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To the best of her knowledge, Shinomiya Kokoa wasn’t gay. She had gone through life, up through the end of middle school, never once finding another girl attractive. Or rather, finding them attractive without actually being attracted to them. Kokoa told herself once more that this was a perfectly sensible distinction. There was no need to be staying up so late at night over something so silly. If she were actually gay, wouldn’t she have figured that out by now?
Kokoa tapped the home button on her phone once more, its screen the only source of light in her bedroom this late at night. She had opened her web browser no less than three times in the past five minutes, but to what end? So she could find some sort of Are You A Lesbian? online quiz to take? Kokoa was pretty sure she knew the answer to that. Which meant she shouldn’t be having so much trouble over the answer she gave Hayate either…
That girl was just unreasonable, really. Who fell in love with a girl they had only just met? And with another girl, for that matter! Hayate had ambushed her out of the blue, leaving Kokoa entirely unprepared.
lesbians
Without entirely realizing it, Kokoa had opened up her web browser once more, typing a single word into the search bar. It made no sense at all, even if Kokoa had little idea what she was actually looking for. But her fingers moved on their own, searching that one word she and Hayate had danced around that afternoon, but never once spoke out loud.
If Kokoa wasn’t gay, then she wasn’t a lesbian. It was as simple as that, wasn’t it? Kokoa might not know much about homosexuality, but there had never been any need to. Even now, Kokoa didn’t need to fret the details. A girl had confessed to Kokoa, and Kokoa had rejected her. That was where the story was supposed to end. Not still lingering in the back of her mind, keeping her up with worries she had never thought twice about before.
The results on her phone were unsurprisingly of little use. Kokoa knew what a lesbian was. A woman who liked other women, instead of men. There was no reason she needed to read through an entire Wikipedia page on the subject. What did the strange relationships that cropped up between women during the Edo period have to do with Japan today! Back here in the Reiwa era, there wasn’t so much need to talk around everything. Kokoa didn’t have a problem with lesbians. She just wasn’t one herself, which made Hayate’s confession all the more difficult to deal with.
Kokoa scrolled past the rest of the history section, but the remainder of the article was no more help. It hadn’t been written to give advice to vaguely confused school girls, just to give the facts in plain black and white.
Kokoa closed out of the app again. She didn’t know what she was hoping would happen. Some flash of insight, some sense of closure. Any sign that it was safe to put all these silly concerns behind her for good.
No, it wasn’t silly. Gay people were real people. Hayate’s feelings were real feelings. How deep those feelings actually were could perhaps be questioned, but Kokoa had to admit Hayate probably had a better grasp on all of this than she did. Up until a few hours ago, Kokoa had no reason to ever think about it to begin with!
How had Hayate figured all that out in the first place? Kokoa shifted under the covers, locking and unlocking her phone half to check the time, half as a nervous habit. Hayate seemed a little oblivious about some things, but even she admitted her feelings were unusual. But she believed what she told Kokoa all the same. Not just feelings, but romantic feelings. What did Kokoa know about romance?
Enough to know that she wasn’t going to find any answers in random internet articles. She should talk to someone, Kokoa knew that much. But there was no one she could talk to, not about this. Her parents were right out, Kokoa would get enough trouble from them if she were interested in dating a guy. None of her friends were much better, too risky for the truth to slip out. The truth that Kokoa had asked about it, of course. No matter what conclusions others might jump to, that’s all this was right now. Just questions, with no one there to answer them for her.
Kokoa wondered what the nuns would say. She was supposed to be able to talk about any problems in her life with them. This certainly counted as a problem, didn’t it? Or maybe Kokoa could save herself the trouble, and go right to asking what Jesus would say to her instead. That’s probably the best answer she could hope for from them anyway. But Kokoa wasn’t too interested in what Christ might have said—or never said—about homosexuality. People in those days weren’t known to be particularly accepting, and Kokoa had never been much of a believer to begin with.
No, Kokoa knew who she needed to talk to for something like this. What would a bunch of straight people know about being gay? Unfortunately, Kokoa’s upbringing meant she had never met anyone gay before Hayate. At least, she was pretty sure not. There were more people nowadays like Hayate who didn’t so carefully keep things under wraps, but that didn’t mean everyone was so open. Kokoa didn’t think she would be, if she was even gay in the first place.
The keyboard popped up on Kokoa’s phone screen once more, a moment’s hesitation following as Kokoa stared at the search bar. There was no harm in indulging her curiosity, right? Kokoa just wanted to ask a few questions, that was all. Despite feeling silly about it the whole time, she still could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she typed.
where to meet lesbians
Kokoa stepped off the train, quickly making her way through the exit gates of the station. Despite having not even left Tokyo, and perhaps having gotten off on this exact stop before, it felt like entering another world. Nothing about the city streets or passersby had changed though. Only Kokoa was different, her reason for being here distractingly front of mind.
Why had she come out here, really? It was somehow too many questions all at once. She was ‘here’, because she couldn’t go somewhere close by and risk someone recognizing her. Even traveling to a neighboring ward hardly felt far enough now. But that didn’t explain why Kokoa had to go anywhere at all. To a lesbian bar, of all places.
Somewhere in the depths of Kokoa’s mind, she had already known such places existed. But it was one thing to have heard the term ‘gay bar’ in passing once, and quite another to find out quite how many establishments were within just a few train stops of home. How many gay people could there possibly be in Tokyo?
A lot, it turned out. Kokoa hadn’t looked up any numbers, but she hadn’t needed to. Just the sheer number of different places she had found recommendations for nearly melted her brain all by itself. She didn’t need to know about some dubiously fabled paradise with dozens of gay bars lining every block, she just needed one address! One preferably within walking distance from the train station, so that Kokoa didn’t have to spend any more time out here than she had to.
Yet still the same question pounded in her head, as she walked down another city block, checking her phone once more to confirm the route hadn’t suddenly changed without warning. Was all of this so important that Kokoa was spending her precious free time this weekend for a girl she wasn’t even sure she liked? Forget about romance, Kokoa barely knew Hayate to begin with.
Perhaps that was Kokoa’s strongest evidence so far that her concerns weren’t entirely unfounded. Would a straight girl bother with any of this? Was Kokoa already supposed to know she wasn’t attracted to girls? Going to a lesbian bar also wasn’t exactly typical straight girl behavior…
The little blue line on her map app was shrinking quickly now. Kokoa checked it twice per block now, putting off the inevitable. Wherever ‘here’ was, she had finally reached it.
