The girl stopped in the doorway and turned toward me. Even in her natural state, she could be as dazzling as a bright ceiling light. With her hair brushed and light makeup, she was like a supernova. I willed myself to keep my eyes on her face, but even that was hard. I didn’t want to admit to myself that she totally took my breath away. “Some days, I go out; some days, I don’t come back. Don’t worry about me,” she said before leaving. “Whatever. I don’t care,” I replied reflexively, barely registering what she’d said to me. “Cool.” And then she was gone. I heard her talking outside but couldn’t hear what about. “You don’t need to come back,” I grumbled, rolling on the futon. Conscious of how we’d divided the room, I stretched out on my back without crossing the invisible boundary. It felt like forever since I’d last had the room to myself, even though it’d only been one day. Now that the room was occupied by the correct number of people, the air quickly settled. It felt like the temperature had dropped. I gasped at the cool air, focusing on taking big breaths in and out. After a while of this, an idea finally sparked in my brain, and I sat bolt upright. “Hold on a minute!” I was really being slow. I checked the time again. It was already night. The girl hadn’t gone out on a little walk. Was she not going to come home? Was she staying over at someone else’s place? If she had somewhere else to stay, what was she doing in my room? I’d told her I didn’t care where she went, so why couldn’t I get it out of my mind? It was none of my business. I bent forward to rest my chin in my hand, disliking myself for my uncertainty over the girl. If it bothered me that she was going out so late, I should’ve said something. If I really didn’t care, I should stop making an issue of it already. I liked things to be clear-cut, or it made me anxious. Probably took after my mother in that respect. So I crossed my arms and my legs and forced myself to sift through my conflicting thoughts. The girl was going to spend the night elsewhere…which naturally made me think she was going to sleep with someone, but then why had she taken the textbook with her? “Is she meeting a private tutor…? Come on, no way!” Public libraries were also closed at this hour, of course. It was Friday night, so no school the next day. Was she really staying over elsewhere? Why did my chest feel so tight? That girl was getting me all bent out of shape. I probably won’t get much sleep tonight. I didn’t want to think about her anymore, but I couldn’t switch my brain off. I was so tired, but my thoughts were racing with no sign of slowing down. It was as if she’d put a curse on me. This arrangement sucked. If the girl never came back, that’d be for the best. But then I imagined her not coming back, and it made me even more anxious. The sensation of movement near my head woke me up, and I sat up sleepily, startling the intruder. “Sorry.” “It’s just you… Huh? You’re back…” The surprise helped me wake up the rest of the way, and my scattered thoughts blobbed together into shape. I lifted the curtain of hair blocking my vision off my face, waiting for the last remnants of haze to clear from my head. It didn’t take long for my senses to sharpen again, thanks to how she smelled. The girl had said she wouldn’t be back, but there she was in my room again. Her hair was wet, as if she’d showered recently. Her scent drifted to me and filled my chest. It wasn’t anything invigorating, more soft and floral. It expunged the last shreds of drowsiness hiding in the corners of my body. She hadn’t smelled like that the previous day. Where did it come from? I looked up. She was standing in the corner, idly watching me. The pale morning sunlight made its way into the room, and with it came intense humid heat. I reached with my foot for the fan and turned it on with my toe before checking the time. Again, I wanted the cool air focused on me, but it turned dutifully to send a breeze toward the girl’s fair-skinned feet. The girl crouched down to catch more of it, and her long hair and loose shirt fluttered. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her beauty was ethereal, her presence airy. She’d originally just been an unwanted invader in my space, but before I knew it, my feelings toward her had become muddled. “So, um…,” I mumbled. “Good morning, I guess,” I finished in a louder voice. That was a normal thing to do, say “good morning” to a girl from my school who I happened to see in the morning. It didn’t have any hidden subtext. The girl slowly looked over at me and held my gaze for a moment before replying, “Morning.” She changed from a crouching position to sitting down on the floor. Ah, of course. It was the next day—that’s why she was back. But where had she come back from? She was looking down with the same dispassionate expression as the day before. There