished to a whisper by the end, though, so I couldn’t hear what she said.

What did she say? Open something? Oh, that she was going to go public about the fact that she now had a boyfriend? Most people knew that, though, so I felt like it was old news at this point. When I tilted my head, trying to come up with possible explanations, Nanami turned away while still looking at me.

Is it just me, or are her cheeks turning pink? Wait a minute, it’s not just her cheeks. Even her ears are turning red. I don’t think anything we said would be wild enough to make her blush, though?

“Open...nym,” Nanami let out.

“Huh? Open...nym?”

This had probably been the point of no return. I should’ve just let it go instead of asking Nanami to repeat what she had said. This was that class rep we were talking about, after all. I should’ve remembered the core fact that this was the gyaru-turned Kotoha Shirishizu we were dealing with here.

“Kotoha-chan...said that she was gonna be a more open nympho,” Nanami finally said.

Nym...? What?

In that moment an entire universe was probably swirling behind me. Even though I was lying on the tatami, I could honestly feel it at my back.

The universe, the galaxy, the cosmos... Empty words floated in my mind as I lay there consumed with regret by my lack of caution.

I made Nanami say the word “nympho” out loud. I’d really done it this time.

Not that there was anything wrong with the word itself. For some people, it probably wasn’t a big deal at all. What was important was that Nanami wasn’t used to saying it, and she was now looking extremely mortified after doing so.

“I-I’m so sorry!” I shouted, stammering my apology with my brain still not functioning properly.

“Don’t apologize! I’m only gonna get more embarrassed!” Nanami exclaimed.

I knew that it was useless to say sorry when you didn’t know what you were apologizing for, but I couldn’t not express regret in that moment.

I’d heard that, in Japan, saying sorry and giving thanks often occurred at the same time, so maybe that was what was happening here. Still, this was definitely not the time to be thanking her. It just sounded wrong. So that was why I went with the apology.

Nanami—her face now completely red as she remained straddled over me—pressed her hands to both cheeks as she started to tremble violently.

My girlfriend was too cute—so cute, that I couldn’t help placing my hands on her legs as she sat on me.

I didn’t do it on purpose. It was only because her skirt had slid up a tiny bit, exposing her thighs. And without even thinking I went and touched her legs.

Her legs, which stretched out from under her skirt, glistened like porcelain, appearing almost like a piece of art. I couldn’t tell if I was imagining the slight wetness I felt under my hands, or if her legs were actually damp with sweat. For a moment I had thought they might not be warm to the touch, but they were most definitely soft, warm, and incredibly smooth. Their texture reminded me of a piece of clear glass, and yet I also keenly felt that they were indeed part of a human body.

Or maybe that was just an illusion resulting from visual stimuli.

When my hands, which had been touching Nanami’s calves, traveled upward and reached her exposed thighs...

“Oh...!”

Nanami reacted to my touch for the first time.

My cloudy brain, too, finally snapped back into operation. Both my hands froze as they rested on Nanami’s thighs. What in the world am I doing?

I felt like the two of us had become so confused and hazy that literal swirls were going around us. Feeling like the room was spinning with us in it, we looked each other in the eye...until I slowly, wordlessly, removed my hands from Nanami’s thighs.

This time, I didn’t apologize.

There was an awkward silence between us. The air was so taut I could cut it with a knife.

Nanami was the first one to speak.

“Do you, um...have a thing for thighs too?” she asked.

Ah, this is déjà vu. Wait, déjà view? Or perhaps déjà boo? Oh, who the hell cares.

When we first met, Nanami asked me if I liked boobs. Soon after, she asked me if I liked butts. And now, she asked me if I liked thighs.

Actually, she had asked those same questions earlier, too, as though she were confirming it. Was I somehow trying to check off all the boxes through my responses as well?

“No, um...thighs are,” I began uncertainly.

“Do you not like them...?”

“I like them.”

I most definitely could not say that I didn’t like them. I mean, I didn’t dislike them; there was no mistaking it. Nanami’s thighs were super smooth, and I had nothing but a liking for them.

The fact that I didn’t say I loved them was but my lone act of feeble resistance.

“In that case,” Nanami said, gently grasping my hands, which had been hovering in the air after I removed them from her thighs. She cautiously ran her fingers over them, as one would handle a fragile object, before entwining my fingers with hers.

My hands, now in Nanami’s gentle but firm grip, moved according to her guidance. I had no intention of resisting her, but I also knew that even if I did, it would be pointless.

“Y-You can keep touching them a little more,” Nanami whispered as she placed both my hands on her own thighs again.

It was like my palms had been sucked in toward them.

Unlike earlier, this contact was based on Nanami’s own desire. That fact alone made my brain stop functioning. I stared at our points of contact, my eyes gaping wide.

Shoot, are my palms super sweaty right now? Do they feel gross? Are they sopping wet? Erratic questions rushed through my mind.

“Wh-What are you doing?” I managed to ask—though clearly, the person doing anything in this situation was me, as I was the one touching Nanami’s thighs. But no, seriously—what is going on right now?

My hands, the two parts of me in contact with Nanami’s legs, were frozen in place. Or to speak more accurately: I couldn’t bring myself to move them. If I were to move even a single finger, I would end up squeezing her thighs. If I moved my hands, I would end up rubbing them.

Is this...okay? It’s not, is it?

“Hee hee... Asking you to touch my chest is a little too embarrassing, but this, I think I can handle,” Nanami said, sticking her tongue out slightly and flashing me an innocent smile, like she was just a kid pulling some harmless prank. What she was actually doing was far from innocent, and yet seeing her face just on its own made me think that she wasn’t doing anything questionable at all...

No, that’s really not possible. She’s as red as a tomato. She’s just so cute, though. Oh no, now she’s covering her face with both hands. Even that’s cute. Is this seriously my girlfriend? She totally is, isn’t she? Isn’t she just too adorable?

Okay, getting embarrassed managed to calm me down a bit—and it also made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Even though the situation we were in didn’t exactly scream “warm and fuzzy.”

Still, being in this position while saying nothing for moments at a time felt somewhat surreal.

The silence would end momentarily, though, because Nanami then uncovered her face and flashed me an expression that seemed to indicate she had found within herself a certain resolve.

“I-Is just touching enough for you?” she finally asked, and then placed her hands over mine.

Nanami then gripped firmly—changing the shape of my fingers and then my whole hands into whatever she willed. It wasn’t as though she took complete control of my fingers, but she was pressing down on them with her own.

Sh-She’s...making me squeeze?!

This was somehow more mortifying than touching her normally. Nanami probably felt the same way. The movement of her fingers felt extremely awkward. The expression on her face also told me that all this was way more embarrassing than she had thought it would be.

“Come to think of it,” I began in a murmur, “apparently, in medieval times, the legs and thighs were the most sexualized body parts.”

“Why would you say that now?!” Nanami yelled.

Shoot, I just blurted out some random trivia that’s somehow both completely relevant and yet totally not.

Nanami let go of my hands and formed loose fists as she began lightly pounding my stomach. It seemed like she had transitioned from a mount to a pound at first glance, but because there was no force behind her punches, it didn’t hurt at all.

“Jeez! Seriously!” Nanami shouted in protest as she continued hitting me, even though she did so in an almost slow and bovine manner.

Actually, this feels kind of nice. All these vibrations on my stomach are...

“Who are you calling a cow...?” I heard Nanami ask.

“Oh, shoot...!”

I had said it out loud. I was dead sure she was going to get upset...but instead, Nanami grinned in the most ominous way possible. There was even not a hint of the embarrassment that she must have been feeling just a moment ago. The switch had flipped incredibly quickly.

“Speaking of cows...we ought to do some milking, eh?” she murmured.

Milking...? Huh? Wait, Nanami can’t possibly do that to herself...?!

I couldn’t help directing my gaze to the general area in question. However, as if to do away with my indecent fantasies, Nanami raised both of her hands to shoulder level.

Her fingers moved as though they were sentient creatures, resembling crawling, twitching insect legs. I knew it was an unfortunate way to describe them, but I really couldn’t come up with anything better.

“Here’s another thing Kotoha-chan taught me,” Nanami murmured.

“Shirishizu-san’s taught you...yet another useless tidbit?” I returned.

Nanami, though, looked down at me with the most intimidating smile on her face. Instantly, goose bumps erupted across my entire body.

She then slammed both of her hands onto my body...or, rather, placed them on me with enough force to strike me.

Her target...was my chest.

“Huh...?” I let out, wondering why she would choose such a place. Nanami, though, smiled in response to my confused exclamation as though she were gleefully enjoying the situation.

“Apparently...men find it pleasurable to have their chests massaged too,” Nanami declared.

“Excuse me?”

Without waiting for my response, though, Nanami began wriggling the hands that she’d placed upon my chest. This was a totally unknown sensation to me, and not knowing how to respond at all, I just lay there and let her have her way with me.

To be perfectly frank, I couldn’t possibly share the details of what happened after that. I need only emphasize that we did not go all the way.

I would emphasize that, but...

The fact we got scolded by a ryokan staff member who came to our room to ask about our dinner requests...was a story for another time.

After this incident, I felt marriage was as far from me as it had ever been.

Chapter 5: Moonlit Night and Bath Towel

“You can just marry me, you know,” Nanami simply said.

“That’s not really the issue here!” I exclaimed.

Having worked up a sweat—for a variety of reasons—we were now on our way to the large communal bath. Nanami and I were both still wearing our normal clothes rather than the ryokan-issued yukata.

We felt damp and somewhat uncomfortable in our clothes, but we would have to wait to change until after we’d gotten out of the hot springs. Though we did manage to wipe ourselves down a bit with the towels that came with our room.

We did, unfortunately, get a bit of a scolding from one of the ryokan staff. While we had been fully dressed and it was really just a bit of us messing around, it was still enough to raise some eyebrows.

“I’m sorry, but I feel that the two of you shouldn’t engage in such activities... You’re both minors, after all...”

We had nothing to say in response. Nanami sitting on me was not a good look, and it didn’t help that she had been on top of me while also massaging my...chest.

“We should’ve locked the door, huh?” Nanami said.

“I mean, I’m still tripping up on the fact that we were so preoccupied we didn’t even hear them knock,” I muttered.

Let me go back a bit.

A staff member had come to our room and knocked, but because we hadn’t responded, she had decided to open the fusuma door and immediately heard what to her sounded like an argument.

That was how a concerned member of the ryokan staff caught us in the act. We hadn’t been butting heads; if anything, it appeared as if we were butting something else entirely.

“But it’s kind of wild that we get a free dinner on top of the upgraded room,” Nanami observed.

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” I agreed. “I mean, the original room we reserved didn’t have a meal plan attached to it at all.”

They said that the meal was part of their apology for their mishap about the room reservation, so we decided to gratefully accept it. And so we were able to enjoy dinner in our room without having to leave the ryokan.

Our original reservation came with breakfast, so I was looking forward to tomorrow morning’s meal as well. I didn’t know what to expect from a dinner at a ryokan, though, so I was pretty excited about what we would eat next.

“We’ll be in separate baths, though, huh?” Nanami said.

“Of course...though I heard that there’s also a family bath somewhere.”

We certainly couldn’t reserve a bath for the two of us. It would be a strange request given that our own room already had an open-air bath attached to it, not to mention that Nanami not bringing a swimsuit with her meant the idea of taking a bath together would never actually go anywhere. Even if we were to encounter the family bath, we probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy it together.

Nanami was probably saying that she wanted to bathe together...just because she enjoyed the idea of it. We weren’t actually going to bathe together, but we could enjoy talking about it. Schrödinger’s co-bathing rather than Schrödinger’s cat.

Wait, Schrödinger’s cat didn’t seem quite right. That was a thought experiment, after all. If someone who knew more about it could hear me now, they would probably correct me on my thinking.

“I wonder what kind of benefits come with the hot springs here,” Nanami remarked.

“Isn’t it just the usual stuff, like skincare and recovering from fatigue?”

If not those things, then bathing in the hot springs here was probably good for joint pain and muscle aches, maybe something for relaxation too. The hot springs would probably have a sign somewhere outside of it that explained the health benefits of bathing there.

“We went sightseeing and walked around a lot today, so we’re probably pretty worn out, huh? A leg massage while I bathe in the hot springs might do me some good,” I said.

“I would’ve given you a massage if you’d told me,” Nanami commented. “Maybe I should’ve been massaging your legs instead of your chest, huh?”

“True—maybe I would’ve preferred that after all...”

Oh no, I’m starting to recall what happened earlier...my head... No, Yoshin, don’t think about it.

I needed to seal away my memory from earlier today, when Nanami had completely overwhelmed me, or there would only be trouble from here on out.

“In that case, should we give each other massages once we finish our baths?” Nanami suggested.

“You give me a massage, and I give you one too? Is that allowed?” I asked. The ryokan staff had just given us a scolding a little while ago. Would it be okay for us to be giving each other massages so soon after that? If they caught us doing this, I felt like we would be subject to so much more than just a warning. Not that we were going to be doing anything questionable.

“If it’s just a massage, it should be fine, don’t you think?” Nanami muttered.

“Let me think about it...”

We continued to chat, eventually reaching the bath. A curtain that read “Men” covered one door, while another door situated a little way away read “Women.”

As expected, men and women had their own designated hot springs baths. Because of the short distance between the two entrances, it was time for me to part ways with Nanami.

“It’s kind of cool to go through an entrance like this, isn’t it?” I commented.

I knew that the curtain covering the door was just a little piece of fabric and didn’t actually demarcate a whole new space, but I still couldn’t do away with the feeling that going through it might lead me to a different world. It was a feeling I liked, though I felt that maybe this was just something all guys liked. That made it sound a little gross, though.

“Can’t say I feel the same way,” Nanami mumbled, but then she perked up and said, “Oh, look over there. It’s talking about the benefits of the hot springs.”

Feeling a twinge of sadness at the fact that Nanami didn’t share my bizarre wonder at the anticipation I felt in passing through a curtained door, I turned my attention to the large wooden sign posted between the men’s bath and the women’s bath that Nanami had discovered. The sign indicated the origins and benefits of the hot springs and also explained the history of the ryokan we were staying at. The sign in and of itself also seemed to exude a kind of historical significance of its own.

Learning about the history of an unfamiliar place was part of the joy of traveling—though I was uncertain how much of this knowledge I’d actually be able to retain. Regardless, it was pleasant to be presented with the knowledge and then be immersed in the mood of that moment, even if doing so did strike me as a rather plebian way of enjoying things.

Anyway, the benefits of the hot springs... Yup, they were definitely good for your skin, and they also seemed to be effective for skin disease and neuralgia. Bathing in the hot springs also supposedly helped the body’s systems retain warmth, along with a bunch of other benefits. Not to mention...

