/
Chapter 172
I am way too soft on Miyagi — 172
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
One week into summer vacation.
We promised to go somewhere together, but we haven’t decided where to go. Not that there are no options, but there is no place that is the right one.
「Miyagi.」
From the bed, I pulled Miyagi’s hair as she sits on the floor reading a manga. The tip of my sloppily lying body connects with Miyagi’s just a little, and I feel my heart rate increase.
「Sendai-san, what’s this all about?」
Miyagi, whose back was against the bed, kept her back to me and slapped my hand with a heel.
I know how she feels.
If she pulled my hair three times in about ten minutes, I would say the same thing, even if it wasn’t Miyagi.
「I just thought I’d see if you were free.」
As I can imagine, I can’t ask her to look at me instead of the anime, and I don’t think I could compete with the cartoon for fun and I wouldn’t win.
It’s not that I don’t want the best in Miyagi. But it should be better to maintain the status quo now that she comes to my room even though she has no business here.
The first time she did something in this room that a normal roommate wouldn’t have done, Miyagi disappeared, but that didn’t happen this time. She was still coming to my room and spending time with me as we have in the past, and I think we should cherish those times.
「Read this…」
Miyagi grabs one of the manga from the pile on the floor and places it on the bed.
「I read this the other day.」
「Why don’t you read it again?」
「I’m tired of reading manga, let’s go out.」
「Have you decided where to go?」
Miyagi, whose back had been turned the whole time, closed the manga she was reading and looked at me.
「A trip to hot springs.」
「…As in right now?」
「Right now.」
「I don’t think it’s time to go on a hot springs trip.」
「Why don’t you stay here?」
It’s still early in the evening, but it’s been that long since we had lunch, so I can’t call it a day trip if we’re going on a onsen now. Considering the time it takes to travel, we will have to stay where we go.
「…Aren’t we two going somewhere together for a day trip?」
「What if I told you it’s not a day trip?」
「You haven’t booked a place to stay, have you?」
「Even if I don’t have a reservation, there are places we can stay.」
「Sendai-san, it’s really random, isn’t it? Generally speaking, even if there was a place to stay, I wouldn’t go there. If I had known you were talking about going somewhere like that, I wouldn’t have said I was going in the first place.」
「I knew you would say that.」
I knew her answer before I asked, but there was no punishment for asking. I should at least try to see if my faint hope that it might be a good idea would become a reality.
——Today, though, my expectations were disappointed.
「Sendai-san, think about where we’re going.」
Miyagi sounds dissatisfied.
「I’ve been thinking about it, but…」
The destination doesn’t have to be an onsen, nor are we obsessed with travel.
「What’s the place like?」
「Nhn— I’m still on the fence, and I’ll tell you when I decide.」
There are a number of places the two of us would like to go together, but there is no place that we say it has to be here, so we want to go somewhere Miyagi can enjoy. However, the requirement of a place where Miyagi can be enjoyed is too difficult to narrow down the destination.
The movies are not fresh because we have both been there in the past.
Shopping is fine with college friends, but Miyagi and I don’t have the same interests. There is a way to go with her hobbies, but if I ask her to go to such a place, she is likely to refuse. I thought about art galleries and museums, but if I asked her to go there, even though we don’t have any common interests, it would be, something like, too much like a date to ask her out.
I don’t usually get lost thinking about where to go for fun, but when Miyagi is involved, all I can do is get lost.
「We don’t have to go anywhere anymore.」
Miyagi throws down and opens the manga.
I pull her hair lightly before Miyagi’s gaze falls on the book at hand and I regain her gaze.
Just like last summer vacation, Miyagi is by my side.
And the relationship is more advanced than last year.
If I were told to be satisfied with just that, I would be, but since we had promised to go out together, it would be a shame to simply accept her words, 「We don’t have to go anywhere.」
「Summer vacation just started, so there’s no need to rush into a decision. Just wait a little.」
Unlike when we were in high school, summer vacation continues well into September, so there is no need to rush. Our summer is longer than last year and we can be together much longer than last year.
「Sendai-san, you have a part-time job, so we don’t have to go out. If you have a part-time job…」
Miyagi says tiresomely, and pushes my stomach, which I am lying on the bed, gently.
「I only have a part-time job the same day of the week as usual, and I’m not busy.」
Certainly there will be tutoring jobs during the summer vacation as well, but they will not increase just because of the vacation. And I do not intend to increase it. No, I was thinking of adding another part-time job, but I came to the conclusion that I don’t need it this summer vacation. If I were to add something, it wouldn’t be a part-time job, but time spent with Miyagi.