was nothing I could read in her face, no matter how much I stared. I wasn’t sleepy, but I wasn’t exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, either. The sky was cloudy, the air was oppressively hot and humid, and I had this enigmatic girl as a roommate. There was nothing to lift my spirits that morning. The girl was looking at her phone, but she wasn’t touching the screen or anything. She seemed spaced-out. What did she see? What was she seeing? “What did you do last night?” I yawned and immediately regretted the question. The girl slowly turned to me, the phone still in her hand. “Thought you didn’t care?” “I don’t.” I really didn’t, but I just felt like asking—that was what I wanted to communicate, except I couldn’t think of a way to say it that wouldn’t sound like I had lied about not caring. They should teach how to express those fine distinctions in modern Japanese classes, I thought. “I was just saying,” I added. “Hmm.” Was she doubting me? Turning away, I glanced sideways at her. She was measuring me with a cold stare, as if she was suspicious of my reason for asking about her night out. “What do you want?” she asked. Why was I being interrogated? She was the one who should explain herself, I thought, irked at the same time by how annoyingly insistent I was being. “Me? Nothing.” “Right.” She was the one hiding something, not me. Which should give me the upper hand. “Don’t tell me you work night shifts somewhere.” She opened her mouth slightly, but no sound came out. Eventually, she replied, “And why does that mean I have to answer?” That was a point I couldn’t argue with. Her frosty tone made me recoil. “Well, you don’t have to.” I became very self-aware of how huffy I sounded. My lips were even in an offended pout. “Exactly,” she said quietly, leaving the room as if she was running away from me. That unfamiliar flowery scent still lingered. I felt as if the faint glimmer of light making its way through a gap in the clouds, piercing the unbearable heat, had been cut off before reaching me. In other words, I felt like shit. I flailed on the futon, eventually ending up in a diagonal position. I stretched so far, my sides hurt a little. Why would anyone “just say” something for no reason? I’d said it myself, but come on. What a stupid phrase, I thought angrily. So was this what weekends were going to be like? I stared absentmindedly at the wall, and the bottom half of my face felt like it was in a cast. There were four of us sitting at the table—my mother, who didn’t have to leave early for work today; the girl’s mom (my mother had to grab her by the scruff of the neck and shake her awake); the girl, who had returned in the morning; and me. On autopilot, I had made breakfast for everyone. The table wasn’t big to begin with, but when four people sat down around it instead of the usual two, it felt too small. We were sitting too close to one another, and the plates were crowded too close together. Not that it bothered my bighearted mother, who always tried to see everything in a positive light—she was actually happy to have more company. “Reminds me of school meals,” my mother said, tapping the shoulder of the girl’s mom. Even just the gentle taps generated enough force to shake the thin lady. She rested her chopsticks on the table, grunting in agreement as she slowly chewed the food. All her movements were drawn out and deliberate. “You’d always rush me to finish before the end of lunch break,” she said. “And you almost never did!” Mom replied. I wanted them to keep talking between themselves. They were loud, but whatever. “You go to the same school. Do you ever eat lunch together?” Unfortunately, my mother just had to steer the conversation toward me and my roommate. I looked over at her, and she looked at me. Her cheeks were slightly bulging from the food. Wasn’t that cute? “No,” I replied, both to my mother’s question and to my own unspoken one. “Um…” Neither of us was feeling as chatty as our moms. We held each other’s gaze. “We’re in different classes.” “Yeah.” “Aw, that’s too bad,” said her mom. Why? After breakfast, I collected the dishes to wash them, but the girl stopped me. “I’ll do it,” she said, acting as if our morning exchange had never happened. Her eyes were indifferent again. “Okay.” I gave her the plates, and she wordlessly carried them to the sink. Less work for me, which was good, but I had this weird, wooden feeling in my joints, as if I were a marionette on strings. I was about to go brush my teeth when my mother waved me over. “Come here for a moment.” I didn’t want to talk to her, but I knew the consequences of ignoring her. She used to have a terrible temper when she was younger, apparently… I say apparently not because I doubted it, but because from what I knew of her, she could be terrifying when she was in a rage, so I could hardly imagine her having been