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The mountains of Hakone are the steepest in the world. Narumi takes the time to enjoy the view once she’s at the peak, blue skies stretching endlessly over the horizon and above her, the full bloom of spring erupting in deep greens and delicate pinks below, carrying the scent all the way up to where she stood. She breathes it all in, taking the moment to be grateful for the opportunity, before she makes her way back down to the foot of the mountain in a much lighter, calmer mood than she was in earlier that day.
Hirotaka’s waiting for her when she steps out of the cable car, looking up from his phone when the doors open to let the passengers out. Out of his regular suit and tie, in slim pants, a dark cableknit sweater that looks as soft as it feels, and a light scarf wrapped around his neck, he would have blended in among the throng of tourists making their way in and out of the station. But he’d always stood out to Narumi, something about his presence—maybe it’s the careful way he held himself, always at his own pace no matter how harried everyone else around him went—like a beacon in an ocean of bustle to her.
“Well?” he asks when she makes his way over to him. “Was it everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”
Narumi beams. It had been everything and more. She holds up her prize: a greeting-sized card into which the fresh outline of her favorite character was cleanly stamped in fresh purple ink. One down, four more to go. “It was perfect.”
The walk to the hotel is nice and pleasant, if a bit chilly. Narumi draws her own scarf tighter around her neck, fishing in the pockets of her coat for the gloves she’d thought, earlier, were too warm to wear.
“Are you cold?” Hirotaka asks, looking over his shoulder. “Should we get a taxi?”
“Oh, no, no, I’m fine!” she says, feeling the heat of embarrassment at being caught out rise to her cheeks. Well, that’s one way to keep warm, then. “My hands, a little, but I’ve got my gloves on now. Let’s keep walking, okay?”
“Hmm. Are you sure?”
Narumi nods. “We went to the station like I wanted, so we’ll walk to the hotel like you wanted,” she says. “That’s what we decided. And it really isn’t that cold, so—eh? What are you—?”
Hirotaka hums, testing the weight of Narumi’s overnight bag in his hand. “This is heavier than mine,” he says, matter-of-fact, but before Narumi can defend her packing habits, he adds, “At least let me carry it.”
“Ah. Okay.” Narumi blinks, watches Hirotaka easily shoulder the purple-and-pink bag in addition to the backpack he’d brought with him. “Is that—okay?”
“Hm? It’s not that heavy, but since it would probably help you get warmer faster, I thought—”
Narumi huffs. “Alright,” she says, remembering that Hirotaka had never been one to worry about what other people thought of him, unlike Narumi. Of course carrying a woman’s bag around is no big deal to him. A fresh burst of warmth blooms from deep in her chest, and she pulls her scarf up higher to cover her cheeks as she mumbles a quick, “Thank you.”
“A ryokan?” Narumi asks when they walk up to their lodgings, a traditional Japanese garden surrounding a regal-looking inn, wagashi and green tea waiting for them as they are checked in. The woman who’s handling their reservation has gone to retrieve their keys, bowing low when she left and leaving Narumi slumped against one of the most comfortable seats she’s ever been on. “You booked us a room in a ryokan?”
Hirotaka blinks. “We’re in Hakone,” he says, and—well, yes, but also—
“A suite?” Narumi asks when they step into their room, a rather spacious 8-mat area with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountains. She glances back at the genkan, where Hirotaka’s toeing off his shoes, one hand against the doorframe.
“It’s only a regular room,” he says. “The suite’s more expensive than this.”
“But this is—” she starts, pausing. It’s beautiful, and they are in Hakone, so the ryokan and the Japanese-style room do make sense, it’s just that she didn’t—when she suggested the trip, when she asked Hirotaka to make the arrangements because she was pulling all-nighters up against another deadline, she didn’t think—
“Narumi?”
“Is that a private onsen?”
“Narumi?” a familiar voice calls out, pulling Narumi out of her head. She straightens up, glancing back with uncertainty, because that sounded like—
Hanako’s familiar face breaks out into a delighted smile. Her hair is loosely tied at the back, glasses sliding down her nose, the ryokan-issued yukata wrapped snugly around her. Looming beside her, Kabakura cocks his head to the side, glancing at Narumi and Hirotaka with confusion.
“Hana-chan!” Narumi calls out, running up to her with a grin. “And Kabakura-senpai!”