From what Kokoa had read online of the place, calling it a ‘lesbian bar’ was a bit of a misnomer. It was popular with lesbians, but claimed a broader umbrella than that. Every letter of LGBT, or something along those lines. It hardly mattered though. Kokoa only needed to find one lesbian willing to talk to her, she didn’t need an entire bar full of them.
It would be rather hard to talk to anyone while standing outside though. This was the place. There was no mistaking that. Not after Kokoa compared the sign on the building to the name written down in her notes app no less than three times.
When Kokoa finally worked up her courage, nobody tried to stop her. Nobody challenged her at the door, questioning if she was gay enough to be here. Nobody was even there, leaving Kokoa plenty of time to take a deep breath, before pulling the door open wide.
Kokoa shouldn’t be here. The nagging thought ran through her head immediately, unable to push it away. She peered around the room, everything at once looking far too ordinary and far too mysterious.
Objectively, the inside was little different than a restaurant, at least in rough layout. Small tables dotted the room, none seating more than four people at most. And while there were perhaps more women than men around the place—sitting at the tables or gathered up at the bar—nothing immediately struck Kokoa as different. She wasn’t sure how a lesbian was supposed to dress, or style her hair, but all these women… They just looked like women to Kokoa. Older women. Lots of older women.
It felt dangerous to stare. What if one of them noticed her? What if the way Kokoa was standing, or the way she had worn her jacket, or something was actually some secret lesbian code? Kokoa wasn’t interested in that! Even if this place was some hook up spot for women, Kokoa hadn’t agreed to anything just by walking in the door. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea these other women might be looking at her that way. That they might see Kokao and want to take her—
“—first time?”
Kokoa didn’t scream. She definitely didn’t have to grab hold of a nearby chair to stop herself from falling over. She had just been… startled. All of a sudden, someone had spoken to her. Why was someone at a lesbian bar speaking to her?
“I’m not, I didn’t—” Kokoa stammered, tripping over her own tongue in her haste to get the record straight. “I-I’m not here for casual sex!”
Somehow, that was the response that slipped out, before Kokoa had even taken the time to properly look at the woman who had come up beside her. Older than her, though that was hardly a surprise. Everyone here looked so mature, so put together. Beautiful, but not in the same, bold style that Kokoa or Hayate took to. Just plain black hair coming down to her shoulder, with a hint of purple at the ends so subtle that it left Kokoa wondering if it was simply the lighting making her see things. A simple belt and skirt combo, with a white button down shirt tucked into it. She had a bit of a professional air, without her outfit looking too out of place at a casual setting like this. If anything, Kokoa wondered if maybe she had one too many buttons undone at her neckline, before deciding it was too risky to look any closer.
Then she started laughing at Kokoa. Not in a cruel way exactly, more out of sheer disbelief. Kokoa couldn’t believe she had said that either.
“I don’t think the owner would appreciate us doing it out here anyway,” the woman said, the suggestion so ridiculous Kokoa was nearly positive it was a joke, only the tiniest doubt still eating at her. “I just saw how lost you looked walking in, it was just too cute. Never been to a gay bar before, I take it?”
She raised the glass in her hand in a lazy gesture. Was she… Was this woman hitting on Kokoa? This was way too quick! Kokoa had only just walked in the door. Kokoa couldn’t even remember a time that any man had been so forward with her—not that Kokoa tended to spend too much time around men in the first place.
“I’ve… Honestly I’ve never been to any kind of bar before,” Kokoa admitted, her eyes fixed on the woman’s drink, since that seemed a safe enough place to look. But something still felt off, something screaming inside of her that Kokoa just couldn’t quite hear.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t know why I came here,” Kokoa said suddenly, almost feeling bad for this other woman. Surely the whole point of lesbians gathering in places like this was so they could be this forward towards other women without worrying about whether they would be receptive to that. “I should just go…”
Kokoa didn’t belong here. Even if she was completely certain she was attracted to women, she couldn’t have ever pictured herself somewhere like this. How had she expected this to go? Kokoa had been too concerned over finding a woman willing to talk to her about being gay, that she never stopped to think that a gay woman might possibly be attracted to her.
“Don’t be like that. If you came all the way out here, you should at least sit down for a drink,” the woman said, grabbing Kokoa’s hand out of nowhere. She led Kokoa to sit down at the nearest table, holding her hand for far longer than necessary. “I’m just about ready for another round anyway. Why don’t I pick up something for both of us?”
She made it sound so reasonable that Kokoa couldn’t help but nod. It wasn’t until the woman was already halfway to the bar that the problem finally hit her. One of the problems, anyway.
Alcohol! By a ‘drink’, she had meant something alcoholic. This was a bar, so of course that must be what she had meant. The real question was… Why hadn’t Kokoa noticed she had planned on visiting a bar earlier. She had been too caught up on the ‘lesbian’ part that the ‘bar’ half had sounded almost innocuous by comparison.
Was it too late to just leave? No wonder everyone looked so mature—they weren’t supposed to be serving middle school students here in the first place! Shouldn’t someone have asked for Kokoa’s ID? It would be rude to leave without saying anything, but if that woman came back…
This was all her fault anyway! If she hadn’t started hitting on Kokoa all of a sudden, then maybe Kokoa would have figured all this out sooner. She could’ve ducked out again before anyone realized a thing. Forget about all of this, and just… watch lesbian porn or something to try to figure out if she was gay. That could work, right?
“Heh, what’s got you so lost in thought?”
Kokoa jumped up in her seat, as a glass was placed down in front of her. The woman only laughed harder at that, even if she was the rude one, taking Kokoa by surprise like that.
“You can call me Toka, by the way. I don’t think I caught your name earlier.”
She slid into place on the chair next to Kokoa, utterly presumptuous. Even if Kokoa was gay, that didn’t automatically make her receptive to any woman’s advances. The fact that Toka was pretty hardly mattered, there were plenty of other attractive women here.
Kokoa froze at that thought, before pushing it aside in favor of more pressing issues. Whether finding lesbians attractive was perhaps a warning sign, it was hardly the most concerning thing she had to deal with right now. She stared down at the glass in front of her, filled to the brim with suspicious amber fluid.
“Need to loosen that tongue of yours first?” Toka asked, taking a sip of her beer. It was occurring to Kokoa now that this was at least the woman’s second drink, and the lack of care she gave to it left Kokoa wondering if it might actually be her third or fourth.
“It’s Kokoa! Shino—Er, just Kokoa.” At the last second, Kokoa thought better of giving out her full name here. There seemed way too many ways that could go wrong, maybe even some she hadn’t thought of. “And I… I can talk to another woman without needing to get wasted.”