worse in the past. Her anger would manifest in a swift movement of her arm, but it wasn’t unusual for her to kick as well. She did have a really long fuse, though. Maybe that was why her outbursts were so intense—her anger would build up like rising magma until a cataclysmal eruption. “You want something?” “Be good to that girl.” “…” “You don’t have to be friends, but try to have fun together.” If I didn’t want to be friends with her, how were we supposed to have fun together? Sensing my resistance, my mother picked a strand of my hair and laid it over her fingers. It curved over them like a waterfall illuminated by the sunset. My mother gazed at it as if she was searching for something. “You have beautiful hair.” “It’s just how it always looks…” If a conversation became uncomfortable for my mother, she’d end it by changing the topic to my hair. Unlike hers, it was naturally copper-colored. I would get a variety of reactions to it. Some people would praise it, some would stare at me rudely, and some would distance themselves from me. “I have to be good to her, huh…” The face in the mirror above the sink didn’t want to cooperate at all. What reason did I have to be nice? I brushed my teeth, holding my own gaze in the mirror, my eyes narrowed sullenly. “Blah!” I rinsed out my mouth and splashed warm water over my face a few times. Was I feeling so upset because my mom was telling me what to do, or because of the girl’s unwillingness to reach out to me first? After mulling it over some more, I reflected that I didn’t have any reason not to make friends with the girl. I might as well be the one to offer the olive branch first. From the hallway, I saw the girl finishing washing the dishes and going into my room, which was temporarily also her room. It would certainly make it easier for us to share if we weren’t hostile to each other. It wasn’t just my room anymore. It was ours. Time to accept it. I went into my room without dillydallying by the door. Before the girl had moved in, I’d never felt anxious about opening it or going inside, since there’d be nobody in there. I made a conscious effort to act as confident as before—not exactly stomping, but making my footsteps louder. I ended up walking as stiffly as if my feet were punching holes in the floor. I went over to the girl and sat beside her, sensing she’d raised her head. I wasn’t looking at her yet, though, but straight ahead. I wasn’t so close to her that we were touching, but I imagined I could feel the warmth radiating from her arm, as if our bodies were communicating with each other through heat. This nagging, imaginary sensation wasn’t that unpleasant, and in fact, I managed to relax into it. “Hey, listen,” I said, and a sense of déjà vu hit me. Was that my go-to conversation opener when I was feeling tense? “Can you help me with shopping?” I waited a few seconds before turning toward the girl. Predictably, she seemed surprised, and the wide-eyed look made her features more childlike. Whenever she seemed younger than me, some of that tension loosened. “Shopping for what?” “Just groceries. It’s weekly, so lots to carry. Can you help with that?” I explained choppily as if I had the communication skills of a toddler. I mimed the motions of carrying heavy bags. Why was I acting so weird? “Sure,” she readily agreed. The expression in her eyes brightened, and she repeated, “Sure,” this time with the realization of the long-term consequences of this development. She was about to stand up, but I placed my hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Just one thing before we go.” “Huh?” I covered my face and coughed to clear my throat. I then slowly opened my fingers, looking at the girl through the gaps. A bit annoyingly, she was gorgeous even when viewed only in narrow sections. “I’m Takasora Hoshi.” When was the last time I’d told someone my name? I didn’t have to introduce myself to my current friends, since they’d somehow learned my name without me mentioning it. It must’ve been quite a while since I’d last had to do this. “That’s my name.” The girl looked at me. I pointed at her with my chin. She tapped her knee and asked me, “How do you write it?” I’d thought she’d tell me her name, but instead, she took out a pen and notepad. “The characters for ‘high,’ ‘sky,’ and ‘star,’” I explained, tracing the characters in the air with my finger. I lip-read the girl whispering to herself, “That’s simple.” She closed the notepad, not needing to write my name down after all. “I’m Umi Mizuike,” she finally told me. “Hmm…” “Want to know how to write it?” “Nah, it’s kind of obvious…” “Sea” for Umi, “water” and “pond” for Mizuike. What a wet-sounding name. “It’s like a joke name,” I said. “You’re one to talk.” We glared at each other briefly. I was the first to lose and look away from her. I sensed her watching me for a few moments longer before also turning