Episode Two: Yui-san’s Naughty Streak
“Hey, Kanata, which one do you think?”
Morning light filtered through the lace curtains. I glanced up from my toast at the sound of her voice.
Two different earrings dangled in front of my eyes, and I looked between them.
“Mm, the right one, I think — the blue’s cute.”
“Then I’ll go with this.”
She seemed to have something on today. I ate the breakfast she’d made, tracking her with my eyes as she moved around, already mostly ready to go, though usually we ate together.
“You’re early today.”
“My father wants me in before work starts.”
“You’re going to the office?”
“Yeah. Stopping by there, then heading to campus after, and then there’s a dinner tonight, so I’ll be late.”
She said it with a small sigh while fastening her watch, and I tilted my head — it wasn’t like her to look put out about something.
I speared a halved cherry tomato from my salad. If it were me, I’d have been too lazy to bother cutting them and just tossed them in whole, but Yui-san, for someone who never cooked, was oddly precise about things like this.
“A dinner…”
I trailed off, realizing halfway through that I might be prying. Sure enough, I caught her dark eyes locking onto mine.
“My father, and people from the company.”
“…I didn’t ask anything yet.”
It felt like she’d read my mind before I even got there, which left me strangely unsettled.
Yui-san would obviously join the company her father ran once she graduated.
Maybe that was why these dinners with company people happened so often, even while she was still a student.
“It’s a man, so don’t worry.”
She leaned in, resting a hand on the back of my chair, teasing, and I scowled and shoved her shoulder back.
“That’s not what I was asking about…”
“Aw, and here I thought that was jealousy.”
Too bad, she said, clearly not meaning it, and I marveled at how smoothly she could toss off a line like that.
“I’ve got a shift today too, so I’ll be late as well.”
“Oh yeah? Till when?”
“Till closing, so nine.”
“Guess we’ll be back around the same time, then. I’ll swing by and pick you up if I finish early.”
She shrugged her jacket on, perfect as ever, not a single thing to complain about.
“Thanks for breakfast. Be careful out there.”
“Mm, see you.”
Once I’d seen her off, I popped the last bite of toast in my mouth and stood, dishes in hand.
I’d meant to wash them together, but the dishes she’d used were already sitting in the drying rack.
I worked dish soap into the sponge and worked up a lather.
“…You could at least let me wash the dishes.”
I muttered it to the empty living room. She really could handle almost anything on her own — there wasn’t a gap in her anywhere.
Sure, she had plenty of issues on the romantic front, but letting me stay here had, in the end, worked out really well for me.
There was something reassuring about having someone around to say see you later and welcome back to.
Living with someone gay didn’t change anything about that. Because, to begin with, I wasn’t “eligible” — I wasn’t within her range at all.
The suds swirled and vanished down the drain. It felt like she’d seen straight through me — how incomplete I was, as a woman.
*
There was something I’d wanted to do once I started college.
A part-time job.
For some reason, I’d decided a café would suit me.
I love afternoon tea. Sweet milk tea with two sugar cubes dropped in, and the little sweets that go with it, set it off just right.
It was a habit that had settled into me during the four years I lived in England, and even after coming back to Japan, it had never worn off.
There was a small, retro café near campus, and the milk tea I’d ordered on a whim there had been so good that I’d pointed at a help-wanted flyer on the counter and asked the owner about it, and he’d hired me on the spot — that was how I ended up working there.
The place was scattered everywhere with the owner’s hobby aquariums, and at night he dimmed the lights and spotlit the tanks instead.
I really loved the atmosphere of that place.
Right on schedule, once the dinner had apparently wrapped up, Yui-san showed up thirty minutes before my shift ended. I showed her to a counter seat and handed her the black leather menu across the table.
“What’ll you have?”
“What do you recommend?”
“The house blend, maybe. It’s the owner’s own recipe, gets a lot of praise. You like coffee, Yui-san, so I think you’d like it.”
