Episode Twenty-Nine: Kissing Isn’t the Only Thing I’m Good At, You Know
Alone in the hushed changing room.
I noticed my own hands trembling faintly as I untied the obi she’d tied so neatly for me.
Nervous — I was. Unbearably so.
Yui-san had said she’d wait outside in the bath first, and gone ahead without me.
I replayed our exchange from a few minutes ago.
“You are absolutely not to do anything, understood?”
I’d said it, driving the point home, and Yui-san had laughed and nodded.
“I know, I know. It’s fine.”
She’d said that, but was it really true?
Even at the fireworks, she’d broken her promise not to do anything and kissed me anyway — would she really keep this one?
I asked my own heart, pounding hard enough to be almost funny.
Why is it racing like this? If I don’t want to do this, I could just stop.
Yui-san would never force me into anything. She always respects what I actually want.
I know that. So why did I agree to this in the first place? I didn’t even understand myself anymore.
Slipping out of the yukata and down to my underwear, my heartbeat only grew more frantic.
I took a deep breath, reached back, and unhooked my bra. Slid it off my arms and set it gently in the basket.
In the basket beside mine, her clothes sat neatly folded, and the sight of it felt oddly, viscerally real.
What do I do? My heart’s really racing. This is starting to feel like I’m actually expecting something to happen.
Just keep a composed face, that’s all I need to do. It’s exactly because I get flustered that Yui-san finds it fun to tease me.
I slid the underwear off both legs. With nothing at all covering bare skin, I felt exposed, restless.
Steeling myself, I stepped forward and put my hand on the door leading to the open-air bath. Through the small gap I opened, I peeked through.
In the dim light, her back, long black hair piled up on top of her head, was faintly visible through the rising steam.
“Yui-san, I’m coming in now, so close your eyes.”
“Eh, close my eyes? The whole time?”
“Until I say it’s okay.”
I cut off her faintly displeased protest, and she answered, got it, so, relieved, I slid my body through the door.
Beyond the steam, I could see Yui-san’s pale back, and I inched forward, step by careful step.
It’s a little chilly outside, so let’s just get in quickly.
Thank goodness for the milky-white water. I was relieved not to be able to see Yui-san’s body where it sat submerged to the chest.
After rinsing off, I dipped my toes into the bath. Wrapped in a perfectly warm heat, a small sigh escaped me despite myself.
“Hey, is it okay yet?”
Yui-san said it, sounding impatient, so I hurried to submerge myself up to the shoulders and turned my back to her.
“…It’s okay now.”
Knowing full well that the moment she opened her eyes, her gaze would land right on me, I curled up small, hugging my knees, when I heard a small splash of water, and at the same moment, pale arms reached out from behind me.
Startled, before I could even process it, I was pulled into a tight embrace from behind. Yui-san’s smooth body, warmed from soaking longer than me, pressed flush against my back.
Something soft touched my back, and my whole body felt like it was boiling over, blood rushing hot all at once.
Wait, hold on. That was too sudden, I might actually freeze up.
“Hey, why are you facing away? Turn around.”
Her lips, close to my ear, made me catch my breath.
Hey, Yui-san, it’s touching, my back — I wanted to say it, but saying it would make it obvious I was hyperaware of it. I couldn’t say it. Absolutely couldn’t. We hug all the time as it is, and this was really no different except for the missing layer of fabric — so why was my heart racing this hard, with no sign of stopping?
“Why — because it’s embarrassing.”
“The water’s cloudy, you can’t see anything. So show me your face, please.”
Her hand caught my shoulder gently, guiding my body to turn.
Turned so easily, guided along, the line from her neck down to her collarbone that filled my vision was so beautiful I didn’t know where to look, and in the end, I just looked back into her eyes.
Yui-san smiled, gentle.
Somehow, it felt like I was the only one whose heart was racing, tense like this. Yui-san looked so composed, and that irritated me, just a little.
Thinking that, Yui-san’s arms drew my body in close, from the front, gently.
“Your face is red. Cute.”
“Yui-san, hold on a sec…”
I meant to protest — holding each other naked like this was surely well past whatever “senior and junior” was supposed to cover — but the words caught in my throat.
Pressed together, bare skin against bare skin with no gap between us, it felt too good, and I lost the words entirely.
I hadn’t known that a woman’s uniquely smooth, soft skin could feel this good against my own.
I didn’t want to think it, but I felt like I finally, faintly, understood why Yui-san wanted to sleep with girls.
*
There’s probably no point resisting anymore. Giving up, I let myself rest my head obediently on her shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her back and hugged her tight.
What do I do, she’s so warm, it feels so good. I want to stay like this forever.
My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. I was tense, and yet, somehow, just being held by Yui-san was enough to drain all the strength from my body.
“Heh…”
A soft laugh sounded right by my ear.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re quieter than usual. Are you nervous? Cute.”
Asking me not to be nervous, in a situation like this — that’s asking the impossible. And whose fault does she think that is.
Gently stroked on the cheek, her fingertip felt so good that I closed my eyes.
“Yui-san, why are you so composed about this… I really don’t have any appeal, do I? My chest isn’t even that big…”
Even objectively, I think my body’s pretty ordinary. I don’t know what body type Yui-san actually prefers, but I have zero confidence in my own.
Honestly, the reason my ex cheated and dumped me traces back to my body too. A body that’s frigid, that can’t feel good during sex — there’s no way something like that holds any appeal.
“…Kanata. Give me your hand.”
The arm I’d wrapped around her back was taken, lifted from the bathwater with a small splash. Pulled toward — Yui-san’s own bare chest.
While I sat there, startled, my palm was pressed flat against the spot right over her heart.
The heartbeat that reached me was racing, just as fast as mine. I found myself staring straight into her eyes without meaning to.