away. “Our first meeting was like a joke, too, I suppose,” she said. “Yeah.” Unusually, we agreed on something, which encouraged the girl—Umi Mizuike—to talk a bit more. “Guess what other name my mom considered for me.” “How would I know?” “Kawa.” “…” I fell silent, thinking how ludicrous that’d be—Kawa meaning “river,” no doubt. “So I’m glad Mom went with Umi in the end.” “Yeah.” I liked the image of the sea better than a river. A river is in constant motion, while the sea is the final destination for waterways. The girl was definitely better off as Umi Mizuike. I took her willingness to introduce herself as a sign she wasn’t unfriendly toward me. And thank goodness for that. Now that was clear, I could move on to the next step of dismantling the wall between us. “What’s your mom’s name, by the way?” I asked, mildly intrigued. “Izumi.” We both burst out laughing. Izumi. “Spring.” Another water-themed name. “Classy.” “I know, right?” Umi’s voice sounded livelier now. She stood up. “Are we going now?” “That’s the plan.” “Okay.” Mizuike headed for the door without changing from her loose shirt. I followed her with my eyes, thinking that she looked so pretty, it didn’t matter what she was wearing. “Umi Mizuike…” Mizuike. Knowing her name made her seem more ordinary. Maybe I didn’t need to approach her so carefully. “All right.” I pushed myself off the wall with the back of my head and got to my feet. I wondered what my mother thought seeing us leave the house together, but she didn’t even look at us, lying down with her eyes glued to the TV. We went outside and turned in a different direction from when we were going to school. Mizuike walked next to me, not behind me. At first, we couldn’t match our gaits, but after a while, we fell into a natural rhythm. I glanced sideways at Mizuike, thinking that life was full of surprises. Making a friend outside school was new to me. “Don’t remember the last time I was in a store like this,” said Mizuike. “Yeah, well, you don’t see many girls our age doing the grocery shopping.” Her lifestyle was unusual, but even teenagers from ordinary families didn’t visit supermarkets much. We crossed the parking lot, weaving in between the cars, and reached the entrance. Workers were unloading flowers from a truck, which reminded me of that floral fragrance. I sniffed the air near Mizuike, hoping she wouldn’t notice. The perfume was gone, diluted by the outside smells. It was strange walking through my local supermarket with Mizuike. I wondered what the staff who recognized me would think. I didn’t want them to ask me who my friend was. I’d have to lie and say she was a cousin or something. I reached for a bag of bean sprouts when Mizuike said, “Oh. My mom’s over there.” I turned and saw the thin woman in the fruit section, bending down to look at the produce with a smile on her face. Mizuike cringed. I was surprised she’d noticed her mom from where we were—I wouldn’t have—but I guess if you see someone every day, they’re easier to pick out of a crowd. Her mom had disappeared after breakfast. I wouldn’t have thought she’d been chilling in the supermarket. What a…carefree woman. “You weren’t kidding about her hanging out in supermarkets.” The woman was examining produce with the excitement of a small child. “Yeah,” Mizuike said, groaning with a pained expression on her face. “Let’s pretend we didn’t see her.” “Oh, okay.” As if on cue, we turned away from her mother in perfect unison. I thought it was funny, and I couldn’t help laughing. Mizuike cocked her head at me, confused. The gesture was so cute that I took a mental note to be careful and not to let her prettiness distract me from checking the prices before putting products in the basket. I couldn’t afford to be loose with money. I bought everything we needed and packed it into bags, distributing the weight evenly. “Wow,” I heard Mizuike say from behind me, apparently impressed by my packing expertise. I wanted her to say so, but she didn’t. “Was it not cool enough?” “What…?” We left the supermarket without her mom noticing us. I was carrying the shopping bags myself. Did Mizuike realize that asking her to help me with the bags had just been an excuse to go out with her? Even if she did, I kind of wished she’d offer to lend a hand anyway. She was walking next to me empty-handed, absentmindedly gazing at the streets and houses we passed by. Her neck was so slender and graceful, and her profile was so pretty as she just walked, her hair swaying. Even without doing anything in particular, her presence seemed to add meaning to the otherwise boring surroundings. I could almost believe that was the sole purpose of existence for gorgeous people. Mizuike was a beauty with moments of childlike charm. Her appearance was so striking that it overshadowed her personality, I thought. As for her personality…she was so unsociable that