Episode Forty-Four: Is There Anyone Who Gets Disappointed, Sleeping With Someone They Like?
“Arms up.”
Yui-san whispered it gently, lifting my top. My head had gone so completely blank that I couldn’t think at all — I did as told, and just like that, the top I’d been wearing was slipped off me.
With only my bra left, I felt exposed and vulnerable, and I pressed both hands tight against my chest.
Yui-san’s gaze rested steadily on my body.
Ah, I’m actually about to have sex with this person, I thought, the realization sinking in, slow and deliberate. My heart was pounding so loud I couldn’t tell anymore whether it was the alcohol or Yui-san causing it.
“…Your underwear’s cute.”
“You see it every time you do the laundry, though.”
“Yeah, but this is the first time I’ve seen it on you.”
Yui-san’s fingertips gently traced the area not covered by the bra. My shame flared, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Before I knew it, her hand had reached my lower body, caressing my thigh, then undoing the hook of my skirt.
“Lift your hips.”
Yui-san murmured it against my neck, and I did as she said. What do I do, this is so embarrassing.
With my skirt removed, leaving me literally clad only in underwear from top to bottom, her deep black eyes stared intently at me.
Her fingertips gently traced the part of my stomach not covered by fabric. Then, her arms slipped around my back and she held me tightly.
“…You’re hot. Going red. Cute.”
Maybe I really don’t hold my liquor well. My whole body felt like it was burning, my head gone hazy, unable to think about anything except Yui-san.
Kissed again and again — forehead, eyelid, lips — I couldn’t take it anymore and pulled her neck in toward me. I tucked the soft strands of black hair falling loose behind her ear, and Yui-san laughed, and kissed me again.
Not the gentle kiss from before. This time, deep — a heated kiss that took even my breath away with it.
Strange. Just having my tongue tangled and sucked made me feel an unfamiliar heat gathering deep in my stomach. While giving me the kind of kiss that stokes desire, Yui-san’s hand moved to my back.
She lifted her lips once, and looked gently into my eyes. “Kanata, arch your back a little.”
A woman who was used to being held would probably know how to follow along without being told — but needing to be guided like this, here of all places, made me feel inexperience showing through in a way that was a little embarrassing. Even though I was the one who’d pushed for this in the first place.
I did as told, and suddenly the pressure against my chest was gone — she’d unhooked my bra.
Ah, I thought, and before I could process it, that mischievous hand slipped through the gap in my underwear, gently cupping my breast as if scooping it up, making me feel as though something grabbed hold of my heart.
Ah, a woman’s hand. Different from a man’s. The smooth texture of her skin, the sweet scent of her perfume — every last thing about it was unmistakably another woman’s, and yet my heart just kept beating, faster and faster, refusing to stop.
Suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment, I threw my arms tight around Yui-san’s neck as she pushed herself up, and wouldn’t let go.
“…Kanata, you’re too close. I can’t see anything like this.”
“You don’t have to look. It’s embarrassing.”
Said in a voice so small it might dissolve, Yui-san reached past me toward the coffee table, feeling for something.
She picked up the light remote, and with a small beep, the room dimmed sharply. The amber of the night light wrapped the room in a soft glow — dark enough, but just bright enough to still make out each other’s faces.
“Is this better?”
She tossed the remote away somewhere under the sofa and turned back to face me.
“Look at me, Kanata.”
My chin was lifted, and her lips met mine, gentle. Tilting, meeting again and again from different angles, I could feel the strength draining out of my whole body with each press. This feels good, I thought. I love kissing Yui-san.
When our lips parted, Yui-san gently pushed herself upright. This time, I didn’t try to stop her from pulling away. My bra was slipped free from my arms, and her gaze settled on me.
I was so embarrassed I felt like my face might catch fire, and I squeezed my eyes shut. What do I do, we’re about to do something even more than this. Maybe I’ve already hit my limit.
Having made such a show of bravado, and now going this timid — I nearly wanted to cry at how pathetic I was being. Kanata, she said my name, and I opened my eyes to find Yui-san stroking my cheek, gentle.
“…Are you scared?”
Why is this person so — kind. She’d said she wouldn’t wait any longer, and yet here she is, still, always putting me first. That part of Yui-san — I loved it, unbearably.
I shook my head, side to side. Not scared. I’ve never once been scared of Yui-san.
“I’m… frigid. You might be disappointed, Yui-san…”
Voicing the anxiety like I was pushing it out of myself, Yui-san smiled, gentle.
“…Is anyone actually disappointed, sleeping with someone they like? It’s fine. If it hurts, or it doesn’t feel good, just say so.”
My scrambled, alcohol-fogged head couldn’t function properly, and guided only by the thought that I didn’t want to let this person go, I reached for Yui-san.
I wrapped my hands around her neck and pulled her close, looking straight into her eyes.
