“Besides, it’s not good to get your temp up when you’re sick. So we should only do pervy stuff like this when you’re feeling a hundred percent better,” Nanami added, shifting away from me—though what she was implying was enough to get me thinking of the future, getting my heart rate up anyway.
Okay, Yoshin, if Nanami ever seems like she’s about to get carried away, you’ve gotta be the strong one and stop her. That’s the right thing to do. Most definitely.
“So, back to the smell thing,” Nanami said.
That’s right, that’s what we were talking about. We got way off topic, though didn’t she say that I smelled okay? Maybe she still has something to say about it, though.
“If you’re worried about it, do you want me to wipe you down? It looks like you’ve been sweating,” Nanami asked, getting up off the bed and picking up a towel that was sitting on my desk. When did that get there? I wondered.
When I looked more closely, I saw that there was also a change of clothes sitting on my desk. Nanami didn’t seem at all surprised to see it there, so my mom must have probably told her about it.
“Wipe my body, huh?” I murmured.
Although how damp both my body and clothes currently were hadn’t bothered me all that much when I was so sluggish, now that I was feeling better they were definitely starting to bug me.
Given that my pajamas were actually wet in some places, it was probably time for a change of clothes. Wiping myself down was also an option. But after checking myself over for a bit and looking at Nanami to respond to her, I saw a twinkle in her eye—the kind that you get when you’re looking forward to something, or when you’re about to pull a prank. Her smile was even particularly catlike. I swore I could even see cat ears and a tail on her, though I knew that was impossible. Though the idea of Nanami with cat ears certainly was cute.
“No, I think I can get it myself,” I replied finally.
“Huh...?”
Oh no, now she looks all deflated. Even her imaginary tail looks all droopy. Does she want to wipe me down that much? I felt embarrassed by the idea, but I also began to feel grateful.
Is it really okay for her to do this for me? Maybe I should just go for it.
“Actually, if you could do it for me, that would be great,” I said in the end.
“Sure thing!” she replied enthusiastically.
And now she looks a lot more cheery. Her imaginary ears are perked up, and her tail is wagging from side to side too. She looks super happy. Wait, I’m imagining all this, right? Do I actually just have a super high fever or something?
Nanami giddily approached my bed and sat down once again. I didn’t know what to do next, but it turned out Nanami wasn’t so sure either.
Um, in a situation like this...
“So, should I turn my back toward you?” I asked.
“Um, I’m not sure. Or...maybe you take your top off and lie down?” she suggested.
“Take my shirt off... You mean off off?”
“Not just your top, but your bottom too?”
“You want me to get naked?!” I exclaimed. “Wait, is getting wiped supposed to be that high stakes?!”
I mean, I would still have my underwear on, so I wouldn’t technically be naked. But lying down in my underwear seemed basically like the same thing.
It took us two newbies a ton of back-and-forth, while sitting on the bed, just to figure out how to clean the sweat off of my body. In the end, we decided that I would take just my shirt off and turn my back toward Nanami.
That’s what we had decided, but then...
“Then...I’ll take it off,” I murmured.
“Y-Yeah, okay!”
All I was getting was a wipe down—and yet my heart was pounding. Was it because Nanami was sitting on the bed with me?
Taking my clothes off on the bed seems so...you know. Yikes, am I really just realizing this now? How could I have been so dense? Nanami must have realized it on her own too, because now she was blushing, and an awkward silence swallowed the both of us.
I probably shouldn’t have declared that I was going to take my clothes off. Nanami’s looking super uncomfortable now too. Maybe I should just undress before I say something else dumb and really put my foot in my mouth.
Resolute, I moved to take my shirt off, hearing Nanami draw in a gasp. I pretended I didn’t notice it and instead turned my back to her.
Maybe because I was no longer wearing a shirt damp and a little sticky with sweat, but I was feeling just the slightest bit more liberated. But now that I was totally exposed to the cold air in the room, I started to shiver without even realizing it.
Nanami must have mistaken that to mean that I was feeling unwell, because at that moment she seemed to collect herself and draw closer to me. Even though I couldn’t see her, I had a good sense of what she was doing.
I stayed still as Nanami slowly approached me. She must have been motivated by her desire to prevent any more sweat from cooling and making me shiver, because she may have been slow in her movements, but she wasn’t hesitating at all.
My heart was well and truly pounding in my chest when I felt something soft touch my back. It was that fluffy softness unique to a nice towel, and already the part of me that it touched began to feel warm.
“Okay, here I go,” Nanami said.
“Yes, please,” I replied.
Nanami moved her hand slowly as she held the towel against me. She slid the soft cloth over my skin, taking care not to exert too much pressure against my back.