Kokoa’s glass remained untouched, though she already felt guilty for it. Alcohol was expensive, and it had been a gift from a complete stranger on top of that. Sure, that was a more polite way to say Toka had bought it for Kokoa without asking, but she had still paid for it at the end of the day.
A sip wouldn’t hurt, she decided. Kokoa picked up the glass, careful not to let any spill as she brought it up to her lips. She mostly succeeded, only leaking a little down onto her fingers before she took her first sip.
“That bad, huh?”
Kokoa forced herself to swallow, before looking up at the other woman’s smug face. Just what was her problem? If Toka knew beer tasted this awful, why had she bought it for them? Why was she still drinking it?
“I-I, you…” Kokoa stammered, putting her glass back down on the table. “I didn’t ask you to buy me a beer anyway, you just did it all on your own! Didn’t I say I’d never been to a bar before?”
That should’ve raised some questions on its own, Kokoa figured. She had to look like a teenager, wandering in where she didn’t belong, so why hadn’t Toka put a stop to this already? Was she… Was Toka some sort of predator?
“And yet here you are, Kokoa-chan,” Toka said with a smile, oblivious either to the fact that Kokoa was onto her tricks, or that Kokoa was underage in the first place. “I take it that means you’re more interested in the ‘lesbian’ part, rather than the ‘bar’?”
Kokoa’s cheeks flushed red. Toka wasn’t exactly wrong, but that didn’t mean she should put it so crudely! Didn’t she know how hard it was for Kokoa to talk herself into coming here in the first place? Well… Probably not, given that Kokoa had barely told the woman anything more than her name at this point.
“I really don’t know,” Kokoa admitted, feeling a little silly her hesitation here. If anyone might judge her for this, it probably wouldn’t be a lesbian in a lesbian bar. “I was kind of hoping to find someone to talk to… N-Not anything more than that, just talking. About, er, gay things.”
For the first time since it happened, Kokoa was almost grateful Hayate had confessed to her. It was a lot easier to convince herself not to dwell on any thoughts about whether Kokoa found Toka attractive, when giving Hayate a proper answer was her primary concern. But then she remembered she wouldn’t have needed to deal with any of this to begin with if Hayate hadn’t confessed out of nowhere.
“I figured it was something like that,” Toka nodded, somehow already holding a half empty glass, while Kokoa’s was still nearly untouched. “You’ve got a girl you’re interested in then? Or are you still stuck on the part where you need to realize you’re gay first?”
Kokoa let out a squawk. Wasn’t there supposed to be another option there? Kokoa hadn’t given up completely on the chance she might be straight… It was just growing increasingly unlikely the more she thought about it, which was why she had worked so hard not to up until this very moment.
“Oh god, I really am gay, aren’t I?” Kokoa said. To the lesbian she had sought out at the lesbian bar. Because she was a lesbian. She slumped over a little in her seat, staring down into her still-full glass of beer.
“I would’ve put money on it from the hair alone,” Toka said, which Kokoa took exception to. She had worn her hair like this since way before Hayate ever confessed to her! “But then again, what I think doesn’t really matter. It’s something you can only figure out for yourself, Kokoa-chan.”
What a shitty non-answer! If Kokoa could just figure out something like that all on her own, she wouldn’t have needed to come here in the first place. Instead, all she could figure was that she had maybe earned another sip of beer. Whether that was a punishment or a reward was harder to say, but leaving her glass so full was proving to be rather distracting.
“Is that really all you can give me?” Kokoa said, pausing to lift her glass again. She tilted it back a little too far, unused to the added weight of such a tall glass, but she managed to make it look mostly intentional to avoid embarrassing herself. “You’re a lesbian, aren’t you Toka-san? Don’t you know some trick that can help me ‘figure out’?”
Toka just shrugged, casually matching Kokoa by draining her own glass.
“There aren’t any real tricks to it,” she said apologetically, but then she paused briefly. “Well, except the obvious, I guess.”
Annoyance flashed inside Kokoa. Obvious? Obvious to a lesbian, maybe! Kokoa had never given any of this much thought before, of course she was going to be lost here. She took in a breath before she accidentally screamed at Toka though. The woman was genuinely trying to help her, and Kokoa didn’t have many better options.
“The ‘obvious’?” Kokoa said. “Why didn’t you just start with that?”
“Ah…” Toka’s own cheeks dusted red, as if she only just realized she had spoken aloud earlier. “Forget about that. I just meant, you can never really know if you’re into women unless… well…”
“Well, what?” Kokoa snapped. “You seem pretty sure of yourself. What do I need to do?”
Maybe Kokoa was being a bit demanding, but this was important. If Kokoa was really gay… Well, honestly she didn’t expect that to go down well with her family at all, so it wasn’t like she would let anyone know. Just Hayate. Kokoa’s heart skipped a beat, imagining not for the first time what it would mean to accept Hayate’s feelings. Hayate hadn’t made it much of a mystery, even with how little time Kokoa had given her to make her pitch.
“Look, all I’m saying is, if you really want to be sure you’re a lesbian, or bi, or whatever,” Toka began at last, still trying to avoid finally spitting it out, leaving Kokoa to hang on her every word. “Well, I mean… If you make out with a woman and like it, that’s a pretty strong sign, right?”
It was only then that Kokoa realized how far she had been leaning over, trying to make sure she could hear Toka clearly. Because that was the precise moment her elbow slipped from under her weight, sending her down unceremoniously, collapsing onto the table.
“W-What?” Kokoa screamed despite her better judgment. “That’s your idea? I mean, obviously—”
Kokoa stopped yelling, the word catching on her tongue. It really was obvious. So obvious, it almost sounded idiotic to say it out loud. Lesbians were attracted to other women. Romantically. Sexually. So if Kokoa wanted to know if she… enjoyed doing certain things with women, then trying it out was the only real way to check.
That still didn’t make Kokoa any more appreciative of the way Toka started giggling at her. Again.
“You have the most adorable reactions, Kokoa-chan,” Toka said, the wooden legs of her chair scraping noisily against the floor as she stood up. Her footsteps drew nearer. “If just thinking about other women gets you like this, you’re probably a hopeless case already.”
“It’s not funny,” Kokoa protested, pushing herself back up, only to find Toka leaning right over her. But Kokoa very firmly buried any startled response, not wanting to give Toka anything more to tease her over. “I… I really need to… Look, can we just hurry up and get this over with already?”
Toka gave her a strange look at that. But she was the one who suggested all this stuff about kissing in the first place! Still, Kokoa couldn’t meet her gaze for long, instead opting to look back down at the wooden table below.