“Can we keep going?”
When I nodded yes, Yui-san smiled, happy. Soft lips, descending, gentle.
It’s okay. With Yui-san, it will be. Even if it hurts, even if it’s hard — if you’re looking only at me, that alone is enough to make me happy.
＊＊＊
For me, sex had always been something to endure until the other person was satisfied. There had never once been any pleasure of my own in it.
I’d thought that was just how it was. A problem with my body. My fault. I’d believed that, for a long, long time.
That’s what I’d believed — or so I thought.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Something’s wrong. This is definitely wrong.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Because I was frigid, because I’d never once thought it felt good—
This sensation, I don’t know it.
I writhe, struggling to escape the sweet tingling that reverberates through my entire body, but I can’t escape her long fingers piercing deep inside me.
Kanata, my name breathed hot at my ear, and my chest went warm. Between ragged breaths, only helpless, needy little sounds came out, nothing like words.
What is this, I don’t know this, I don’t understand it, I’m scared. Tears welled up and wouldn’t stop, and even though she kept whispering cute, cute, you’re so cute against my ear, I pushed at her shoulder desperately — but that weak, feeble resistance meant nothing at all.
“Kanata, put your arm here. You can hold on.”
She guided my arm around her neck, and I pulled her in, clinging, frightened.
Kissed, the sounds spilling out of me were swallowed up by her lips.
Pressed against her, body to body, she smelled wonderful. Yui-san’s scent, the one I love most. Something in my chest went warm. Right now, Yui-san is looking only at me.
I suddenly wanted to see her face, and loosened my arms just slightly. Through vision blurred with tears, I could make out Yui-san, blurry. Those deep black eyes, like a nighttime sea, met mine.
A gaze that pierced straight through me, burning with heat. Knowing she wanted me — some feeling I couldn’t name welled up in my chest.
“Yu— i— san…”
From the waist down, I feel so hot I might melt. The sounds I hear reveal just how much I crave her.
“…Does it feel good?”
At that question, I finally understood. Ah. So this is what feeling good is.
Once I understood it, everything inside my head was consumed by nothing but that feeling.
A first. Not scary, not painful. Just, endlessly, purely — the feeling of being loved was good.
I nodded, and Yui-san smiled, relieved.
“Let me hear your voice more. Call my name.”
Just as she said, I called her name, again and again. Everything being touched was hot.
The unknown sensation surging up inside me made my vision spark white at the edges.
“Wait, Yui-san, something — I, it’s scary—!”
My body trembled. I knew, as knowledge. That this act could bring pleasure. That there was an end to it. I’d thought it would be a feeling I would never know, not in my whole life.
As if to soothe my bewilderment, Yui-san pressed her lips to my cheek.
“…It’s okay, it’s not scary. Bear with it a little longer. After that, it’ll feel even better.”
That’s a lie. That can’t be right. I thought that, and yet, even as I thought that, a sweet, agonising ache crawled up my spine, and my whole body shuddered. I wanted to escape, but I couldn’t.
The fingers she used when making love to women — her left hand, middle finger, ring finger. Just as she’d said. But she’d never mentioned the thumb too. I hadn’t been told about that.
“Kanata. I like you… I love you.”
Whispered in an especially gentle voice, right at my ear, and my body gave a shudder.
Ah. I’m done. The moment I thought it, it was over in an instant.
My own heartbeat pounded loud in my ears, and everything in my head went completely white.
Unable to process the surging impulse running through me, before I even realized it, I had sunk my teeth, with everything I had, into the white shoulder peeking from her T-shirt.
“Ow—!”
A groan sounded at my ear. Even so, those fingers didn’t stop.
My consciousness was swept away by the repeated, electric-like surges of pleasure coursing through my body, and I couldn’t even comprehend what I was doing to her.
Something like floating in midair, and all the strength drained from my body, the arm I’d had wrapped around her neck sliding loose onto the sofa. My chest heaved, again and again, with ragged breath.
What do I do. That was — incredible. It felt so good. The reason someone would want to bite — I finally understood it.
Yui-san, slowly separating from me, pressed a hand over the shoulder I’d just had my teeth in. It must have genuinely hurt, because she let out a long breath and gave a small, wry smile.
“…I’m sorry.”
I got it out between ragged breaths, and Yui-san laughed softly and shook her head.
“No, it’s fine.”
This part of her — this might be exactly what captures every woman who comes near her, I thought. Forgiving, accepting, everything. Not just limited to sex, either.
My whole body still felt sweet and numb, my breathing still unsteady, and I felt like I might sink straight down into the sofa. Held tight in an embrace, kissed again and again, a warm, happy feeling welled up softly in the depths of my chest.
“…Have you calmed down?”
I nodded. Then Yui-san nuzzled her face into my neck, happy.
“…Kanata, can you stand? Let’s go to the bed.”
