Chapter Three: “The Clod of Earth Dreams of Snow” — Part Fifteen
“…What am I doing?”
Sitting on the edge of the tub in the spacious bathroom, gripping the showerhead, I asked myself, out loud. Looking up, I caught the edge of the Santa hat reflected in the large mirror above the sink. Leaning back, I caught the left side of my own face too, and pulled back immediately. I had no idea what expression I was even supposed to be wearing while washing my feet for someone else to lick.
“I mean, feet… toes, specifically…”
What even was that? Disgusting. At the very least, I had never once looked at anyone’s feet wanting to lick them. Had Kai been thinking about this every single day we’d met? Too disturbing. I hated it. Wasn’t there anything else, something more ordinary she could want. And if I felt that way, I should just say no.
It would honestly be easier if Kai had some kind of hold over me, blackmail, leverage, anything. There was nothing like that. Nothing at all.
I was simply letting my own feelings carry me straight into accepting how disturbing this was.
My chest ached. Falling apart before this had even started.
Why did feet feel less forgivable than fingers? Because there was no excuse available for it, maybe. If someone, a colleague, my own family, happened to see a middle school girl lovingly licking my foot, what would they think. I didn’t ask for this, she insisted, she begged, so I reluctantly allowed it. No. Absolutely not. Done. Finished.
Licking someone’s feet had no place, at all, in what I considered sane.
What could Kai possibly get out of licking mine?
“You should hurry up and wash, shouldn’t you? You’re running out of time.”
“Hey—”
I snapped at Kai, who’d walked straight in unannounced. She ignored the complaint entirely and started running the tap at the sink.
“What are you even here for?”
“Rinsing my mouth. If I lick with a mouth still full of cream, it’ll get sticky.”
“…Right.”
Was that really the detail she was being considerate about. Watching her rinse her mouth from the corner of my eye, I caught her glance down at the fake beard and hat I’d left by the sink, grinning faintly, and it startled me a little.
Still in her uniform even on Christmas, this thin, small middle schooler. I was careful even just touching her. Anyone capable of unhesitating violence against a girl this slight, I didn’t consider that a person at all. I never wanted anyone to touch her like that again.
And if I, harbouring exactly that feeling, was supposed to be her guardian, then what I was about to do was, absolutely, wrong.
“Look, can we just, not do this after all?”
I proposed it quickly, eyes down at the tub. I couldn’t look at Kai’s face.
“Do you not want to?”
“I don’t, leaning toward don’t. But more than that, wouldn’t it be, healthier? Or, I don’t know, Kai and I could…”
Build something we didn’t have to hide, something no one would look twice at.
That’s what I wanted to say, but something crawled, insect-like, at the edges of my vision, scattering the thought before I could hold it together.
“Even conceding every possible point on that.”
“Feels a little late for that argument.”
“No, that’s, exactly, I think it’s wrong.”
“From where I’m standing, this was a fairly reasonable, sensible request.”
“……………This?”
“I’m in my second year of middle school, you know.”
Saying just that, Kai walked out of the bathroom. Second-year middle schooler. Fourteen.
Adolescence.
I remembered leaning on that same excuse before, trying to make my peace with it.
Adolescence, that endlessly convenient explanation for a shifting heart, was being called on again.
I took hold of the showerhead again. She was right, I needed to finish this and get home. My family was waiting.
Waiting, and yet here I was, washing my feet instead of walking straight out of the room.
I washed carefully, paying close attention to between the toes. Don’t wash it, some distant part of me sighed, exasperated. But asked for this insistently, something in me stirred regardless. If the Christmas present was a prepaid card versus toes, at least this one might have some taste to it… taste? Taste, what did that even mean?
Which foot was she even going to lick? Right or left? Going to ask that particular question felt like the end of the world, so I simply washed both, thoroughly. The shower ran a little too hot, and my toes tingled at the heat. Under the cover of running water, I kept muttering the same question to myself, over and over: what am I doing?
I let myself not think about the fact that I was showering in a hotel, in secret from my family, either.
Finished, I dried both feet carefully, making sure not a trace of impurity remained anywhere, and let out a long sigh.
Still with no answer to the question I’d been asking myself the whole time.
I went to Kai.
Kai was sitting properly, formally, on the floor, waiting for me. Kneeling on the flooring, the night skyline behind her, a middle school girl receiving me like this. What kind of situation even was this. And more urgently, I hurried to draw the curtain closed.
“We’re on the fourth floor.”
“So?”
The real Santa might be flying past, peering in.
Having checked thoroughly, I glanced back at Kai. Her cheeks had already coloured, faint red.
“If you’re embarrassed, let’s just stop.”
“This isn’t embarrassment, it’s exhilaration… my cheeks are hot because, yes, I’m excited.”
Light had settled into Kai’s eyes. The same colour as when she’d licked my fingers.
The same rapture I’d seen up close, once before, in her eyes.
A bad look, in hers. Something impure in it. Was there such a thing as licking someone’s feet that wasn’t impure to begin with?
And, more to the point, was she really going to lick my foot? Mine?
Before sitting, I asked, just to check.
“…You don’t think this is ridiculous?”
“Not at all.”
“…You don’t think it’s dirty?”
“That’s why you washed it, isn’t it?”
“……………Right, I did.”
That freshly washed foot, about to be made dirty all over again. My right hand’s fingertips, long since dry, felt damp again, as if by illusion. That had been a mistake, back then too. Since then, thoughts of Kai had only taken up more of my time, wedging herself further into every day.
And now, I was about to repeat that same foolishness.
“Honestly, I think feet in stockings are best, but.”
“…That’s too disturbing.”
Someone just living an ordinary life, and being watched with this much impure longing over it. Was I feeling more embarrassment than disgust? Or did that reaction only arise, specifically, because it was Kai? Surely not, I told myself, dismissing the thought at once.
“Disturbing… this is disturbing…”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, with something tightening painfully in my chest and throat, I offered Kai my foot. Not knowing which she wanted, I extended the right, and Kai took it into her hands as if receiving something sacred. Just her touch alone was enough to send my heartbeat unsteady.
Kai’s lips brushed, testing, against the tip of my toe, and my whole body nearly flinched away. She glanced up at the reaction, but didn’t mock it, simply returned her eyes downward. I could feel that Kai, too, had no composure left in her, which told me exactly how serious this was to her, and heat rushed to my cheeks, the back of my ears.
“Would you cross your legs for me?”
“…Why?”
“Atmosphere.”
Whether that single word was really an adequate answer, I found myself crossing my legs anyway, exactly as asked.