quiet talk #8: Home Sweet Home / As Told by Yanase Toko
Originally published as a short story on note.
Seeing the notebook filled from cover to cover with densely packed writing, Yanase Toko, wife of Yanase Sanae, let out a feverish sigh.
――Musashi-Kosugi. Room 203, the maisonette apartment where Sanae lived with Toko.
“Is it that notebook again?”
“Yes. We’re facing a grave situation…”
Toko was sprawled uselessly on the sofa commonly known as the Sofa That Turns Humans into Useless Beings. Glancing sideways at her as she sipped her after-dinner coffee, Sanae spoke.
Incidentally, tonight’s dinner had been Toko’s special curry rice.
Thank you for the meal.
“You’ve been filling those notebooks rather quickly lately.”
“That’s because the world is overflowing with yuri. Don’t you think we need an observer to record the ever-changing beauty and make it eternal?”
“Nine-tenths of the ‘Yuri Notebook’ is fabrication on your part, though.”
The Yuri Notebook.
Whether it was inspired by the possession of a certain death god in which writing someone’s name causes them to die was unclear, but nothing would happen to anyone simply because their name was written in this notebook. The notebook itself was an utterly ordinary B5 university notebook with six-millimetre ruled lines.
What was written in it, however, was enough to send even a death god running for the hills.
A brief explanation of the Yuri Notebook was in order.
It took anything remotely yuri-like that Toko had seen or heard about, in other words, facts arising from relationships between women, and expanded and extrapolated them to absurd proportions before recording them twisted into whatever form Toko desired.
It was one of Toko’s hopelessly irredeemable hobbies, one she had pursued since before she and Sanae registered their marriage. As far as Sanae, who had begun living with her at the start of the year, was aware, this was already the eighth notebook.
Toko loved yuri beyond all hope of salvation.
Indeed, the very circumstances in which the two of them had first met had involved a certain Yuri Meeting, so Sanae had no particular opinion left to form about Toko’s incurable hobby.
She did occasionally wonder, Is she all right in the head?
But if Toko was enjoying herself, Sanae was happy for her.
“So, what’s this grave situation?”
“I can’t stop imagining MikoSha…”
With an expression of utter seriousness, Toko clutched her head and agonised.
Yanase Toko, the returnee whose former workplace, Hibiya Trading, had seemingly hired her for her looks, was an indisputably unfortunate beauty whose every advantage was cancelled out the moment she opened her mouth.
“May I see it too?”
“Please. I want to hear your sharp opinion, Sanae.”
At Toko’s request, Sanae moved to her usual position beside her at home.
Toko sat on the infamous sofa in place of a floor chair, and when Sanae leaned back against her as a backrest, the nearly twenty-centimetre difference in their heights allowed Sanae’s back to fit neatly against Toko’s body.
Sanae was 147 centimetres tall.
Toko was 165.
Feeling Toko’s warmth through her back was pleasant.
“Read from here!”
Sanae looked to the top of the page Toko indicated.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
The morning greetings rang out beneath a crystal-clear blue sky――
“…Isn’t this plagiarism?”
“Not that part! The next bit!”
Toko lowered her hand with a complaint that her arm was getting tired and handed the notebook to Sanae. Sanae began silently reading the indicated passage.
“Oh, good morning, Mikoto-san.”
“Yes. I’m delighted to have the pleasure of seeing you, beautiful as ever, so early in the morning.”
This was the prestigious private St. Anticca Girls’ Academy.
In the greenhouse in the courtyard of this venerable girls’ school, a veritable garden of women, Charlotte smiled at Mikoto. As a member of the gardening club, Charlotte’s daily routine began with watering the plants early in the morning. The arc of water from her antique tin watering can shimmered like silk threads in the morning sun.
“Would you mind waiting a little? I’ll be finished watering soon.”
“How enviable. The flowers in this greenhouse receive all your time and love, and have no intention of sharing you with anyone.”
“Heavens, are you jealous of the flowers and plants? You’re the only one I love.”
“Would it be a sin to wish to monopolise your love?”
“Then why don’t you do just that?”
At Charlotte’s suggestive words, Mikoto moved.
She snatched away the tin watering can and shoved it aside before forcibly pressing Charlotte against a waist-high table.
“Oh my. What a naughty girl.”
“You seem to desire nothing less.”
“I wonder what you intend to do to me.”
“What must I do to make you mine alone?”
“…Someone might see us.”
“I don’t mind if they do.”
“You really are so forceful…”
Charlotte pursed her lips in vexation. Yet the faint blush colouring her porcelain cheeks and the amber eyes that trembled with emotion eloquently revealed a true feeling at odds with her expression.
