LIGHTNOVELONLINE Arc 2, Ch.17: Well I didn’t expect that
She had a strict, black-haired ponytail and wore a pair of rimless glasses. Her eyes moved to me and she gave me a small smile as a greeting.
“You’re Watanabe, right?”
I had just nodded when, as summoned, Prez appeared behind her.
His face lit up at the sight of Mizuki, but before he could even open his mouth…
I was pointed at by Uruya, her eyes on Prez and not on me. “Watanabe Riku. Charity project.”
…
Uuuuhm?
Prez flushed. Actually, literally flushed in embarrassment, hurriedly pushing her arm down.
“I know!”, he hissed, earning himself a questioning head-tilt from her.
“Oh? Good, then.”
“We were in a project for three weeks!”
“I'm aware.”
I had completely, utterly lost where this conversation came from and where it was going. I peeked at Mizuki, but he didn’t really care that much and was just watching with a neutral face.
“I do recognize my friends”, Prez grumbled.
………. Huh?
Friends?
I-
What?
The system opened up his entry without me even thinking about it and my eyes fell unto his gauge. 43 points.
That… was actually within the points of friends…
How long had I not looked at this? The last time was before the charity event, but what was happening? Didn’t he totally disregard me?
My face was blank as Uruya shrugged at Prez.
“You never know. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose.”
“Uhm-”, I squeaked in a high-pitch, completely confused. She looked back at me while Prez turned his face away, awkward.
I knew the feeling, but it felt weird on his face.
“Sorry, I guess it's a bit weird to start a conversation like this. Do you know the concept of face blindness?”
No fucking idea. I shook my head and she explained.
“He doesn’t have it as bad, but basically, he forgets people’s faces as soon as he doesn’t see them for an hour or two. It takes him forever to recognize people and memorize their faces, so I’ve taken to just reminding him of who he’s talking to. That he’s bad with names doesn’t make it any better. It comes over as super rude, that's why I'm helping him out as much as possible.”
Wwwwwwwhat?
[Host, you yourself said that it seemed like he was treating you as someone he didn’t know.]
I mean, yes-
[His behaviour did change drastically after he memorized you during the event, as well.]
Uh-
[Also, he couldn’t recognize your during the swimming pool, after you had parted with him and then came back out of the water, meaning your hair was all wet.]
…
Is that actually a thing? Are you telling me, it’s actually possible that it was like this?
Prez cleared his throat.
“I don’t think it really is that bad.”
“It is. We are neighbors since childhood, but you only remembered me after half a year.”
Woow! Seriously??
Uruya sat down close to us, her movements graceful, and Prez sat down next to her.
After the initial awkwardness had passed, it wasn’t that bad to have them sit with us.
...So, what, in the end, I only imagined him disliking me? Out of all the things I could imagine that turned out to be true, this one was wrong?
Now I feel bad. I had felt... legitimate in my dislike of him before, but after getting to know him, he wasn't bad. Just that I don't like him around Mizuki...
I was kinda relieved when the two of them left the train.
Mizuki poked my arm, which I took as a question about what I was thinking about.
“I didn’t know he had that problem…”
“Does it matter?”
Did it?
I felt like a large chunk of the negative feelings I had amassed towards him just turned meaningless.
I slumped my shoulders in confusion.
“Wanna go eat something?”, Mizuki asked quietly.
Was he trying to lift my spirits? Aw.
I nodded.
Because it was a great day and sunny, my first reflex was to go eat ice cream. We had gotten off the train earlier and were walking around, making me feel all the more like icecream would be a great choice.
...Of course ice cream counts as food. Totally.
Mizuki had taken classic chocolate, I was going for melon. Satisfied and happy, I enjoyed the cool sensation.
For about five seconds. Ice cream had been a terrible, terrible choice.
After about fifteen seconds, Mizuki noticed me looking and commented.
“Your ice is dripping.”
Uh, it sure was. I hurriedly licked the drops away before turning away from him.
Holy motherfucking shit. I can’t ever eat ice cream with him again. At least not unless I wear a blindfold or something.
The tip of his red tongue peeked out between his slightly parted lips, brushing over the ice before hiding again, sometimes following the contours of his mouth to lick off remnants.