“Offspring,” I heard Nanami mutter. I also happened to freeze when I came to that word in the explanation.

I couldn’t quite figure out how we went from hot springs to offsprings, but apparently that was one of the things we could hope for as a benefit from enjoying the baths here.

After her soft remark, Nanami glanced at me—and because I had been looking at her too, our eyes met. We then kept looking back and forth between each other and the sign posted before us. I was not expecting to feel this kind of tension before going to take a bath.

“W-Well, if we don’t do anything like that after our bath, we should be fine,” I stammered.

“R-Right,” Nanami agreed. “Yeah, of course. Right...”

I only said it because I thought I should say something, but immediately after saying it I had a feeling I hadn’t helped the situation at all. The air between us grew more awkward, and sweat began to bead on my skin. Thank goodness I was about to get into the bath; I could wash it all away.

“Th-Then...I’ll see you later, Yoshin,” Nanami whispered.

“Oh, uh...right, see you later. Have a nice soak, okay?” I replied.

“In the offspring bath?!”

No, that’s not what I meant! Before I could explain, though, Nanami turned and hurriedly walked off toward the women’s bath.

I had no idea this place was good for fertility. The earlier scolding we received from the ryokan staff was an unwelcome weight on my conscience.

Maybe all these weird feelings can be washed off in the bath... Mildly flustered, I made my way toward the men’s bath.

♢♢♢

Getting out of the bath left both your mind and body feeling fresh—so much so that one might have the illusion of being a brand-new car coming off of the factory assembly line. Though a more accurate description would probably be that we got some maintenance done, not that we became brand-new.

A complete overhaul of mind and body—that was probably what soaking in the hot springs did for you. Another great thing about it was that you could fully stretch out your legs, which wasn’t something you could always do in baths at home.

Well, I guess you could stretch out your legs at home too. But the sense of freedom one felt in a large hot springs bath just hit different.

The hot springs hadn’t been too crowded. Right now I was cooling myself down after the hot bath, waiting for Nanami.

Maybe it was because of the hot springs, but I still felt warm even after having stepped out of the bath for some time. I felt so warm that I thought I might even get sweaty if I moved around too much. Though I guess if I did, all I had to do was hop back into the hot springs.

I looked around from my seat in the rest area set close to the baths. There were families, older couples, a large group of younger women, several guy friends traveling together...

A wide array of people were headed toward the baths, returning to their rooms, buying drinks, or engaged in other activities. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and those who had stepped out of the hot springs had rosy cheeks and seemed to be practically glistening.

Were hot springs like these somehow unique to Japanese culture? If they were, then I was grateful to be born in Japan so I could make full use of them.

Hm, what should I do while Nanami finishes up? Should I try the little arcade in the corner? Or should I get a drink? No, I should wait to do that until Nanami comes. Drinking coffee milk together after a good soak would be so nice. So arcade it is.

“Excuse me...”

There don’t seem to be any retro games in the arcade, but I think I saw some crane games and pachinko machines. Other than that, maybe...air hockey? That sounds pretty good. Maybe I should save that for me and Nanami to do together. That’s like a must-do, isn’t it? Playing air hockey with Nanami in a yukata... Though isn’t there usually ping-pong at a hot springs ryokan too? I don’t think I saw one here, though. I wonder if Nanami’s ever played ping-pong before.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Hm?” I let out, hearing someone’s voice nearby.

It sounded like they were talking to someone—the voice was slightly high-pitched and sounded like it belonged to a young woman. I thought they were talking to someone, but...

“Are you here by yourself?” someone asked.

“We’re not doing anything right now, and we were wondering if you wanted to chat with us,” another suggested.

“Or maybe you could come up to our room to have drinks with us instead?” a third said.

Huh...?

Standing before me were three young women wearing yukata. It seemed, furthermore, like they were talking to me.Why are these people even talking to me?

Though they were young, they seemed a little older than I was. They were all wearing the yukata the ryokan offered to guests, but each one seemed to be wearing it a little differently, in a way that might be described as slightly loose and undone.

Um...

“Are you talking to me?” I asked.

The women all replied enthusiastically in the affirmative, appearing excited for some reason. One of them even said, “Oh my gosh, he used ‘boku’ for himself—how formal! And cute.”

Huh? How is using “boku” as my first-person pronoun cute?

While I sat there feeling mildly perplexed, the women began talking to me all at once.

“You didn’t seem to be doing anything,” one began.

“So we thought that you might want to hang out with us,” another finished.

For some reason all three women were wiggling their bodies strangely and speaking in an odd, high-pitched purr. I could tell even from my seated position that the women were taller than me, but somehow they had still managed to look up at me from below. Maybe it was because they had bent over a bit to speak to me? But it made their yukata sag and bunch up in odd places.

What’s going on here? Are these people friends of Nanami’s? But they can’t be.

“I’m actually waiting for someone,” I responded.

“Oh, you came here with a friend? Then would he like to join us too?”

“There’s three of us, so we can definitely entertain both of you.”

I’m here with my girlfriend, not my friend. I tried to interject with the correction, but none of the women stopped talking long enough for me to cut in.

“You’re pretty muscular,” one of them observed. “That’s so nice.”

“It’s so sexy when you can see just a glimpse of it like that,” another said.

Huh? Is it sexy? It’s the first time anyone’s ever said anything like that to me. And why are they trying to touch me?

I shifted to avoid their hands reaching out to me and immediately got remarks like “Oh look, he’s shy!” and “That’s so adorable!”

What in the world is going on here? I couldn’t register what was happening at all, so I kind of sat there with my mouth hanging open. I wasn’t sure how the women interpreted that, but they all giggled gleefully.

“Can we go see your room?” one of the women asked.

“Once you get a few drinks in you you’ll stop feeling so nervous. You’ll feel a lot more free,” another added.

“Oh girl, you’re so forward!” the third remarked, and then turned to me and said, “But you really are cute, so I think we’d be down for that.”

The women kept saying things I couldn’t understand, their hands tugging at their yukata for seemingly no reason. I found myself giving them an oddly cold stare. Though I couldn’t figure out why, I knew a part of it was because I just couldn’t figure out what was going on. Seriously, though. What am I supposed to do here? I was so bewildered that I could feel myself getting irritated. And why did all three of them feel the need to talk in such an annoying way?

Oh, they suddenly got quiet. With the women’s verbal onslaught having been put on pause, it seemed my turn to speak had finally come. The three women were silent, as if waiting for me to talk. Finally, I can say something.

Just then, though, I heard a familiar voice speak up.

“Yoshin...?”

It came from behind the three women—Nanami’s voice echoing low, soft, and...extremely heavy.

I waved upon seeing her, but Nanami just stood there with her arms crossed underneath her chest, her feet set apart in a menacing manner. Oh, uh, why does she seem super pissed off? No wait, she’s not pissed off—is she trying to intimidate someone?

Seeing my reaction to her appearance, for a moment Nanami seemed strained, and then she turned a sharp gaze in our direction—primarily toward the three women crowded in front of me.

The women caught Nanami’s gaze and collectively drew their breaths.

Wow, she managed to establish that hierarchy immediately.

The three women that had seemed incapable of not speaking just a moment ago had just been stunned into silence. They huddled close to each other, looking warily at Nanami. They even seemed to be trembling a bit.

I couldn’t help the comparison that this seemed a lot like an encounter between predator and prey. Cat and mouse, bird and fish, bear and salmon...something along those lines. Though regardless of what this really was I guess it was nice for things to finally quiet down.

“I’m sorry, I’m here with my girlfriend, so...” I said, getting up and going around the women to approach Nanami. Nanami, on the other hand, upon seeing me walk to her just furrowed her brows and sighed—as though she were exasperated by my incompetence.

Sorry, sorry. They just came on so strong that I was overwhelmed.

With her arms crossed beneath her chest, Nanami seemed to be deliberately emphasizing that area...but that must have just been my imagination. Such a pose made it seem like she was a model that might be featured in that kind of a magazine.

I reached my hand out toward her. She looked at it with a wry smile, brows still knitted, as if she wasn’t convinced of my innocence in the scenario...but took my hand anyway.

Nanami’s hand was very warm, perhaps owing to the effects of the hot springs. We held hands tightly, as if trying to exchange our heat with each other, and promptly set off in search of somewhere we could relax.

The three women stood still, just looking at us, and seemed willing to just let us go. Then what was all their earlier commotion about?

Oh, I almost forgot...

“Also, we’re both underage, so we can’t drink alcohol and stuff,” I said as I passed by them.

“What...?”

My declaration that Nanami and I would have to decline their offer for alcohol seemed to send the women off into a tizzy. I thought I heard them murmur “minor...?” and “breaking the law...?” as well.

Huh. What did they want to do?

I paused for a moment, looking at the three women in bewilderment, but felt a tug at my hand. Of course, it was Nanami, her cheeks puffed slightly in indignation as she told me to get a move on. Usually I thought of Nanami as a cat, but right now she looked more like a large dog that was demanding I take her on her daily walk.

Once we’d made our way over to the designated relaxation space and sat down in one of its corners...

“Seriously! I can’t believe you were getting hit on!” Nanami shouted.

“Oh, is that what was happening?” I let out.

That was when Nanami finally exploded, throwing herself across the table we were sitting at. It was at this moment that I finally began to understand what the three women had been trying to accomplish. But c’mon. I was so foreign to all this that absolutely none of it registered. Once Nanami noticed my reaction, she sat up straight and looked at me with her jaw hanging open.

Oh, I’ve never seen Nanami stare at me with that kind of expression before. Her eyes had a look in them that I was being confronted with for the first time, and they had a piercing, bladelike force that even made me tremble slightly.

Nanami then blinked a few times, seemingly pondering the situation...until finally, as if coming to a realization of her own, she sighed.

“Yeah, you’re not used to getting hit on, are you?” she mumbled.

“Used to getting hit on” seemed like a pretty wild characteristic you could attach to a person. Though she was definitely correct to say that I was not that.

“I guess I just assumed that kind of thing wouldn’t happen to me,” I muttered.

As in, why did those women choose me, of all people, to hit on? They seemed like the type to go for more extroverted guys. For them to target a complete introvert like me... Maybe there was some sort of weird trend going around right now.

But Nanami wasn’t convinced by my logic.

“You’re being too naive, Yoshin!” she clamored. “You don’t understand how attractive you are!”

“I feel like we’ve talked about something like this before, but...I just didn’t think this would happen to me on a trip,” I explained.

If one of us were to get hit on, I for sure thought that it would happen to Nanami. I mean, wasn’t that what all the foreshadowing told us? We’d even talked about it openly before. And that one time we discussed first-person pronouns seemed to point that way as well.

“I mean, why didn’t you just tell them that you had a girlfriend and end it right there? What were you even talking about?” Nanami demanded.

Oh, now Nanami is looking at me with her eyes all narrowed. Jeez, it’s nearly as unnerving as Shirishizu-san’s look. Though Nanami doesn’t seem as pissed now as she was when I first saw her with her arms crossed earlier.

Even so, I felt bad that I was making her feel that way because of what had just happened.

“I was trying to tell them that I was here with my girlfriend, but they just wouldn’t stop talking, so I couldn’t find a moment to say anything,” I explained. “At least, not until you came.”

I mean, seriously. It was unbelievable how many words just three women could produce in a minute. I had occasionally spent time with Nanami, Otofuke-san, and Kamoenai-san all together, but never had I felt overwhelmed and vaguely annoyed about Nanami and her friends as I did with those three women earlier. But were they actually the norm?

“If I think about the actual conversation... They just asked me if I wanted to hang out with them and have something to drink,” I said. “Now that I think about it, I didn’t really say anything myself.”

Yeah, thinking back on it, they really were just talking at me, and I didn’t say much to them in return. More precisely, they didn’t even give me a chance to say anything in the first place.

“What else did they tell you?” Nanami pressed.

“Nothing in particular, really...”

“Are you sure? Those girls sure seemed excited about something.”

Excited... They did seem that way, didn’t they? I guess I wasn’t keeping up with the conversation at all. About the only thing I could recall was...

“Something about being sexy and cute...?”

That was about the only thing they said I could remember, even though those words didn’t fit me at all. So I guess they did say something, but still...

Oh, wait. Nanami is completely floored.

“You’re not at all flattered, even though they said that to you?” she asked.

“Huh? Why?” I couldn’t help asking myself. Was there some subtext in their comments that should have flattered me? More than anything, I just thought that they were complimenting me in an incomprehensible—almost questionable—way.

“If that had been Oto-nii, he would’ve been completely won over,” Nanami said. “If anything, he would have been completely sucked into their chattiness until Hatsumi came and threw him in a panic.”

“Really? But Soichiro-san has a girlfriend. If you have a girlfriend, you shouldn’t be acting like that with other women,” I declared.

“I mean, they do end up fighting when that happens...sometimes there’s even mild violence involved.”

“Of course...wait, violence?”

“Well, I guess for Oto-nii there is a bit of fan service involved, so it’s not all his fault,” Nanami continued.

Yikes, those two go that far when they fight? But I guess that’s just what happens when you get all flirty with women who aren’t your girlfriend. Jealousy can get pretty intense.

If Nanami flirted with another guy or fell under his charms, I would feel unhappy about it too.

And it was precisely because I felt that way that I shouldn’t act that way myself toward other women.

“Still, don’t guys usually feel pretty good about themselves when pretty girls like that compliment them or hit on them?” Nanami asked.

“Maybe I just don’t have the experience to know any better,” I claimed.

Whatever those women said earlier didn’t really resonate with me. I could understand that they were complimenting me, but it all sounded so shallow.

It felt so different from all the times Nanami complimented me.

“I know this is coming super late, but I feel like I finally understand what the school nurse was talking about when we ran into her in Hawaii,” Nanami murmured. She looked a bit uncertain, but she heaved what seemed a sigh of relief.

And what was it that the nurse had said, exactly? Oh, right... Wasn’t it something about the darkness within me?

I mean, didn’t we all carry some kind of inner darkness? I was pretty certain that I wasn’t special in any way. Though, to be honest, what she said hadn’t really clicked with me in the first place.

Nanami must have had a thing or two on her mind, though, because she reached her hand out toward me with a wry smile still on her face. I felt like she was looking at me as if she might look at a young child. She then pinched my nose, squeezing it between her fingers. Suddenly having her touch my nose felt a little funny. Still, I let Nanami continue to do what she wanted.

“I know it’s not for me to say,” she began, “but even if you do end up flirting with someone a little bit because you like what you’re hearing, I wouldn’t get that upset, you know? It’s okay.”