“Weren’t you—” Kabakura starts, trailing off without finishing his question.
Hanako ignores him, slotting her fingers easily in between Narumi’s and pressing their palms together. “My, my, what a lovely coincidence!” she says, “I didn’t think we’d see you guys here! But of course you’d take advantage of Golden Week too, wouldn’t you?”
“I—”
“There was a limited run on stamps to collect from one of her shows,” Hirotaka says, holding up the pamphlet advertising the promotion. “They could only be found here.”
“It’s where the climax of the series happens!” Narumi explains, grabbing the pamphlet from Hirotaka’s hand. “They spend all season training for the marathon relay, and all the stamps can be collected in key moments for it! The station where they all met, the peak where the first significant baton-passing happens—”
“We still have four more stamps to collect,” Hirotaka adds helpfully.
Hanako covers her mouth with her palm, but it doesn’t hide the way her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes. “I see,” she says. “Then I suppose I was mistaken—”
“And anyway, I’m not the only one!” Narumi adds, pointing to Hirotaka. “He said he wanted to come here and look for rare Pokémon!”
Hanako rests her head against one of the slate stones of the outdoor onsen, the smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “So you really were just spending Golden Week like usual,” she muses. “I did bring up the possibility of inviting you two to come with us, but Tarou said you already had plans.”
Narumi sinks deeper into the pool so the waterline reaches the top of her lips. Her hair’s been pulled up into a bun high atop her head, but the warm water soaks up the nape of her neck, wetting the roots of her hair there. “He said the last time they released the Shiny Unown, a lot of people in Hakone had more luck finding it.” She sinks even lower down and huffs through her nose, watching the sulky bubbles pop before her.
“You could both have planned to come here for your own reasons,” Hanako says, not unkindly. “But did you not consider...”
Hirotaka had asked if it was fine to book just a single room, and Narumi said yes without a second thought. It wouldn’t be the first night they’d have spent together, after all, but in Hirotaka’s apartment Narumi often took the bed, Hirotaka pulling out a futon next to her.
But it was springtime in Hakone during Golden Week.
A long holiday in the mountains in a place that was a popular getaway for couples.
What did Narumi consider?
“Well,” Hanako says again, “You two aren’t that kind of couple normally, anyway. I suppose I was just surprised; I thought you’d be more of a romantic deep down. But every couple has their own way of doing things.”
“Hm.” Narumi pulls her knees closer to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
That wasn’t entirely true, what Hanako just said. With a non-otaku boyfriend Narumi would have been better prepared for this trip, maybe packed better, sexier clothes than what she did end up taking with her, and found the ryokan by herself. She’d have planned an itinerary around the things couples did—shrine visits, special dinner reservations, sightseeing—and not insisted on dragging all their bags with them first thing to the cable cars, especially when her boyfriend didn’t like heights all that much, and made him wait at the bottom of the mountain while she went up on her own.
Of course, she’d also have had to find a way to sneak out at some point to get the stamps, or come up with an excuse to collect them, like a made-up younger cousin or something who really really wanted them for some reason, so could Narumi try and get them instead. She’d have been on edge the entire time, watched her language and mannerisms and scrutinized every comment or action for treading the line into otaku territory.
(And, a sulky, petulant voice deep inside her pipes up: if she had gone with her last boyfriend, she’d have definitely carried her girly bag with her the entire way to the ryokan herself.)
“Naru-chan?” Hanako prompts next to her, holding up the back of her hand against Narumi’s forehead. “You’re looking a little warm. Do you want to go back inside?”
“Maybe we should,” Narumi says, scratching the back of her neck. “It’s nearly dinnertime, anyway.”
She follows Hanako out of the spring, past the indoor onsen and into the changing rooms. As she towels off and picks up the yukata to wrap around herself, a fleeting thought crosses her mind:
What did Hirotaka consider?
He’s already in the room when Narumi returns, sitting by the small table set up by the windows, but instead of his handheld he’s got his phone in one hand and the map of Hakone that he’d picked up from the front desk laid out before him.
“Were you waiting here long?” Narumi asks, opening the closet and rifling through her bag for a change of clothes.
“Just a few minutes. Kabakura said if you still wanted to have dinner together we’d go fifteen minutes after you get in here. Does that work?”