I wondered if she wanted to have any friends at all. Both she and her mom struck me as people who didn’t seem capable of really liking another person, never mind loving anyone. That was what was going through my head when Mizuike spoke to me, instantly refuting my theory. “So this is what hanging out with a friend’s like, huh?” I was completely thrown by her even using the word friend, and my mind blanked. Suddenly, I was focusing on the sound of my feet hitting the ground as if that was more important. “I’ve never had any friends, so I’m not sure I’ll make a good one.” “Um, hmm… You never know, I guess…,” I managed to reply. My mind was all fuzzy. Mizuike looked at me and added softly, “You’re a very nice person, Sorahoshi.” I detected a hint of uncertainty in her words. She was treading carefully—not quite trusting the ground yet, but making the effort all the same to cross the divide between us. “Me, nice? I don’t know…” Something weird was going on—I was feeling completely defenseless. After a moment, I noticed Mizuike was standing close to me, peering at my face. The scowl she often wore was gone, and her beautiful eyes were relaxed and gentle. I was panicking, like a bird held by the wings. Why was I always losing my cool whenever I dealt with her? At the same time, our proximity had no effect on her—she seemed totally calm. “Nobody I’ve lived with before ever took me out shopping. It’s kinda… Hmm, I dunno…” She couldn’t find the right words to express herself, so I tried to help. “Exciting, maybe?” “Yeah, that’s it.” She made circles in the air with her index finger. “Thanks.” Was she thanking me for helping her finish the sentence, or for taking her out shopping? “No prob.” I didn’t even have it in me to ask her to clarify. She was stripping me of the ability to speak. Damn beautiful people and their power over others. I was particularly susceptible, as it turned out. But what did it actually mean? That in the presence of a beautiful person, I turned into an imbecile? And what about the opposite end of the spectrum? What did resilience to beauty even look like? I occupied myself with weird musings like that as a way of distracting myself. “Oh. Want me to carry anything?” She must’ve remembered only then what she’d come along for. “Nah, I’m fine,” I replied, waving my hand. Mizuike’s expression mellowed even more. “You really are nice.” Just because of that? Naive, I huffed inwardly, resisting the compliment. After all, hearing that when she was this close to me had put me in a state. Meanwhile, she wasn’t uncomfortable thanking me or calling me a friend. Knowing her name gave shape to her presence in my life. I began to see her in a more positive light. She was no longer an obstacle or a mobile protrusion from the floor or walls of my room. Her distinct outline had formed, drawn in bold lines. It was the beginning of “us.” At least, so I thought. Walking closer to her than before, I picked up that scent again. A floral scent—although I couldn’t name what flower—that seemed to reach into my heart. “Welcome back.” “Thanks.” By the time the next week started, living with the Mizuikes had become a fact I’d come to accept. When I got home from school, Mizuike was vacuuming the living room. She’d gotten back before me. “Mizu…ike…,” I said, although I couldn’t help stuttering. I didn’t call her, “Hey, you there,” and even in my mind, I no longer called her “girl.” She was Mizuike to me. She seemed to shrink back a bit when I called out to her. Why was she suddenly acting distant again? “I think it’s better to…mop the floor after vacuuming,” I told her, feeling the warmth of the floor through my socks. She switched the vacuum cleaner off, staring at me wide-eyed. “Oh. I didn’t know.” That sweet, childlike look always caught me off guard. I had to fight back the urge to smile. We had dinner together again, just the two of us. She said, “Wow,” when I served the food, like before, but I wasn’t sure whether to take it as a compliment. She wouldn’t say the food actually tasted good, and I was apprehensive about asking if she liked it. Also, her reaction might have been sarcastic. Maybe she was pretending to be amazed by something as simple as cooked rice. After the meal, Mizuike collected the dishes and went to wash them—the right task for her, given her water-themed name. Sea, water, pond, and the kitchen sink—what a combo. I wondered what else would go well with it. Doing the dishes used to be my job before she’d come along. Thanks to her, I had a little more precious free time. Maybe I was making too big of a deal of it, but as I stared at the ceiling, I had a moment as I realized there were real benefits to living with other people. People do say humans weren’t meant to be alone. It would be nice to have more free time every day. To divide the household jobs between us and fall into a comfortable