Mikoto embraced Charlotte and brought her lips towards――
This time, it was Sanae who clutched her head in despair on Toko’s behalf.
“Well!? What do you think?”
“No, this is… What is it?”
“You don’t know about gakuparo? Every girl goes through it at least once. It’s common knowledge!”
“Please don’t treat the customs of a tiny minority as common knowledge.”
Sanae pulled her smartphone towards her and searched for the gakuparo Toko had mentioned. She understood it within two seconds.
In essence, it was fan fiction borrowing the context of a school story.
The problem was that the two women who had appeared in the story above were not fictional characters.
They were real, living human beings.
“Ah, but maybe it counts as real-life as a genre? You know, like the stuff you see at Comiket or Toranoana? Celebrities and idols, for example――”
“I heard nothing.”
“Eh?”
Sanae’s sensitive nose sensed danger.
It would be better not to venture too deeply into Toko’s hidden depths.
Having reached that conclusion, Sanae returned her attention to the hopelessly misguided story written in the notebook.
“I understand quite well now why you favour MikoSha. Certainly, in the story you wrote, Kurosu-san is the more assertive one.”
“Because Kurosu-san is so cool! She just radiates supadari vibes. I want her to be the seme!”
“I see.”
Another incomprehensible word had appeared, but Sanae had no particular desire to search for it. From the sound of the word and the context, she could more or less understand what Toko meant.
But if that was the case…
Perhaps Toko actually preferred being the one on the receiving end, considering how passionately she spoke of wanting to be “attacked”.
A dark foreboding settled over Sanae’s heart. Whenever things turned that way, she herself became stiff as a frozen tuna.
“…Toko, do you prefer being the one who’s attacked?”
“Eh? Why?”
“Because you were praising Kurosu-san.”
There was a brief silence.
Immediately afterwards, Toko wrapped her arms around Sanae from behind. Both hands came around from the sides and squeezed Sanae so tightly it almost hurt.
“Were you jealous!? You’re so cute!”
“…It’s not like that.”
“Kyaaa! Sanae, I love you!”
Toko was a returnee and perpetually high-energy. Everything about her was open. She never concealed affection or longing.
She was always hugging Sanae like this, squeezing her almost flat as she writhed in delight.
“Don’t worry, I’m Sanae’s biggest fan! Besides, shipping fantasies and actual romance are two separate things. I’m not a yume joshi, after all!”
“I don’t really understand.”
“So, you see? I like MikoSha, but it’s not like I want to join MikoSha. I think they’re both wonderful, but they have a world of their own, and I just want to peek into it. Separately from that, I love Sanae. The meaning of ‘love’ is different.”
“I see.”
“Ah, did you lose interest just now?”
With a sigh, Sanae lowered her head.
In truth, whether it was MikoSha or ShaMiko, whether one was the seme or the other, it made no difference whatsoever to Sanae.
The real question troubling her was whether Toko wanted to be the one who was attacked.
But she could not bring herself to ask that directly. And when she had tried to broach the subject, Toko had misunderstood it as jealousy towards Kurosu Mikoto.
Explaining herself sounded tiresome, and embarrassing besides, so Sanae leaned her weight somewhat more heavily against Toko, who was serving as her chair.
The squashed Toko gave a tiny cry of protest.
“Come to think of it, what about pairings other than MikoSha? We had that after-party at Kotone-san’s house before.”
“Ah! Shirai-san and Kotone-san are good too. But there isn’t enough information about those two yet…”
“We don’t have much contact with them.”
Toko then flipped through the notebook at astonishing speed and showed Sanae a page with considerably more empty space than the others.
It seemed she was still working on her theories.
The reason Toko could devote so much energy to her fantasies was because Sanae was earning enough to support them.
More than anything, Sanae was glad that Toko was able to live the way she wanted.
“Shirai-san is the cute type, while Kotone-san is the cool type, like her older sister. But honestly, which one is the seme…?”
“Who knows.”
“No, if we’re going for something easy to understand, it’s Kotone-san. Cool prince × cute princess, that sort of thing. Kotone-san actually does have a tendency to push other people around, so in terms of shoujo manga, maybe she’s the selfish-prince type?”
“I see.”
“But no, that’s not it! Shirai-san has this strange kind of power, doesn’t she? The way she acts towards Charlotte-san, how she says exactly what she doesn’t like. So maybe Shirai-san is actually the selfish princess? At that point, the prince-and-princess metaphor doesn’t work anymore. I want something… more realistic! I hate how limited my vocabulary is!”
“You’re doing remarkably well simply knowing the word ‘vocabulary’.”