“Er… Kokoa-chan?” Toka started, slow and careful. “Are you saying… Are you asking if we could make out? Like, right here?”
“Why are you acting so bashful now? You offered, didn’t you?” Kokoa said, ignoring the faint, sinking feeling that perhaps Toka hadn’t exactly put it quite like that earlier. “A-And don’t make any mistake here, I’m not thrilled about it either! I just need to get my feelings straight so I can give Hayate a proper answer.”
Kokoa folded her arms across her chest, daring Toka to refuse her and make this even more awkward for both of them. It was just a kiss. If Kokoa could’ve figured all this out without kissing Toka, she definitely wouldn’t have asked. No, even saying she ‘asked’ was wrong, Kokoa was just indulging a little the blatant advances Toka had been putting on her from the start.
“Hayate…?” Toka said, putting a finger to her lips for a moment in thought, before grinning evilly at Kokoa. “Is that the name of the girl you like? Is she cute too?”
“What? No! There’s no girl I like,” Kokoa insisted, half stumbling off her chair to put something more solid between her and Toka. “And what do you mean ‘too’? I’ve had it with all your shameless flirting!”
“I meant that Kokoa-chan is cute, of course,” Toka said, not bothering to deny it, casually pushing the chair back away from the table, clearing a path straight for Kokoa. “But you know what…? Girls who are honest with their feelings are even cuter.”
Kokoa’s eyes widened. When did Toka get so close? Why was she resting her hands on Kokoa’s shoulders and leaning in and kissing her on the—
All the questions inside Kokoa’s head shorted out at once. Toka had kissed her. Kokoa’s first kiss was with another woman. A random drunk woman she met in a lesbian bar. Some part of Kokoa felt this should be something absolutely terrible… But it didn’t manage to make a very convincing argument.
A small whine leaked out of Kokoa, as Toka’s tongue slipped inside her mouth. This wasn’t some chaste kiss on the lips, this was the kind of kiss Hayate had made clear in no uncertain terms she wanted to share with Kokoa. And in that moment, Kokoa could admit to herself that she finally understood Hayate. Not everything, not even most of it, but the utter lack of concern she held for being attracted to another woman… Kokoa understood it quite well now. How could she reject something that felt so right, even when there were so many reasons for it to feel wrong?
Kokoa was gay. Maybe she had known it for a while, but it was much harder to deny with Toka’s tongue in her mouth. Even though they were kissing in the middle of the bar, even though someone must be watching—must be able to tell Kokoa was far too young to be her—Kokoa didn’t want to stop. There was a passion swelling deep inside her, and not a single ounce of it was directed towards men.
“How was that?” Toka asked, pulling away at last. Unlike Kokoa, she didn’t sound the slightest bit out of breath. Maybe it hadn’t been as life changing for her.
Kokoa stared up at the older woman, any words she might come up with dying on her tongue. They had just kissed! Kokoa’s heart was still beating like crazy. How could Toka even pretend to seem so calm?
“I’m gay. I’m really, definitely gay,” Kokoa said, out loud this time. If there was anywhere safe to say it, this would surely be the place. “That was… Oh god, Hayate!”
Toka was way too dangerous this close up, Kokoa decided. She didn’t quite push the other woman away, but she did make a rather aggressive showing of pulling back, untangling their limbs with a bit of effort. Kokoa couldn’t let Toka distract her though, figuring out she was gay was only the first step. Hayate mattered a lot more than some woman she had known for less than an hour.
“Oh? ‘Hayate’ again?” Toka teased her, not allowing Kokoa even a moment to recover. “She must be one hell of a woman, if she’s the first thing you think of after a kiss like that~”
At first Kokoa tried to fight back her blush, but there was no point. Toka was absolutely right. Hayate was the reason for all of this. If Kokoa had been willing to go so far as to kiss a complete stranger… then at that point, wouldn’t it seem likely she’d be willing to kiss Hayate too? And by the end of the kiss, Kokoa had been a whole lot more than just ‘willing’. Kokoa couldn’t be sure she would feel the same way with Hayate, but her imagination was happy to supply a wide range of possibilities.
“I… I guess you’re right, Toka-san,” Kokoa said at last, though it almost felt like admitting defeat. “I think I actually like her a scary amount, looking back on all of it.”
“So are you going to confess then?” Toka asked, casually reaching over to pick up Kokoa’s still mostly-full beer. “I’d be a little disappointed if you got this far, just to quit here.”
“I don’t need to confess!” Kokoa told her. “She already did—That was the cause of all this in the first place.”
Hayate had already confessed to her. Kokoa had known that, she couldn’t have possibly forgotten it. But knowing Hayate wanted to be her girlfriend held a lot more weight to it now that Kokoa realized she wanted it to. All she had to do was tell Hayate, and it would be official…
“Ah, that’s great, Kokoa-chan,” Toka said. “Telling a girl how you feel is stressful enough, even without the risk of rejection. And this Hayate-chan was still brave enough to confess to you anyway. Don’t you think she deserves to hear your answer now?”
Kokoa nodded along before she could stop herself. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to disagree, but the way Toka was talking felt way too sudden. Kokoa hadn’t even been sure she was a lesbian when she walked in here, and now Toka was telling her to get a girlfriend already?
“Then what are you waiting for, Kokoa-chan? You have a phone, don’t you?”
Way, way too sudden. Kokoa froze still, subconsciously clutching her bag with one hand. Of course she had a phone, it was impossible to live without one nowadays. Which meant Hayate was readily available at Kokoa’s fingertips, if she simply chose to try.
“I-Isn’t that a little impersonal?” Kokoa protested, reaching for anything to try to stall for time. Her heart wasn’t ready yet! “If I’m giving Hayate an answer… shouldn’t we be standing face to face?”
“Ah, so you can kiss?” Toka asked, innocently taking a sip of Kokoa’s beer, before her facade cracked and she started laughing at Kokoa’s reaction. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’re just too fun to tease, Kokoa-chan. How about I make it up to you? I can give you a lift to Hayate-chan’s place right now, so you can spill your heart out to her right away~”
“No way!” Kokoa said on instinct, once again left searching for an excuse. “Er, I mean… I wouldn’t want to bother you, Toka-san. I go to the same school as her, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to—”
Toka slammed Kokoa’s glass back down on the table, making a loud noise but managing not to spill any beer in the process. Mainly because Toka had just drained the rest of it.