“The bed…?”
What are we going to the bed for. To sleep together, maybe. My head, thoroughly scrambled by alcohol and the pleasure she’d given me, simply nodded along at her urging, obedient.
Because I didn’t know. That sex between women doesn’t end after just once.
＊＊＊
“Kanata, hey, how long are you going to face that way? Turn over.”
A faintly sulky voice from behind me.
Pulled tight into an embrace from behind, I reluctantly turned to face her.
It had been a while after being dragged into that bed before she finally let me go. By the end, honestly, I barely remember it.
Now that the alcohol had fully worn off, I’d been too embarrassed to so much as look at her until just a moment ago.
The fact that I was the one who’d pushed for this — I wanted to put my head in my hands.
I looked at Yui-san tentatively, and she smiled, happy.
“Lift your head.”
She made a pillow of her arm and held me close. Bare skin against bare skin, the closeness of our bodies pressed together felt wonderful.
“You’re finally in a better mood.”
“…I wasn’t sulking or anything.”
Just embarrassed. I pressed my lips to Yui-san’s collarbone, and heard a laugh — that tickles.
“Yui-san, I want to take a bath.”
“Yeah, sure. Let’s go in together in a little bit.”
Saying it, Yui-san glanced toward the wall clock. Then, ah, she made a small sound, like she’d just noticed something.
“Kanata, happy birthday. I got so caught up I didn’t notice midnight had passed. Sorry.”
I hadn’t noticed the date had changed either. Because of Yui-san.
“…Thank you.”
My hair stroked gently, and happiness welled up inside me. I touched, carefully, the red and swollen shoulder I’d bitten. I hadn’t been aware of how hard I’d done it, but the mark was clearly visible there. A bite mark, plain as anything.
Then I noticed something — just below Yui-san’s collarbone, running in a straight line, an old scar. Sutured once, it looked like? I let my fingertip trace it, lightly.
“Yui-san, this scar… what happened?”
“Hm? Ah, this? This is from a long time ago… I was in an accident. That’s where it’s from.”
An accident — ? For a moment I felt like I might have asked something I shouldn’t have. Maybe this was territory I shouldn’t step into. Yui-san isn’t someone who likes talking about the past.
Startled, I looked up to meet her eyes, and they softened, quiet and gentle. It’s alright to ask, I felt she was telling me.
“…I was in first grade at the time. We were on the way to the hospital when the accident happened.”
“The hospital…?”
“Yeah. Yuki-nii had come down with a bad flu — running a really high fever. Dad had an important meeting, so to avoid catching it, he was staying at a hotel for a while. But Mum, who’d been nursing him, caught it too.”
The sound of Yui-san’s heartbeat reaches me, steady, slow. I hold my breath, intent on every word, not missing a single syllable.
“I remember Mum calling Dad on the phone, asking him to come home. But Dad couldn’t come home. So Mum had no choice but to drive herself… She probably wasn’t feeling well. On the way to the hospital, there was an accident.”
I swallowed, quietly. Did that mean Yui-san’s mother, in that accident—?
“When I came to, I was in a hospital bed, and Dad was standing there beside me, eyes completely red. Yuki-nii and I had both been in the back seat, so we got away with just injuries, but… Mum didn’t make it.”
“Yukiya-san and your father being estranged — that was the reason…”
“Yeah. That’s why. …Yuki-nii blames himself, for getting sick. Dad blames himself, for not coming home. Dad cried and apologized to us over and over, but that might have actually made it worse. Yuki-nii stopped talking to Dad after that.”
So that’s why Yui-san never tries to force a reconciliation. Yukiya-san and her father — the guilt they each carry probably hasn’t healed yet. Being in the same room must still be painful. That’s why.
But surely, because they’re family, they can reach each other. Time will pass. Because they’re parent and child.
Gently, I pressed my lips to that old scar.
“I see. …Thank you for telling me.”
“No, thank you for listening. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken about it. Not really the kind of thing you’d normally share during pillow talk, is it.”
She said it, laughing. But I—
“No. I want to know. Everything you’re willing to tell me.”
Gathering up the scattered pieces, fitting them one by one into place — the completed puzzle had shown me, at last, her true shape. Gentle, and delicate, exactly as she is.
For the first time, I felt like I’d been allowed to set foot in the very deepest part of her heart.
If I could board a time machine and find the little first-grader she must have been, in the depths of her despair — I’d want to hold her.
Yui-san pulled me into a tight embrace.
“I’m so glad I met you, Kanata. Right now is when I’m happiest I’ve ever been.”
I wrapped my arms around her back and held her just as tight in return. Bodies pressed flush together, not a single gap between us, sharing each other’s warmth.
The worst last day of being nineteen was over, and on the first day of being twenty — for the first time, from the very bottom of my heart, I learned what it means to truly love someone.