Sanae could do little but stare in amazement at the kaleidoscope of Toko’s fantasies.
“Still, it’s impressive how you manage to exaggerate people so thoroughly while capturing their personalities so accurately.”
“All second-generation-fan-fiction otaku can do that!”
“I see.”
Toko’s hobby was, after all, the act of taking the real relationships between women involved in the fateful event that had brought Sanae and Toko together, the very Yuri Meeting itself, and freely embellishing them.
It was something she could never reveal to the women in question.
And yet, Sanae thought, that was fine.
If it could not be revealed, all she had to do was keep it hidden.
Fortunately, Sanae had experience with keeping things hidden.
Even if this happy life would end the moment they let their guard down, the two of them would remain bound together until the instant they died.
“…Thank you, Sanae. For saving me.”
“Where did that come from?”
“Nothing. I just remembered something. You’ve been fighting to protect me ever since back then.”
Naturally, Sanae wanted to say.
But the words that should have followed would not come.
Of course she possessed more than enough emotion. And she understood that, like Toko, it would probably be better to simply hurl those feelings out into the open.
But somehow, the words I love you always caught in Sanae’s throat like a fish bone.
It was not that she was too embarrassed to say them.
They simply did not feel right to her.
Expressing affection face-to-face was not her style, and she had never done such a thing in her life before. She did not know how.
That was Sanae’s problem.
“That’s…”
“Hehe. It’s okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to force yourself. Even if you don’t tell me, I can tell. I really can.”
Unlike Charlotte, the sort of woman who could not help but suspect others, Yanase Toko was the sort of woman who would make Sanae worry precisely because she hardly seemed capable of suspicion at all.
But that meant Toko understood the feelings Sanae never put into words.
If Sanae had to compare it to something, it was like an old-fashioned household with a slightly patriarchal bent.
The husband says nothing, but his wife understands everything and follows him.
“…That makes me a little sad.”
Sanae wanted to be Toko’s equal.
Even if Sanae was the one earning their living expenses, Toko was the one supporting their life together.
They were equals because each supported the other with whatever they were good at.
But if Sanae could not bring herself to tell Toko that she loved her, could she really call them equals?
“You’re thinking about something complicated again?”
“…Wouldn’t Toko be happier if I expressed my affection more openly, like Kurosu-san?”
“Why? The person I fell in love with was Sanae.”
“But I… Since the day I proposed to you, I haven’t told you that I love you. Is that really all right…?”
Toko hummed thoughtfully for a while. Then, apparently understanding something, she popped her lips with a little pu.
“It’s okay. I’m not like Charlotte-san. And Sanae isn’t like Kurosu-san, either.”
“What do you mean…?”
From behind her, Toko embraced Sanae.
Warm, sweet, and suffocating.
This time, it was Sanae’s turn to make a tiny “Gweh.”
“MikoSha is MikoSha, and we have our own relationship. You don’t need to compare us. You’re you, Sanae.”
“…I see.”
“That ‘I see’ sounded kind of happy!”
“I see.”
“Ah, that one was more like, ‘Yes, yes, I understand already,’ with half an exasperated tone?”
“That’s right.”
Sanae was glad she had fallen in love with this woman.
A happiness sweeter than any confection settled softly in the pit of her stomach.
“But I still enjoy watching MikoSha the most! Read this one next! It’s one of my best!”
“Yes, yes.”
Sanae decided to humour her wife, Toko, who was proudly snorting through her nose with excitement over her hobby.
Title: The Vampire at the Window
Theme: The melancholy and secret love of two people who hurt each other despite not wanting to cause each other pain.
Cast:
Charlotte … A young lady living in a secluded mansion. Mikoto’s mistress.
Kurosu Mikoto … Charlotte’s attendant. A vampire hiding her true nature.
Sanae immediately regretted deciding to humour her hobby.
“I’m having trouble following this.”
“Of course you are. Not many people could understand the story from nothing but the theme and cast list.”
“That isn’t what I mean…”
Sanae could understand from the opening theme what Toko intended to do with the story.
Since there was a vampire involved, presumably she wanted to have the usual back-and-forth about whether or not the vampire would drink blood.
The problem was the casting.
――However she looked at it, the roles were obviously reversed.
Certainly, Kurosu Mikoto was tall and striking enough to play a vampire.
But if the intention was to make the vampire seem like an otherworldly being, surely Charlotte, with her blonde hair, amber eyes, foreign features, and the air of a woman of the night made entirely of lies, was far more suited to the role.
Yet Sanae knew that such an idea would never be accepted.
Because, according to Toko, ShaMiko was a gyaku-kap and therefore a jigen.
