“Sorry for waking you up, Kaito! The sound of my stomach grumbling woke you up, didn’t it?” said Oltea, blaming herself despite the fact that I had come to all on my own.
I was about to tell her as much when Frieze shook her head. “No, it wasn’t your fault, Oltea. In terms of timing, Kaito probably woke up after hearing my stomach grumbling. Your stomach went, ‘Gurgle gurgle rumble rumble!’ and then my stomach went, ‘Rumble!’ and then Kaito woke up, right?”
“Hey, my stomach doesn’t sound like ‘gurgle gurgle rumble rumble...’” Oltea said, her cheeks turning red at Frieze’s imitation. Even though we were all friends, it could be embarrassing to be talked about like that in front of a member of the opposite sex. Oltea glanced at me with an embarrassed expression and started trying to explain herself to Frieze. “U-Usually your stomach makes louder noises than mine! I’m the one who just went, ‘Rumble,’ and then you went like, ‘Gurgle gurgle gurgle!’”
“You’re totally exaggerating! Mine was like, ‘Rrrumble,’ and then yours was like, ‘GURGLE GURGLE!’”
As the two of them argued, the ears atop their heads perked up and seemed to blip-blop blip-blop back and forth like a two-frame animation in an old video game. The moment I saw them, one overwhelming desire welled up in my chest: the need to pet their ears all over.
Noticing the change in my demeanor out of the corner of their eyes, the girls stopped fighting. They looked at me with expectant eyes.
“Did you start wanting to touch my ears...?” Oltea asked.
“If my ears are all right, then you can touch them all you want!” Frieze said.
“Thank you. That makes me so happy,” I said, and I really meant it. For hybrids like Oltea and Frieze, having their ears praised was like receiving a confession of love. Oltea had once told me that it was the kind of thing one heard when being proposed to. That each of them gave me such ready permission to touch them was proof of their trust.
Happy that they were happy, I reached out to gently pet them both. Right hand on Oltea’s ears, left hand on Frieze’s ears. When I pinched the tips and rubbed them between my fingers, the sensation was soft. The closer I moved my hands to the base of their ears, the more firm they felt, though not in the way a human’s cartilage would have. While I enjoyed the feeling of running my fingers along their ears, Oltea and Frieze both narrowed their eyes in pleasure and smiled with their whole faces.
“It doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“It doesn’t hurt at all! It feels really good,” Oltea said.
“You’re good at that, Kaito,” Frieze said.
“That’s ’cause you two let me get so much practice!”
“It’s our pleasure. Don’t mention it. Can you pet a little more fully?”
“Yeah, I think I can do that,” I said. Taking advantage of the request, I started to rub their ears with my whole hand instead of just my fingers.
Every animal ear was a little bit different, from the shape to the feel of the fur. Oltea’s had short, smooth fur, whereas Frieze’s had a long, fluffy texture.
When I used my entire hand, their ears bent and flattened down, so it was like I was rubbing hair. Stroking their ears like that seemed to feel the best for them, as both of their faces relaxed into expressions of pleasure. I liked the method best too; it allowed me to more fully enjoy the feeling of their ears.
Aah, I’m so happy, I thought to myself. If anyone had told me I would be this happy three months ago, I never would have believed them. In twenty-nine years of life, I had never once been able to find the joy in being alive. Even in my earliest memories, my mother was already telling me, “Study hard and get hired at a good company so you can be happy.” She never let me meet with friends or do anything fun—studying was all I ever did, day after day.
For my efforts, I was able to get into a “good company,” but the happiness my mother promised would come as a result never did. I tried to find a hobby or something to enjoy, but nothing ever caught my interest. On days off, I never had any idea of what to do, so I just accumulated money and let the days roll on by.
Then, one day, I was struck by lightning and instantly killed. I awoke in the private domain of a goddess—the so-called afterlife. She told me that I hadn’t been supposed to die yet. My untimely demise, it seemed, had been the result of her own ineptitude.
To apologize, she offered me two choices: go to Heaven or go to a new world. Going to a new world turned out to be the only choice that was actually on offer. I, however, had never enjoyed being alive, so I wanted to go straight to Heaven, but the goddess said, “You could find something you enjoy and lead a pleasurable life.” She then administered a psychological test designed to help me pick out three favorite things.
As a consequence of the test’s findings, I was granted “the power to collect honestly,” “the power to love animal ears,” and “the power to fire laser beams.”
After that, I was sent to this new world to wonder where life would take me. The answer, it turned out, was straight into the best days I’d ever had.
Chance meetings with Oltea and Frieze had led to wonderful friendships, and since arriving, I had been able to live every day to the fullest.
“Kaito, you look really happy.”
“Does petting our ears really feel that good?”
“It’s the best. Thank you, Oltea, Frieze,” I said. My expression of gratitude made both of them bashful.
“‘Thank you’ is our line! It’s thanks to you that we’re able to live this amazing life,” Oltea said.
“Mm-hmm. I can assure you that there isn’t another hybrid alive living like this,” Frieze said.