“Rejected! Don’t try to slip out of this, Kokoa-chan,” Toka said, almost sounding angry at her. “Think about how Hayate-chan must feel, staying up night after night wondering if Kokoa-chan likes her back… Lack of sleep can be deadly, you know. It’s not just cruel to leave her waiting, it’s a matter of life or death, Kokoa-chan!”
It began to dawn on Kokoa that Toka was rather drunk right now. The signs had sort of been there the whole time, but Kokoa had never spent much time around drunk people. Only now was it too obvious even for her to miss.
“Are you sure the bigger danger wouldn’t be letting you drive like this, Toka-san…?”
While Toka wasn’t nearly sober enough to drive, she unfortunately also wasn’t sober enough to listen to Kokoa, instead dragging her off out of the bar. Kokoa wondered if finding out she was a lesbian had come with a newfound weakness to other women grabbing her by the hand.
“Toka-san, please,” Kokoa said, trying one last time as Toka tried to coax her through the passenger side door of her car. “I appreciate it, I really do. But I don’t think you should be driving like this…”
Maybe Kokoa was overreacting. The most she ever had to drink in one sitting was the half glass of beer Toka had just finished for her. She really had no idea how much was too much, she was just assuming Toka was somewhere over the line right now. But combined with her hesitance over meeting Hayate again, it was quite easy to believe Toka was too drunk right now.
“I know, I know,” Toka said, not sounding all that concerned over it. “But if I let you go off on your own just because of that, Kokoa-chan, you’ll use it as an excuse to avoid telling Hayate you love her!”
Love? Who said anything about love? A dim panic spread over Kokoa… but didn’t that only prove Toka’s point? She was absolutely right, the only way Kokoa was going to see Hayate today was if Toka dragged her the whole way there. Which Toka seemed quite determined to, unfortunately.
“Well, I’m not getting in the car of a drunk woman,” Kokoa said, trying to push Toka’s hands away. “You’re going to have to be a lot more sober before I’ll let you drive me anywhere, Toka-san.”
“That’s the plan,” Toka said cryptically, nodding at Kokoa as if what she said made any sense at all. “So if you’re done complaining then… Up you go, Kokoa-chan~”
Without warning, Toka leaned down, sneaking an arm behind Kokoa’s legs, before literally sweeping her off her feet. Kokoa let out a yelp of surprise, but thankfully Toka put up her other hand to help support Kokoa, lifting her up rather than letting her slip and fall down onto the concrete. Less thankfully, that hand ended up right on Kokoa’s butt, with only her skirt managing to get in the way of anything worse.
“W-What are you doing, you drunk moron?” Kokoa protested, as Toka leaned forward to guide her into the passenger seat. “I just told you I wasn’t going with you! Weren’t you listening?”
The door slammed shut without Toka acknowledging her complaints, coming around to the other side and opening the door opposite Kokoa. This woman was way too presumptuous! This was practically kidnapping.
“Going…? We aren’t ‘going’ anywhere, Kokoa-chan,” Toka said, her words firmly contradicting her actions as she closed her own door behind her, sitting down behind the steering wheel. “I’m still too drunk to drive, I need to sober up first, right? So… I guess we’ll have to figure out some way to pass the time~”
“Ah… That actually makes a lot more sense,” Kokoa admitted, nearly allowing herself to relax back into her seat, before her better judgment caught up with her. “Wait a minute! You took me all the way out here just to make out? Shouldn’t you know I have a girlfriend now?”
Toka leaned in from the other side of the car, seeming to care little about hiding her intentions. Wasn’t this super sketchy, inviting a girl not even in high school yet into her car? But ‘sketchy’ implied a level of uncertainty which was clearly absent here. Toka had already kissed her earlier, and if she enjoyed it anywhere near as much as Kokoa had, then obviously she would want to do it again.
“I didn’t suggest anything of the sort, Kokoa-chan. But if that’s what you want…” Toka teased, twisting Kokoa’s words around, as if there was anyone around who would fall for such tricks. “Well, it’s true that Kokoa-chan is about to get a girlfriend. Which means there’s all the more reason to take advantage of your single status before it’s too late!”
She was crazy. Toka didn’t think like a normal person. Or else, she was at least thinking like a person normally would after having gone through however many beers she had in the past couple hours.
“That’s… Toka-san…” Kokoa protested, as Toka dipped her head in towards her, placing one hand on her shoulder. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! W-Who would possibly…?”
As Toka’s face drew closer, Kokoa’s words died in her throat. It hardly needed to be said though, Toka was just spouting nonsense. Hayate had confessed to her, and so Kokoa should stay loyal in return. Even if they weren’t girlfriends yet. Even if Hayate wouldn’t ever find out. Even if Toka seemed to ignore everything Kokoa tried to say and just pressed her lips against Kokoa’s anyway.
Kokoa let off a stiff moan, as she realized she had been cornered. She still had her hands free, and the car hadn’t been locked. But all the same, Kokoa found it impossible to escape while an attractive older woman was kissing her.
…That sort of weakness was pretty inconvenient, if Kokoa wanted to stay loyal to her girlfriend. Why did Toka’s lips have to feel so nice? It would’ve been a lot easier to push her away if it weren’t for that. And it already should’ve been pretty easy, with how drunk she was. Practically falling off of Kokoa all on her own, if it weren’t for Toka’s hand desperately clinging to her shoulder.
“Is something wrong, Kokoa-chan? You seem a little tense.”
For a moment, Kokoa sat there, her lips half parted. Still tasting the alcohol on Toka’s tongue. She stared at the other woman in disbelief. Why had she stopped? Why had she pulled back? If she had just kept going, Kokoa could’ve just pretended she was helpless to put a stop to all this.
“I… I’m okay, Toka-san,” Kokoa said, not sure anymore if it was a lie. “I just, uh, haven’t done anything like this before.”
“What? Making out together in someone else’s car?” Toka asked, nearly making this sound like a normal thing people did. “But don’t worry, we don’t have to stay here like this much longer. I just need maybe half an hour to sober back up. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”
Kokoa’s mind stopped briefly, left to imagine making out for thirty minutes straight. It sounded like a long time. Her heart was also beating like crazy, but Kokoa told herself it was out of nerves. It was a strange situation, and she didn’t want to make the wrong choice here.
…Like getting stuck waiting awkwardly in a drunk woman’s car, when she could be making out with Toka instead.
Toka did eventually sober up. Whether it only took thirty minutes or not, Kokoa was a little afraid to check the time to find out. At some point they had wound up in the back seat of Toka’s car, and Kokoa only came to her senses at last when Toka tried reaching under her shirt.
