A birthday is the day when someone is born. It’s a day that comes to everyone, once a year. That’s what a birthday is. Obviously.
Some people don’t know when their birthday is, but that’s a case when they simply don’t know the exact date; they still have a birthday regardless.
Birthdays of famous people often become a day of remembrance, a holiday, or even a festival. That’s how special a birthday can be. That was why I did my best to celebrate Nanami’s birthday to the utmost.
Except—until Nanami mentioned it, I had completely forgotten about my own birthday. I mean, really. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“How can you forget about it?” Nanami asked, clearly exasperated. Honestly, I had no good response to give her.
“Oh, is there something in this omelet today?” I asked instead.
“Yeah, I tried putting in some spinach. Feels a little fancy, right?” she replied.
“Yeah, the green and yellow together look really pretty.”
“Hey...don’t you dare think that you can change the subject so easily.”
Darn, it didn’t work. Still, I did my best to ignore Nanami’s glare and instead put a piece of omelet into my mouth. The egg was fluffy, while the spinach added a nice snappy texture. The mild, sweet seasoning in the egg softened the spinach’s slight bitterness. It was a truly delicious omelet. Should I try making something like this too?
“Does it taste okay?” Nanami asked.
“It’s super tasty. Maybe it’s ’cause I was just sick, but I’m feeling super grateful just to eat stuff like this again,” I replied.
“True that. I’m glad we’re both better now.”
Nanami and I smiled at each other and both gave thanks to the fact that we were healthy again.
We were on our lunch break, but today we were in the cafeteria rather than up on the rooftop. It was getting cold enough to snow, so eating on the roof just wasn’t an option anymore. Eating lunch in the cold, open air was a bit much.
The cold was also the reason we were eating in the cafeteria rather than in the classroom: The heating in our classroom came from a space heater, whereas the cafeteria had an actual air-conditioning system that heated the space throughout.
It was for those reasons Nanami and I were eating in the cafeteria—though of course everyone else had thought the same thing too, making it pretty crowded. Luckily, we were able to find seats. Depending on how crowded it was, there were days we would sometimes give up on the cafeteria and eat in our classroom instead.
Today’s bento consisted of an omelet, wiener sausages, fried shrimp, fried chicken, and stir-fried burdock. It was our first bento in a while, and in order to celebrate the fact that we’d both gotten over being sick, we put fried shrimp on today’s menu.
Fried shrimp was a classic celebration food in Nanami’s household. And adding fried chicken, my personal favorite, to the bento as well made today’s lunch especially extravagant. When Nanami had brought out the bento earlier, she had stuck her tongue out and scratched her head—bashfully but happily—and said that she’d gone a little overboard because she was so excited about our recovery.
We even had dessert today. And by dessert, I meant...
Having finished our bento, we picked up the oranges in our hands, two for each person—and rather large ones, at that.
“Oranges for bento feels pretty new,” I muttered.
“Really? I’ve been doing this for a while. It’s easy to carry and doesn’t need a container,” Nanami said.
With an orange in each hand, she also stressed that we were getting our vitamins and boosting our immunity. She then adorably raised both oranges up to her cheeks, like some kind of fruit-flavored double peace sign, shattering the serious air of her explanation with giddy excitement.
Wasn’t there a gravure magazine like this? Gyaru and Oranges... Yeah, a title makes Nanami’s pose feel even more like something out of gravure print. Dang, it’d be great if she did this pose while in a bathing suit.
Huh. Now that I’m feeling better, I guess all my desires are back in full force too. In any case, I should probably get a photo of Nanami holding those oranges.
When I pointed my phone at her, Nanami flashed me a real peace sign with one of her hands. Nice, I got a good one.
“I did the peace sign without thinking, but why did you take a photo of me?” Nanami asked.
“I just thought you looked cute,” I answered simply.
Her long sleeves even partially covered her hands, making her look even cuter holding the oranges. With the class trip over, we’d changed our school uniforms to the winter version, making for less revealing outfits—but it turned out this style wasn’t too bad either. Though I guess Nanami still kept her skirt pretty short.