routine. Mizuike would walk right on into our room even when I was inside. Well, to be fair, she’d never seemed to mind me anyway. But once I’d decided I was okay with her, it’d stopped bothering me. Toward the evening, we heard the front door open. “They’re back.” “Uh-huh.” We were sitting, leaning against the walls. Neither of us got up to go and greet our mothers. That day, Mizuike had given her textbook a rest, daydreaming sleepily instead. I discreetly checked the time to see how long she’d been like that. Mizuike was a nonconfrontational kind of person. Phlegmatic and passive, but not inconspicuous—her beauty attracted attention. She didn’t fit here. I felt as if I’d found a stunning work of craftsmanship lying in the dirt by the road; I was stunned but ecstatic. It was hard for me to express my feelings toward her. The right words were almost there, but maddeningly, they never perfectly captured my emotions. Did other people see her the way I did…? I thought most would. She was so pretty, after all. Only her personality and attitude counted against her, but not much. I was sitting next to her. My eyes would meet hers, then dart away again; our confidence levels were different. Maybe the reason was that, unlike me, she was a total beauty. You’d expect a person like that to be difficult or willful, but oddly, she was neither. There’d been something eerie about her right from the start. And for all I wanted to look away, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Mizuike… It felt weird to call her that. It felt so wrong, it made me shudder, even though it was a perfectly normal way to address another girl my age. But she wasn’t just some girl from my school, either. Our relationship was different, so the sense of distance between us was all out of whack. It was confusing for me, but…I didn’t know. I just had complex emotions about it. We didn’t have engaging conversations like I did with my friends from school, but there we were, spending time together. That made me think about exchanging phone numbers…but no, why would I ever need to contact her? We were living together, though, so it would only be natural to save each other’s numbers. It didn’t hurt to ask. “Um…Mizuike…” “Oh.” Just as I raised my phone, ready to ask her number, her phone rang. She glared at it, but after checking the screen, her expression softened again. She tilted her head to the side quizzically. I was frozen with my phone in my hand. “Were you going to say something…?” “Um, nothing. Just…that your phone was ringing,” I said stupidly, too thrown by the sudden call. “Wow. You can hear even before my phone rings.” “Not really…” “Wish I could do that.” Why…? Like the other evening, Mizuike gathered her makeup accessories and went to the bathroom. It looked like she was going out again. Had someone invited her? Who? Every time I thought about it, I’d start imagining scenarios I didn’t like. I worked myself up to the point where I began to feel sick. I wished I was wrong, but nothing else seemed plausible. I put my phone down on the futon, grabbed my big toes, and rolled side to side, curled like a baby. Mizuike came back into the room. “I’ll be staying over somewhere else.” “Oh, okay…” Like before, she packed her textbook and stationery in her bag. No idea what for. Now that she was all dolled up, Mizuike was leaving to spend the night at god knows where. I overheard her conversation with her mom. “I’m home! Oh, I see you’re going out?” “Yeah.” “Watch out for cars.” “I’ll see you later, Mom.” Her mom didn’t have a problem with Mizuike going out at this time? Did she condone her daughter’s degeneracy…? Debauchery? Was that the word? Now I was uncomfortable. I sat with my legs crossed and bounced them up and down. Suddenly, Mizuike came back into the room. I muttered an acknowledgment of her presence, but I couldn’t bear to look at her. “Just came in to say bye.” “Ay…” I was so dismayed, I couldn’t even say anything comprehensible. And then Mizuike was gone again. “Ugh, um… Take care later?” Maybe it was for the best she didn’t get to hear this jumble of words. Whatever mechanism generated my sentences had something caught in the gears. She’d come to say good-bye. What were you supposed to say in return again? It took me a while to remember the everyday phrase. “See you later,” I heard myself say. Maybe I should practice? No, that was stupid. She was going to move out soon enough anyway. I didn’t even really know her. She was just a roommate. …Wasn’t she? Moving on… Why had she come back to say bye to me? Because we were friends? Oh, come on. “Oh, come on.” I had to hear myself say it to get a grip and resist the urge to roll on the floor in frustration. I righted myself again and sat with my knees pulled up to my chin. “Wonder if I should’ve asked her where she was going…” But I had asked her last time. I’d asked where she’d