On one hand, Kokoa was rather impressed that she had found the willpower to stop Toka from going any farther. On the other hand… wasn’t it a pretty pathetic showing to have let things go on for so long? Sure, kissing women—or just kissing in general—was something new and exciting for Kokoa, but the timing was awkward to say the least. Maybe if Kokoa had been more self reflective she would have asked these questions about herself all on her own. And more importantly, have gone looking for answers, much as she had today.
From that perspective, didn’t Hayate’s confession save Kokoa from eventually wandering out to a gay bar and having sex with the first woman who bought her a drink? Kokoa wouldn’t have thought herself so susceptible to such pitfalls, but it was hard to deny this newfound evidence.
“Thinking about your Hayate-chan?”
Toka’s voice intruded upon Kokoa’s thoughts. Light and teasing, sounding not at all bothered that Kokoa had cut things short earlier. Which probably meant that Kokoa was dwelling on the possibility a lot more than she was.
“W-What? No—Wait, I mean,” Kokoa began, quickly realizing that admitting the truth was perhaps even more embarrassing than what Toka suggested. “I just have a lot on my mind, okay? Wasn’t it the same for you, when you figured out you were gay?”
No matter how put together Toka might be acting now that she was sober, Kokoa had already peeked behind the veil to see what a wreck she could be. Even if she hadn’t had a lesbian awakening quite like Kokoa’s, that day must have been nearly as wild.
“Hm…” Toka said, coming to a stop at a red light, as she likewise took a pause herself. “Not really? There wasn’t some sudden moment it all came together. I remember looking up pictures of naked women on the internet even before I really understood why. It just seemed interesting?”
“You were—Who just shares something like that with a stranger they just met?” Kokoa protested, going on the offensive to avoid thinking about lesbian porn any longer than she had to. Not that Toka had specifically mentioned lesbian porn, but that was still the direction Kokoa’s mind headed.
“We’re hardly strangers, Kokoa-chan! We made out,” Toka said, turning to nod at her. It was actually a fairly convincing point. “I think it’s a bit late to be covering up my interest in women from you. I already tried groping your boobs.”
The casual delivery only made Kokoa blush harder in response. Couldn’t Toka show a little more shame? The way she spoke, it totally sounded like she would still be willing to try, if Kokoa let her. Which wasn’t good at all for Kokoa’s heart right now.
“Could we maybe talk about anything else?” Kokoa pleaded, shutting out the still vivid memories of lying down in the back seat with Toka on top of her. “You… That looked like some fancy audio equipment you had back there. Do you work in the music industry, maybe?”
From the brands Kokoa had recognized, it was all a bit too pricey for anything a hobbyist would use. Unless Toka’s actual job was something even crazier where she could afford to buy all that expensive equipment anyway.
“Hmm, maybe…” Toka gave a noncommittal hum. “But you aren’t getting out of things that easily, Kokoa-chan. We’re almost there now, it’d be more concerning if you weren’t thinking of your girl right now. Figured out what you’ll say yet?”
Kokoa pointedly looked out the window, refusing to let herself see the amused expression on Toka’s face. She knew exactly what she was doing, referring to Hayate like that! Hayate didn’t belong to anyone yet. But all the same, Kokoa couldn’t stop her face heating up from thinking about Hayate being hers, in any sense of the term.
“S-Shut up!” Kokoa shot back. “If you’re such an expert about all this, where’s your girl? Huh, Toka-san?”
Though it had been an act of pure self-preservation, the question did an impressive job of actually shutting Toka up. Thankfully, the awkward silence didn’t last very long, before the car came to a final stop. Less thankfully, Kokoa could see Hayate’s apartment complex right out the window, having finally run out of time.
Kokoa didn’t know what was worse. The fact she hadn’t even considered Hayate might not be home before showing up at her door, or the fact that she answered right away. Not giving Kokoa a chance to even get her hopes up, that she could put this off for even just one single day.
“Ah, Kokoa. You surprised me.”
The girl standing in the doorway was beautiful. Of course Kokoa knew she was beautiful, it was never Hayate’s looks she took objection to. But never before have she looked at Hayate, blonde hair hanging messily about, taking the other girl in with newfound certainty that she was almost surely definitely gay. Even just dressed in her pajamas, Kokoa couldn’t believe she had missed how god damn hot Hayate could be. Standing there, leaning against the door, struggling to keep both eyes open…
“Wha—Hayate!” Kokoa cried, her brain finally catching up with everything wrong with the picture in front of her. “What are you still doing in your pajamas? Don’t you know what time it is?”
Kokoa couldn’t give a precise answer to that herself—to either question, really—but it had already been past noon when she first left for the train station earlier. She figured that it would be busiest in the evening, but didn’t necessarily want to go when it was busiest, and definitely didn’t want to be wandering around some unfamiliar city in the dark. So she had tried to time her visit for whatever spike might happen around lunch, and it had been over an hour since then, at least.
“Huh? The time?” Hayate stopped rubbing her eye long enough to glance down at her wrist, despite never wearing a watch to begin with, before giving up and attempting to fish around in the non-existent pockets of her pajama bottoms for her phone. “Er, sorry. Does it matter? I’m happy to have you drop by any time of day, Kokoa.”
Hayate smiled at her, making such a simple statement of fact. Hayate was in love with her, for some inexplicable reason. And despite it all, that somehow made Kokoa feel happy. A hidden thrill of having drawn the attention of such a girl, which was doing a poorer and poorer job of hiding, now that Kokoa was fully aware of it.
“But you—Did you really just get out of bed, Hayate?” Kokoa asked, afraid to hear the answer.
“And yet she managed to answer the door after just a single knock,” Toka said, standing beside Kokoa outside the door. “Impressive…”
Keeping her eyes fixed on Kokoa alone, Hayate threw out a peace sign.
“I had a feeling Kokoa was coming, so I got out of bed.”
“That isn’t something to be proud of!” Kokoa insisted. “That just means you would’ve slept in even later otherwise.”
It wasn’t too late to change her mind. Kokoa hadn’t accepted Hayate’s confession yet. She hadn’t gotten much of a chance to say anything meaningful at all, going through the chaotic ritual of what should have been a simple greeting.
Hayate had the last button of her pajama top undone though, which somehow served as a more convincing argument than anything else Kokoa’s brain could come up with to argue against it.
“It sounds like you’ll just have to start coming over every day then, Kokoa-chan,” Toka added teasingly. Hayate quickly nodded along at this, before noticing for the first time the whole other person who wasn’t Kokoa-shaped, also standing right in front of her.
“Eh? Who are you again?” Hayate said, eyes widening slightly, then stealing a careful glance back at Kokoa. “Did you invite her here, Kokoa?”