“It’s not like the idea of you getting upset is the only thing keeping me from feeling flattered, though,” I replied.

“Though I guess if you did get all won over by someone’s compliments, I would feel pretty annoyed.”

“Wait, that’s like the opposite of what you just said right now.”

Why was she contradicting herself so quickly? It was shocking enough and so abrupt that I was half convinced Nanami had suddenly gained short-term amnesia.

Though I had absolutely no intention of being won over by anyone else in that way anyway.

“Why would you even say such contradictory things like that?” I had to ask.

“I want you to be the strapping young man I know you can become, but as a woman, I also can’t help feeling irked when you desire anyone other than me,” Nanami explained.

How was she managing to balance both the maternal sentiment of watching me grow with the possessive perspective of a troublesome girlfriend? More importantly, had I really not yet grown up to be a strapping young man?

“But calling you cute and sexy, huh? Hate to agree with them, but I understand how those girls feel,” Nanami continued.

“Y-You do?”

“I do, though only if it’s about you.”

I guess she was saying she understood me, and only me. And now, with that understanding, Nanami let go of my nose and brought her hands together in front of her mouth, hiding it from view. Her pose reminded me of some kind of commander leading a secret operation.

Then her eyes seemed to glimmer. She had her glasses off, and yet I thought I could almost see a metaphorical pair of glasses on her face. Though I had no idea what a metaphorical pair of glasses was, nor how exactly they would metaphorically change the expression on someone’s face.

“First,” Nanami began, “the fact that you refer to yourself as ‘boku’ is cute. Also, your smile is cute. The way you get embarrassed sometimes is cute, and if anything, the fact that you let me—and only me—spoil you is so, so cute. Add the fact that you’re a little childish sometimes...”

O-Oh, she’s calling all these different things about me “cute.” But wait, those people earlier only called me cute when referring to how I used “boku,” not all these other points she’s bringing up...

With no hint of stopping, Nanami continued to speak with enough force to rival those other women from before.

“As for your sexiness, it’s gotta be your yukata outfit right now,” she went on. “Yoshin, you’re not used to wearing a yukata, are you? It’s come undone a little bit, so I can see your collarbone and a little bit of your chest. It’s way too sexy. Plus ordinarily too...”

I instinctively covered up the front of my yukata. I mean, I knew I wasn’t accustomed to wearing a yukata, but I never thought to consider what that would mean for my appearance from that perspective...

Was seeing a man’s clavicle and chest really that exciting, though?

“I definitely enjoy it,” Nanami declared, donning an oddly suave expression. O-Oh, uh...I see.

But wearing a yukata...right, yukata! There was all that hoopla when Nanami got out of the hot springs, that I didn’t even have the chance to get a good look at what she looked like wearing one.

It was the ryokan’s, and she also wore one the last time we went on the trip with both of our families. Still, when my girlfriend was wearing something she normally didn’t, there was no way I wouldn’t compliment her.

As in, I just wanted to compliment Nanami in her yukata.

Nanami must have said her share, because she now had her chin in her hand, looking satisfied. In rare form, she even had her elbow on the table and was leaning on it.

I immediately did my best to permanently imprint the sight of her in my memory; if I hadn’t known her, I would have thought I’d just sighted a gravure idol in the flesh. Of course I could just capture the moment on my phone, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to point a camera at Nanami right now. At some point I would definitely take a photo of Nanami in her yukata, but this moment was something I wanted to capture only in my memories.

Her skin was glowing, flushed from the hot springs and whatever skincare effects the bath offered. Her complexion had improved, with her cheeks turning rosy, while her lips shone a beautifully pale pink. She had her hair down instead of up, though a strand of it had fallen on her cheek, granting a certain allure to her look.

Nanami had said earlier that my yukata was coming a bit undone, but hers was the same way, revealing the tiniest glimpse of her collarbones.

When my heart skipped a beat at the sight of it, my expression must have changed slightly too; Nanami raised the corners of her lips into a faint smile, as if she knew exactly where I was looking. My saving grace was that I couldn’t actually see anything of her chest area beyond that.

“Yeah, you definitely look pretty in a yukata too,” I finally said.

“Want a peek?” she asked after a slight pause.

My compliment must have put her in a good mood, because she touched the hem of her yukata and flapped it a few times for emphasis. My nerves immediately began to act up. Would she actually flip her yukata over right now?

“Those women earlier were doing that too, but isn’t it a little indecent?” I muttered.

I couldn’t help thinking that a yukata was for wearing properly, and perhaps, when it unexpectedly came undone, could a blushing kind of coy shyness come through.

I also thought that kind of charm only worked when you were looking at the person you liked. If it was someone you didn’t even care for, they’d just look totally untidy.

Hm? Why is Nanami not moving?

“I see...those women too, huh?” Nanami muttered.

“Um, Nanami-san...?”

“And did you happen to see something of those women earlier?”

“No, I saw nothing at all,” I answered.

Wait, I had just gotten out of the hot springs—what was this chill I was suddenly feeling? A freezing coolness was emanating from Nanami’s entire being, seemingly out of nowhere, causing me to shiver.

But it left just as soon as it appeared, with Nanami suggesting we buy some milk to drink. Eventually she and I made our way over to the little store that sold sundries.

Because I told her honestly that I hadn’t seen anything at all, I had optimistically believed Nanami would think nothing more of the question.

It would not be until a little while later that I would learn what Nanami was thinking in this particular moment.

♢♢♢

I soaked in the hot springs, drank coffee milk, played in the arcade with Nanami, and returned to our room. When was the last time I played air hockey, anyway?

We also encountered the very stereotypical event of having our yukata come undone while we played air hockey...though that mostly happened to me. I really wasn’t used to wearing a yukata, so mine came loose very quickly and granted me a mostly not-welcomed opportunity for sexiness. Though Nanami complimented me on it.

She said that the fact I worked out made it worth the look. Nanami, on the other hand, very skillfully fixed her yukata as we played, so hers stayed in place the entire time.

I hadn’t exactly intended to get sweaty after taking a bath, but Nanami said we could just take another one after dinner, so that settled that. She also mentioned that if we soaked in the open-air bath at night, we could probably see some amazing views. It seemed like a fantastic idea.

It had been dark earlier too, but there had still been light then—we had our bath right before sunset, around the twilight hour. Wait, that was the right way to use that phrase, right?

We ran into a member of the ryokan staff on our way back to our room, and she asked us if she could bring dinner to our room, which we agreed to. We then waited in anticipation for the food to come...and what arrived was even more gorgeous than what we had imagined.

“Wow... This looks amazing,” Nanami murmured, looking at the food that was laid out on our table with stars in her eyes. Yeah, that seems about the right reaction. This looks incredible.

There was food caught from the sea and cultivated from the mountains, along with meat served with a small hot pot...and was this one crab? Wait, what? Just how fancy were we going to get here?

The seafood was sashimi with additional servings of shrimp tempura and braised shrimp. There were also simmered mountain vegetables and a small glass dish of mountain yams. Several other small dishes also lay on the table.

The meat and the small hot pot must be sukiyaki. Inside the pot were tofu, green onions, and string konjac, as well as a separate plate of very thinly sliced beef.

The showstopper of our meal was one whole red crab. It seemed we could eat it as is.

“Adults might prefer alcohol with this meal, but for your aperitif we have prepared juice,” one of the ryokan staff said, serving us orange liquid in stylish glasses. Apparently it was juice made from local vegetables and fruits.

They also gave us bottled oolong tea as well as orange juice.

“Dessert will be served once you’ve finished your meal. If you need anything, please let us know,” the lead staff person said. Then all of them bowed to us and closed the door.

Wait, we get dessert too? Isn’t that too extravagant?

“Should we...toast?” I said to Nanami, still in mild shock.

“Yeah, let’s! Yoshin, say something!” she replied excitedly.

Oh no, and now I’ve been presented with an impossible request. Um, what exactly am I supposed to say? Well...maybe what would suit us right now is...

“Cheers...to our first trip together, just the two of us,” I said.

“Cheers!”

Our glasses touched, the soft clink echoing between us. We brought the juice to our lips and drank it in one go.

They had said it was vegetable juice, but it had a refreshing acidity and sweetness with none of the grassiness one might usually expect from veggies. It tasted a lot better than any canned juice I’d had before.

Maybe the acidity was a bit stronger than the sweetness, though, as the citrus scent of the juice seemed to increase my appetite. I felt like I could practically inhale all the food laid out on the table.

“There’s so many different items in front of me I’m not sure where to start,” I confessed.

“We shouldn’t let our chopsticks wander all over the food, right? But with all this here...I can barely make up my mind,” Nanami agreed.

Nanami was probably referring to how it was bad manners to pick up our chopsticks and gesture with them at one food or another. If so, simply looking at the food while we tried to decide what to eat first probably wouldn’t go against any etiquette rules.

But seriously...what should I start with? Maybe I’ll have rice and miso soup first... Wait, where are they? Oh, it’s probably this bowl with the lid on it. I opened the lid of the bowl nearest to me and instantly was hit with the delicious scent of dashi wafting up to my nose.

The rice was pure white and glistening, the outline of each grain of rice clearly visible to the eye. With all these dishes, I felt like I could eat multiple servings of rice.

The miso soup had tofu, daikon, and carrots. It was simple, but because of all the extravagant dishes surrounding it, somehow its simplicity brought with it a sense of ease. In fact, this miso soup alone could probably get me to finish off a whole bowl of rice.

We nearly smacked our lips at the numerous dishes splayed in front of us, an amount that would probably have us eating more in one sitting than we should. Regardless, Nanami and I were determined to have a relaxed dinner, as if this meal could single-handedly help us recover from the fatigue of the day.

“I’m glad I’m not a picky eater,” I muttered. About the only thing I couldn’t get excited about was cilantro, but I couldn’t see it in any of the dishes we had been served today. Even the mysterious agar jello served in the small bowl was tasty.

“This is delicious. Maybe I could try making it,” Nanami said softly.

“Make it?” I repeated. “Can you tell what’s in it?”

“Well, I think I can remember what it tastes like, so I’ll just have to try making it a few times,” Nanami replied. “Oh, this one’s good too...”

She was having the simmered vegetables. The dish contained lily root and daikon, as well as taro, chicken, and shiitake mushrooms. The ingredients retained their original color, so I thought that maybe it wasn’t seasoned too heavily; but one bite revealed that the dashi had seeped into everything, giving the dish a satisfying flavor. The unique flavors each ingredient brought to the dish seemed perfectly balanced with the seasoning in just the right way. It was a taste that only a professional could concoct.

“You’ll help taste test too, right?” Nanami asked.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember the taste that well, though...”

I would love to eat these dishes again, though, so if Nanami could re-create them, I would feel extremely grateful. Maybe I should try to help her somehow...

With all these amazing dishes laid out before us, I wasn’t sure I would be able to finish them all; but I actually managed to put everything away quite easily. Maybe all the sightseeing had tired me out more than I thought.

Our dessert was sweet red bean soup with mochi, and I thought that it might be a bit too heavy after such a sumptuous meal—but nope, apparently my stomach had a whole separate compartment for sweets. The soup had a gentle and natural sweetness that I ended up finishing off immediately.

Right now, Nanami and I were enjoying our after-dinner tea.

“That was delicious,” Nanami murmured.

“I ate too much,” I eked out.

Every exhale came with a heaving awareness of how full my belly currently was. I knew I was probably more worked up than usual because of the trip, but I definitely ate more than I usually did in one sitting. I could physically feel just how overstuffed my stomach was. Nanami probably felt similarly, because she had her hand on her stomach with a slightly embarrassed look on her face. She might even have a bit of a belly right now.

In any case...

“I feel like I worked up a sweat just from eating all that,” I said.

“Same here. Maybe all the warm dishes we ate increased our circulation,” Nanami suggested.

Maybe because we had eaten a warm meal in a warm room, but both Nanami and I had tiny beads of sweat on our foreheads. The fact that we were in the hot springs earlier and had warmed up our bodies there probably was a part of it too.

It wasn’t an unpleasant kind of sweat; it was rather refreshing, actually. But since I also worked up a sweat from previous rounds of air hockey, I really did want another chance to step into the hot springs.

Nanami had suggested we take a bath again too. The idea of sitting in an open-air bath while looking at the night sky sounded very enticing to me.

Though I would be sitting in the bath by myself, which was a bit lonesome.

Still, I said, “Then, shall we take another bath?”

“Hm...yeah, maybe we should. Let’s digest a little bit more, though,” she replied.

Wasn’t it bad to take a bath right after eating? Nanami lay down where she had been sitting, so I joked with her that lying down immediately after eating would turn her into a cow.

Nanami, though, lifted one of her breasts with one hand while lying down and said, “Cow...?” Please don’t do that in your yukata, it’s indecent. Yet I can’t look away from them at all. Oh, woe is me.

After that, the two of us just continued lying around together. A part of me was convinced that postmeal times like these were where I felt my happiest. Though I guess I felt happiness on many different occasions too.

When I realized it, I saw that Nanami was lying next to me, pulling my arm to make me touch her overstuffed belly with my hand. We also spent some of our time digesting calling our parents and chatting with Baron-san and everyone else.

And it was in the middle of us lazying about in the name of letting our food settle that she made the bombshell of a statement.

“Shall we...get into the open-air bath now?”

“Excuse me?” I squeaked.

And sure enough, the place Nanami headed to next...was the open-air bath attached to our room.

♢♢♢

Nervousness.

A mere eleven letters, but I was pretty certain that this single word was what best described me in this particular moment.

I knew what the word meant, though I had only looked up its definition a scant few times in my life—probably because most people knew what being nervous felt like.

Still, I took the time to confirm what the state of nervousness was. What was it, exactly?

I looked it up before arriving at where I was now, as if doing so would help me escape my current reality, but apparently, nervousness described a situation in which the mind and body were in a state of tension. In others, it was a condition in which both the mind and the body were tense.

It described my current state perfectly; I saw it and couldn’t help agreeing with it wholeheartedly.

Though when I looked up the meaning of “tension,” I saw that it meant “nervousness”...which presented me with a chicken or the egg problem.

Still, it was easy to understand what tension meant as well.

Now, more than ever, I felt as though both my mind and body were a string pulled taut to its limit...or maybe even a rubber band, stretched to maximum elasticity. Maybe the rubber band comparison was more apt; I felt as if I could snap at any moment.

Right: I was a rubber band that had been tugged so much that fissures were forming on its surface.

To get back on topic, there were several different types of nervousness, including but not limited to: anxiety and fear, the anticipation of trying something new, and the excitement that came before a big event. In other words, what caused nervousness were actions that were considered out of the ordinary, whatever impacted the equilibrium that the mind and body normally maintained quite well.