gone, and she’d dodged the question. I wasn’t just saying words this time; I had solid grounds to ask. She was going out at night and staying somewhere until morning, plus she had the money to pay for living expenses for her and her mom? This wasn’t like, “Oh, maybe she’s doing something questionable”; she absolutely was. I couldn’t turn a blind eye. I had no doubt about it. If Mizuike was wrapped up in that stuff, that was pretty bad. Everything I imagined was uncomfortable to think about, and it wasn’t good for her, either. She wouldn’t talk about it because it wasn’t the sort of thing you talk about openly. Also, housing a girl like that could have negative consequences for me and my mother. I was worried more about that than about Mizuike’s safety. If dangerous people turned up here one day, we’d be lucky to come out of it unhurt. The only piece of the puzzle that didn’t make any sense was the textbook. It didn’t fit. Inexperienced as I was, I couldn’t picture any scenario where the textbook would play a part. Did it hold some secret that made it necessary for Mizuike to take it along? No, it was the same textbook I read sometimes, and I knew there was nothing special to it. It probably wasn’t an important clue. “Beats me…” My voice seemed to get caught in the pit of my stomach, trapped by the anxiety that lived there. It felt like an itch I couldn’t locate, so there was no way to get rid of it. What was it about Mizuike that was messing with my head like this? She was beautiful, and I knew her name. Nothing beyond that. Whenever I looked at her, her afterimage would remain burned into my eyes for a while. I was alone in my room, and I was struggling to breathe normally. “Umi Mizuike…” I said her name out loud as if I was obsessed. The invader into my space, the soft presence I never asked for, was becoming an individual called Umi Mizuike. After I finished cleaning up in the massive bathtub, I put an expensive conditioner in my hair and put on a luxuriously soft nightgown. When I sat down on the soft mattress of a bed instead of the usual futon on the floor, my body sank into it, feeling like it wasn’t my own. From the top of my head down to my toes, every part of me was heavy with exhaustion and tired from heat, and my consciousness was slipping out of my grasp. I was so sleepy. So tired. I was already drifting off. I didn’t need to be on guard. It was okay to relax where I was. This was only a short train ride from where I was staying, but it was a different world. It was hard to believe that my everyday existence continued here sometimes, but I wasn’t only imagining it. The shifting weight on my legs was definitely real. A woman in a nightgown (and nothing else) was using my thighs as a pillow. Even in the dim light, her skin was glowing with a healthy flush. When she was in the room, it was hard to look at anything else. Touching her made me tense, but not in a bad way. Somehow, that and the floral smell wafting from her body gave me this ticklish sensation in my throat and a neediness that would turn into a headache after a while. What am I trying to say? Just that her skin was really attractive. I wanted to touch it again and again. That’s all I wanted. Ms. Chiki was so beautiful, my mind went blank in her presence. She was the buyer, and my body was the product she wanted. She was my sole provider. She was… I scratched my cheek, noticing how repetitive my thoughts were. Chiki Rikunaka was the name she gave me, but it probably wasn’t her real one. Just a fake name to hide her secrets behind. It was a companion to my water-themed name: Chiki written with the characters for “earth” and “life,” and Rikunaka written with the characters for “land” and “inside.” As she lay on the bed with her head in my lap, she was playing an embarrassing game. “Ms. Chiki…” “Hmm?” “…can you stop trying to find my nipple?” I caught her wrist as she reached up to rub my breasts through the fabric of the gown. She was feeling for my nipple with her index finger. Come on, I asked her to stop. Whenever she moved, that floral scent rose from her body. I thought it was floral, at least, but I couldn’t tell what flower it was supposed to smell like. “I had to do something to keep you from falling asleep,” she said. “Can’t you do something else?” Not like I could stop her from doing anything she wanted. “I thought it’d be fun. If I find your nipples five times, I win.” The world would be better without stupid games like that. “Can we just stop now?” I tried to tug her hand away from my chest, but she suddenly entwined her fingers with mine, sat down on my lap, pushed me back onto the bed, and sealed my lips with hers. She pinned me down with the skill of a wrestler, so quick that I was defenseless. There was nowhere for me to look but right at her—a superhot woman doing what she wanted to my lips.
Chapter 5
32 min read