「If you’re not busy, get more part-time work. I’m getting hot and at home.」
My thoughts are not conveyed, and Miyagi pushes my stomach again with a hand as if she thinks people are big stuffed animals.
As she said, it is much hotter behind the lace curtains than in this air-conditioned room, and she insists that it is now mid-summer. I don’t understand why they would rather stay home than go out, but I don’t want to accept that feeling.
「I’m not planning to get more part-time jobs at the moment. But that’s not the point. Don’t you have anywhere you want to go, Miyagi?」
I know she won’t answer, but I’m going to ask her just the same.
「Sendai-san, you promised you would decide where to go.」
Miyagi says in a slightly low voice and now pats my stomach.
Her touch is not much different from when she presses my stomach. When the stuffed animal is touched as if it were being stroked over clothes, it does not seem to be treated much differently from the platypus near Miyagi.
It’s better than being bitten or kicked, and I’m happy if she like my body parts, but I have a problem with her hands that want to tell me I’m a living person, not a stuffed animal.
「Miyagi.」
When I call her out, the hand that was moving stops. I get off the bed and sit down next to Miyagi and reach for her. I touch her hair, kiss her earring and quickly part my lips.
「Did you have to kiss me now?」
I can hear the discontent in her voice.
「There it was. I promised to decide where to go, and I swore I wouldn’t break it.」
「It’s not the kind of promise you make.」
「It’s safer to take an oath, right?」
When I smiled at her, Miyagi opened her mouth to say something, but since it was a complaint about me anyway, I put my fingertips to her lips and took away her words. Miyagi looks at me with thin open lips. When I brought my face close to her, her brow wrinkled for a moment, then she quietly closed her eyes. That means I am allowed to kiss her, and I seal her lips.
When I bring my lips tightly together and insert my tongue, Miyagi accepts me without resistance. The tip of my tongue mingles easily with Miyagi’s.
Miyagi is forgiving during summer vacation.
She allowed me to touch her, as I did last year.
If it is because of the season of summer, I wish summer would last forever.
I part my lips and kiss her again to engage Miyagi more deeply than before. Her lips and tongue were warm, soft and nice, and I wanted to touch Miyagi more, so I grabbed her arm, but the temperature in this room was too cool for her, or the part I touched was cool. I savor the warm and cold Miyagi before parting my lips.
「You’re kissing me too much.」
Miyagi blurts out and moves a little away from me.
「If you let me kiss you more, we don’t have to go out.」
I don’t want to lose the appointment I have made, but I don’t have to go out depending on the conditions. I spent most of last year’s summer vacation inside the house, and indoor activities aren’t so bad.
「More, you say?」
I touch Miyagi’s cheek and slide my fingers down to her neck.
「Not just today, but all summer long, in various places.」
I followed the neck of her T-shirt and stroked her collarbone. Then, as I pulled my face to her neck, Miyagi pressed my shoulders.
「You swore an oath to decide where we’re going, so you’d better keep it.」
Miyagi stares at me, apparently choosing to go out rather than kiss me.
「Miyagi is being stingy.」
「I’m not stingy.」
「But you’re are.」
「…I wish there wasn’t more.」
Miyagi says in a small voice that I might miss if I’m not careful.
「Eh? Why now?」
The words were in my ears and I understood what they meant, but I couldn’t help but listen back.
「Miyagi.」
I called out her name, but she remained silent and said nothing. So I put my lips over Miyagi’s to make sure that the words I heard were correct.
Kissing is not refused.
But when I tried to part my lips and touch her neck, she pushed me away.
「We’re done for the day.」
I knew it, Miyagi is forgiving during summer vacation, after all.
And this kind of Miyagi is cunning.
When I am forgiven like this, I can only assume that Miyagi’s feelings are for me.
In my mind, I weigh the present situation, where there is a tolerant Miyagi who willingly speaks up to kiss me if not more, and the future that lies ahead of confirming my feelings.
Without having to think too much about it, the current situation with Miyagi, who is generous enough to offer herself for a kiss, is more appealing, and I don’t want to lose that by confirming my feelings.
When I keep quiet, Miyagi opens the manga and begins to read it.
Only the small sound of flipping through the paper can be heard.
I remembered her cold arm and turned up the air conditioner setting once.