“Mm, I can be ready by then.” She looks over the map as she passes by, tilting her head to the side. The pamphlet was next to it, as well. “What are you doing?”
“I marked down where the rest of the stamps you still needed to collect were,” he tells her, showing her the map he’s numbered accordingly. “This route is the shortest and quickest we can take to get them all without doubling back on anything.”
“What about Shiny Unown?”
Hirotaka shrugs. “He’s a random drop, so I’ll just keep my phone on during. That should work, right? Narumi?”
“Yeah!” Narumi says, nodding vigorously. “Yeah, let’s do that tomorrow!”
“Okay. You have twelve minutes left before we need to go down,” Hirotaka reminds her, holding up their penalty piggy bank. “Get going or you know what’ll happen.”
“I’m going, I’m going!” she says, hurrying to the bathroom and closing the door behind her. But she takes a moment to lean back against it, holds her clothes close to her chest.
If you were with me, I’d help you gather your items, or level up, or even go out with you whenever you wanted to, was what Hirotaka had promised, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that just what he was doing now? What he’d been doing all along?
So why is Narumi’s heart beating so wildly?
“Oh!” Hanako claps her hands together over dinner. “I love that series—I didn’t know you were watching it as well, Naru-chan! I didn’t hear about that promotion at all though.”
“I follow the author on social, or I would have missed it otherwise,” Narumi explains. “Did you want to come with us tomorrow, or—oh, I mean, if you and Kabakura-senpai already have plans, I can just get a second copy stamped for you too!”
“If it isn’t too much trouble, please!” Hanako takes both Narumi’s hands in hers, squeezing them tight. “You’re a blessing as a friend, Naru-chan.”
Across from them, Hirotaka takes a bite of his dinner before turning to Kabakura. “What did you two have planned for tomorrow?”
“Just some sightseeing,” Kabakura replies. “We’re hitting up Lake Ashi early—”
Narumi perks up. “Wasn’t that where that big Angel battle happened?”
Hanako grins and steeples her fingers, the restaurant light overhead glinting off her glasses. “It absolutely was! Kabakura’s agreed to take some on-site pictures of me, actually. I found an old plugsuit from my early crossplay days that I fixed up, and I’ve always wanted to do a Lake Ashi photoshoot with it.”
“And then we’re gonna sightsee,” Kabakura adds. “You two aren’t just going to collect the stamps either, right?”
Hirotaka holds up his phone. “I’m on a quest for rare Pokémon too.”
“The whole time you’re here?”
“I don’t know when the Shiny Unown will drop and where, so—”
“We’ll go sightseeing too!” Narumi pipes in. “We’re going to the shrine and the lake and Owakudani and Old Tokaido Road—”
Hirotaka tilts his head at her. “Did you just look up things to do in Hakone?”
“No!” Narumi lies. She had, actually—the last page on her mobile browser is a page titled 11 Things To Do In Hakone—but Hirotaka doesn’t need to know that. “These are just—they’re things a lot of people want to do here, and we’re gonna have time to check them out, so I don’t see why we can’t. It’ll take us further around, anyway, and maybe you’ll be able to find your Shiny Unown that way too.”
“We were thinking of hitting up the shrine too, so maybe we can all go tomorrow afternoon if you’re free by then?” Hanako suggests.
“I think that sounds like a great idea!” Narumi says, aiming a wide smile at Hanako and ignoring the curious look Hirotaka gives her.
Before Narumi can even begin to panic over sleeping arrangements, Hirotaka has pulled out the futons and placed them a respectably friendly, but not offensively distanced, space apart. He’s tucked into the one closest to the door, glasses reflecting the dim light of the game he’s playing on his phone.
Narumi slips into her futon and pulls up the blanket over her chin. Just like the nights she spends at his apartment, then.
This is the part where Narumi’s supposed to let out a quiet whoosh of relief, but she frowns at the way her chest tightens instead.
Did she eat too much pork belly at dinner tonight?
“Narumi,” Hirotaka says into the quiet of the evening. “Did you really want to go sightseeing?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I thought you said after we got the stamps, you wanted to take location shots for your next doujin.”
Narumi cocoons herself deeper into her futon. She did say that. “That was before,” she mumbles.
“Before what?”
Narumi doesn’t answer.
Hirotaka doesn’t ask again.