Nanami blushed at my sudden remark about how cute she was, but she smiled, happy, and said, “Don’t think flattery will get you anything from me, mister.”
She then began cheerily peeling one of her oranges. When the bright fruit revealed itself, she took apart one of the segments and...
“Here you go,” she said, bringing it toward me.
Wait, huh? I was taken aback by the fact that she was actually feeding me an orange—so much so that I froze.
“Oh, do you usually take the pith off?” she asked.
“Oh, no, that’s not it,” I said quickly.
The reason I froze was because we were in the cafeteria. There were students of all different grades around us; there were even teachers sitting in our midst. Cheap cafeteria food was a godsend not just for students, but for teachers too.
No, that wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that getting fed in front of such a huge crowd was more than slightly embarrassing.
Maybe it would have been easier if I just went with it; now that I’d stopped, I couldn’t stop thinking about where we were.
Plus, the nature of an orange segment meant that I couldn’t use chopsticks or anything to eat what Nanami was offering. I had to eat it directly from her fingers.
And I knew, in these kinds of situations, Nanami would never back down. So I had no other choice but to buck up and eat the dang orange.
Fortunately, even though there were people around us, they were all busy enjoying their respective lunches. Scanning the room out of precaution revealed very few people even looking at us.
I felt like we kind of stood out when we were on the rooftop, but since there were probably more people here, maybe it made us more inconspicuous?
Okay, self-rationalization complete.
“Aah,” I even said, pushing myself to take the orange piece in my mouth. I also did my best not to let my mouth make contact with Nanami’s fingers.
When I bit down on the orange segment, its sweet and sour juices gushed onto my tongue, instantly refreshing me. It was undeniable at this point, but oranges really did make for a great dessert.
I thought that the entire room fell silent the moment I ate the orange from Nanami’s fingertips, but I was going to pretend that I just imagined that. Our surroundings were now back to being lively, and there was no way people would stop to watch us eat.
Nanami nodded, satisfied by the fact that I ate the orange she peeled and offered to me. She then picked off another piece and threw it into her own mouth, talking about how perfect it was to eat oranges in winter while being curled up in warm blankets. The piece she ate must have been tart, because she pursed her lips even as she moaned over its deliciousness.
I looked down at my own orange too and started to peel it. Then, when I had taken apart a piece to put into my mouth...
“Aah!”
Nanami was waiting for me with her mouth open. She even had her eyes closed and her chin lifted just the slightest bit. Because she had the top button of her shirt undone, I could see clearly into the deep chasm of her chest that peeked out of her shirt.
Oh, shoot. No, Yoshin, no dirty thoughts!
I did my best to take my gaze off of that cleavage—deep like an ocean trench and ready to suck me in—and looked at Nanami’s face instead.
Maybe because she had her eyes closed, but something about her look reminded me of a baby chick waiting to be fed. I could almost imagine her chirping. Wait, is it only chicks that chirp? Nanami doesn’t seem like a chick, though.
If anything, Nanami seemed more like a cat, but I was pretty certain that cats didn’t wait for food with their mouths open like this.
Anyway, that was neither here nor there. Nanami, without speaking, was probably asking for me to return the favor she’d done me earlier. Even I could understand that.
No matter what, I couldn’t poke my finger into the chasm that I was desperately trying not to think about. We were in the school cafeteria, after all, and doing that would get me in serious trouble.
Ever since we got back from Hawaii, I felt that all my mischievous impulses had become exclusively sexual in nature. It was like the devil was camped out in my ear or something, constantly whispering that I should do all kinds of naughty things. For now, though, I did my best to resist the temptation and brought an orange segment up to Nanami’s mouth instead.
I thought she might try to pull a fast one on me, but I managed to place the orange slice in her mouth without any obstacles. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. Almost anticlimactic. A part of me had believed she might bite my finger or something.
I guess even Nanami isn’t gonna do something like that in a public cafeteria. Just as I let my guard down out of relief, though, it happened.
Perhaps because Nanami’s inaction had made me withdraw my hand more slowly than usual, I suddenly felt...a wetness on my fingertips.
A soft, moist sensation. She had done it to me once before, but I certainly hadn’t been expecting her to do it here.