← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 3
Chapter 31: Returning Home, And...
Chapter 31: Returning Home, And…
The trains had been suspended, with no prospect of service resuming. The rain showed no sign of stopping, and he couldn’t leave a girl her age on her own.
…Which was how Tsutomu ended up returning to his apartment with Matsurika in tow, chanting “We’re friends, we’re friends” in his mind over and over.
He’d gone along when Matsurika said she wanted to stop at a convenience store on the way, but she wouldn’t tell him what she’d bought. Even inside the store, when he tried to get near her, she visibly threatened him with her glare.
He couldn’t help but think it was unreasonable, but he forced himself to accept it: “My stepsister had moments like this too.”
“I thought this last time too, but you really live in a nice place.”
After passing through the apartment entrance, riding the elevator, and walking down the hallway—that was Matsurika’s first line as she opened the door to Tsutomu’s apartment and stepped inside.
It wasn’t simply a compliment; her tone betrayed a note of surprise. The fact that her unfiltered emotions never came across as spiteful was one of her rare qualities.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Hmm? Kariya-kun, do you dislike this house… achoo”
Matsurika looked puzzled at Tsutomu’s indifferent reply, but a sneeze cut her off before she could finish.
Tsutomu had subtly shielded her along the way, but she’d forced her way through the raging rain regardless, leaving her soaked to the bone. Her thin summer clothes clung to her skin, her underwear visible through the wet fabric. A wet see-through—the romance of every man. He couldn’t help but pump his fist in triumph.
Matsurika noticed Tsutomu’s lecherous gaze, wrapped her arms around herself, put distance between her and the owner of that gaze—who was also the owner of this home—and glared at him with half-lidded eyes.
“She looks like a stray cat.” He’d had a completely off-base thought. Tsutomu was a cat person. He often trawled for cat videos, not just erotic images.
“Kariya-kun, listen… achoo”
“You okay, Tachibana?”
“Ha… achoo! M-maybe not.”
“It’d be a problem if you caught a cold here.”
“I know that… but, hey, can I take a bath?”
“Hm.”
Tsutomu thought Matsurika’s request was perfectly reasonable. She’d gotten soaked in the rain and her body had turned cold. It wasn’t good for a girl to let her body get cold, especially. So she’d take a bath to warm up. There was nothing wrong with it. Tsutomu had been planning to do the same.
“Can I?”
“No, it’s not that you can’t… achoo”
As he hesitated, Tsutomu’s nose tickled, and he ended up sneezing too. He’d been so focused on Matsurika, but Tsutomu himself was drenched as well. Rainwater had even seeped into his shoes, and he’d been enduring that unpleasant sensation all the way back. Either way, they were in a miserable state. If Matsurika weren’t here, he’d have jumped into the bathroom and showered immediately.
“See, Kariya-kun, you’ll catch a cold too.”
“Y-yeah, I guess.”
He had no objection to taking a bath. No objection at all, but… he couldn’t nod so readily.
“Oh, I just thought of something good.”
“…What?”
Matsurika’s bright voice rang with an ominous note. There was absolutely no way she was going to say anything good. They hadn’t known each other for that long, but he could tell by instinct. Tsutomu braced himself to withstand whatever she might say.
“Want to get in together? The bath.”
“…Are you for real? Are you being serious?”
He’d figured she’d say something like that. But hearing it out loud, its destructive power exceeded his imagination, and the sheer impact froze his brain for an instant. Entranced by her see-through uniform, her soft limbs, and the water droplets trailing down her pale skin, he swallowed hard.
At the reaction wired directly to his lower body, Matsurika—the one who’d made the suggestion—visibly flinched.
“Sorry, that was a lie. Let’s take that back before I get pregnant.”
“Pregnant… I think I need to hear, once and for all, what kind of man I am in your head, Tachibana.”
“Um… a perverted one?”
“…I’ll heat up the bath, so you go in first.”
“Okay~”
When he handed her a towel, Matsurika began to wipe her soaking-wet hair and skin. Every single gesture was absurdly alluring. Gratifying, yet maddening. Making a deliberate effort not to look her way, Tsutomu dried himself off as he prepared the bath—
—damn it. He’d been swept along by the atmosphere.
The impact of the phrase “bath together” had hijacked his mind, and before he knew it, he’d agreed to let Matsurika take a bath.
“Well, it’s fine, I guess.”
His body was cold and his strength was spent. Even if he were to spend the night as things were, he’d have ended up taking a bath at some point anyway. If he thought of it as her having saved him the trouble of dithering over “maybe this, maybe that,” he couldn’t bring himself to flatly refuse.
…
In truth, by the time he’d gotten home, he’d realized, “Couldn’t I just lend her the money for a taxi?” But the atmosphere was no longer one in which he could suggest it. Matsurika was perceptive and quick-witted. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d made her move before Tsutomu could regain his composure. He certainly couldn’t bring himself to say, “Did you want to stay over at my place that badly?” to her face.
He heard the bathroom door slide open. She’d already taken off her wet clothes. At this point, he couldn’t very well kick Matsurika out of his home.
“All I have to do is stay strong.”
Tsutomu deliberately said it aloud. As if telling himself—and no one else.
★
Outside the window, the rain, which had intensified again and again, roared down. The sound of droplets hammering against the glass mixed with the howl of the wind whipping through.
And yet, what stole Tsutomu’s attention as he dried himself in the living room was none of the violent sounds from outside.
It was the sound of water.
Not the oppressive rain—the light, flowing sound of water. A tone that should never have reached his ears echoed through Tsutomu’s mind again and again, unmistakably. The sound of the shower striking smooth skin. It had to be an auditory hallucination.
…
His body, which should have been chilled through from the rain, had begun to run an odd fever, starting in his head. His throat, which he’d moistened with barley tea, was parched, and his heart thumped with heavy, frantic beats. This wasn’t a question of being calm or not—his sanity itself was being ground away.
—It’s some kind of joke… No way, of course it isn’t.
In his own bathroom, Tachibana Matsurika was taking a shower. In nothing but the skin she was born with. He couldn’t see her, but it had to be so.
He’d had chances to see her body before. Many times. Because she was the academy’s idol and, at the same time, RIKA, the popular girl with a secret account for posting erotic images. Even so, the photos RIKA posted had always kept the R-18 parts hidden—wholesome, ostensibly.
But the body of Matsurika—aka RIKA—showering in this house right now surely had nothing hidden at all.
“Grrr…”
The image data of RIKA he’d collected so far was replaying at high speed in Tsutomu’s mind. Mixed in with the swimsuit photos Matsurika had sent him recently, the resolution was rising rapidly. The naked form derived from them. The background was his own familiar bathroom. Every single image was remarkably vivid. By compositing those two pictures, he’d made it possible to render an almost perfectly realistic shower scene.
The room beyond the wall was paradise. Precisely because he couldn’t see it, his imagination blazed to life.
Tsutomu’s delusions were on the verge of exploding. And his reason was on the verge of vanishing.
—Hurry up and come out… No, don’t come out!
There was no way she wouldn’t come out. If she stayed in the bath forever, Matsurika would boil. And if that happened, it would be Tsutomu’s role to rescue her, and the situation would only accelerate toward something even worse. So he needed her to come out.
But if he laid eyes on Matsurika after she’d gotten out of the bath, what in the world would happen? Tsutomu had no confidence in himself. He’d put up a brave front saying “all I have to do is stay strong,” but his will was wobbling, rattling, about to collapse at any moment.
“Tachibana…”
From behind Tsutomu—tormented by an absurd, contradictory wish—the sound of a door opening rang out.