Narumi is no stranger to a well-planned quest. She has years and years of Comiket experience under her belt, after all, and has managed to hit up all of her doujinka idols each and every time, even as she leveled up in more recent years and taken on tabling on top of it too.
But she’s still impressed when, minutes before noon, she presses the final stamp into her collection—at the finishing line of the marathon, with the character who orchestrated it all. “Mission accomplished!” she declares with a thumbs up.
“Very good,” Hirotaka says, mirroring the motion. “Did you get Koyanagi-san’s too?”
Narumi flicks her wrist to fan out both collections. “I did! That was probably as quick and efficient as we could’ve made our route to get them all, you know!”
“It’s not that different from an RPG,” Hirotaka says, pushing his glasses up. “And this one has a known map showing all the drop points.”
“So you were playing on easy mode, huh?” Narumi beams, tucking her stamps into the pocket of her purse. “We got to see the sights and take the pictures I wanted of the locations, too, before any of them got too crowded with tourists.”
“I cross-referenced peak times with our route,” Hirotaka offers. “To make it more of a challenge.”
Narumi laughs. “Maybe I should have you plan out Comiket when the catalog arrives.”
“Mission accepted,” Hirotaka says, and the way he agrees so easily keeps the smile on Narumi’s face a little longer.
“Hey,” she says with a clap of her hands, turning around to face him. “It’s time to focus on your mission! Have you checked your phone lately?”
“Oh, not in a few minutes.” Hirotaka pulls out his phone as they make their way out.
“We’ve still got time left in the vacation, anyway. Where do you want to go after—”
“Ah.”
Narumi pauses. “Hm?”
Hirotaka holds up his phone, where a blue, one-eyed creature floated in the middle of the screen. “I got it.”
“So now you’re all done too?” Hanako asks when they meet up with her and Kabakura at the shrine that afternoon. Their photo shoot at the lake that morning had gone swimmingly, she tells Narumi, even as Kabakura grumbles about now having to carry the duffel bag containing Hanako’s plugsuit. “How many days did you guys say you had planned to stay?”
“All of Golden Week,” Narumi tells her, smiling sheepishly at Hirotaka. She hadn’t thought the stamps would take that long, but the Pokémon was an unknown variable.
“Oh, how lucky!” Hanako says. “We go back to Tokyo tomorrow. It would have been nice to spend longer over here with Bakakura—”
“Hold on!” Kabakura protests. “Weren’t you saying you wanted to take advantage of the city and do more shoots there while people were on holiday?”
“—but romance is dead, I guess,” Hanako continues, ignoring him, “when you’ve been together as long as we have.”
Narumi laughs as Kabakura bickers with Hanako in vain, her teasing tone going right over his head as it tends to do when he’s in a prickly mood. She falls back in step beside Hirotaka, smiling up at him.
“Were there any places you wanted to go see while we were here?” she asks, going through the places she had looked up earlier. They’d actually already hit most of them up looking for the stamps, and had even managed to spend some time in each. “We can go visit them.”
Hirotaka tilts his head at her. “Weren’t there other scenes from your show you wanted to go to? I don’t mind going. Maybe I can get another Shiny Unown.”
“Are you sure?” Narumi presses. “I already took so many pictures from today, but if you wanted to make this more of a—” she catches herself before couple’s trip slips from her mouth, because— “Nao-chan!”
Hirotaka frowns. “More of a Nao-chan?” he echoes.
Nao, upon hearing his name twice, perks up, looking up from the map he was consulting with—yep, that was Kou-kun too! “Narumi-chan? Nii-chan?”
“Hirotaka didn’t tell me you were going to be in Hakone too!” Narumi says. “What a surprise to run into you two!”
Nao laughs, scratching the back of his head. “It is, isn’t it? We came here with Ken-chan and Yokkun, but we lost them right after we got past the shrine gate. They said we could just meet up after, but um, we’re trying to figure out where they meant.”
Narumi peers over at the map. “What did they say about where to meet?”
“They said they found a small shrine by the archery range, but we’ve circled it thrice and haven’t seen them,” Kou offers. She looks cute in a denim jacket and a long, floral skirt, clutching her bag tightly by her side, some of the hair that usually covered her eyes tucked behind her ear.
“It would have been easier to meet up at the archery range,” Hirotaka says.