I was no expert, so this was all just taken from things I’d read and heard, but the idea that our usual balance would be thrown off by extraordinary incidents was something I’d recently begun to understand more intimately.

For those for whom the extraordinary became ordinary—professionals and masters in certain fields—nervousness and nerves in general might not be things they felt anymore. Or maybe it was precisely those people who could overcome and tame their nerves who could be professionals in the first place.

This all pointed to how difficult it was to rid oneself of nervousness.

What type of nervousness is the one I’m feeling right now? That was the thought on my mind as I sat soaking in the bathtub.

“I feel like I’m not relaxed, even though I’m sitting right in the middle of a bath...”

This was so strange. Usually, inside a tub was the most relaxing place to be. But right now my body was rigidly maintaining a tense and agitated state. Weren’t warm temperatures supposed to be good for our nervous systems as well?

This may simply be indicating the extent of my total unfamiliarity with such out-of-the-ordinary occurrences.

Just how long am I going to stay nervous? I wondered as I looked to the heavens, starting to feel slightly depressed.

When I looked up, though, I saw that the sky was filled with a beautiful collection of celestial bodies, the moon and a multitude of stars.

With the sun having set, it was dark all around, with only the light from our room lighting up the outdoor terrace. Because our room was located at somewhat of an elevation, I could clearly see our surroundings from my seated position inside the tub.

Our inn stood by a lake, and I thought I could see the light of something—maybe a ship of some kind. For a moment I felt like that light, and the lights from the sky, existed solely to illuminate me.

There was a full moon tonight.

“Is it too cliché to say...that the moon is beautiful?” I wondered, recalling how a famous writer once translated words of love from English into Japanese in that way. It had become a somewhat trite phrase now, but maybe the fact that many people (including me) still used it was just an indication of how beautiful of an idea it still was, both as a saying and a situation.

I lifted my arm out of the water with a soft splash. The tub was large enough for me to extend my legs comfortably, but even then I still couldn’t seem to calm myself down.

Was it my mind or my body that was worked up? It must have been both.

I leaned back slightly in the tub and looked up at the night sky.

I was tempted to let myself float in the water and let my thoughts drift away in much the same way. In reality, though, it was bad manners to let your hair touch the water in the hot springs, so I wasn’t going to lie down. Still, I looked up at the sky while leaning back as far as my body allowed.

The moon really is beautiful, I said to myself. But just as I was starting to soothe my angst by gazing at the moon...

A door creaked open, the sound echoing around me. The sound continued until the door closed, filling the air with silence. Then, after a moment or two, I heard someone walking—the sound of fabric rubbing against each other—that seemed mixed in with a soft splashing sound, like small puddles of water being continually disturbed.

This...yeah, probably, most...definitely. The fact that I can hear someone other than me means right now that...probably, uh... Oh no, I can’t even think straight.

The sound gradually grew closer, until it stopped right behind me.

“Yoshin...”

There was a loud splash of water—caused by me, startling violently in the bathtub and causing the water to ripple outward in large waves.

The voice belonged...to Nanami, of course.

In response to that voice coming from behind me, I simply gave a curt “Yes” but remained unable to turn around.

What Nanami looked like right now...well, she had come to an open-air bath, so there was only one answer to that question—but I did not have the wherewithal to confirm that myself at the moment. Well, actually I did; as in, all I had to do was simply to turn my body while I sat here in this bathtub.

If anything, why was I sitting here with my back turned toward the door?

I knew the answer, of course: self-preparation.

But it didn’t seem to be all that helpful; I was still so nervous that I couldn’t even look in Nanami’s direction.

Even though, by simply turning around, I would...I might be able to see Nanami’s everything.

“S-Sorry to intrude,” Nanami murmured.

“N-Not at all. It’s cold, hurry on in,” I replied.

Saying “hurry on in” might sound like I was enticing her to join me, but right now it was winter, which meant it was legitimately cold—I was concerned she would get sick.

Even my breath was white, and I was already sitting in the bath. There was steam rising from the water of the tub too. I couldn’t imagine how cold Nanami was right now just standing in the cool night air. I mean, she must have her skin exposed...probably.

But maybe she was wearing a swimsuit. I thought she hadn’t brought one, but it was possible that she had purchased one here without me knowing.

I heard her approach. I felt her presence come closer to me as well. I was reminded suddenly of a story I once read, of a yokai that came nearer while walking across a wet floor.

Not that Nanami was a yokai or anything. Still, I couldn’t help thinking of it.

Nanami, though, continued her slow approach. It was impressive, really; when I had come out earlier, I practically ran to get into the hot water.

The speed of her steps, though, was probably related to how nervous she was feeling right now.

There was another soft splash, similar to the one my arm made earlier when I let it out of the water. This time, though, it was probably Nanami stepping into the bath. Probably, if I had to guess.

“Yoshin, you can...look this way now,” I heard Nanami say immediately behind me. She had granted me her permission to turn around. Wait, why was I talking like she was an empress?

“Um...would it be all right for me...to stay like this a little while longer?” I asked, the usual wuss that I was. It was just that...I needed a tiny bit more time.

“Okay. Then...wait just a minute, okay?” she said.

Her remark struck me as odd. She didn’t say that she would wait; rather, she asked me to wait instead. What did it mean for me to be the one to wait?

I was confused, but I was given the answer to my question soon enough.

I felt...something warm touch me. Something different than that of the bath water.

There were splashes, followed by the sound of something moving through the water. Then I felt...something pressing directly against my back.

Is this her front?! I thought—but the sensation was somehow different from that.

When I usually felt Nanami’s front on my back, I was always met with two soft and incredibly large orbs on me. This time, though, that wasn’t the case.

I did feel something soft, but there was also a slight hardness, along with a touch of skin.

Can this be...

“Is this your back...?”

“Righto! I’m impressed you could tell,” Nanami said. “Or are you just so used to me pressing my boobs against you that you know the difference now?”

She even called me a boob sommelier, but of course I could clearly tell the difference between her front and her back. I mean, in a lot of different ways, not just through her boobs.

Nanami was cracking jokes, but I could deduce from how little contact we were actually making that she was feeling quite nervous herself. It really was just a small portion of our backs that was touching.

Is it really okay for me to turn around now?

Nanami and I remained in that position, though, quietly continuing our conversation as though trying to gradually relieve each other’s tension. We talked about how fun our sightseeing during the day was, and how tasty our meals had been so far. We then brought up how we should drink the juice that was chilling in our fridge once we got out of the bath, and how we even wanted to eat some ice cream afterward too. Just normal, everyday stuff.

As we continued our ordinary conversation, our sense of nervousness began to...

Yeah, no. I still can’t concentrate on our conversation at all.

Like, I was able to push words out of my mouth, but I wasn’t registering what either one of us was saying at all. I just kept thinking about other stuff—like the sensation on my back, or what Nanami looked like in this very moment.

“You...wanna turn around now?” Nanami suggested, more forward than ever. She sounded like she wanted to convince me to turn around no matter what. Even as I wondered why she seemed so set on it, I also felt it was somewhat of a shame to let things end while we remained sitting back-to-back like this.

All that was left was for me to work up my courage.

I lifted my hands out of the water and, with both my hands, slapped both my cheeks with all my might. Since I had to push through the weight of the water I didn’t manage to slap myself all that hard, but the impact was nonetheless enough to wake me up a bit.

That wasn’t all, though; I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, then exhaled completely. I gave my body up to the warmth of the water, then imagined oxygen traveling all throughout my body with every breath I took to fill my lungs.

“Okay...!” I let out, declaring my resolve.

And with that, I turned around.

Actually, it took me quite a long time to turn around after I said “Okay,” but at least Nanami sensed that I was intending to turn around and shifted away from me.

But—slowly, in that same position—I remained seated while slowly twisting myself around.

As I turned, my field of vision, nay, my world, turned with me. Lights moved past me as they formed lines, until I eventually stopped turning.

In front of me sat Nanami, with her back toward me.

She sat in the hot water with only her shoulders exposed to the air. Drops of water glided down her smooth skin, sparkling as they reflected the light. The line from her neck down to her shoulder was beautiful, capturing my sight completely. When I let my gaze travel slightly lower, though...

Huh? Is there something...white in the water?

“Oh, tee hee... It’s probably bad manners, but I was too embarrassed,” Nanami said.

“Oh, you have a towel wrapped around you,” I said when I finally understood.

I felt a complicated mix of both disappointment and relief. No, I think I actually felt more relieved than disappointed.

Nanami was completely protected, so to speak, the way TV reporters and idols were when they stepped into the hot springs wearing towels around themselves.

Now everything was completely safe and secure...well, okay, not quite, but at least visual stimuli were limited for me. This was probably a good thing, then.

But that sense of relief was only for a moment.

While I sat there in my relief, Nanami stood up from her seated position.

“Nanami...?” I called softly.

She stood with her back toward me, water flowing down her body like a curtain. I couldn’t see the expression on her face.

Steam rose from her body in curls, as if the hot springs had cooled her down instead of warming her. I couldn’t tell if the steam was coming from the tub or from Nanami. She was enveloped in white smoke, with the rippling surface of the bathwater reflecting her figure as a blurry silhouette, glowing from the light of the moon.

I watched, feeling as though I was gradually losing all sense of sanity, as Nanami placed a careful hand on the edge of the towel that was wrapped around her body.

There wasn’t enough time to stop her—and truthfully, there was no will to either. I simply remained still, looking up at and watching her every move.

Pinching one corner of the towel in each hand, Nanami parted ways with her towel and spread it open. The towel spread out against her back, blocking my field of vision.

And then Nanami turned slightly toward me to look at me.

Because she turned from behind the open towel, the outline of her body was lit up by the moonlight and reflected against the fabric. It must have been not just the moonlight, though, that was illuminating her, but also the light from this building as well. Like shadow play, I was able to register Nanami’s shape perfectly—including every single curve of her body.

I looked at her in stunned silence, taking what seemed like an eternity to comprehend the situation. Yet Nanami continued to act in surprising ways.

Although she had been looking at me, Nanami turned away from me once again. Then one of her hands let go of the towel...and with her other hand, she flipped the towel over.

The towel, which had fluttered behind her like a cape, parted completely from Nanami’s body. Even though she had her back turned toward me...no, because she still had her back turned toward me, the backside of her body became entirely exposed.

Beads of water danced on her flawless skin, falling along the curves of her body that betrayed its softness. The surrounding light reflected off each drop, making her body glimmer.

Despite the fact that my girlfriend stood naked before me, it wasn’t sexual attraction that was filling me up inside; rather, I felt the awe one might experience before a masterpiece. In this moment, Nanami’s body was giving off a kind of brilliance. I knew that “beautiful” was an overused adjective, but I could find no other word to describe what I was seeing.

I extended my hand as though I were reaching for the moon.

At the exact same time, Nanami wrapped her arms around herself and crouched, sinking herself back into the water.

My hand grasped at nothing but air, and it wasn’t until I looked at my empty palm that I realized I had actually tried to touch Nanami. I looked down at my wayward hand, and as if to make sure that it still moved according to my will, proceeded to open and close my palm.

“N-Nanami, what...?”

Because she had her back to me, Nanami probably didn’t realize that I had tried to touch her. I submerged my hand deep in the tub to make sure she never found out.

“O-Oh, you know, it really is bad manners to have our towel in the tub, so even though it’s embarrassing...”

“Oh, right. Yeah, that’s true. Of course,” I agreed.

What Nanami said made perfect sense—and was a completely normal response to boot. Why, then, did she make a show of taking it off in front of me?

I feel like Nanami’s always a few steps ahead of me. What can I do to make a comeback? Hold on, wait, why am I even thinking of things like that? There’s no need for me to make a comeback, is there?

Maybe it was precisely because I’d started down that line of thinking, though, that I was able to notice Nanami’s next move.

Since slipping into the bath as if to hide herself, Nanami had been slowly—but surely—making her way toward me.

Except she was doing so at a nearly hesitant pace, taking one step—no, perhaps even slower than that—half a step at a time. A tortoise’s pace, or something even more leisurely, if that were possible. I felt like she was slower than any other living creature on earth. She would probably even lose against a hare if she raced it right now.

That was probably why...I took a step forward myself.

Slowly, though faster than Nanami’s speed, I moved while I remained seated. Nanami must have sensed it, because she froze in place.

But I still approached her...until we were only a step away from each other.

And with one more step, I brought that distance between us to almost zero.

My chest was nearly touching Nanami’s back, though we had more space between us than earlier.

More importantly, what am I supposed to do now?

We had been sitting back-to-back earlier, which was why we could have made contact then. Right now, though, we were facing the same direction, so...

“I’m gonna touch you, okay, Nanami?” I whispered.

“Yeah, okay...”

My heart skipped a beat at her response.

All we were going to do was touch. And yet I still felt like we were about to do it...or something like it.

Okay, here goes.

Once I made up my mind, though, I didn’t feel the nervousness I felt earlier. In truth, something else was trying to break through me, but I managed to suppress it.

With firm resolve, I placed my hands on Nanami’s shoulders. The moment I did, her body startled. I thought I might have heard her let out a soft “Ah...!” but a part of me sensed that I wouldn’t be able to go on if I worried over that, so I kept going.

From there, I let her upper body lean back toward me.

Her body came closer to me, moving as if in slow motion...until, finally, she put her weight on me.

Even though her back was now situated against my chest area, because we were in the hot springs tub I felt no heaviness on my body. We were in the same position as the time we took a bath together in Hawaii.

Our lower halves...weren’t touching. We weren’t quite able to go that far.

“Th-This is pretty embarrassing, huh?” Nanami murmured.

“I mean...we are in our birthday suits, after all...”

When we bathed together in Hawaii, we were both wearing bathing suits. And when he had slept together during that same trip, we were wearing our clothes.

This was the first time we were so close to each other when we weren’t wearing anything. I was pretty sure of that. I mean, obviously, if there had been an occasion like that in the past, I would have remembered. This was most definitely the first time that we were cuddled like this when we were naked. What the hell was I even saying.

“I feel like I exhausted myself just getting to this position,” I admitted.

“Me too,” Nanami agreed. “Oh, Yoshin...you can have your hands in the front.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks...wait, the front?”

“Yeah, the front. Isn’t that easier for you?”

What did she mean by “the front”? Right now, I had my hands on Nanami’s shoulders, ready to leap into action if anything were to happen. So what did she mean for me to bring my hands to the front? And easier, to boot...?

As I sat there, confused, Nanami took my hands off her shoulders and guided them along. I had no reason to resist, so I let her do with me as she pleased.