If that was such a ridiculous “landmine”, Sanae felt like stamping on it hard enough to blow off a foot or an arm.
Then she remembered that, once before, exactly this sort of thing had escalated into a lovers’ quarrel.
“Don’t worry, you’ll understand once you read it! Start here on page two. This is the scene where Charlotte discovers that Mikoto is a vampire!”
“I see…”
Reluctantly, Sanae ventured into Toko’s world of fantasy.
A violent storm accompanied by thunder battered the windows.
The uncertain flame of an oil lamp illuminated Mikoto’s face as she stood beside the bed.
Her face was pale in a way it normally was not.
Her four canine teeth, usually concealed because she never opened her mouth particularly wide when she spoke, were sharply pointed, like those of a savage wild beast.
“Mikoto-san, you…”
Charlotte was bewildered.
By this other face of Kurosu Mikoto, her obedient and elegant attendant.
Still in her nightclothes, she wrapped the bedsheet around herself and instinctively backed away from Mikoto.
“I’m sorry, Lady Charlotte.”
Mikoto gently closed her lips as she usually did and gave a wry smile.
Let us pretend none of this happened.
Her expression alone seemed to say it.
She opened the bedroom window.
The curtains billowed in the rain and wind that rushed inside.
Mikoto standing there among them was the very image of the monster Charlotte had heard about in bedtime stories.
“…You were a vampire.”
“I’m sorry I kept it from you. As you have surmised, I am a vampire who cannot survive without feeding upon the blood of maidens.”
Lightning illuminated Mikoto’s face.
The expression visible for that instant was nothing like the cruel vampire of bedtime stories.
It was sorrowful, suffused with deep pity and melancholy.
The sight of Mikoto standing there beneath the burden of the vampire’s tragic fate made Charlotte’s chest tighten.
“Will you not drink my blood?”
Mikoto was a terrifying vampire.
Charlotte herself did not understand why those were the first words that came to her lips in the presence of such a creature.
“At first, I served you so that I might one day drink your blood. But the longer I remained at your side, the more I found myself hesitating.”
“You… love me?”
“It would seem so, my lady.”
Mikoto placed one foot on the window frame.
She looked as though she intended to leap into the raging storm outside.
“Where are you going in the rain at this hour of the night?”
“A vampire whose true nature has been discovered must either disappear or kill you.”
“Kill me…!”
Charlotte caught her breath.
Perhaps sensing her agitation, Mikoto gently admonished her.
“Please, be at ease. I would disappear rather than kill you. I am sorry I cannot continue to serve you until the end.”
“Wait!”
Charlotte’s feet moved of their own accord.
She sprang from the bed and threw herself at Mikoto, who was clinging to the window frame.
Their balance immediately gave way.
The two bodies slipped from the window frame and fell onto the bedroom floor.
Mikoto twisted herself around at the last moment to shield Charlotte, her back striking the floorboards.
“You must not try to stop a vampire. It’s dangerous, my lady.”
“…No! I don’t want to be separated from you!”
Charlotte poured out everything she had been holding inside.
For years now, ever since Mikoto had come to serve her at her side after moving to this mansion, Charlotte had not wanted to lose her.
It was not merely the feeling one had for a trusted attendant.
It was something more.
“You really are as selfish as ever, my lady.”
“Yes, I am selfish! And precisely because I am selfish, I don’t want to let you go!”
“Then I will have no choice but to kill you. I cannot remain with you if I do that.”
“Then I’ll lie!”
“Lie?”
Charlotte surrendered herself to Mikoto.
She was held by a body cold and pale, devoid of any trace of blood.
Whether she was the monster from the bedtime stories, whether she was a vampire, Mikoto was still her precious attendant.
And yet, merely being close to her, merely meeting her gaze, made Charlotte’s body grow warm.
“…I don’t know your true nature. Whatever sort of being you may be, you are a precious person to me. So please, stay by my side…”
“I cannot do that, my lady. I cannot live without drinking blood. I have been unable to drink your blood, and I have not tasted living blood for years. Before long, this body of mine will wither away.”
“Then drink my blood. Live.”
Charlotte undid the buttons of her nightclothes.
Her smooth, pale neck was illuminated by the lightning and the oil lamp.
“…If you stay by my side, I am not afraid of anything.”
“But that…”
“If it is my selfishness… No. If you are my attendant, then obey my orders. Mikoto.”
Mikoto’s illuminated face seemed at once surprised and sorrowful, yet also touched by some deeper melancholy.
Looking down at Mikoto like that, Charlotte finally realised that the feelings she held were something beyond the relationship between mistress and servant.