It would, if Nao’s friends wanted to be found. Narumi feels the beginnings of a thought tugging at the corners of her mind before she catches the look on Hirotaka’s face. She immediately schools her expression back to normal.
“That is strange,” she says instead, hooking her arm around Hirotaka’s. “Well, I’m sure you guys will meet up again soon. But I wouldn’t worry so much about that for now. It’s a beautiful afternoon and you’re in a beautiful place. You should enjoy what’s around here!”
“Ah, Narumi-chan—”
“Tell them you’ll just meet them back wherever you’re staying later,” Narumi insists. “Kou-kun, you look very nice today! Nao-chan, be sure you don’t lose Kou-kun too, okay?”
“Um—”
“Have fun!” Narumi waves them off, her benevolent smile turning much more sinister once they were out of sight.
Beside her, Hirotaka hums. “That was obvious, even for you, you know.”
Narumi looks up from the notes she’s already started jotting down. “Do you think it’s better for the main pair to be the one abandoned by their friends, or the ones doing the abandoning?”
Hirotaka shakes his head, but the way he murmurs, “Hopeless,” sounds irrepressibly fond.
The sun’s low on the horizon when Hanako and Kabakura head out to catch their dinner reservations (“Somewhere nice and fancy, for a change,” Hanako had said, her smile indulgent), leaving Narumi and Hirotaka by the shrine entrance.
“It’s a really pretty sunset,” Narumi murmurs, her gaze drawn to the way the lake reflects the red-orange-purple hues of the dying sun. She takes out her phone to snap a photo, pausing as she holds the camera function up. “Hirotaka—”
“Yes?”
“C’mere,” she says, tugging him over and turning them around so that the sunset’s behind them, and the camera function reversed so it’s taking a selfie instead. “Smile!”
“Ah.” Hirotaka tries—it looks worse than if he hadn’t, the forced curl of his lips revealing both rows of teeth in a way that’s so uncute it goes right back around to being absolutely adorable— “Oh, that’s terrible. Let’s take another shot.”
“No,” Narumi says, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “It’s perfect. I wanna keep it.”
“Narumi—” Hirotaka starts, the faintest line creasing his brow. He’s really pretty tall, isn’t he, and the cut of his jaw is gentle when backlit by the sun like that, lakeside breeze ruffling his hair carelessly.
Narumi falters with the sudden urge to reach out and run her fingers through his hair, to cup the slope of his cheek with the palm of her hand. To brush the soft velvet of his lips with her thumb. It had felt like soft velvet, anyway, the last time she’d tasted it. It’s been a while since—they haven’t—he hasn’t tried, since the first and the last time, and she hasn’t—
“Narumi?”
She blinks. “Sorry, I—I was thinking of a scene that would work with this background. I’m. What was it?”
Hirotaka frowns, but all he says is, “The town’s not a long walk from here. Did you want to see if we can get dinner there instead?”
“Yes, that sounds like a great idea!” Narumi says, trying not to dwell too much on why, exactly, she’s not ready to go back to the hotel just yet.
The walk back isn’t short, whatever Hirotaka suggested, and evening falls upon them as they follow the path the other tourists seem to be taking from shrine to town, the sky turning dark all at once when the sun disappears over the horizon. But the road remains well-lit, and Hirotaka moves closer to Narumi as the crowds grow around them, their arms brushing against each other’s.
Narumi’s been this close to Hirotaka before. And once she’d gotten over the initial awkwardness of their relationship, she’d never been one to shy away from casual touches—leaning against him, looping her arm through the crook of his elbow. But right now, even just the whisper of a touch between the fabric of their coats is enough to send a jolt of lightning coursing through her veins, like static shocking her to her core. Her fingers graze the warm skin of the back of his palm and it sends her already erratic heartbeat jackrabbiting out of control. What is wrong with her, what is she—
Hirotaka glances sideways at her then, seeing something in her that has him mouthing a quiet you okay? She nods, quick to offer him a sheepish smile, and he considers her answer for a moment before letting it go.
Then, without saying anything else, he slips his hand into hers.
Narumi almost stumbles. She does, actually, her foot catching on uneven ground to send her pitching forward—but Hirotaka steadies her with his other hand.
