Kogure Kawanami: The Envoy of Truth
I drowsily opened my eyes and saw Minami’s face filled with joy.
“Morning.”
“Morning...” I replied out of reflex, my voice hoarse.
I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep, but it felt like I’d finally gotten some proper rest for the first time in a while. But that was only natural. The night before last night, I’d just fainted, and the night before that I couldn’t even remember what happened. Neither of those experiences were really me sleeping.
I still felt groggy, so I just stared at Akatsuki Minami’s face, and she silently looked back at me. I’m not even sure how much time we spent simply staring at each other before I finally snapped back to my senses.
“Are we...okay on time?” I asked.
I wasn’t really familiar with how love hotels worked, but I was assuming there was a checkout time.
“I think there’s enough time for a shower at least.”
“A shower...”
I could see the bath through the glass behind Minami. It was a bit too much to deal with this early in the morning.
“Maybe another time...”
“Time to wake up, then?”
“Yeah.”
Minami put her hand on the bed sheets and vaulted over me to get off the bed. As she did, there was a soft sound as Minami’s sky blue panties fell off the bed.
“Oh.” Minami reacted as she looked at her feet.
They were around her foot like a ring toss. Seeing this made me remember what had happened. Last night, I took off her panties and then fell asleep. From what I remembered they should’ve been around her knees, but most likely they fell off while we slept.
“Ha ha... Oh, right,” Minami said sheepishly before pulling them back up.
There was a second when I could see her butt through a gap in the bathrobe, which made me gulp. Minami turned around and looked at me.
“Uh...” she said awkwardly, but kind of jokingly. “Want some help with that?” she asked, pointing at my crotch.
I hesitated with my answer.
We paid at a machine at the front of the hotel. I wasn’t sure if this was to be expected or pathetic, but we split the cost evenly. Minami and I both got a decent amount in terms of allowance and we both did part-time jobs every now and then, so we had money. Even so, our wallets were about the same amount of empty right now.
“What should we do? I still have some money left on my train card,” she asked.
I fell silent. We had to go back to Kyoto. I knew that. We couldn’t stay out for days on end, but if we went back to Kyoto, I’d have to deal with Makoto...and myself. Could I do that? I felt a lot better than yesterday, but at my core I still felt scared. I was frightened that I might lose myself again and return to the pain I’d felt.
Minami had said that I was cured and that I simply hadn’t realized it yet. But even so, I couldn’t believe that I was better. Though it was true that I didn’t get hives when I was around Minami anymore, it didn’t make sense that I was still reacting to Makoto. If Makoto was flirty with me again, wouldn’t I just be in pain again?
At the very least I wished that someone could prove to me that that wouldn’t happen. And conveniently, such a person was waiting for us outside the entrance of the hotel.
“Finally,” they said.
There were two very unexpected people standing outside of the hotel. A couple like them that had a pure and bright romance seemed so out of place in the deserted backstreets where we were. They’d been waiting for me as I emerged from the dark.
“Y-Yume-chan?! Irido-kun too?! Why are you two here?!” Minami’s eyes widened with surprise.
Irido-san smiled weakly. “We came straight here after coming home from the countryside early this morning. I’m glad we made it before you two left.”
“How did you know we were here? This place isn’t even on love hotel apps.”
“I heard from a certain ‘bad’ upperclassman. I contacted her on a whim, and I dragged it out of her.”
Oh yeah, now that I think about it, Minami said that she heard about this place from a ‘bad’ upperclassman too. I’m assuming it’s that girl from the student council. The one who’s all over Todo-senpai. I guess Minami hangs out with her a lot.
I was surprised by how strong Irido-san looked compared to a year ago. She used to be a timid honor student, but now she seemed very formidable. Maybe spending time with Irido or the student council made her grow up.
“Irido...” I said, walking to him as he stood there with his arms folded. “Why did you come all the way here?”
“Because you were playing victim, deep in your own delusions, over the phone.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Delusions?
“I knew it. You’re not aware of it yourself.” As Irido said this, Minami awkwardly looked away. “You said over the phone that Makoto Koyama was all over you in the bowling alley and that she fed you takoyaki at karaoke, right? That’s how she was flirting with you?”
“Y-Yeah...”
“That never happened,” Irido decisively declared. “All the things you spilled over the phone were figments of your imagination—delusions.”
Kogure Kawanami: The Real World
Staying too long in that part of town was a bad idea, so we left and went to the closest metro station. While we waited for the train to Yodoyabashi, Minami and I came clean about everything. We talked about how we used to date in middle school, how I got ulcers from how overbearing she’d been, how I developed an allergy to romance after that, and how Minami had since then tried to cure it with exposure therapy.
Minami seemed so small in her seat after revealing her true nature to Irido-san.
“I’m sorry for keeping this from you all this time, Yume-chan...” she said in such a soft voice that the sounds around us threatened to drown her out. “I still haven’t fixed my old bad habits. I’ve done some creepy things while trying to make sure you didn’t notice...”
Irido-san was surprised to hear the dark side of the usually bright and cheerful Akatsuki Minami that she knew, but it wasn’t long before she was wearing a gentle smile.
“I don’t mind at all. It’s normal to keep a secret or two from your friends. You’ve always been my bright and cheerful friend, and I don’t think there was any lie about that.”
“Yume-chan...”
“Also...”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think you were doing a good job of hiding what you were doing anyway.”
“Huh?!”
You really thought you were? You wear your desires on your sleeve.
“An allergy to romance, huh?” Irido mumbled while rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a little hard to believe, but it makes sense if it’s like a form of PTSD. It’d also explain how you were acting yesterday, Kawanami.”
“Can you tell me already what exactly I was imagining? Also what basis do you have for saying that everything was all in my head?”
Right as I asked that, the train we were on arrived at Yodoyabashi. From here, we would transfer to the Kyoto line and take it straight to Kyoto.
“I’ll tell you later. Let’s get off the train. It’ll be a little quieter in the station,” Irido said, getting off the train, the other two following suit.
I slowly got up and shuffled off as if there were lead in my legs. After walking past the Osaka metro turnstiles, we went down the long tunnel back to the Kyoto line. As we did, Irido began talking.
“My reasoning is simple. There were contradictions in your story.”
“Contradictions...?”
“It was hard to visualize. There were parts of your story that wouldn’t make sense if they’d actually happened.” Irido turned around and pointed to his mouth. “So there was a summer festival where I was yesterday and I had some takoyaki.”
“Wow, what a coincidence... I had some too yesterday. After I called you, we had some at a famous place in the American Village.”
“They were hot, weren’t they?”
“I mean, yeah...”