“I’ll take that, then.”
“Coming right up.”
Even this close to closing there were still a few customers scattered around, and the shop’s ever-mellow background music swallowed up our conversation nicely.
Sitting there, Yui-san watched me with a small smile, and it made me just a little nervous.
Hand-drip coffee was fast becoming a specialty of mine, after the owner drilled me on it over and over. It had taken two weeks before he trusted me to serve it to customers.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
How was the dinner today? — was I even allowed to ask that? The blue earring I’d picked peeked through her sleek black hair, swaying, and when I stared at her straight on, she asked, gently, what’s up?
“…So, um, how’s it taste?”
Completely different words than the ones I’d meant to say slipped off my tongue. It wasn’t even what I was worried about, but somehow it felt like asking the real question here would mean losing at something.
“Mm, it’s good.”
Knowing her, she’d probably say that with a bright smile even if it didn’t suit her taste at all.
The next thirty minutes went by in a blink.
I rushed through closing and dashed into the staff room. Even this early in spring, the nights still had a chill to them, and Yui-san was waiting on the bench outside, so I needed to hurry.
As I fumbled my apron off, someone said hey from behind me, and I turned around.
The same black apron came into view, and I immediately recognized Amasaki-san, who’d been on shift with me today. She was working her light-brown hair loose, looking mildly annoyed by it, and her round, cat-like eyes fixed on me.
“That person you were talking to earlier — a friend?”
“More like a senior from my university…”
“Oh! So she goes to the same school as Aozawa-san — guess that makes her smart, huh.”
Amasaki-san opened the locker two down from mine.
She went to a different university than me, but she was a fellow first-year, same age as me.
Honestly, I’d already noticed. Even earlier, while wiping down tables, I’d caught her watching Yui-san.
A bad feeling is usually right. Whatever I’d picked up in the look on her face aimed at Yui-san, it wasn’t only admiration, and that left me a little conflicted.
Figuring nothing good would come of drawing this out further, I checked my watch as a pretext, grabbed my bag, and shut my locker.
I’d closed it too hard, and the keychain clipped to it gave an ugly clatter.
“Hey, that senior from before — introduce me sometime?”
There it was. I let out a small breath, careful not to let her see.
Back when people at school found out I lived with Yui-san, a few of them had asked me the same thing, wanting me to be their go-between.
Even when I’d honestly relayed it to Yui-san, the answer was always no. She hated anything that felt like a hassle.
“Do you like women, Amasaki-san?”
“Huh?”
Her round eyes went wide. Judging by how startled she looked, that clearly wasn’t the question she’d expected.
“No, it’s not like that, but…”
If it’s not like that, you should probably let this go. Get involved with that person, and you won’t walk away with just a scorch mark.
I wished I could warn her like that, but no matter how openly Yui-san lived, it wasn’t my place to go outing someone’s sexuality to a third party without permission.
Truly, a sinful woman.
“I see. Well, she’ll probably come by again sometime, so if you want to get close to her, I’d talk to her directly — she’s not really the type who likes being introduced. Anyway, good work today.”
I really didn’t want to play matchmaker only to have the girl come crying to me later about being played and dumped.
I said it all in one breath and slipped out the back door like I was running from something.
Rounding to the front, I found Yui-san sitting on the bench by the entrance, legs crossed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Let’s head home.”
It really was chilly. I was feeling bad about making her wait when she stood and looked at me steadily.
With the height difference between us, I had to look up to meet her eyes, and when she smiled gently at me like that, I never knew what to do with myself.
“I kept thinking it earlier too — the ponytail’s cute.”
I’d rushed over so fast I’d forgotten to take my hair down from work. She brushed a hand gently over the hair tied up high, and something stirred, restless, deep in my chest.
“…Are you drunk?”
“Haven’t had a drop.”
This woman understood exactly what girls liked to hear. She’d say things like that to just about anyone, no real intention behind it at all.