“That’s no good,” he says, murmuring to himself. “I was trying to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“Sorry, I’m—I didn’t see the ground,” Narumi mumbles, the heat of her embarrassment—and maybe something else, too—rising to her cheeks. She pulls herself up to full height again, instinctively gripping tight the moment it looks like Hirotaka’s about to loosen the hold on her hand. This was fine. She was fine. This was normal, holding Hirotaka’s hand, and she’d held it so many times before.
She’d held it so many times before.
And it had always felt this warm, and fine, and perfectly normal.
And like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
There’s a small festival in the town near the shrine, set up in the main street that the path spills out onto.
“No wonder there were so many people heading this way,” Narumi says, taking in the strung up lights and brightly lit stalls selling grilled meats and sweet desserts. It’s busy, but not too overwhelmingly crowded that Hirotaka would hate it. “Let’s get our food here! Is that okay?”
Hirotaka agrees, the two of them wandering down the stalls to see what’s available before they figure out what to eat. Narumi waits at a quiet spot they find, a little while later, as Hirotaka goes on what he calls a side quest to get all the food they’d decided on in as few trips as possible.
“That was very good time!” Narumi says, clicking the stopwatch with a laugh when he finishes in just two trips. “But you look a bit winded. Are you okay?”
“Running in-game doesn’t usually leave me this out of breath,” Hirotaka mumbles. The flush of exertion makes his cheeks rosy even in the dimly lit space they’ve picked. He lays down the rest of the food with care, and as with the first batch Narumi can’t help noticing the way he’s picked out her favorites, even getting extras of the desserts she knows he’s not particularly fond of eating but will because there were two flavors Narumi couldn’t decide between so they could split them.
He’s always been like this, even back when they were kids. He’s always thinking of her like this, always taking care of her like this. She’s not been blind to it. And she’s always been grateful for it.
“Hey—” she says, pushing forward the sports drink she’d gotten in case Hirotaka got exactly like this, because she’d always tried to think of Hirotaka and take care of him too. “Drink up and catch your breath a bit.”
That’s what friends did. That’s what people who cared about people did.
That’s what couples did, too, but with a friendship as long as they’ve got, how is she supposed to know which—
“Ah, thank you,” he says, taking a too-desperate swig of the drink, a little of it slipping past the corner of his mouth, and Narumi laughs, reaching out to brush the droplet off with her thumb.
Hirotaka blinks, eyes dark and beautiful in the glow of the evening festival, and Narumi’s heart skips a beat.
Then another.
“Um!” she says, jerking her hand back as though she’d caught on fire. “Oh! Are your feet okay? You’ve been walking around all day, the last time at the park you got blisters so I—”
“My feet are fine,” Hirotaka says. The silence that follows is heavy with the weight of something gathering in the air between them—awkward and tense and so, so far removed from anything safe or friendly—building and expanding until it’s stretched wide enough to snap.
Narumi takes a deep breath. Pierces this unnameable thing with the rushed exhale of a question: “I really haven’t been fair with you, have I?”
“Narumi?”
“I said I didn’t want to put up a facade with you, and I didn’t want to hold back, but I—” She squeezes her eyes shut and smacks her cheeks with the palms of her hands. “Hirotaka!”
“Yes!”
“I—” she starts, realizing then she hadn’t thought this part quite through. “I—”
“Narumi.” Hirotaka’s palms, when they cover the hands she’s still got pressed to her cheeks, are warm to the touch. His gaze, when she pops one eye open to peek, serious. His face, close. His words, gentle. “Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“I’m not,” she says, slipping her hands away so she’s holding Hirotaka’s instead, and so he’s cupping her cheeks. “You make it so easy for me to not ever push myself too hard when I’m with you. Especially because I’m with you. But sometimes—” There it is again, that spike in her pulse, that sudden tug in her stomach, like she’s teetering on the edge of a drop—and none of it comfortable or familiar or easy. “Sometimes I want to take that leap too, you know?”
“Okay,” Hirotaka murmurs, the word a faint puff of air against her lips. Always so agreeable, her Hirotaka.
“Is it?” she asks, squeezing his hands. “Okay?”
“Narumi,” Hirotaka breathes—always so patient, too, except for the way he says that, just now—and it’s all the answer Narumi needs. His gaze flickers down. “It’s okay.”
“Okay.” She rises to her tiptoes, her eyes fluttering close as the distance between them carefully, steadily shrinks past friendly, crossing right over to—
His lips, she finds, are as soft as she remembers.
And they taste even sweeter.