♢♢♢
I am a cat. No—this is my room. It was my room, as usual, though within that space I was currently sitting on my heels and waiting.
The reason was simple: I was waiting for Nanami.
As the sound of a door creaking on rusty hinges echoed in my room, I felt my body jolt in response.
The figure that shyly entered the room...was Nanami in her sleepwear. Or maybe they were pajamas. No, wait, those are the same thing. Okay, I was definitely confused.
“Thanks for letting me borrow your shower,” she murmured.
“O-Of course,” I replied.
In her pajamas and with a bath towel draped over her shoulders, Nanami slowly entered my room. It was the same set of adorable pajamas that I’d seen her wear previously. The Nanami I’d seen before only through the phone screen was now standing before me—though that wasn’t the only reason I was feeling so nervous.
“Um, Yoshin... Why are you sitting so properly?” she asked.
“Oh, you know, I just thought that I needed to sit up straight to greet you,” I explained.
Nanami giggled and asked, “What’s that all about?” But, I mean, come on—I was welcoming Nanami into my room. Though I guess she’d been here before, so that didn’t quite explain anything about what I was doing. Really, it didn’t explain anything at all.
“Hee hee, shall we have our cake, then?” Nanami asked. “Eating cake so late feels naughty.”
“Yeah, totally,” I replied.
Nanami looked at the slices of cake sitting on the table with a twinkle in her eye. For her to be so focused on dessert to the point that she couldn’t even be nervous about the potentially risky situation we were in seemed distinctly girly.
After we finished dinner, we cleared the table and washed dishes together, and then exchanged Christmas gifts. We had gotten each other accessories: a pair of earrings from me to Nanami, and a necklace from Nanami to me. I didn’t usually wear necklaces, but in this case, I wanted to try wearing her gift the next time we went out on a date.
At that point we had also chatted about gifting each other hand-knitted scarves, given that we weren’t going to have a class trip next year. After that, we relaxed in the living room to watch TV.
As for the cake, since we were both full after having had such an elaborate dinner, we decided to have dessert after we’d both taken a bath.
While relaxing in the living room we sat on the sofa thinking about how long it had been since we’d spent time together so leisurely. We tried a bunch of different ways to sit close to each other—side by side, up and down, me lying down and Nanami getting on top of me... And through it all, we watched whatever movie happened to be on TV and just relaxed together.
“Okay, I’m gonna go tidy up the bathroom,” I had said.
“No, wait, I’ll do that. I’m the one who’s intruding...”
“Oh no, I’ll do it... Wait, this kind of sounds like we’re already living together, doesn’t it?”
I felt like my comment was what had done it; it was a mistake for me to have actually articulated the feeling that we’d both felt when we first walked through the front door.
Nanami murmured, “Y-Yeah, maybe you’re right” as she suddenly morphed from her relaxed state to something much more restless, and at that I scurried off to clean the bathroom.
After that, we had both bathed...and now, here we were. Of course, we didn’t even bring up the possibility of bathing together the way we had in Hawaii. I felt a little bummed out about that, but I admit I was also a tad relieved. I mean, it really was just the two of us here tonight. Even if we had taken a bath together in our bathing suits it probably would have been a bad idea.
“This cake is so good,” Nanami said with a sigh. “I had cake yesterday so I was debating whether I should have it again tonight, but since it was a gift, I thought it’d be rude not to eat it. I guess I’ll just have to have it two days in a row.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to have cake again today either. I’ll have to work out more to burn it all off,” I agreed.
“Gosh, don’t remind me. Maybe I should try working out with you,” Nanami remarked, lifting up her pajama shirt and pinching her stomach a bit as she muttered concerns about her belly. Though I could’ve sworn she’d said something before about her diet having been a success.
Alas, I should probably let sleeping dogs lie.
“Call me when you’re exercising, okay? I wanna work out with you!” she said, adding that New Year’s was coming up and that she would need to get rid of all the holiday weight. I guess she already knew that she was going to gain weight during the holidays. I mean, I probably was too, but still.
Having finished our cake, we sat in my room to chill—so much so that our bodies seemed frozen. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say now...
We both remained wordless and unmoving, until Nanami finally spoke.
“Hey, Yoshin.”
“Wh-What’s up?” I asked.
“Do you wanna sleep together tonight?”
She really cut to the chase there. I nearly responded “yes” on reflex to the sudden question—truly, on reflex.
I wondered why she suddenly asked such a question, but then I saw how serious she looked. It was the kind of expression that firmly denied any kind of inappropriate motives.
“Together?” I asked.
“Yup,” she replied.
“In my bed?”
“Yup.”
Each time I asked, I pointed with my fingers to confirm what Nanami was saying. And each time she answered, she confirmed that I hadn’t misheard anything. But with our future in mind, I had to be sure that we wouldn’t do anything inappropriate, even if she did spend the night here.
Nanami also seemed to understand that, though, because she looked down slightly at the floor as she spoke.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. We’re still kids. Even though there are a lot of things we want to do, we can’t do them the way that we want to. And I think that there are a lot of things we’re not supposed to do either.”
That was something I had been thinking about as well. Even if my birthday came, or even if I became an adult next year, I was still a high school student, and that meant there were a lot of things I couldn’t do. I knew that couldn’t be helped, though; in many ways, we were being protected by the adults around us, and it was for that reason that we had to accept the situation. And when we couldn’t accept the situation, we left the boundaries of that protection and broke the rules that had been set for us.
We truly were in a state of limbo, not quite children yet not adults. That probably gave us a sense of security, or like Nanami in this case, even some anxiety. At least I understood that much.
“But I still...want to feel connected to you,” Nanami continued. “But since that’s not possible, I at least want us to...”
To feel connected. Nanami was probably expressing a multitude of things—mental connection, physical connection, even legal connection. But with the exception of maybe an emotional connection, we weren’t supposed to create such connections yet. A physical or legal connection just wasn’t acceptable for us kids—though the former was technically possible. All we had to do was be willing to break the rules, and act.
Nanami was probably feeling all that as well. And that was why, at the very least, she was seeking something one step before physical connection—a simple, physical touch.
I hoped I wasn’t so dense as not to be able to pick up on that.
Because if we really wanted to, we could do it. Even the school nurse had said so. If we just did it, we really could. There were many opportunities, and many different ways to do it too.
That was precisely why we became so good at coming up with reasons not to do it.
“But...would I be able to hold myself back?” I muttered.
“We have to,” Nanami whispered. “I mean, what if something happens?”
“If it does, then I’ll take responsibility.”
“Yeah, see? This is why we can’t do it, still. Because I know you actually will take responsibility, even if that means giving up all kinds of important things.”
So it’s just not possible, Nanami then whispered, laughing softly.
“I’ll hold back too,” Nanami said, “so please just make me feel safe. Even though I know that’s a really selfish thing to ask.”
I see. She wants to feel...safe.
I admit, I didn’t fully agree with what Nanami was saying. But that was the world we lived in—a tangled ball of compromises between people over things we didn’t always agree on.
That was why I ultimately decided to stand with her; I wanted to see things from her perspective so that I could give her the safety that she was looking for. And if doing this would make her feel safer, then I was happy to do it.
Besides, as a boyfriend, there was no greater happiness than in being the one to fulfill all my girlfriend’s selfish desires.
I stood up slowly and gave Nanami, who looked at me anxiously, a gentle smile. Then I gathered her in my arms in what was essentially a princess carry so I could take her to bed.
Working out was my hobby; of course this was easy for me. Nanami, though, was shocked into speechlessness, covering her mouth with both hands as she was lifted up into my arms.