Kokoa stiffened for a second, not wanting to be blamed for bringing a woman like Toka anywhere. Except… it totally was her fault. Allowing Toka to more or less invite herself over on this impromptu visit where Kokoa hadn’t even been invited herself.
“Er, this is Toka-san,” Kokoa explained as she held out a hand in the other woman’s direction, before feeling that maybe that wasn’t much of an explanation at all. “She, uh, is in the music industry? And… I think it might be better not to discuss this all outside.”
“Got it,” Hayate said, pausing to give Toka a lazy salute in greeting, before stepping back from the door. “Tendo Hayate, at your service.”
Kokoa stepped inside. Toka did not. But that made sense, since she shouldn’t have really been involved in this whole mess of a confession to begin with. It was probably just a little awkward to say goodbye right after being introduced. Kokoa turned back over her shoulder, finding that Toka was giving Hayate a rather odd look.
“Ha-chan…?” Toka asked, stepping a little closer to Hayate than Kokoa found she was entirely comfortable with.
“Eh? I guess you can call me that…” Hayate shrugged. “It’s usually only something my older relatives call me, but I don’t really mind it?”
“No, no. Ha-chan, it’s me, Toka!”
It took a moment for Kokoa to figure out Toka probably wasn’t just introducing herself again for no reason. Rather, she wasn’t introducing herself at all.
“T-Toka-san? How do you know Hayate?” Kokoa stammered. She lacked the nerve to ask what she really wanted to know. Why was this older woman addressing Hayate so familiarly?
“Toka…?” Hayate said, putting a finger up to her lips. They couldn’t be as close as Toka was trying to pretend, if Hayate didn’t even recognize her.
“Toka, your cousin?” Toka added helpfully, making Hayate’s eyes light up out of nowhere.
Hayate’s cousin…? Kokoa’s head turned towards Toka, but it was too ridiculous to believe. She had run into Toka by complete chance. How could she be related to Hayate?
“Oh, Toka-chan!” Hayate said, oblivious to the ongoing meltdown inside of Kokoa. “It’s been ages, hasn’t it? I feel like you were a whole lot taller back then, though…”
“Hehe, or maybe you were just a whole lot shorter back then,” Toka said, laughing off the way Hayate leaned in to peer closer at her. “So I guess that means you and Kokoa-chan—Hey, wait a minute, Kokoa-chan! Isn’t Ha-chan a little young for you to be dating?”
If there was one thing Kokoa had not come to expect from Toka in the short time she had known her, it was any shred of responsibility. Where had all this come from all of a sudden? After buying a younger girl a drink without even bothering to ask how old she was?
“Eh? Kokoa, you told Toka-chan we’re dating?” Hayate said, perking up immediately, the full of her attention captured by Kokoa once more. “I knew you liked me too! Does this mean we can go out for real now?”
“Absolutely not!” Toka said, stepping in between them. “I know you’re excited Ha-chan, but at least wait until you’re in middle school before thinking of getting a girlfriend—preferably one who is also in middle school.”
“Er… Toka-san?” Kokoa said, a little embarrassed to be correcting her. “Hayate is already in her last year of middle school. How long has it been since you last saw each other, exactly?”
Toka stiffened, but didn’t back down, turning instead to glare at Kokoa.
“W-Well, that’s still way too young for you, Kokoa-chan,” Toka stammered. “Did you think I’d let you have Ha-chan just because you have a pretty face, and a cute laugh, and a good fashion sense, and a—”
“Kokoa is also in middle school, Toka-chan,” Hayate said, tugging on her cousin’s sleeve. “We’re in the same year, even.”
That got Toka to shut up pretty quickly, much to Kokoa’s relief. She didn’t understand why Toka suddenly started rambling on about her, but it was way too embarrassing to hear an older woman speak about her like that.
“No… what? There’s no way that can be right,” Toka said, shaking her head a bit too slowly to convince anyone she really believed it. “If Kokoa-chan… but…”
Toka’s eyes traced across Kokoa, fully taking her in once more. More than once, her gaze dipped down to Kokoa’s chest, before carefully reaching a hand out. Kokoa took much less care in slapping it away.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re trying to touch?” Kokoa snapped. “Hayate’s bigger than me anyway! If there’s anyone you’re having trouble believing is still in middle school, isn’t she the much more obvious choice?”
“Kokoa would rather I do it, right?” Hayate jumped in excitedly. “My parents aren’t home right now, you know. That’s what you came here for, right Kokoa? You just couldn’t hold yourself back any longer?”
“As if!” Kokoa said, trying to put a little more space between herself and both other girls. “Isn’t that a little presumptuous, when I haven’t even said I wanted to date you yet?”
“She definitely wants to date you, Ha-chan,” Toka whispered over to her cousin, the hand covering one side of her mouth doing little to stop Kokoa from hearing. Beside her, Hayate nodded, as if this was some grand insight rather than baseless conjecture.
Well… Kokoa had sort of admitted as much to Toka already, but that was beside the point!
Toka took a moment to clear her throat, before looking back to Kokoa. “So, uh. You’re in middle school, Kokoa-chan? That’s… young.”
“How old did you think I was?” Kokoa asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she pointedly ignored any possibility she could have corrected Toka earlier.
“Maybe like twenty—N-Nevermind! It doesn’t matter,” Toka said, quickly conceding to Kokoa’s glare. She turned away from the door, giving one last awkward look at both girls. “I, uh, should probably get going then.”
Kokoa let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Standing around Toka was a bit stressful, if only due to how much she was still hiding from Hayate. But there was no reason to suspect that Toka had bought her alcohol, or kissed her, or pushed her down in the back seat and—
“Not so fast!”
Kokoa’s heart nearly burst out of her chest, as Hayate rushed past her out the door, grabbing Toka by the wrist. She couldn’t say if she was more worried for herself or Toka, or merely taken off guard by the suddenness of it all, but she could only stand there stunned as Hayate tugged her cousin back insistently. Just what had she figured out? Hayate wasn’t supposed to be this observant!
“Ha-chan? What are you—” Toka said, briefly trying to get away, before giving up from the dubious strength of a girl nearly a decade younger than her.
“You can’t leave, Toka-chan,” Hayate demanded. “Kokoa can’t ask to marry me without my family’s approval, so I need you to balance the scales!”
Maybe if Hayate had made a little more sense in anything she said, Kokoa would’ve known if she could calm down or not. Marriage? What sort of crazy logic was that? Kokoa had underestimated Hayate, foolishly assuming her motives had any rational basis.
