Chapter 6: CH 6

After enduring an awkward dinner, both of us said we’d go to the convenience store and left the house. And, having walked a decent distance, we griped.

“That was SUPER awkward…”

“It was even more awkward for me, you know? Or what, you want to try coming to live at my house, Yuuki?”

“That, please don’t even joke about it. My body won’t be able to take it.”

“Haah…”

“Huu…”

We slowly continue to walk towards the convenience store while carrying many different thoughts in our minds.

The outside was cold, making our breaths become white clouds in the air.

All that aside, we really were in quite the incredible situation here…

“Say, where did we make a mistake?”

“Wouldn’t it be around the time we mistakenly thought taxing would be incurred in the lottery? If at that time we had calmly analyzed it, we may have prevented more than a few blunders, no?”

“We were so out of our minds at that time that we ended up doing weird things. Yeah, very weird things.”

“We had truly gone crazy there…”

In order to be able to face the future problems, we start to deride our past actions.

We are falling into a spiral of negative thinking.

Having felt slightly that this is no good, I move and break out of it.

“Come on, lend me your hand.”

“Hm?”

I grabbed Suzuka’s extended hand.

Her hand, which had been until just now stuffed inside her pockets, is warm.

“We are married now, so let’s try and search for all the merits that brings us. For example, in this wintry weather, your hands get numb from the cold and there’s not much you can do. But, if we do this, they can warm up, no? That sort of thing.”

“It’s less cold if you simply stuff them in your pockets like normal.”

“…Uh, right.”

I tried to let go of Suzuka’s hand, however, she squeezed it and held on to it with even greater force.

“It’d be a waste to let go now after all that, no?”

“Yeah.”

Contrary to my expectations, she wanted to continue holding hands, despite them not feeling any heat.

However,

“Okay, it’s really cold out here. Let’s let go.”

“Yeah.”

It would seem there was no way for me to win against the cold.

What can you expect? It would have been better had we been a lovey-dovey couple that held hands 24/7, but we’re a couple that sort of crumbled their way into marriage.

This is what you get from that.

We walked a bit longer after that and arrived at the convenience store, which we entered.

Because our whole reason for coming to the convenience store was that we couldn’t tolerate being in the house any longer, we don’t really have anything we’re looking to buy…

Still, we grabbed some simple snacks and juice and other simple things and put them inside the basket.

As I allowed myself to dilly dally around the interior of the convenience store, I suddenly noticed the absence of Suzuka.

Where did she go? And when I go to look for her,

“I looked for them, but they were already sold out.”

“… Are you kidding me?”

“That’s because! It’s necessary in case the time comes!”

The certain thing that Suzuka was looking for in the convenience store.

Better safe than sorry.

Or more like, it’s something you absolutely cannot forego.

“True, it may be a necessity for you… In order to protect yourself.”

“Gross! Stop it! I really felt a chill run down my spine…”

“Hey, there’s no need to say it like that, right? Also, are you fine not buying anything?”

“No. I’ll buy something. Just wait a moment!”

She hurriedly took the item that had caught her eyes and puts it inside my basket.

Next, we proceeded to the checkout and payed.

I may not have been hungry today, but, unexpectedly, there were many new delicious-looking new products released today.

As such, I left the store with a shopping bag slightly on the heavier side.

The convenience store is located precisely at the center of the path from mine and Suzuka’s house.

There’s no way she could forget that we just started to live together and head over to the direction her house is…

{ED/N: Yes she could}

“Augh! Don’t grab my hood so abruptly!”

“Then how about you? Just where were you heading right now?”

“Ah! I was about to go back to my house like normal…”

“See?”

“Still, that’s no reason to grab me by the hood. That’s domestic violence, do-mes-tic vi-o-lence!”

Maybe I grabbed her neck stronger than I imagined.

In order to somehow calm down the slightly angered Suzuka, I took out a chocolate from the shopping bag.

“Here, eat this and get back in a good mood.”

“Are you treating me like a child?”

“Would you rather I made you a woman?”

“…”

“I’m sorry… I was gross beyond words. Please forgive me.”

As we were having fun playing along with the tsukkomi, we happened to meet with our neighbor.

{ED/N: I will never ever ever understand what tsukkomi is in my life}

“You two sure are close, how cu~te.”