The front... Does she mean for me to have my hands around her stomach, like I’m cradling her?

That might have been okay, given that I had touched her stomach before. Though I did have to absolutely make sure not to squeeze. There was that one time a long time ago that I did squeeze, and she really snapped at me.

While I was preoccupied recalling the incident, my hands remained out of the water and extended forward...until one of my forearms touched something that nearly let out a distinct squishy sound. Wait, touched?

In my stupor, I felt my other hand being moved in a similar fashion until I was essentially giving Nanami a back hug, but...

Isn’t this...her chest?

“Th-This is a bit easier on you, isn’t it?” Nanami asked.

“Uh, easier? No, this...er, wh-what am I supposed to do?” I stammered.

Soft. That one word had nearly taken over my entire brain. And what was I doing, asking Nanami what I was supposed to do?

My palms weren’t touching her chest, just my forearms. My palms had been situated underneath. I knew of characters that hid their breasts with their hair, so it was almost like a version of that, just with my forearms.

I mean, they’re hidden... They are, but...

“Y-You can squeeze them, if you want, just a little bit... After all, we couldn’t do that in Hawaii,” Nanami muttered.

“Sq—?!”

First of all, “squeezing them just a little” was extremely difficult to do. Once I got started, I knew there was no way I’d be able to keep things at “a little.” And zeroth of all, I was pretty certain that in Hawaii, she said that I could touch them. She most certainly did not tell me to squeeze them back then. Was there even a time before that when she’d ever commanded such a thing?

In any case, there was no way I could do anything like that right now. Why? Because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Even now, with us simply positioned as we were, I was having a difficult time maintaining my sanity.

And though it was a rather vulgar thing to admit, at the moment my youthful vigor was giving me a huge reason to resent myself.

“L-Like this is fine,” I managed to say.

“I-In that case...okay, good...”

Nanami gently touched my hands, pressing her head against my body as if to rub it against me. I only noticed then that she had gathered her hair up so that it wouldn’t touch the bathwater. I instantly felt pathetic. Was I really so frazzled that I couldn’t have noticed something like that earlier?

“How many times have we taken a bath like this together?” Nanami asked. “Is this our second time? Third?”

“Probably second,” I replied. “Our first time was in Hawaii, and Christmas we were apart.”

“I see. We couldn’t even take our bath together for your reward, huh? It would have been so nice to bathe together, though.”

“I can only agree, but realistically, I don’t think that’s easy to do.”

We were living with our parents, after all, so taking a bath together was only possible at times like this. Though we probably weren’t supposed to even be doing this now, to be perfectly frank.

Actually, what was more important was...

“Nanami, why did you even bring up bathing together in the open-air bath at all?” I asked.

“Hm? I mean...we have an open-air bath, so of course I wanna try it out,” she said simply.

“Yeah, but didn’t you just say earlier you had to let go of the idea because you didn’t pack a bathing suit? So why all of a sudden...?”

That, in truth, was the biggest question I had.

At first, Nanami had given up on the idea of going into the open-air bath with me. I was pretty certain that she had no intention of doing it. But then later in the evening, she suddenly became super proactive about it—like we were going to do it, and she was leaving me no choice in the matter.

I mean, not that I didn’t become excited about the idea after being bowled over by her. Though I kept asking her if this was okay, I barely even tried to resist her. I could actually state that I probably made the least amount of effort resisting, ever.

That was precisely why I was so curious as to why she suddenly became interested in bathing together.

“Well, I mean,” Nanami began, pouting ever so slightly. Even though her actions—and figure—were anything but, she almost seemed to me like a sulking child.

“We talked about this earlier, but...Yoshin, you got hit on earlier, didn’t you?” she continued.

“Hit on...oh, those women earlier? Yeah, I guess so, even though I had no idea it was even happening. But yeah,” I said.

“It really surprised me. I must have let my guard down, because a part of me was thinking that you wouldn’t get hit on by anyone.”

I thought we were revisiting our previous conversation, but it seemed like we were heading into new territory. Still, I felt like what Nanami said was perfectly reasonable. After all, I really wasn’t the type to get hit on by people. Women were more likely than men to get hit on in the first place, and it was perfectly natural to think that I wouldn’t be one of the rare exceptions.

“I knew that you were absolutely the type that older women would go for... I really did let them slip through,” Nanami said with frustration, extending her arms as if to get in a good stretch and then touching me behind my neck.

I was impressed by her ability to talk about one thing while doing something completely unrelated, but given that she and I were now more closely attached than before, I also couldn’t help my heart skipping several beats.

“Plus those ladies flashed you a bunch, right?” Nanami pressed.

“No, like I said before, I didn’t really see—”

“Even if you didn’t see anything, I hate the idea of you having anyone’s naked body but mine anywhere in your memory,” Nanami declared. “So I decided to take a bath with you. I’m overwriting their image.”

“Even if I’m not even interested in the people who hit on me?” I asked.

“Even if you’re not even interested. Because we’re talking about my pride here.”

All I could do was nod, when her answer came with such sincerity and was punctuated by her puffing out her bare chest. If the situation indirectly involved her, as she saw it, then I could understand that it would make her feel pretty desperate.

Still, overwriting, huh? I was pretty certain that she had already accomplished that. At this point, I couldn’t even remember those women’s faces.

This meant that everything had gone according to Nanami’s plan. Except...

“I thought you said you wouldn’t get upset even if I got all flattered by what someone else said,” I remarked.

“I wouldn’t get upset, but I did say that I’d still get annoyed, right?”

Ah, right. That was when she’d ended up contradicting herself right after she had made that grand statement. Girls really were complicated. They were, but...

“Even if another girl flatters me, I would never be interested in anyone but you,” I said.

“That’s good...but let’s still do stuff like this once in a while, okay?”

When I then asked her if that was also because of her pride, Nanami said that it was more about her recharging on her Yoshin substance. I, too, felt like I was better able to absorb my Nanami substance this way.

But trying to figure out how to do something like this once we were home would be a problem. I guess we would just have to cross that bridge when we came to it.

Now that I knew why Nanami had insisted on us taking a bath together, I felt like I understood the situation a bit better. I guess we could spend our time now just recharging on each other.

After a very long pause, though, Nanami whispered, “Wanna do something sexy here?”

“That took you a while to get that out, but...we shouldn’t. It’d be bad,” I replied.

“But if we did something here, no one would know, don’t you think?” Nanami suggested.

No, it’s not okay. Plus we don’t have any safety measures. Rather...

“Stuff like this always comes out in the end,” I murmured. “People are way more perceptive than we think they are.”

“Wait, really? Who did you hear that from?”

“Baron-san told me. He said that we shouldn’t do anything even if we thought we could be stealthy, because we would most definitely get caught,” I explained.

It was absolutely impossible for humans to hide every trace of having done something after doing it. Even if we tried to cover and conceal what happened, the most unexpected things would still be left behind. It might be a scent, or something we couldn’t even see. Apparently such traces could be discovered from all sorts of different vantage points. That was why Baron-san had given me the much-appreciated advice that I shouldn’t try to do anything like that at the ryokan—especially since it would cause trouble for our parents as well. Apparently Baron-san was speaking of what he’d heard from other people as well as his own experience.

“I guess that’s that, then,” Nanami sighed. “It would be bad if we got caught.”

“Yeah...so let’s do stuff like that when it is okay for us to get caught,” I said.

Nanami jumped slightly, and then she turned toward me and stared, seeming somewhat surprised. She then murmured, “This might be the first time you actually said something along the lines of ‘Let’s do it.’”

I paused awkwardly and replied, “Is it?”

Maybe Nanami was right. Until now, I had made it a habit of changing the subject or not giving straight answers when stuff like this came up. It was probably because being in the hot springs had lowered my inhibitions. After all, it wasn’t like I had no interest at all.

Right now, though, I had to hold myself back. When I became able to take responsibility for whatever happened, then I would definitely...

When I reiterated my promise to Nanami, she smiled happily...and then let go of me as she got in a good stretch.

“In that case, I guess for now I’ll leave things at just taking a bath together,” Nanami said. “Can I get a little closer, though?”

“Well, if we get any closer I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble...so if you don’t mind I’d appreciate it if we could stay like this,” I replied.

“Huh? Why...? Oh...!”

When Nanami turned around and lowered her gaze to a certain place...she must have understood my predicament, because she said nothing more after that. The fact that she looked like a boiled tomato afterward probably wasn’t because she was sitting in hot water.

Our co-bathing that seemed relaxing, and yet wasn’t at all...continued for a little bit more after that.

Epilogue: A Step Toward Adulthood

Children wake up early on Sundays.

And in the same manner, I, too, woke up early in the morning after staying at a ryokan. Not that I stayed at ryokans that frequently, but still.

What children and I had in common, though, was the fact that we wanted to wake up early specifically to do something. I woke up with a certain mission in mind.

What I wanted to do right now...was to take a morning bath. And not just any morning bath—I wanted to take my bath not in the large communal bath, but in the open-air bath attached to our room. I wanted to cleanse my slightly sweaty body with the morning sunlight on my skin and the snowcapped scenery all around me.

When I was taking a bath with Nanami last night, I suddenly became curious about how the scenery at night differed from that in the morning.

I wouldn’t ordinarily become interested in such a thing, but we had only been able to stay in this room because of an accident, and I wasn’t sure when the next time would ever be for me to be in such a luxurious room as this. And so I told myself that I should try to do everything I could reasonably do with the room while I had the chance.

Though the whole co-bathing thing was something I got to do even without expecting it. Okay, fine, I did fantasize about what it would be like if I got to take a bath with Nanami. I was a guy, after all.

In the end that particular fantasy came true, but the morning bath was something I wanted to do in secret, by myself.

The fact that Nanami was sleeping so comfortably next to me was one reason, but to be honest, starting off my day with another co-bathing session with Nanami might actually result in not being able to function properly the rest of the day. Though it was kind of misleading for me to say that Nanami was sleeping next to me. To be more precise, she was sleeping onthe bed next to me, a bed totally separate from the one I had slept in.

Even for me, going from bathing together to sleeping together just wasn’t possible last night. In a lot of different ways. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to restrain myself.

I was grateful that we even bathed together in the first place. Though if I had to be honest, the most uncertain moment of last night was when we had to get out of the bath together.

Until then, we had been sitting in the bath, attached to each other. Everything was going swimmingly. It was only when we were nearly overheating that we realized something: We had no idea how we would get out of the water. If we got out at the same time, we’d both see each other stark naked, and that was bad for all sorts of reasons.

In any case, how we managed to get out of the tub together safely would have to be recounted on a different occasion. For now, it was a secret between me and Nanami.

As I let the events of the previous evening replay in my mind, I got out of my bed quietly, taking care not to wake Nanami. And then I slowly, slowly got ready.

I found myself feeling quite ninja-like as I did my best to go around the room and not make a single sound. Just for now, a ninja was what I would be.

The towel from last night was fairly dry, so I decided to use it again; I just had to make sure not to mix up mine with Nanami’s. The only thing left was to get myself a drink. I had planned to do this sometime last night, so I had placed a bottle of soda in the fridge for me to take out later.

Yup, I was set. Now I just had to take my clothes off and go into the bath.

Just as I started taking off my outer layer, though, I heard Nanami’s voice and froze in place. I thought for a moment that I had woken her up, but Nanami turned in bed immediately after, so she seemed only to be talking in her sleep.

It was then, though, that I had an unwanted realization.

Undressing next to Nanami as she slept made me seem...like a perverted creep. On the off chance that she were to wake up, it would not be a good look.

Maybe I should take my clothes off outside. There was probably somewhere outside where you could set your clothes down after undressing. Yesterday I’d taken off my clothes in the room because I didn’t want to be bothered, but right now undressing outside seemed like the better option.

The morning dew gathered against the door to the outside must have frozen over, because I heard a nice crackling sound when I opened it. I didn’t know why, but it always felt kind of cool to get to hear sounds like those.

The door continued to open slowly, accompanied by the light sound of crackling dew.

Yikes, it’s as cold as I expected...

The wind that pierced my skin felt colder than it did last night. Maybe it was still so cold because of how early it was right now, but it seemed strange to me that it seemed colder now in the morning than it had been last night. I didn’t quite know if it had something to do with science, but either way, I didn’t know much about it. Maybe I should look it up sometime.

I exhaled, my breath turning white as it curled in the air. Even as I gazed at my own breath as it turned white and smoky, I quickly undressed. This was to be expected, but every time I took off a layer, it felt colder. Feeling the outside air when I wasn’t even fully awake seemed bad for my health, actually, when I stopped to think about it. The exposed parts of my skin felt taut with tension. Rather than feeling cold, it seemed more accurate to say that the chill in the air actually sort of hurt.

Soon enough, I got completely naked, feeling the stinging chill prickle me all over...and then quickly made my way over to the bathtub. The breeze sweeping over my body as I moved made my skin feel even colder.

Actually, the coldest part of my body was my feet. It was so cold out that any hot water that left the tub almost instantly turned cold upon contact with the outside air. It felt colder than water from a pool.

I trotted faster without even thinking about it. I could have sworn I was starting to freeze from the feet up.

Games often featured ice spells which froze characters in place, and I was starting to believe that what I was experiencing must have been exactly like that. It was water instead of ice, granted, but the temperature was still cold enough to belong to the ice type.

I kept muttering how cold it was until I hopped into the bath with a mild splash. I then placed my bottle of soda on the edge of the tub. The drink might get warm if it sat there for too long because of all the flowing hot water nearby, but if it was there just for a little while, it should be fine.

Short while, short while... The distance from the room to this open-air bath was pretty short too, but even then, my body felt as if it had been chilled to the core.

The moment I stepped into the hot springs, the heat of the water seeped through me.

Ah, that’s warm... My body had been stiff from the cold, so I thought it would stay that way even in the hot water, but I was glad to find that I was, in fact, warming up pretty quickly. My extremities were still cold, though, so I needed to warm myself gradually. Come to think of it, weren’t sudden and extreme changes in body temperature bad for you? I thought I was starting to feel a bit dizzy, actually.

While a part of me thought that maybe I should have stepped into the bath more cautiously, I let out a soft moan as my body gradually warmed up. Jeez, I feel like a middle-aged man right now...

Still, I felt so good that I couldn’t help but make some kind of noise. I had gone in the hot springs yesterday too, but something about the morning made sitting here feel more refreshing than before.

Whether it was due to either the temperature or humidity being low, I felt like the air was cleaner on mornings like these, purer. I sat in the tub and gazed at the scenery lit up by the morning light, opening the cold soda and bringing it to my lips.