We walked the night road together, side by side, where usually I walked it alone. The spring night air still carried a chill, and I pulled my jacket collar closer.
“Sorry I couldn’t come pick you up by car.”
“…It’s fine, you didn’t have to go that far.”
Just having you here is enough. I swallowed the words back before they could climb out of my throat.
If I said something like that, she’d only tease me for it, no question. Lately I felt like I was finally starting to understand what kind of person Yui-san was.
“Do these dinners happen every month?”
“Mm, yeah, about once a month, I guess. Without something like that, I probably wouldn’t even see my father’s face.”
Made sense, given he ran a huge company. And since they didn’t even live together, these dinners were probably an important occasion.
Even as I thought that, I kept circling back to how put out she’d looked about it this morning.
“You have an older brother, right, Yui-san? The one who gave you the car?”
“Yeah, I do. But Yuki-nii doesn’t get along with my father, so they don’t eat together. He struck out on his own.”
Calling him Yuki-nii like that, she probably didn’t have a bad relationship with her brother. Her current car was a hand-me-down from him, after all.
I’d been shocked at first — a college student driving around in a glossy black luxury car.
“You’ve got a younger brother, right, Kanata?”
“Yes. He’s in ninth grade.”
“Somehow you don’t really give off ‘big sister’ energy, Kanata.”
“You’re one to talk, Yui-san — you don’t give off ‘younger sister’ energy either. You can do everything, you’ve got it all together, you’re totally the older-sister type.”
“You think?”
We were getting close to the station. Two stops from there to her house.
I figured it was normal for people to have two sides. It wasn’t strange at all that someone showed a different face depending on the relationship.
I knew that. And yet, the more I learned about her, the more it nagged at me.
Why wouldn’t someone this kind ever settle down with anyone?
There had to be some reason.
Swaying with the train, making idle conversation, I studied her elegant profile.
Skin without a single blemish. Sharp, well-defined features. Long lashes. Tall, with long, slender limbs. Stylish on top of it all — nothing about her looked out of place.
Her family background was flawless too, and her personality — setting aside how loose she was with women — was kind and considerate. A wonderful person, honestly.
“What? Staring at me like that makes me shy.”
“…Just thinking you have a pretty face.”
Ah. The honest thought had slipped out before I could stop it. Yui-san’s eyes widened slightly, surprised.
Weird. She had to be used to hearing that.
“You think so? Thanks.”
“…There was another staff girl there besides me, right? She asked me to introduce you, back in the staff room just now.”
The train announcement chimed. We were almost at our stop.
“Hm… And what’d you say?”
“That if she wanted to get close to you, she should talk to you herself. I don’t need people coming back to complain that they got played with later…”
Yui-san laughed, amused. When the train doors opened, she caught my hand and pulled. Let’s get off.
“I wouldn’t go after your friends, don’t worry.”
Her hand was warm, and I had no reason to shake it off, so I let her pull me along as we started walking.
“Even if they’re cute and charming?”
“You want me to go seduce her?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“…I don’t get what your standard even is, for going after a woman.”
“Hm, want to know?”
She glanced back, grinning mischievously. I nodded, and she tugged our joined hands, pulling me closer.
Her lips came in close to my ear.
“…Probably when I start wondering what kind of face she’d make, during sex.”
Whispered close enough that I felt her breath, quiet enough no one else could hear, and I yanked my hand free in a panic and shoved her shoulder back hard.
My cheeks went hot instantly. What is wrong with this woman.
“…You’re such a pervert, Yui-san.”
“A little late for that, isn’t it? You’re the one who asked.”
She laughed, delighted, and I realized I’d been played again, and stalked off ahead of her, annoyed.
“Wait up, Kanata.”
“I don’t even know you anymore.”
Serves me right for taking it seriously. This woman clearly didn’t think half of what she said through.
Next time someone asks to be introduced to Yui-san, I swore to myself, slamming my train pass against the gate, I’m leaking her chat handle, her phone number, everything.