She greeted us with an extremely gentle look in her eyes.

There’s no mistake about this. The fact that Suzuka and I got married was spreading around like gossip.

I mean, that kind gaze of hers can’t be for any other reason.

“I’m starting to feel like all our escape routes are getting closed off one by one.”

“W-well… It’ll be fine…”

While I may have spoken like that, my heart was filled to the brim with anxiety.

We had our backs drenched in cold sweat after that.

Mom had done us the favor of taking care of preparing the bath for us while we were out at the convenience store.

Suzuka was enthused by the idea and after saying, ‘I’ll take your kind offer’, she went on first to the bath.

So, I decided to go back to my room and wait for Suzuka to finish bathing. Notwithstanding,

“Wait right there.”

“Mom? Did something happen?”

“We need to have an important conversation. You two will be living together. It’s only normal for your sense of morality to become lax. You must remember that under no conditions must you make Suzuka feel offended. If by some chance you happen to do so… You know what’ll happen, right?”

Her eyes are not joking.

There’s not a trace of anything but seriousness in her.

To try and laugh it off out of embarrassment.

I get the sensation that, at this moment, in this situation, that is the one thing that I must never do.

“I know. I won’t let Suzuka feel offended in any way.”

“Ok. In that case, I feel assured.”

My mother’s expression changes to one of relief.

Seeing that, I too managed to relax.

It is precisely because we are in a ‘trial marriage’ that we must proceed with caution.

There’s no doubt that, if we felt compelled to keep this relation because of having had sex, it would only bring us pain.

I go to my room while carrying all these complicated feelings inside of me.

My bed is so small that if the two of us slept there, there’d be no room to even turn over in it.

Consequently, we moved a desk that was in the room to a corner and laid out a futon.

There’s no reason for me to continue to explain why we laid out a futon, right?

“How many years has it been since we last slept in the same room?”

I let myself be carried away into my memories.

That was, back when we were 4 years old, if I’m not mistaken.

Tired from having played outside, Suzuka and I entered the house, washed our hands and rinsed our mouths, ate some snacks, and being both in the middle of dozing off, we took a nap on a futon.

I woke up from the nap, and seeing the small face of Suzuka sleeping next to me, I took the opportunity to play some pranks on her, like pinching her cheeks slightly, or sticking my finger in her nose.

It’s with that partner of pranks with whom I will once again lay beside and sleep.

“I think I’m getting a little sentimental here. Well then, I should finish preparing my change of clothes.”

I had every intention of being next in line after Suzuka leaves the bath.

I was thinking of taking out my change of clothes from the cabinet, but for some reason, I ended up pulling open the drawers from the corner of it that I lent to Suzuka.

“Goodness! I had seen her underwear earlier but… So, this is what a girl’s clothing is like.”

Pressing my hand to my chin as I interjected to myself ‘oh ho’, I continued to appraise Suzuka’s present day clothes.

She’s already that age, after all.

There’s a sharp drop in the amount of cute clothes, and now most of them were of the beautiful and elegant kind.

As I continued to stare fixedly at Suzuka’s clothes out of sheer curiosity, someone covered my eyes from behind me.

“Who is i~t?”

“Suzuka, right?”

“Correct! What’s this, huh? Couldn’t help being interested in my clothes?”

She has found herself a new toy.

Her eyes ablaze, she plunged over towards me with full intent to make fun of me.

Since I’m the one at fault, I stood still in defeat, unable to say anything.

I had no other choice but to take my own change of clothes and head towards the bath.

“Ah! I forgot my underpants.”

I realized after coming down the stairs, on the verge of entering the bathroom.

Having noticed the absence of my underpants, I went back to my room and found someone doing the exact same thing I had been doing just a few moments ago.

“Teehee? I couldn’t help being interested too?”

“Well, I was the one who lost to my curiosity and peeked at your clothes first. Notwithstanding, I’ll say this. For someone who so vehemently instigates others, you can’t hide behind that kind of line.”

“Ehehe, sorry?”

She cutely brought her hands together and looked at me with puppy eyes.

Dammit, I’ll admit it, she’s cute! With such thoughts in my mind, I took the forgotten underpants in my hand and went back to the bathroom.