The soda entered my flushed body at once, its fizziness filling my mouth and traveling slowly down my throat. The popping sounds it made felt like they might reverberate throughout my entire body as it flowed down my esophagus.

I got my fill of the soda, feeling it make its way to my stomach from my throat. Even though I was warm on the outside, my body grew cooler from the inside. There was something vaguely culinary about the feeling; wasn’t there a dish just like this, one where it was cool on the inside and hot on the outside? Well, who knew; I guess I really didn’t know myself.

I was really enjoying my morning me-time, but I also had to get out of the bath before Nanami got up. She might panic if she woke up and I wasn’t there, or maybe she would also enjoy a little bit of alone time instead.

Just in case, though, I had texted her saying that I was in the bath, so she probably wouldn’t go out looking for me.

But man, it feels so good, taking a bath in the morning. It really hits the spot.

Maybe I had gone past being a middle-aged man and landed squarely in the realm of being a granddad. Still, I couldn’t deny that it felt amazing. I was even starting to feel hungry. Was it because warming up improved my blood flow?

After that, I leisurely enjoyed my time sitting in the hot springs. It was such a luxury, sitting there by myself and enjoying my soda. Though...maybe I was starting to get overheated. I felt like my body temperature wasn’t dropping, either from the drink or the cool air surrounding me.

I just had one problem: I could not think of anything I would rather do less than getting out of the tub.

No! Fight it, Yoshin! I would sit with the water up to my shoulders, get my body temperature up as far as it would go, and then just make a mad dash back to the room. I could wipe myself down once I got inside. If I could just make it into the area between the room and the open-air bath, I would be golden. I had to make sure to rush without tripping, though.

Okay, here goes!

I stood up in the bath and got moving as quickly as possible. The morning air felt chilly, but at least my body temperature was... No, it’s still super cold!

Did it feel extra cold because of that gap between my body temperature and the outside temperature? If I didn’t get into the room and dry myself off soon, I could honestly end up catching cold. I had considered toweling off and then putting on my clothes while I was outside, but I changed my mind. Nanami probably wasn’t up yet anyway.

I should disclose that the partition between the outside bath area and the room was made mainly of glass, which meant that we could basically see everything in both directions.

The door itself was frosted, though, making it a bit more difficult to see through whatever was on the other side—including whether there was someone standing just behind the door itself.

Had I been acting a bit more calmly, I would have looked inside the room with a bit more caution. I might even have looked inside while still sitting in the hot springs.

And precisely because I didn’t, it happened.

I placed my hand on the door and opened it with full force, intending to go straight inside—but the door, which I remembered to be heavy, opened with little resistance. I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed that I had opened it with a little too much gusto.

And so the door opened quite smoothly, almost as if I had had some help from the other side...

“Huh?”

I heard a cute little exclamation, as though the speaker had just been mildly surprised.

A person’s five senses have both priorities and proportions. Hearing is prioritized over sight, even though sight makes up roughly eighty percent of our sensory input.

In other words, in that moment, I heard the sound first and only then registered what I was seeing. Conversely speaking, there was a lag between seeing what was before me and having it enter my brain as a piece of information to process.

In short, I couldn’t immediately understand...that Nanami was right there.

She must have been intending to step into the open-air bath, because unlike last night—when she had her large bath towel wrapped around her—she simply carried a small hand towel...and aside from that, was basically naked.

I, too, had just stepped out of the tub and was running to get back inside, meaning I didn’t have a towel around me either.

And for the first time, the two of us—not with our backs to each other, not looking in the same direction—faced each other naked, full on.

“—?!”

What we did after we each let out a wordless scream...is a secret between the two of us.

I guess at the very end, we really did end up enacting the age-old trope of running into each other naked in the bath.

♢♢♢

Each time fun came to an end, I was reminded all over again how good times often passed in the blink of an eye.

Our current trip was no exception, and once it was close to ending, I couldn’t help feeling like it had only lasted but a few hours...though maybe that was going a bit too far. So much happened during the trip that it really wasn’t possible to claim that it had only lasted for a few hours. It was packed so full that I might even get indigestion from it.

Still, it was an exciting time that passed far too quickly.

A two-day, one-night trip. Apparently, that was considered a relatively short excursion, but for us, it was a huge deal.

How should I put it? It was a fruitful and delightful trip, full of all sorts of discoveries.

Saying that it was fruitful reminded me a bit of this morning. Don’t make associations from “fruitful,” Yoshin. You’re being a real creep.

“Oh, now that’s the face of someone thinking something pervy,” Nanami remarked.

“Nuh-uh! I was just remembering the view this morning,” I blurted, sounding all the more embarrassingly young for how quickly I came to my own defense. Plus I meant to say “the view outside” and ended up saying “the view this morning.” I didn’t manage to save myself at all. No, really—what I was remembering was that beautiful scenery I saw from the open-air bath, the morning sun lighting up everything before me...

“So it was something pervy,” Nanami confirmed.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said in resignation.

“Thou art forgiven,” Nanami said, happily putting her hand on mine as we sat together side by side on the train, jostling with each slight movement from the train itself. We had checked out of our inn and were now taking the train back home.

It would take us several hours to get home on the train. By the time we got back, it would probably be nighttime already.

“You know, I feel like this trip has really, absolutely confirmed that you are going to take responsibility for me,” she continued.

“I feel like every time something happens I just have more things to take responsibility for,” I claimed.

“Does that make you unhappy?” Nanami asked.

I wasn’t opposed to it; rather, I wasn’t unhappy about any of it. Still, the things that happened on this trip really did kind of cement things for us.

Maybe that was old news, though. And maybe it was more accurate to say “things that happened on this trip too.”

“I mean, there are the things we did in Hawaii...and at Christmas too,” Nanami continued.

“And this time was a trip with just the two of us,” I said with a sigh.

Oh, Nanami’s looking far off into the distance...

Actually, she probably had that expression on her face because of what happened when we checked out of our inn. I took a moment to remember what happened myself.

Nanami had taken a morning bath as well, then we ate breakfast together and prepped for our return home, making sure that we weren’t leaving anything behind. But what I was remembering in detail was what the ryokan staff said to us as we were checking out.

“We really do apologize for what happened this time,” the staff had said to us.

“Not at all,” I had replied. “The room was beautiful, and the meal was delicious as well. We had a wonderful time. Thank you so much.”

“Is that so? We’re glad to hear that. We’ll be sure not to let it happen again, though,” she had said.

I felt bad seeing how apologetic she looked. It was true that we had had trouble at the beginning, but they had treated us quite well during our visit. The room that we were able to stay in was fantastic, and when we looked it up, we found that it really was an expensive suite. At the very least, it was not the kind of room that a couple of high schoolers would ordinarily be able to afford.

But even so the staff treated us normally, not once making us feel like children playing pretend. Their service was amazing too.

“We remain grateful for the guests who return and stay with us across many years,” the staff person continued. “It’s especially the case with couples who stay with us.”

“Is that a kind of good luck that’s associated with this ryokan?” I asked.

“I suppose so. They return after they marry, and then a few years later return again with their children. So, in a way, I suppose it is good luck,” the staff person said as she smiled softly and looked from me to Nanami in turn.

Seeing her expression full of joy, Nanami and I both couldn’t help smiling ourselves.

“Please do come again,” the woman finally said to us.

I couldn’t begin to describe how much sincerity she brought to that invitation. Seeing her bow to us, my chest filled with warmth. I was pretty certain that Nanami felt the same way. That was why we answered the way we did without any hesitation.

“We’ll definitely come again. We look forward to it,” I said.

“When we do, it’d be great if we can stay in that same room again too—though we’ll have to actually make it happen ourselves,” Nanami added.

“Certainly—we’ll be waiting for your next stay,” she said to us.

And with the staff person seeing us off with a smile on her face, Nanami and I left the inn.

Okay, end of flashback. And now, we were sitting on the train home. It had been a long train ride to get to the ryokan, and it was going to be the same for our return as well.

Though we certainly weren’t excited about the length of our trip, I was genuinely excited about the fact that we had found a ryokan that we were able to add to our list of places that we promised to return to in the future. I guess this was how new memories were made.

The lady didn’t mean anything by it when she talked about marriage and kids at the end, though, right...?

Nanami, who had been looking off into some unnamed future, seemed to come back to the present—and heaved a heavy sigh.

“Man...I don’t wanna go home yet,” she muttered.

“Me neither. Plus school’s starting back up...”

“Don’t tell me that...sob sob,” Nanami said with a fake cry.

We leaned into each other, hoping that physical support might offer emotional support as well.

It wasn’t that I disliked school; it was just that I couldn’t help dreading classes resuming.

And like Nanami, I also felt that I didn’t want to go home quite yet. The moment we stepped outside of the ryokan, it had hit me that we were about to return to our daily lives too.

It was probably because I felt this way that a large part of me wanted to go on another trip with Nanami. Navigating these fun incidents was probably what enabled us to bear the hardships of everyday life. Not that school was really a hardship or anything. Still, given that our trip was coming to an end, it was probably time we faced reality too.

Like any story, it was the ending that mattered. Even with a multicourse meal, if the dessert was bad, it was enough to ruin the entire meal. The last episode of a manga probably had similar potential as well.

On the other hand, if the ending was astounding, then it had the power to improve the impression of everything that preceded it. I felt like I had heard something like that. If that were the case, then how did our trip score?

I replayed all the things that happened during our trip in my mind—from our train ride yesterday, to what happened last night, and finally the incident this morning. And now, at the end of it all, here we were, being gently rocked by the train on our way home.

Would we feel like we’d returned to home sweet home once we reached it, despite feeling like we didn’t want to go back quite yet? Or would we arrive and want to set off on another trip immediately?

At the very least, the fact that both of us felt like we didn’t want to go home yet was probably proof that we had enjoyed the trip.

As I watched the scenery pass by outside the window, I felt I could genuinely say that it was a good trip, no matter how clichéd that was.

“It’d be great to go on another trip, huh?” I said to Nanami.

“Yeah. Maybe in the summer...though I guess we’ll have to study for our entrance exams,” she replied.

“How dare you thrust reality upon me now...”

Nanami’s comment pulled me out of my reverie...and at the same time, my phone displayed a notification that further dragged me back to the here and now.

A sound of dismayed shock escaped my lips. Maybe it was because I’d let them know that we were on our way home, as part of our periodic communications, but...

“My dad is asking if we want him to come pick us up at the train station,” I murmured.

“You too?” Nanami asked. “My parents texted the same thing.”

It was pretty clear that my parents and Nanami’s parents were in communication with each other. It brought to mind the time when they had come to pick us up from the date we’d gone on for Nanami’s birthday. Back then, they’d given us a ride because they said that it was close to curfew, and they had known where we were going. I guess it also didn’t help that we were kind of late.

Still, on that occasion we had no other choice; them picking us up had been pretty much forced upon us.

This time, too, it would be completely dark by the time we reached our station. That was probably why our parents had asked if we wanted them to pick us up. They were, of course, being considerate.

This time, though...

“Should we say no?” I asked.

“Yeah, how about this time we politely decline,” Nanami agreed.

Nanami and I together sent our messages saying thanks but no thanks. It was true that it would be easier if they came to get us, but the convenience also meant that our trip would be curtailed.

And from there...

“Should we try getting off at a different station from the usual?” I suggested.

“That might not be such a bad idea,” Nanami replied.

“Maybe we can get dinner before we go home too. Since we have some money left over from dinner last night.”

“Oh, that sounds nice! We can splurge a little,” she cheered. “What do you wanna eat, Yoshin?”

“Let me see. We had Japanese food yesterday, so maybe...meat?” I said, unhelpfully.

“We have plenty of time, so we can look things up,” Nanami said with a laugh.

At the very end, Nanami and I got excited thinking about how to finish off our trip...while also enjoying the feeling of doing something a little bit transgressive.

The experience of going on a trip helps people grow. In a sense, it helps them become adults. With this trip we took one step closer to adulthood, and now it seemed right to exercise the ability to choose something for ourselves.

Taking responsibility for the consequences of that choice was also the adult thing to do—though we certainly had no intention of doing anything that transgressive.

Besides, it’s like they say: A trip isn’t over until we make it safely back home.

Afterword

It was winter with temperatures below freezing when I was writing the previous volume, but it was already summer with blazing heat while I was writing this current volume...with its story set in wintertime.

I have this strange feeling of not knowing if I’m ahead of the season or falling completely behind it. Regardless, it has been a while—it’s Yuishi. I am beyond happy to have been able to bring volume 12 into this world.

The fact that I have been able to continue this series for so long is all because of my readers. Thank you so much for your support.

I have some attachments to the number twelve, with various personal connections to it. My birthday happens to be on the twelfth, but even aside from that, the number twelve just happens to crop up all around me.

My phone number when I got my first cell phone had a bunch of ones and twos—and therefore twelves, in it. The first job I was assigned was one that was processed on the twelfth of every month. My license plate number was also related to twelve, so really it’s just a number that has been around me constantly for many years. Recently, though, there were no notable incidents surrounding the number twelve and me.

Because I have been able to publish this volume, though, I can now add this newest episode to my catalog of anecdotes related to the number twelve.

As for volume 12 itself, like I said at the beginning, I was writing a story about winter in the middle of summer. Our destination...was out toward Doto.

This was the first time I articulated that our couple lives in Hokkaido. I have been writing this story with that backdrop since the first volume, but I felt like volume 12 was the first time it was clearly stated.

Please do read the story assuming that it’s some fictional place based on real places that exist. Though I’ve certainly been writing in a way that folks who know would definitely be able to pinpoint various places that show up in the series. There are actually many differences between reality and what’s depicted in the story, though, so it really is more of an inspiration.

I would be delighted if folks who did know recognized the various places that appear, and it would also be great if they can take the opportunity to enjoy some of the differences between the real and the imagined. If those differences become a reason to take a trip around Hokkaido, I couldn’t be happier.

Yoshin and Nanami went on a hot springs trip in this volume. I worried whether high school students would be able to enjoy it, but at the end of the day, those two seemed to enjoy things even more than usual.

I feel like they should just go on flirting with each other, for always.

For volume 12, once again I was lucky enough to have Kagachisaku-sensei provide the illustrations. I have a feeling that fans of Kagachisaku-sensei might have enjoyed the illustration of Nanami in her beautiful kimono, as well as the rather sexy illustration of the hot springs trip.

Nagomi Kanna-sensei’s comic adaptation is continuing smoothly as well. I’m able to go through the storyboards ahead of the episodes’ release, but the comics version is about to wrap up the events of volume 2 of the original novel series.

I sincerely hope that the series can continue for the long term. The comic adaptation is supported by all the readers, so I’m grateful in advance for all your kindness.