“I’m nervous too. My heart’s pounding, so much.”
“…Not because of the alcohol?”
She’d been drinking earlier — wasn’t that just raising her heart rate on its own?
Someone this used to seeing women naked — could my body really make her heart race like this?
“So suspicious.”
Yui-san said it, laughing, but I genuinely, more than half-seriously, think it’s her own fault for making me think that way.
“Then, let me make it race even harder.”
Her face closed in, and, flustered, I pressed my palm flat against her lips to stop her.
“…Kanata, your hand’s in the way.”
“W-why are you trying to kiss me…”
“You can feel it, can’t you, with your hand on my heart. How much you make it race. You want to know, don’t you?”
The hand holding her lips back was pulled away, and gently guided back to rest over her heart instead.
“Um, Yui-san…”
Her name came out of me, my voice shaking, just slightly. Before I could produce any further excuse to refuse the kiss, her lips took the words from me instead, and I saw fire kindle in her eyes.
That look sent a shiver down my spine.
After a few light, repeated kisses, her tongue traced slowly over my lip. I understood exactly what that was a signal for, and, in what little resistance I had left, kept my mouth shut against it.
“…Open your mouth.”
Said so plainly, and before I knew it, I was already obeying. As if it were simply natural, my body had become entirely hers to command.
What do I do, I’d just realized something terrible. If Yui-san ordered me like that, right now, I might not be able to refuse her anything at all.
Her soft tongue slipped into my mouth. My body, trying instinctively to pull away, was held fast in a tight embrace, and once our tongues tangled together, breathing finally became difficult.
“Mm, mm…”
My head spun, hazy. Our tongues sliding against each other felt sweet, felt good. The strength drained out of my body, soft and boneless.
The slick, intimate sound of the kiss echoed, making my head even more foolish than it already was.
Her mischievous fingertips traced slowly down each vertebra of my spine, stroking down my back, and my body trembled, helpless, twitching under her touch.
My own heartbeat was too loud in my ears for me to spare any attention to hers anymore.
What do I do, this feels — good, maybe. I’d never once felt this way from a kiss before, not once, in all this time.
This was the first time I’d ever wanted more.
Her fingertips traced down my back, over my side, and the moment they brushed from my hip down my thigh, my body shuddered, and I broke the kiss with a startled gasp.
I let go of her chest and tried to push at her shoulder, but the arm around my waist pulled my body back in. I wasn’t allowed to put any distance between us.
*
She kissed softly along my neck, then, suddenly, sucked hard, and a strange sound nearly escaped me — I clapped a hand over my own mouth to stop it.
“…Did you feel it? How hard my heart’s racing?”
Through our pressed-together bodies, I could faintly feel her heartbeat, thudding. But my own was pounding so absurdly hard I could no longer tell which beat belonged to which of us.
My legs felt like they might give out entirely. No more, I give up. Waving the white flag, I let my full weight sink against her.
“I don’t even understand anymore, I’m so dizzy I might actually die from this…”
I rested my cheek against her shoulder. Please, enough. I won’t doubt you anymore. I could feel, through where our skin touched, that she was smiling.
“…Yui-san, you definitely just love kissing, don’t you.”
I pointed it out, and Yui-san laughed, amused.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you’re so good at it… It’s strange, feeling this good is strange.”
The honest truth slipped out before I could catch it, and Yui-san burst out laughing, and only then did I realize what a mistake that had been to say. But it was too late. Once said, words can’t be taken back.
“Did it feel good? Guess you like kissing too, Kanata.”
She traced my lips gently with her thumb, smiling, bold.
“…Kissing isn’t the only thing I’m good at, you know. If you’ll let me, I can show you things that feel even better.”
A devilish whisper. Or rather, this woman really is a devil, full stop.
Held naked, kissed like that, whispered a line like that — is there any woman alive who wouldn’t fall for it?
“…So this is how you seduce girls, isn’t it, Yui-san, this is what you do when you play around.”
“No way. If it were just playing, I wouldn’t go through this much trouble.”
If it’s not playing, then what is it? Before I could ask, her mischievous fingers traced slowly up my thigh, and, panicked, I pushed at her shoulder.
No, no. I won’t be swept along. Absolutely not.
“Yui-san, I think I’m actually about to pass out from the heat…”
The moment I said it, her fingers went perfectly still.
“…No good?”
Deep black eyes stared straight into me.
Ah — how happy I’d be, falling asleep in this person’s arms. If only I could just let myself be swept along.
But if I did that, I think I’d end up looking straight into hell.
I’m certain that once I let her have me, even a single time, I’d never be able to forgive her sleeping with another woman again.
And that would make me, exactly, the kind of “high-maintenance woman” Yui-san doesn’t want.
That’s the one thing I have to avoid.
Because even if I gave her my body, that wouldn’t make Yui-san mine, and mine alone.
“…No good.”
Whatever I managed to force out probably came out shaking, unattractively.
Faintly disappointed, she let out a small breath and murmured, too bad.
“Got it… we’ll continue another time.”
Her gentle lips pressed against my cheek.
*
It’s probably only a matter of time before I end up accepting her completely.
Because Yui-san keeps being this kind to me, like an actual lover would.
Please don’t look at me with eyes that fond.
Even though you have no intention of ever making me your girlfriend.
Falling for someone who you already know will never turn around and look back at you properly is too painful. That’s exactly why I still can’t tell you, even now, that I love you.
It’s unfair. You say you like me, and your body reaches for me too — so why don’t you ever want my heart?
It’s because you keep holding yourself at that same vague, undefined distance. Because you keep leaving every choice up to me.
That’s exactly why I find myself thinking, half-desperate — I wish you’d just take everything from me, all of it, whether I want you to or not.