“I love you, and that is why I do not want to hurt you…”
“If you love me, then hurt me as I wish…”
She turned her body around.
Mikoto pressed Charlotte against the floor, leaving her looking up at the vampire.
Mikoto’s pale face, illuminated by the light, was more beautiful than anything in this world.
“…I’m sorry. Can you bear the pain?”
“If it is the pain of the lie I told, then I can.”
Mikoto’s face drew closer.
Not towards her lips, but towards the exposed side of her neck.
The sensation of her breath and the soft touch of her tongue made Charlotte’s neck tremble.
“Mnh…!”
Mikoto’s lips fastened themselves to Charlotte’s neck.
She drew in the air as though determined not to let a single drop escape, keeping herself pressed close.
Four sharp canine teeth traced the surface of her delicate skin.
For an instant, Charlotte felt Mikoto’s gaze.
A silent question:
Are you really sure?
Charlotte wrapped her arms around Mikoto’s back and held her close.
“Love me, Mikoto…”
After silently reading all the way to the end of the notebook, Sanae leaned back against Toko.
From behind, she could hear Toko’s breathing and her delighted voice close to her ear.
“Well? What do you think? I tried to aim for aestheticism!”
“I understand what you were trying to do, but Charlotte is not nearly so meek a woman. This is what you so often call a ‘difference in interpretation’.”
“This is how she is in my head! When she’s alone with Kurosu-san, she becomes like this!”
“I see.”
Sanae had been about to argue.
But it hardly seemed worthwhile to argue and risk another lovers’ quarrel.
Interpretation was a matter of individual perspective.
If this was how Toko saw things, then this was how they were.
At least in Toko’s mind.
Even so, swallowing her unspoken disagreement whole felt somehow unsatisfying.
So, as a form of protest, Sanae turned around to face Toko.
Imagining the vampire who had appeared in the story, she gently sank her teeth into Toko’s neck.
“Hehe. Vampire Sanae is so cute~!”
“Hohoehuhwa.”
Still biting her, Sanae made a muffled sound of agreement that amounted to I see.
Most things in the world went smoothly for Sanae.
She was a gifted woman who had always believed that if she worked hard enough, things would work out, and had generally managed to make them do so.
There was, however, one woman she had never learned to handle.
Her wife, Toko.
Ever since the days when they had been senior and junior colleagues at their former workplace, Toko had constantly thrown Sanae off balance and kept her worrying.
Gradually, that concern had changed into something impossible to name.
Before she knew it, Sanae had even reached the point where she felt she would be willing to commit wrongdoing for Toko’s sake.
In fact, she had.
The reason she wanted Toko so desperately, even to that extent, was surely because she loved her.
Sanae thought so as she continued to nibble gently at Toko’s neck.
Her warmth.
The scent that clung to her.
Her cheerful, smiling voice.
Her slightly absent-minded nature.
Everything about her was dear.
Toko drew something out of Sanae that even Sanae herself had never known was hidden inside her, something buried beneath the cold, straightforward woman everyone, herself included, knew her to be.
Sanae was happy to discover those feelings she herself had never known existed.
She was happy that she could direct them towards Toko, the person she loved most.
“I love you, Sanae~.”
“Fhai.”
“…Hey, shall we just do it like this?”
The words made Sanae’s heart leap, and she instinctively recoiled.
She had been thinking exactly the same thing as Toko, and the realisation left her momentarily speechless.
“I do have work tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on. It’s telework anyway. You could probably work without even getting out of bed, Sanae.”
With Toko gazing at her, cheeks faintly flushed, even Sanae’s straightforward nature seemed in danger of being warped.
But the reason they had this life together was because of work.
Because Hibiya Trading needed Sanae.
To live up to the expectations of a company that paid her a salary far beyond what one would expect of an ordinary employee in General Affairs, Sanae forcibly suppressed the desire welling up inside her with an iron will and resolutely set her jaw.
“I will do my work properly. It is for the sake of our life together, Toko.”
“Aww…”
Toko flopped helplessly onto the Sofa That Turns Humans into Useless Beings.
“But,” Sanae added.
“…I suppose I can stay up a little late.”
“Right!? Let’s stay up, let’s stay up! Come here, my vampire!”
“I’m going to brush my teeth.”
“I can’t wait that long!”
Toko took her by the hand, and Sanae found herself being pulled down over the Toko Who Turns Humans into Useless Beings.
Wrapped in Toko’s warm, soft body, the Sanae even Sanae herself had never known was there, the one Toko had dragged out into the light, gradually covered her iron-clad reason.
Perhaps becoming useless was not such a bad thing after all.
Thinking that, Sanae drowned herself in her love for Toko.