Is this what one would call a woman’s pride? At the very least, I was pretty sure it was pride welling up inside me.
That being said, though, I was starting to grow embarrassed. He was looking at me a lot more than I expected, and if I crossed my legs the wrong way or my towel slipped, he would instantly see parts of me that he shouldn’t.
Actually, what the heck am I even doing? Isn’t this just plain seduction? If that’s the case, could I even complain if this guy came over and pushed me down?
Suddenly, a cold clarity washed over me. I was holding the towel up so that it would only show my cleavage, but I had to be careful or the towel wouldn’t cover enough of my lower half. One wrong move and I’d be stuck with a mistake that I could never take back. All I could do now was sit still. I-I may have gone too far. Why do I get so full of myself sometimes?!
Mizuto let out a heavy sigh, stood up suddenly, then walked over to me.
N-No way. Is this really happening? I gripped the towel tighter, my body frozen solid, as Mizuto took off the jacket he was wearing. My heart skipped a beat. Huh? I-Is he really? Is he really planning on taking this further?!
I inadvertently closed my eyelids as he approached. I felt a sensation on my shoulders. It was the light texture of a jacket being laid on me. Huh?
“Let me guess,” he asked. “You were trying to get a rise out of me, but dug yourself into a hole too deep to get out of, right? Dumbass.”
I cautiously opened my eyes and saw Mizuto’s jacket around my shoulders. Then, there was Mizuto. He was standing in front of me, looking down at me with an annoyed expression.
“You’re usually so reserved, but sometimes you get so carried away that you end up doing something crazy. You should really fix that habit of yours. I can’t cover for you anymore.”
His words were blunt, to the point, and had a hint of displeasure. Even so, it had the same tone of those he’d utter back in middle school during the countless occasions I was saved by him.
I pulled his jacket closer to my chest, the warmth from his body still lingering. His words and this warmth made me think back to a year ago without even realizing it.
“Last year...” I began.
“Hm?”
“When you invited me over to your house... Why didn’t you try anything?”
Things had started getting bad between us right after that—after we’d entered the ninth grade. That’s why, back then, I thought that maybe it was my fault that our relationship got messed up. I thought that maybe I did something that made him become disillusioned with me. In the end, that was just my own misunderstanding, and the reason we broke up was because of something completely different.
“Wh-Why are you bringing this up now?!” he stammered.
Huh? Mizuto’s expression was not what I expected. It was as if I’d dragged up an embarrassing memory. His face was painted with shyness and sulkiness.
“What? You wanna laugh at me? Then laugh!” Mizuto suddenly switched to being on the offensive. “Laugh at the guy who called his girlfriend over to his house after going through so many painstaking preparations, and then in the end couldn’t even make a move because he was too scared. Laugh at me! Laugh at the loser!”
My mind stopped functioning for approximately five seconds after hearing that.
“Huh?!” My mind jump-started itself and I let out a yell as I shot to my feet. “P-Preparations?! Too scared?! Wh-What is that supposed to mean?! I-I prepared myself for that day, but nothing happened, so I always thought I completely misinterpreted your intentions!”
“Huh? W-Well, you became really rigid and guarded, so I kinda lost my nerve...” he said, trailing off.
“I. Was. NERVOUS!”
“Huh?!” Mizuto yelled, his eyes widened. “You’re kidding me! You were totally down and ready to do it too?!”
“Totally down and ready! I was completely prepared to make a memory that I would remember for the rest of my life in your room!”
“S-Seriously? Then why did I spend all those days in my room overwhelmed with regret?” he asked, dumbfounded.
“That’s what I want to know too! Give me back all the time I spent worrying that I wasn’t attractive!”
“That’s not my problem! It’s your fault for freezing up like that!” he snapped.
“No, it’s all your fault, you wuss!”
“Say that again!”
“Maybe I will!”
After that, our conversation turned into an indescribable back-and-forth competition of insults. After some time, we stopped insulting each other and started violently brawling it out over the couch.
After we had exhausted both our words and our stamina, we leered at each other while trying to catch our breaths. Mizuto had me pinned down on the couch and our ragged breaths collided against one another.