Finally, my editor S-sama, the design and proofreading team, the translators and editors of the overseas editions... I want to take this moment to give everyone my heartfelt thanks.

As I said before, it’s thanks to all the readers that I’m able to continue this series. Thanks to you, it seems we’ll be able to have a volume 13...so I look forward to seeing you then as well.

As for when the thirteenth volume is coming out...if you could check the announcement for its release, I would appreciate it.

Well, then—next up is our couple’s first Valentine’s Day together!

Yuishi, Who is Shaking in His Boots from the Intensity of the Late Summer Heat

2025 September

Bonus Short Stories

Shall We Change Our First-Person Pronouns?

It all started with an innocent remark from Nanami.

“Come to think of it, you always refer to yourself as ‘boku,’ don’t you?”

The conversation took place just before the two of us went on our hot springs trip together.

We had successfully reserved our lodging, our parents had prepared the necessary forms, and we were making various other preparations for the trip. That was when Nanami made her remark—and I completely stopped what I was doing when I heard her say it.

At that moment, we were doing our homework.

A part of our travel plans...no, wait, it was more a condition than a plan. One of the conditions for us to go on our trip was that we would finish our winter break homework before we left. Unfortunately, therefore, that was what we were doing.

Seriously, though, there was just so much of it. Was it really appropriate to be assigned this much homework in high school? What was it like at other schools? Maybe it wasn’t an issue if you did it a little bit at a time, but it was an overwhelming amount to try to go through all at once.

But I could enjoy even this as long as I was with Nanami... Uh, no, I guess I really couldn’t bring myself to enjoy it, even with Nanami beside me.

Still, reality meant that I had to continue fighting. No pain, no gain: On the other side of this painful homework assignment, my glorious trip with Nanami was waiting. As long as I thought of that, I could go on. Or so I thought, anyway.

At least I was more diligent now than I used to be. Before, I would probably have just half-assed my homework, doing only the problems I knew and skipping everything else. Though I guess, usually, you were supposed to do all of them. Really, I was only doing this because I had a carrot known as a hot springs trip dangling in front of me.

Anyway, enough about homework. Let’s get back on topic.

The issue that Nanami had raised was how I used first-person pronouns. I couldn’t quite figure out what she was trying to say, though, so I just sat there with my head tilted in confusion.

“True, I...do say ‘boku’ as ‘me.’”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I ended up saying something that was more confusing than it was obvious. It seemed like weird syntax too. Or maybe it was more like I think, therefore I am. Either way, I responded weirdly.

I didn’t think much of it when I usually used “boku,” which tended to be perceived as a more formal or uptight choice for a first-person pronoun among young men. These things were probably just part of a daily routine, or even like a habit. Or was it a little different from that?

“Do you not try saying ‘ore’ sometimes?” Nanami asked.

“Ore,” huh?

I guess I could have said it out loud, but I couldn’t fight off the reluctance to use a pronoun that was more casual and perhaps even aggressive. I thus resorted to saying it in my mind instead. “Boku”...am supposed to say “ore”?

“Doesn’t that just seem really weird for me to say, though?” I blurted out.

“What? You think so?” Nanami returned.

I couldn’t figure out what was so fun about this situation, but Nanami really seemed to be enjoying herself. If Nanami was having fun usually I was up for it too, but I still couldn’t help feeling a bit bewildered by her request. So I asked, “Have you always referred to yourself as ‘watashi’?” in an attempt to change the subject to Nanami’s personal pronoun choice. I knew I was answering a question with yet another question, but I couldn’t help myself.

Actually, I felt like more people responded to questions with just another question than we realized. It was probably because we often had questions about the initial question to begin with. Who was it that said we shouldn’t expect all the questions in this world to have answers again?

“I dunno, I guess when I was little, I used to say ‘atashi’ or ‘Nanami’ a lot,” she explained.

“You used to refer to yourself as ‘Nanami’?” I asked, interest suddenly piqued.

“Yeah. You know, like, ‘Nanami wants to eat that too’ and ‘Nanami wants to do it too’ kind of thing.”

Isn’t that actually really adorable?

Remembering the photo of a younger Nanami that I got to see a little while ago, I imagined that Nanami using her own name in the place of a pronoun. Yeah, I think I can definitely go for that. Still, I asked nonchalantly, “When did you stop doing that?”

“Probably when I was in third or fourth grade,” she replied. “That was when people started telling me that I was a big girl, and so I think back then I wanted to act all mature and stuff.”

Ah, right. It was true that many young children used their names instead of pronouns, though I also thought a third grader was still pretty young.

But didn’t girls mature more quickly than boys? I felt like when I was in third grade I was a total brat. Though I didn’t remember that time all that well either.

Still, Nanami referring to herself with her name...?

“You don’t do that now?” I asked with some hope.

“No way, it’s too embarrassing,” she stated.

Is it that embarrassing, though? I wondered. I had never thought deeply about first-person pronouns, so I couldn’t quite register a particular choice as being embarrassing. There were a lot of VTubers who used their names as first-person pronouns. More importantly, I couldn’t help but think that if the speakers themselves weren’t bothered by it, then their pronouns could be whatever they wanted...but maybe some people still felt reluctant about choosing certain ones.

First-person pronoun usage probably changed with the times, so Nanami’s thinking must have made sense as well. This was turning out to be a more interesting topic than I thought. “Yatsugare” was an old-timey way of saying “I,” while “shosei” was only in written form. This was about all I knew before this was brought up—though I guess I was also familiar with other examples from manga too.

Nanami looked away from me slightly as though she were embarrassed, but seeing her like that only made me want to hear her refer to herself by her name even more. Perhaps this was what people called sadistic desires: I wanted her to do something precisely because she herself disliked it.

If I did that, though, she would probably tell me to change my choice of pronoun too, which would be counterproductive.

“Have you always used ‘boku’ yourself?” Nanami asked.

“I think so. I don’t think I’ve ever even thought to say anything other than ‘boku,’” I replied.

“But I so want you to try saying ‘ore’...”

Shoot, she beat me to it. Though realizing she was thinking the same thing as me made me happy, given that I wanted her to use her name as her first-person pronoun too.

Still, from “boku” to “ore,” huh...?

“Shall I try it, then?” I suggested, caving.

Nanami raised both her hands in the air in glee. Seeing her get so excited about such a small change made me feel even more awkward. But as long as I said it just once I felt Nanami would be satisfied.

“Then,” I started, at which point Nanami suddenly drew closer to me. Wait, is it something she has to see up close? Plus her eyes are all twinkly and stuff. I don’t think it’s anything that interesting, so why is she getting so worked up? Oh, whatever, I’ll just say it and get it over with.

“Ah...”

Say it...and just get it over with.

Nanami tilted her head as if to say, Now? Not yet? but when I saw her looking at me like that, nothing came out of my mouth. What came out instead was nervous sweat from my many pores.

“Never mind,” I muttered.

“What?!” Nanami exclaimed.

She seemed so disappointed... No, she was disappointed, her brows lowered and an expression of total dejection on her face. I wasn’t expecting her to be so let down, so I couldn’t help feeling surprised.

“Changing my pronoun choice is a lot more embarrassing than I thought it would be,” I confessed.

Just a moment ago I was suspicious of something like this ever being embarrassing, but when it came time for me to do it, I couldn’t help but cling to that excuse. They say expectations and experiences differ, so I wanted to believe that I could be forgiven.

“You’re just changing the way you call yourself,” Nanami complained.

“Then, can you refer to yourself by your name?” I insisted.

After a slight pause, Nanami murmured, “No can do.”

I must have come off as trying to execute a sleight of hand, but Nanami seemed to have been persuaded to back off for now. In her case, though, she had conscientiously changed her way of referring to herself because she thought it was too childish. Her situation, then, was actually different from mine, even though she seemed not to notice because I had suggested the reversion as a kind of tit for tat. I had to admit I felt a bit conniving.

Still, I didn’t think I would be so reluctant to change my first-person pronoun. I had assumed I would be able to do it without any problems.

“Ore”...“ore,” huh...?

“Wait, but my case is a little different from yours,” Nanami muttered.

Oh, she caught on.

I thought maybe we would wrap up our conversation before she had this realization, but I should have known that Nanami would catch on sooner rather than later. My sleight of hand was a total fail.

Nanami puffed out her cheeks as if in protest, and then she grabbed my shoulders and proceeded to shake me slowly. My head swayed back and forth as I let her do with me as she pleased.

“Jeez, all I want is just to hear you call yourself ‘ore,’” she continued.

To which I had to respond, “But why do you want to make me say it so much?”

“Well, why do you refuse to say it so much?”

I had no response to that question. I didn’t have a clear aversion to it; I just had a vague sense of embarrassment.

Other than that, I guess I was sort of enjoying this exchange we were having. Wasn’t it kind of fun to have this back-and-forth of to-do-or-not-to-do?

Maybe it was just me. Or maybe it was just limited to my interactions with Nanami.

“I mean, I guess it is kind of fun to talk about stuff like this,” Nanami muttered.

Oh, I guess I was saying it all out loud. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.

Nanami then slid her hands that had been on my shoulders around my front and wrapped her arms around my neck to embrace me, giving me a hug from behind.

She pressed her body—or, rather, the two ample orbs on her front—onto me, so much so that I could have sworn I heard a distinct squishing sound behind me. I couldn’t figure out if she was doing it on purpose, but either way, I felt a distinct softness on my back.

It wasn’t just soft, truth be told; it was also warm.

Even through her clothes the almost sticky softness of her chest was transmitted to my back. I could feel it spread through my body, radial ripples of sensation moving through me.

Holy cow.

Who was it that said the Japanese onomatopoeia that went with squeezing a woman’s chest could be written in kanji to sound like “moo new”? The word and the sensation didn’t quite match, but of course one wouldn’t write that sound out in kanji in the first place, so I guess it was meant to be a joke...

Random notions kept swirling in my mind. I was more flustered than I realized. My head was filled with nothing but inappropriate thoughts.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?” I asked.

“Hm? Oh, I just wanted to give you a hug,” Nanami murmured.

“They’re...pressed up against me.”

“I’m pressing them on you.”

Thank you very much—wait, no, don’t thank her, dude. Actually, I feel like it’s been a while since she last said that. When was that time, anyway? I feel like she’s told me before that she was pressing them against me.

This time, though, Nanami didn’t seem interested in stepping away from me even after her declaration. Instead, she put even more force into the part of her that was attached to my back—so much so that they seemed about to become a part of me. I worried that it might hurt her, but at the same time... Wait, Nanami has a bra on, right? Why do they feel so...soft? I mean, she is wearing a bra, right? Wait, what?

“So, the reason I want you to say ‘ore’—”

“Huh?!”

Nanami started speaking as if nothing were out of the ordinary, so despite being in no condition to process any input, I had to force myself to pay attention. Seriously, this was just sensation overload.

“It’s not like I have that grand of a reason,” Nanami continued, “but...you know how we’re gonna go on our hot springs trip soon?”

“Yeah, right. We are, just the two of us. But what does that have anything to do with pronoun choice?” I inquired.

“Well, I sometimes dress kind of conservatively, right? Like, I’ll wear glasses or a long dress and stuff. Things that aren’t too revealing,” Nanami went on.

Come to think of it, that was how she was dressed when I first saw her outside of school. That was when I protected her from some guys trying to hit on her and her friends...though I was totally uncool while doing it.

In terms of how revealing her outfits were, even when Nanami dressed like a gyaru she didn’t wear clothes that showed off too much skin. Still, she did occasionally expose her shoulders or her belly button, so I guess she was walking a pretty fine line. Though the fact that I even thought that outfits like those weren’t terribly revealing was proof that my senses had been numbed.

But how did dressing like that relate to my use of first-person pronouns?

Wondering, I went on to observe, “You look good no matter what you wear. Though you’ve been dressing more gyaru lately.” It was true that on our recent dates Nanami dressed in flashier clothing, and that I had fewer opportunities to see her in more modest outfits.

A little while ago I had asked her about the reason for the change, but apparently fewer guys hit on her when she was dressed in gyaru clothes than when she was dressed conservatively.

I had assumed that guys were more likely to try to pick up girls who dressed in revealing outfits, but it seemed to be the opposite in Nanami’s case: More guys approached her when she dressed like the quiet type. Nanami herself surmised that in their eyes, when she dressed that way she must appear more likely to succumb to pressure and thus seemed like an easy target. I wondered if that was how things worked.

If it did, then a part of me wished that men who hit on women were willing to take on more of a challenge. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to try to pick up girls who seemed like they’d put up more of a fight? Though I guess it made no sense to expect guys like that to have high aspirations anyway. Plus if they were up for a challenge, then it would become meaningless for Nanami to dress in gyaru clothes.

Either way, I wished guys would stop hitting on girls so aggressively.

Come to think of it, about the only time Nanami got hit on while dressed like a gyaru may have been at the night pool—though that was a pretty unique environment to begin with.

Hearing Nanami talk about people hitting on her, though, started to make me concerned about our upcoming trip. It didn’t help that I remembered what happened at the night pool either.

I would have to do everything in my power not to leave Nanami by herself during our trip. It was going to be just the two of us, after all.

“So, anyway, I thought that maybe on this trip, I should try looking a bit more modest. Like, maybe the people at the ryokan would feel better if I looked like a quiet, serious girl instead of a super flashy gyaru and stuff,” Nanami explained.

“Oh, I see,” I muttered.

People said that we shouldn’t judge others by their appearance, but unfortunately, so many things in this world proved that we were more likely to be judged by what we presented on the outside rather than what we possessed on the inside. Those who knew us well might understand our character regardless of how we looked, but that wasn’t the case with folks we were meeting for the first time. A couple of kids taking a trip might be subject to even more scrutiny, so it was probably important that we at least assured people of our nature through the way we dressed.

“Are you okay in terms of people trying to hit on you, though?” I asked.

“Well, we’d be together most of the time, so I wouldn’t have to be alone. Plus even if someone did try to pick me up...”

“Even if...?” I repeated.

At this point, Nanami tightened her grip around me. She seemed slightly embarrassed about something as she concluded, “I thought you might swoop in to rescue me, all cool and calling yourself ‘ore,’ saying, ‘Don’t you lay a finger on my woman’...”

Now I instantly understood why she wanted me to refer to myself as “ore.” Her request was practically dripping with desirous fantasy. What were we to do with a situation that seemed like one pulled straight out of a shojo manga? Or, would it be from a shonen manga instead?

“Did you by chance...read a manga like that recently?” I asked.

“Um...one that Saya bought the other day,” Nanami mumbled.