“Uh… Isn’t it usually your father’s approval? Or your parents?” Toka said, but her feet were already moving back towards the house, as Hayate continued to pull. “Cousins are pretty far down the list, especially cousins you haven’t met since you were five.”
“That’s no good,” Hayate told her seriously, shaking her head at Toka. “My parents never agree on anything, and they definitely wouldn’t agree to let me marry another girl. I need a tiebreaker—Or better yet, let’s hold the vote now, before my parents get home! Then it will be too late to take back our wedding vows.”
What sort of backroom political dealing was this? Shouldn’t Hayate be more concerned with Kokoa’s confession in the first place? Jumping all the way to marriage already was way too quick! Though, maybe not entirely unexpected from a girl who asked her out the very first time they met up in person.
“Er, Ha-chan, weddings are a little more complicated to put on than you think,” Toka continued her protests, even as Hayate backed all the way into Kokoa, forcing the three of them together through the front door and inside. “And it can’t even be done for two girls!”
As glad as Kokoa was to have Toka as an ally against this madness, she was definitely starting to have second thoughts. Had she really seen something special in Hayate, or had Kokoa perhaps rushed into things way too quickly? If she was just excited about kissing girls, Toka seemed much more normal by comparison now, and it couldn’t be that hard to convince her to date a middle school student she had already made out with… No, wait, that basically canceled out the ‘normal’ part completely, didn’t it?
“I know all about that stuff now, Toka-chan,” Hayate said, shaking her head dismissively at Toka. “And we can definitely consummate our marriage. I looked up all the ways two girls can—”
“A-Alright, that’s enough!” Kokoa said, pushing in between Hayate and Toka, forcing their arms apart. “I never agreed to any of that, Hayate. Definitely not getting married, or any of that, uh… other stuff.”
So what if Kokoa had looked that ‘stuff’ up too? She wasn’t dense enough to admit it out loud. She hadn’t told Toka, right…? Kokoa froze up a little, all the careless teasing now replaying in the back of her mind. Surely not. There was no way Kokoa would get tricked by a pretty girl so easily, even if some of the details were distressingly hard to recall now.
“She totally wants to do it, Ha-chan,” Toka gave her cousin another stage whisper, Hayate accepting this false wisdom just as readily.
“I never told you—er, said that!” Kokoa insisted, but it was too late. She was already imagining it. Not just the more lurid possibilities, but way more embarrassing things like standing next to Hayate in a wedding dress.
“You didn’t need to, Kokoa,” Hayate said, stepping up to take Kokoa by the hand. “It was… kind of obvious. I honestly don’t know how it took you so long to figure things out.”
Whatever protests Kokoa might still try to make up were swiftly dealt with, as Hayate pressed her lips against Kokoa’s. It was frustratingly hard to deny her feelings with Hayate’s tongue in her mouth. And then even frustration became impossible, as Kokoa’s mind went blank.
“Hayate!”
In an instant, Hayate stiffened, her name called out by someone who definitely wasn’t her needy maybe-girlfriend. Nor was it Toka’s voice, for that matter.
“Just what on Earth are you… Toka?”
Kokoa turned around, unable to stop Hayate’s arms from coming up behind her, wrapping her in a protective hug. There was an older woman walking in from down the hall, not at all pleased to find the scene Hayate was making right in the entryway, not even bothering to close the front door behind her.
“Ah… Long time no see, Oba-san,” Toka gave the woman an awkward wave.
Eyes flicking between Toka and the unfamiliar woman, Kokoa’s mind began to whir. She knew Toka was Hayate’s cousin, so it made sense she would recognize the rest of Hayate’s family. They were also in Hayate’s house, so there wasn’t much chance this was some strange woman completely unrelated to them. Combined with Toka’s chosen address, there weren’t many possibilities left…
“Hayate, I thought you said your parents weren’t home,” Kokoa whined, more mad at herself for getting carried away, but also still mad at Hayate because it really was all her fault in the end.
The woman didn’t slow down, walking barefoot across the room until she stood right in Kokoa’s face, cupping her chin with one hand. She tilted Kokoa’s head to one side, peering closer as if trying to take a better look at her.
“You sure are a flatterer, aren’t you girlie?” she asked, sounding far from pleased, before turning away dismissively. “And why am I not surprised to find you’ve put your strange thoughts in these girls’ heads, Toka?”
“I didn’t do—” Toka started, but then corrected herself. “I hardly did anything! I haven’t spoken to Hayate in years, and she figured things out well enough on her own.”
“We’re getting married, Oba-san,” Hayate added confidently, squeezing Kokoa’s hand in her own. And also hinting that maybe this woman was a bit old to be Hayate’s mother, if likely by accident.
Was this really the girl Kokoa had fallen for? She could almost understand the accusation, Toka had definitely filled her head with some crazy ideas. But having now kissed two girls, Kokoa was fairly convinced now she was a lesbian. Or at least attracted to the female members of the extended Tendo family… perhaps excluding the older woman standing in front of her, glaring at them. Hayate’s grandmother, if Kokoa had to guess. Which failing more proper introductions was shaping up to be the case.
“Ha! Good luck marrying another girl,” Hayate’s probably-grandmother laughed derisively. “If you have no interest in men, shouldn’t you focus more on your studies? Maybe then you’d know it was impossible in the first place.”
It wasn’t that Kokoa hadn’t known about homophobia before today. If asked, she might’ve even said it was a bad thing to believe. But where it had once felt so distant and meaningless, just these casual remarks were brushing Kokoa the wrong way. She wanted to yell at Hayate’s grandmother—or maybe aunt—and tell her all the things that Kokoa couldn’t even think of how to put into words. But instead, Hayate beat her to the punch.
“What would you know, Oba-san? You married a man,” Hayate shot back, before tugging Kokoa’s hand insistently. “Come on, Kokoa. There’s a couch right over there. If we have sex now, we’ll show Oba-san we can consummate our marriage after all—and there’s no takebacks on that! Once we do it, we’re all set.”
As Hayate pulled Kokoa harder towards the couch, several realizations snuck up on her. Kokoa didn’t want to have sex in front of Hayate’s grandma, cousin, or anyone else in her family. That part was pretty obvious. But otherwise, Kokoa was surprised to find she had very few other objections. More accurately, none at all. Which explained how Hayate had managed to pull her along so successfully before Kokoa finally dug her heels in.
She looked between Toka and the old woman, both crazy in their own ways. The whole family was crazy, in their own ways. And rather than the exception, Hayate more than proved this rule all on her own. Which perhaps made Kokoa all the crazier, for still wanting Hayate after all this.