I really hated this. We both liked books, but our preferences were like different corner pieces of the same puzzle, or parallel lines that never intersected with one another. The cherry on top was that we were siblings now.
Suddenly, I felt like crying. Why can’t things ever go right for me? If I hadn’t been so nervous on that day, or even right now...
“Crying while we’re fighting isn’t allowed,” Mizuto said.
“Shut up! I know!” I wiped the tears away with my arm.
I was done relying on this guy like I had last year. I wasn’t the same weak girl that I had been back then. Even if my growth as a person was what started the deterioration of our relationship, I don’t regret it. That’s why I knew it wasn’t my fault that we broke up. It was this guy’s fault! It was all his fault!
“Hey, Ayai...”
My heart skipped a beat. He called me Ayai. It was my old last name—what he called me when we were in middle school.
I rubbed my thighs against one another. The jacket that had been around my shoulders had fallen off somewhere during our fight. Right now, the only thing on me was a towel, which was already roughed up and seemingly about to fall off. I was basically naked.
As he continued holding me down on the couch, Irido-kun reached out to me with one of his surprisingly slim, smooth hands and swept my bangs to the side. This was a sort of ritual we had before we did a certain thing.
When I still lacked confidence and was shy, I had long bangs, and he would sweep them to the side so he could see all of my face. He would always do this before he did the thing that came next.
He could probably tell that I’d stopped fighting back as he peered into my eyes. It felt like he could see right through me. I tried covering my face, but Irido-kun gently gripped my wrist and held it down next to my face. It was as if he was telling me that I couldn’t run away from his gaze. All I could do was use my mouth to let out a weak and flimsy excuse.
“W-We can’t. The rules...”
The certain thing in question was, without a doubt, a game-losing action. Stepsiblings definitely did not do this, but even so, I couldn’t believe how feeble my words were. They weren’t enough to stop him. This much, I knew from experience.
“I’m okay with losing today,” Irido-kun said in a low voice that echoed inside me.
Our eyes met. My face being red right now wasn’t just because I was tired from the fight we’d just had. His eyes were drawing me in. His warmth, his breath, his pulse—I could feel every last part of him. At a certain point, I’d closed my eyes.
Oh, we haven’t kissed in so long...
“We’re hooome!”
“Mizuto? Yume-chan? Are you two in the living room?”
We both jumped as soon as we heard the voices of our parents ring out from the entrance.
They’re home?! Already?!
“Gah! It’s already this late?!” Mizuto jumped up in a panic and looked at the clock.
Oh god, how long were we fighting?!
“Hurry, put on some clothes! Don’t you know how this looks?!” he hissed.
How it looked was me, basically naked, and him, his clothes ruffled up, intertwined on the couch. While we might have been pretending to be siblings that got along for our parents’ sake, there was a limit to how well we should be getting along. If they saw us getting along this well, that would open a whole different can of worms!
“B-But I don’t have any clothes.”
“Oh, right, if you go out to get your clothes now, you’ll run right into them. Dammit! Then...hide! Um, uh... I got it! Hide here!”
I let out a squeal as Mizuto rolled me off the couch and lifted the couch cushions to reveal its storage area.
“Hurry, get in!”
“Hey, you don’t have to push! I’ll get in myself— Ow! Did you just kick me?! You totally did!”
“Not a word. Got it?!” Mizuto dropped the cushions over me after stuffing me into the storage space, and then everything around me turned dark.
“Oh, Mizuto, you’re by yourself?”
“I could’ve sworn I heard Yume.”
“Welcome back, dad, Yuni-san. If you’re looking for Yume-san, she’s already gone to bed.”
Hearing Mizuto trying to talk our way out of this made me remember what had just happened.
If our parents hadn’t come home when they did, would we have... What was I doing?! I wanted to scream. This is messed up! This is all so messed up! We aren’t together anymore. I hate him. He’s just my disgusting little stepbrother that gets on my nerves. He’s not my boyfriend! But even so, I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding so hard.
Why can’t things ever go right for me? Everything should have been over. Everything should have been easy now. We just had to become siblings and I just had to seduce him—and now I find out that we both had the same intentions back then?!
“Urgh, gosh!”
I really hate that about you!