Episode 14: On a Night Like Foam
…Excuse me?
I tore my eyes away from Yuno on reflex and turned to face the mirror.
Rinsing out the shampoo foam under the shower, my head was very busy.
Eh, why.
Hold on a moment.
What am I supposed to do here.
I tried thinking about work, making an effort to stay calm, but I seemed to be panicking in spite of it. My heartbeat had been loud ever since.
I switched off the shower with a sharp turn of the tap and opened my mouth without looking at Yuno. Looking at the mirror meant seeing everything. In the end, I had no choice but to keep my back to her and look down.
“Why are you coming in here?”
“There was a ghost programme on TV just now and I got scared being alone.”
What an utterly guileless reason.
“That’s what happens when you watch things like that.”
“It didn’t seem that scary at the start.”
“Regardless, don’t come in without asking.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just have a quick shower.”
I pushed her away flatly, and she let it slide right off her. Talking with Yuno gives you a real felt sense of what it means to push against a paper wall.
Yuno reached past me for the body wash.
The moment she leaned forward beside me, Yuno’s chest slid into my field of vision. My heart gave one heavy, muffled lurch.
Don’t look. Absolutely cannot look. Get a grip.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d sworn off love — and yet here I was, responding to a woman’s body like this. Pathetic.
And was Yuno unaware of what she was doing? Or was she teasing me again? Either way, it was trouble.
Anyway. Wash up, do the conditioner, get out. I’d wanted a long soak in the bath, but that was out of the question.
This was not a situation for lingering.
“Hey, big sis.”
Yuno’s voice came from behind me.
“Have you washed your back?”
“…No, I haven’t, but——”
“Turn around. I’ll do it.”
“I don’t need that.”
“Come on, it’s fine.”
With that, she took hold of my arm and turned me to face her in one smooth motion.
I turned my face away as hard as I could on instinct — but the moment we were face to face, Yuno’s body came flying into view regardless.
She really is forceful.
Always closing the distance like this, artlessly, without a second thought. I keep getting swept further and further into Yuno’s current.
We stood facing each other.
I did my best to look down, trying to focus only on Yuno’s feet. But at some point, without noticing, I was slowly tracing upward with half-closed eyes.
Skin so white it was almost translucent. Wet hair clinging to the line of her neck. A curve at the waist that was somehow deeply sensuous, and the shape of her chest was beautiful, and honestly, it was burning my eyes.
Yuno slowly, carefully worked up a lather of body wash, and rested her hands gently against my waist.
Her hands moved smoothly, enveloping in foam — neck, shoulders, arms. Through all of it I couldn’t meet her eyes.
The movement of her foam-covered fingers was somehow terribly precise, and whenever they touched me my body gave an involuntary flinch.
And then those hands moved… to my chest.
“…!”
The sensation of my chest being lightly wrapped in foam. The moment my tips were given the gentlest pinch through the lather, something stopped in my throat.
I held on desperately against making any sound.
My face was burning. My ears were burning.
I stole a glance at Yuno’s expression. She kept her eyes only on her hands the whole time, as though this were the most ordinary thing, lathering with careful attention.
The corners of her mouth were just barely lifted.
Those downcast eyes looked somehow sensuous — but what was going on behind them, I couldn’t read at all.
When our eyes met by accident, she smiled, narrowing them with a soft hff. Innocent and impish at once. That smile struck me as unreasonably lovely, and something deep in my chest ached with a slow, throbbing warmth.
Then Yuno’s gaze moved downward. Her hands were beginning to move in that direction too.
“Wai — wa-wa, wait——”
“Hm?”
I stopped her in a fluster, and she tilted her head to one side and looked at me with a puzzled blink.
“That part… is… I’ll wash that myself.”
Hopelessly flustered, even to my own ears, I moved my own hands to take over. Being watched even while I did that was embarrassing enough.
In the end, I gave up on the bath. I rinsed off in a hurry and fled the bathroom as fast as I could.
＊＊＊
“Well then. Good night.”
As usual — me to the queen-size bed, Yuno to the living room sofa.
I know it’s cold of me, even by my own assessment.
But inviting her to sleep together now would be strange, and on the other hand I didn’t have enough generosity in me to give up the bed.
Somehow I’d never managed to say anything, it had stayed vague and undefined, and sleeping like this had become the default.
“Kchoo.”
From the darkened living room, Yuno’s sneeze.
“Kchoo, kchoo.”
Small sneezes, one after another.
I looked through the gap into the living room. Yuno was curled up small under the blanket.
Something in me, for no particular reason, became uncomfortable with that.
…Can’t be helped.
I got out of bed and went over to the sofa and called to her.
“Hey.”
“Mm? What’s up, big sis.”
Yuno looked up at me from under the blanket, only her eyes showing, blinking upward. Those slightly sleepy, slightly unfocused eyes — unreasonably endearing.
“Go sleep in the bed.”
“Eh?”
“I can’t have you catching a cold. I’ll sleep here.”
I glanced toward the bedroom and added it bluntly.
“Then…”
Yuno sat up and gently took my hand.
“Sleep together with me, big sis?”
“No, you go on alone. I’m fine here.”
“I can’t have the landlady sleeping on the sofa. The bed’s this big anyway.”
Half by force, I was pulled back to the bedroom.
The day I’d regret buying a queen-size bed out of pride — I had never once imagined it would come like this.