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Birthdays were special, but not special enough to take off from school or work when they fell on a weekday. Sure, there were times when they coincidentally fell on a day off. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could just take a day off on your birthday regardless?
I thought that working people could do such a thing, since they had vacation time they could use whenever they wanted, but turns out that wasn’t really the case.
Thing is, I tried mentioning this idea at Nanami’s birthday, and at once all the adults in the room told me how wrong I was—and that, while they did have vacation days, they never thought of spending them on their birthdays.
They said that I would understand when I became older, but both Nanami and I still felt that we wanted to take vacation days on each other’s birthdays.
Everyone in the room agreed: There really should be a policy that turned a birthday into a day off, automatically, for whoever’s birthday it was. It seemed adults, more than kids, had things to say about vacations.
And just like that, a whole year passed, and it was my birthday again.
“Happy birthday, Yoshin,” Nanami said.
“Thanks. Wow, you’re super early,” I replied.
Nanami was the first to wish me happy birthday. To be more specific, she wished me happy birthday while on the phone with me, nearly asleep.
We were both dozing off, but then a piercing noise suddenly rang on Nanami’s end, making us both jolt back into full consciousness. I thought it was some kind of an emergency alert, but it seemed Nanami had actually set an alarm on her phone to notify her when it became my birthday.
“No wonder you kept telling me you wanted to stay awake,” I mumbled.
“Hee hee, I’m so glad I got to say it first,” she murmured before breaking into a yawn.
Poor Nanami, she must be so sleepy. Today must have been tiring too. And while I felt bad that she had forced herself to stay awake to wish me a happy birthday, it also made me so, so happy.
I figured that it was probably time for us to go to sleep now, though. But right as I was feeling overjoyed that I was able to ring in my birthday with Nanami...
“Actually, I was thinking that I’d like to spend your birthday with just the two of us,” Nanami remarked.
“Oh, that sounds nice. We went on a date for your birthday too, so maybe next weekend—”
“And spend the night too.”
“Wha—?!”
S-Spend the night?! Night, as in...the night? When I looked at her, my eyes bulging in disbelief, Nanami nodded demurely. Well this...is certainly a shocking proposal.
“I was thinking about how we could take our relationship to the next level...and the only option was to spend the night together,” she murmured.
Look at her, she’s super embarrassed. She’s on her bed sitting on her heels, hugging her blanket close to her. But I guess what she said was pretty mortifying. Even my cheeks are burning up.
“But that’s not possible, is it?” I said.
“It’s not, huh,” Nanami sighed.
We weren’t even allowed to do it for Nanami’s birthday, so it was extremely unlikely that our parents would give us the permission just because it was my birthday. If anything, Nanami and I spending the night together was probably not going to happen until she and I left home.
Just in that moment, though, the faces of several of my friends popped into my head—those who, while we were in Hawaii, had offered to be our alibis when we needed them to be. And boy, did all of them have pretty mischievous smiles on their faces.
But to be honest, I hesitated to take them up on that offer.
Asking them to do that would be putting them in potential trouble, but more than that, asking them to be my alibi was essentially like announcing to them that Nanami and I were going to do stuff like that.
It was probably different for girls, but asking my guy friends to be my alibi would be the same as creating an opportunity for those guys to imagine Nanami doing such an act.
Maybe that was perfectly healthy among teenage guys, but I still didn’t like the idea. It was less about jealousy than just me wanting to keep anything about Nanami and that kind of thing to myself. Well, I guess I, too, was the pretty jealous type.
Actually, isn’t this pretty normal? How do other guys handle sharing stuff like this?
In any case, it was thus unlikely that I would ask others for an alibi like that. Which meant that, in order for me and Nanami to take a step forward...
“I guess my onee-chan days are over now,” Nanami mumbled.
“Wait, what?” I blurted.
With the reveal of the kind of days I had never even heard of before, all my thoughts went out the window—even though I felt like I was this close to coming up with a good idea.
Onee-chan days? Is she talking about what she requested on her birthday? I mean, I guess she did ask me to call her onee-chan back then. Wait, is that still going on?
“You’re turning seventeen too...the same age...and next year, we’ll be eighteen...then we’ll be of age...”
Without explaining anything about this mysterious set of days, Nanami began swaying back and forth, as if she were slowly rowing a boat. She also mumbled things from time to time. I admit, seeing her like that woke me up even more.
Her eyes were almost...rather, they were basically closed already. Maybe her excitement at being the first to wish me happy birthday had given way to somnolence once her mission had been accomplished; she seemed to be falling asleep faster than usual.
“Eighteen...you can get married...and be an adult,” Nanami muttered.
“Oh, right. I guess eighteen is the age of majority in Japan now,” I said.
“Coming of Age Ceremony...wanna wear furisode kimono...but that’s unmarried girls...can’t get married till then...”
“Oh, I didn’t know that a furisode was for unmarried people. I bet you’d look real pretty in that, Nanami,” I commented.
Nanami laughed softly, her eyes still closed. I, too, pictured her wearing a furisode kimono and broke into a smile.
I see, so next year is our Coming of Age Ceremony, huh? Normally we wouldn’t have done that until we were twenty—but then the law changed. We still can’t drink, though, can we? Though given what happened last time, Nanami probably shouldn’t drink too much no matter how old she is. We should also consider how we drink alcohol, too, otherwise I’ll never stop worrying about that. And getting married as well? I guess there are lots of things that become open to us when we turn eighteen. You can get your driver’s license too, right? Or can you get that earlier?
“Marriage... I wonder what married life with Yoshin is like...and ceremony... What do we do... Even without it, I wanna go on our trip...”
Nanami’s sleepy mutterings revealed rather concrete plans in her mind. I hadn’t realized that she was okay with not having a wedding ceremony, though.
Slow, steady breathing was coming from Nanami’s end of the line, so she seemed to be pretty much asleep already. I should probably refrain from responding to her, so that she could fall asleep for real.
Still, Nanami was so excited when she saw the wedding ceremony while we were in Hawaii that I assumed she wanted to have one herself. But would she rather spend money on a trip than a ceremony?
I wonder how much a wedding costs. I remember seeing in a manga once that an engagement ring is supposed to be worth three months of your salary. Wait. Hold on, Yoshin. You’re getting carried away just because Nanami said the word “marriage” so naturally. Why are you thinking this is already a sure thing?
But that wasn’t the important part. But how was I supposed to describe this feeling? It was hard to put into words. On the one hand, I was impressed that Nanami was already thinking so far ahead. And at the same time, I couldn’t help but think: Do I really deserve to be the one?
No, I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. I need to be strong instead, so Nanami can feel marrying me was the right choice. I can’t be fainthearted. But...am I actually fit for married life? As in, what is that even supposed to be like? Is it any different from what we’re like now? Maybe I’m just too sleepy and it’s making me all loopy. Am I even thinking straight at this point?
As I sat there, continuing to wonder...
“Shall we get married...?”
Nanami said something that she would never say if she were fully awake. If she remembered it tomorrow, she would probably turn bright scarlet.
Even so, I looked at her sleeping face and answered her.
“Yeah, let’s. Shall we try living together first?”
There was no response to my question. Instead, I heard Nanami’s steady breathing...and then I drifted off into sleep myself.