His eyes were lowered a bit, completely focused on the waffle cone in his hand.
Talk about temptation.
I had trouble swallowing. My mouth was all dry even though I was pretty much constantly intaking fluid through the ice cream.
A good minute after I had stopped watching Mizuki eat away, he just suspiciously halted and frowned.
I had been watching from the corner of my eye so I looked over after all, curious about what had made him stop.
“Something the matter?”, I asked, watching him twitch slightly and then glance at me.
He looked like he wanted to say something.
[No, he only just realized why you had been staring.]
...I could have lived without him realizing that.
Since he didn’t say anything, I took my chance to somewhat flee, quickening my steps.
He followed after, not saying anything, and we finished our cones in quiet.
I knew the area, and Mizuki probably, too, so I didn’t react with confusion when he took a swerve into one of the small alleys.
If you knew where they led, the alleys would be great shortcuts that were pretty much always deserted because adults never took them and there weren’t overly many teenagers around this area.
When Mizuki stopped walking, I stopped along.
He turned to look at me.
Somehow I felt that things were a bit weird, but I couldn’t point out what was wrong.
I gotta say, there was something I constantly forgot:
I was gay, but I wasn’t any less of a guy than anyone else. Mizuki was my boyfriend now, but he wasn’t any less of a guy than others, either.
Translation: Just as my mind would get stuck on the desire to kiss my boyfriend, so would Mizuki’s.
Well, not that I was aware of it at that moment.
I just stared blankly like some lost puppy as he came back to me and pulled me down by the collar of my uniform. He stretched up, then closed in.
I only really registered what was going on when he was suddenly so close that I could see every fine line of his eyelashes, along with the sensation of something pressing against my lips.
Still cold from the ice cream, a bit numb, but sensitive enough to register the kiss.
He pulled back again, hesitant.
My system kindly prodded me.
[It’s fine], it just said, and I inched after Mizuki’s retreating face with nervous, furrowed brows.
Was it?
My heart was fluttering and my pulse was running, but I liked the feeling. It wasn’t a bad sort of excitement.
Mizuki stopped retreating but instead waited as I advanced.
The whole day was ridiculous. Or rather, these whole days were ridiculous.
I was standing in some alley, kissing my boyfriend.
...I couldn’t be happier.
Mizuki’s eyes lowered when I was close enough that our breaths mingled, a fascinating thing to watch.
I hadn’t expected him to just let me do whatever, I had thought he would be back up at me considering he was the one who initiated it.
My hand lifted up to slightly tilt his chin, still expecting him to do something to gain back control.
Instead, he didn’t move, and I carefully placed my lips against his, not wanting to hurry and mess it up.
He hadn’t completely closed his mouth - I could tell his lips were still parted, which was a really, really mean temptation, and before I could stop myself, I was already brushing the tip of my tongue over his lower lip.
He shivered, closed the last open sliver of his eyes, and then I felt my hand on his chin move down along with him parting his lips further.
My self-control went ‘Fuck this shit’, waved a white flag and jumped out of the window. It was just praying that no one would use this alley right now.
I couldn’t stop myself from brushing my tongue past his lips, into the warmer cavity of his mouth.
In my life, I hadn’t had the chance to gather any experience about how to kiss but my lack of practice didn’t stop me from doing exactly what I wanted.
His tongue moved when it touched mine, a tingling sensation running through my body. I had never realized how sensitive my tongue actually was. It sent shivers through my body, partially excitement, partially just overflowing love.
...Tastes like chocolate.
We only kept it up for a few seconds, neither of us knowing how we should breathe in the meantime.
The wet, perverted sound that finished our kiss when I lightly sucked on his tongue and lips before retreating sent us both into an embarrassed wince.
I let go off him as I was burned, my scalded hand whipping back down as I stepped away.
For a single - and by that I mean really just one, one darn - second, Mizuki’s face was the perfect picture of a shy, embarrassed boy.
Right afterwards, it calmed, looking as if nothing happened. Only his eyes were averted a bit, but other than that, nothing was visible on his face.
Or maybe that second had been my imagination. I’ve given up trying to trust that.