Saya-chan, huh? Apparently Saya-chan was buying and reading all sorts of shojo manga lately out of her desire to snag herself a boyfriend.

Nanami must have read them too, and gotten some ideas from them herself.

“So that’s the reason you want me to refer to myself as ‘ore,’” I muttered.

“Well, I just thought I’d like to see you be kind of tough and forceful like that,” she said. “Which is why I said it’d be nice to have you say ‘ore,’ at least when we were alone.”

Nanami then murmured that it wasn’t that big of a deal, as she buried her face in my back. She was right, of course, that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, calling myself “ore” and Nanami “my woman”? I was pretty certain that those were the least likely words to come out of my mouth. I mean, was there anyone who actually said things like that in real life?

“I think it’s totally normal to want to see different sides of the person you like,” Nanami added.

“I see...”

I still didn’t entirely get her desire to hear me say “ore,” but I could at least understand the feeling of wanting to see various aspects of the person you liked. After all, I always got to see Nanami be different versions of herself.

Nanami as a gyaru, Nanami as a quiet girl...Nanami in cosplay, Nanami in a bathing suit...and Nanami just being sexy all around, among many other things.

The me that Nanami saw, on the other hand, was always the same. I didn’t know much about fashion either, so it probably looked like I pretty much wore the same thing day after day.

If she wanted to see different sides of me, then she probably meant that a drastic change would prevent her from getting bored.

Maybe I could try to dress like I was more of a cool guy on this next trip...though if Nanami was dressing more conservatively, then it might seem odd for me to dress like an aggressive male character...if I could even call it that.

Yeah, when I pictured us like that in my mind, we looked ridiculous. Even setting aside the question of whether I looked good in such clothes, the ryokan staff might not let us keep our reservation at all if I showed up looking like that. Even if it meant I was doing the same old, same old, on our trip I should probably dress like I usually did.

Huh? But doesn’t that mean...

“I guess you’re bored of the usual me, huh?”

The words, in all honesty, just happened to slip from my mouth.

I didn’t mean much by it. Being bored was just a phrase that popped into my mind, and I only intended for it to refer to my appearance.

“Huh...?”

That was honestly the only reason I said it—and yet Nanami suddenly donned an expression of absolute shock, as though she were faced with the end of the world.

Her arms that had been wrapped around me slipped away, all her warmth leaving with them. When I turned around, I saw her covering her face with both her hands.

She had been smiling so happily just moments ago. The sudden shift in her mood frightened me. I couldn’t help thinking vaguely that people’s faces could, in fact, turn ghostly white.

The gap between her previous and current moods pained me.

“N—no, no no no! That’s not it...!” Nanami shouted.

The desperation in her voice wrung my heart further. It wasn’t her usually giddy voice, but one filled with hopelessness and despair—and with it she spoke words of complete disavowal.

I had never heard the word “no” come from such a deep place in Nanami’s heart before.

Usually she said it when she had self-destructed, or other times when she had done something cute and adorable. This time, it was accompanied by bitterness and pain.

The simple word of negation came out of her mouth repeatedly, in quick succession. It was my first time hearing her voice colored with so much panic. Her voice was also much lower than usual. She seemed to genuinely want to refute my suggestion.

This is all because I said something I shouldn’t have...

“I’m sorry. That’s not it. It’s not like I’m bored with you. That’s not it at all. I know it sounds like an excuse, but...”

Nanami’s voice quivered as it grew softer and softer.

Is she on the verge of tears? I know, Nanami, I know that. Please don’t sound like that.

Now I was starting to feel sad. Why did hearing someone we care for sound sad tighten and squeeze our chests too?

And that was why...I slowly drew her into an embrace.

I invited her into my arms—as if to help calm her, as if to reassure a small child. Maybe I was imagining it, but Nanami’s body felt very cold. Even when I told her that everything was okay, the shock that my comment had inflicted on her seemed to stay the sadness in her voice.

I didn’t mind the situation much myself, so I was taken aback that it had hit Nanami so hard. The fact we had reacted to it so differently shocked me a little bit.

I thought I usually made a good effort to put things into words, but I was not prepared for this pitfall. Honestly—and I knew I had already recognized this, but—I really did say something I shouldn’t have.

When I placed my hand on her back with gentle pressure, she hung onto me as though trying to press her body into mine. She didn’t seem to be crying, but she remained silent nonetheless.

As we sat there holding each other, Nanami’s weak embrace gradually increased in strength, growing stronger. Wait, why is she concentrating so much force in her arms? Uh, what’s going on? There’s a lot of pressure placed on my back. Arg...I’m having a tough time breathing. Is this how affected Nanami is by all this? Huh? I feel like she’s not so much hugging me as she is trying to snap my neck! Is this what it’s like to be clamped by a vice...?! Th-This is no good... I-I first have to calm Nanami down...

I had no idea that it was so hard to move my body when someone was pressing down on my back. Move, body, move... I must soothe Nanami...

I moved my hands slowly and raised them slightly off of her back. I then proceeded to tap her back lightly—like I was placating a child.

O-Okay, I can move this much. Now I’ve got to try to say something, but...nothing’s coming out of my mouth. Wait, can I even breathe right now...?

Just how much force was Nanami using, seriously? I thought I worked out a fair amount, but I sensed that I was actually in quite a predicament. I could almost hear my bones cracking. Or was it all in my head?

Also...I could breathe out, but I couldn’t breathe in. What in the world was going on? Was she pressing down on some kind of a pressure point?!

You can do it, Yoshin...!

Giving myself words of encouragement, I continued tapping Nanami’s back and telling her that everything was okay, in order to calm her down. My own voice was barely above a whisper, but maybe that was a good thing—because Nanami’s grip slowly loosened.

And when she finally let go...I crumpled to the ground.

“Huh?! Yoshin?!” Nanami exclaimed.

I waved my hand wearily, indicating without words that I was fine while I tried to calm her further. Seriously, why was I on the floor on my knees like in some kind of a martial arts manga?

I had probably just let my guard down. That was what I decided to tell myself.

With me on the floor on all fours, Nanami rushed to bring me some cold tea to help take care of me. The situation felt a bit odd, though, given that she was also the cause of my current condition.

Well, no, it was also my fault too.

With both of us having settled down a bit, we sat next to each other on the bed. Nanami seemed a little calmer than she had been earlier.

“I guess you could totally interpret my request that way, huh?” Nanami mumbled.

“No, I’m sorry. I said it without thinking through it enough,” I returned.

“Not at all, that was all me,” she insisted. “Besides, there’s no way I would ever get bored of you.”

“I wouldn’t either,” I said.

Once we got started, neither one of us could stop apologizing to the other. We seemed ready to go on until one of us had been defeated by the sheer force of our apologies.

We continued like that for a while, but the exchange brought into relief our shortcomings—or things we still weren’t used to: We didn’t have much experience disagreeing with each other, so we weren’t good at handling situations like this. We both apologized and said that everything was fine, but then we didn’t know how to actually resolve issues that cropped up.

It was also a consequence of me having avoided communicating with other humans for all these years. Wasn’t the last time we had had a fight like this...when I started my part-time job? This wasn’t even a real fight, though; we were simply apologizing to each other, and the exchange didn’t seem terribly productive.

And because our back-and-forth seemed like it might continue for quite a bit longer...

“Okay, how about we wrap this up now,” I said, clapping my hands together loudly while Nanami still had me in a hug, forcing an end to our battle of apologies. I felt Nanami tighten her grip around me.

“I get that you wanna see different sides of the person you like, and we each said some things that we didn’t need to,” I said. “So let’s both try to be more mindful in the future.”

Nanami didn’t seem convinced by my conclusion, but even if we continued talking about this issue, we were probably only going to keep apologizing to each other instead of actually resolving things.

I understood very well that a single, thoughtless phrase could hurt the other person. I also found out that trying never to hurt someone else was a difficult, difficult thing.

“Well, if we do hurt each other, then we can try to fix it,” I finally said.

“Yeah. I’ll be careful too,” Nanami agreed.

“Also...I only collapsed earlier because you were hugging me too tight,” I murmured.

“What? Was I really holding on to you that tightly?” Nanami asked.

“It was insane... I thought my insides would pop out...”

Seriously. She was so strong that I truly wondered where all that power could be in such a thin frame. Nanami, though, seemed embarrassed by the fact that she had been holding me with so much force.

When I tried to console Nanami—who was looking down at the floor with her hands covering her face, murmuring about how mortified she was—she suddenly lay down on the floor, right there on the spot. Then, like a dog in a position of surrender, she sprawled with her limbs thrown out and exposed her stomach, murmuring, “Please discipline me.”

“Where did you learn to say something like that?” I couldn’t help asking.

I followed up by saying that I wasn’t going to do that, but then she seemed dissatisfied with my response...so I placed my hand on her belly like I would with a puppy and proceeded to rub, rub, rub.

“What the—?!” she yelled.

“In that case...I will discipline you,” I said as I touched, stroked, and rubbed her stomach through her clothes, toying with her belly gently as though she were a large dog.

Nanami complained that it tickled, even as she giggled and hollered giddily, allowing me to continue touching her.

I started having fun, too, as I ignored Nanami’s pleas for me to stop and kept playing with her soft belly.

In short, I got carried away.

“Jeez! I freakin’ told you to stop!” Nanami finally screamed as she leaped at me in irritation. Until a moment ago she had seemed like a large dog...but now she seemed more like an oversized cat.

I guess tigers and lions are big cats too. Seeing Nanami’s transformation filled my mind with such useless thoughts.

In that moment, though, I had no way of knowing that I would be the one who would end up getting hit on while on our hot springs trip. And that Nanami would again get angry, albeit in a very low-key manner.

If her anger then could be characterized by stillness, then her anger now could only be defined by movement.

In my ignorance, though, I found myself being preyed upon like an herbivore...by my merciless tiger of a girlfriend.

To Sleep, or to Wake, That Is the Question

“Well, then...good night,” I said.

“Yeah, good night,” Nanami also whispered.

With that, I gave my well-wishes for slumber to Nanami, who was lying in the bed next to mine.

As in, her bed was technically next to mine, but given that we had two twin beds in our room, there was enough space open between them to form a little pathway. Had this been a room with a full-sized mattress, we most likely would have only had one bed.

I sighed in relief at the present situation and turned off the light with the switch near the bed I was occupying.

With the light having been turned off so suddenly, my field of vision went pitch black. Even though our room was now dark, I could still see some light coming in from the outside, and so my sight gradually returned. In our dark and warm room, both Nanami and I covered ourselves with our blankets, as though trying not to look at each other’s faces.

Actually, it was more like...

How can I possibly sleep right now?! I mean, is there anyone who can sleep after something like that?!

Something like that...that’s right, like that. Was there anyone who could just go to sleep after doing something of that nature? I was pretty certain that there wasn’t, rhetorically speaking.

What happened was that...until a little while ago, Nanami and I were bathing together.

I might have said that matter-of-factly, but to be honest it was an incident that I was still processing. I mean, we were in there together for so long that I thought my brain would melt. We only managed to avoid heatstroke by virtue of the cold winter weather. Thank goodness that that also allowed us to resolve the question of who would get out of the bath first pretty easily.

When Nanami got out first, her, um...beautiful behind... No, don’t recall the moment, Yoshin. Do that and you’ll be even less able to sleep. Don’t even think about it. Though even if I didn’t try to remember anything, I was already wide awake anyway.

After a little more internal struggle, though, I heard sounds of soft breathing coming from Nanami’s direction. She seemed to have been able to fall asleep without issue.

Being able to sleep after what we did...she’s gotta be pretty tough mentally. And here I am agonizing about whether I should try to sneak in a bath tomorrow morning or not. Push comes to shove, I’ll have to take a bath without sleeping a wink. Though I guess that’s okay too. If it comes down to it, I can just plan to bathe if I manage to wake up on time.

But even then I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep. Didn’t someone say that when you couldn’t fall asleep, it was better to stay calm? In other words, I was better off if I tried to relax for a bit.

What am I saying? My problem is precisely that I can’t relax. Relax... How can I manage to relax? Wait a minute—didn’t someone also say you feel more relaxed when you see someone else sleeping?

I vaguely remembered hearing that seeing the face of a sleeping child helped one relax, but I felt confident that the same could apply when seeing one’s girlfriend sleeping too. Well, if that’s the case...

I got out of bed slowly, doing my best to make as little noise as possible. Maybe the high quality of the bed was what kept it from creaking much.

The quiet of the room allowed me to hear Nanami’s soft breathing. I have to silence my own breathing. And my footsteps. And while I’m at it, my heartbeat too. I have to stay silent, no matter what. Once I see Nanami’s sleeping face, I can relax and fall asleep. I began to suspect that the combination of me not being able to sleep despite how sleepy I was was contributing to how crazy I was starting to feel.

Somehow I managed to safely approach Nanami’s bed. She seemed to be lying with her back facing my bed, her breathing soft and muffled in the darkness.

Now, I just have to go around to the other side... No, wait. Am I actually doing something totally creepy right now?

Getting out of bed, it seemed, had worked to sober me up.

Yeah, getting out of bed silently to try to spy on my sleeping girlfriend...is more than a little problematic, isn’t it? It’s bad enough that now I’m standing over Nanami’s bed in the dark too. I guess I should just try and go to sleep on my own. My head is feeling a bit clearer now anyway. If I go back to bed now, I feel like I’ll be able to fall asleep normally.

When I turned around to head back to my own bed, though...

“Huh...? You’re going back...?”

“—?!”

Someone called out from behind me. When I leaped and turned around, startled, I caught sight of a pair of eyes glinting in the darkness.

It was Nanami, of course.

“D-Did I wake you?” I managed to ask.

“I wasn’t even sleeping in the first place,” Nanami whispered. “I was trying to fall asleep but couldn’t, and then I felt you stir next to me and realized you were coming over here.”

I guess she knew what I was up to from the very beginning. I had no idea Nanami couldn’t sleep either. The sound of her breathing must have been from her trying to relax herself.

For a moment I wished that she would have told me had she been awake, but...

“I thought maybe you were gonna make a move on me, so I was preparing myself for it,” she stated.

“That’s not it. Please hear me out.”

Apparently she had prepared herself. No, that’s not what she should be doing at all. She was supposed to stop me.

After that, I explained to Nanami what I was intending to do, though of course it all came out sounding like I was making excuses. Since we were up anyway, we decided to chat quietly until we both fell asleep.

Time passed between us gently, and we both managed to calm ourselves down enough to fall asleep before we realized it. That was why I was able to take a bath the next morning too.

The unforeseen occurrence that took place at the morning bath, though, would have to be recounted on a different occasion.