Chương 259: 106. Love Hotel in Rainy Night

The rain was too heavy to just be called rain. It felt more like whichever department in heaven handled the weather had finally snapped, and tipped an entire bucket of accumulated grievances and workplace stress straight down onto the ground. By the time Maki and I made it inside from the station, our shoes and socks were soaked through. The hems of our skirts and jackets looked like they'd just been dragged out of a canal. The bags in our hands were getting battered into a wet, frantic drumbeat.

The whole picture was an insult to the fact that I'd been civilized by a department store makeover only yesterday. The door swung shut behind us, and the roar outside dropped by half. What remained pressed through the glass and the awning—low, heavy, like a threat that hadn't gone far. Inside, though. Honestly, inside deserved a higher threat level than the storm did. I stood on the entry mat, hair still dripping, and my eyes had already swept the whole lobby. Pink indirect lighting.

Sofas upholstered in something excessively plush. Abstract paintings with compositions that raised more questions than they answered. A glass display case by the front desk held bottles that clearly weren't bath products—more like the kind of liquid adults acknowledge with a look and don't discuss out loud. Further along, the rate board spelled everything out in bright, unapologetic print: Couples' Rest — 3 Hours Themed Suite — Overnight Package Couples Only — Complimentary Drinks Included My eyelid twitched. Good.

Wonderful. This was not a normal hotel. Calling it suspicious would have been generous. It had WE ARE A LOVE HOTEL practically welded across its own face in neon, with a distinct side note of since you're already here, don't bother playing innocent. I turned my head slowly and looked at Maki. She was looking at the same rate board. Her expression hadn't moved at all. That was the scariest thing about her.

A normal person, in this situation, would show at least some emotional fluctuation — surprise, embarrassment, at minimum some basic human oh, we walked into the wrong place reflex. Maki had none of that. She just stood beside me, half-soaked, still holding that damned Puni Puni Mouse keychain and a stack of shopping bags, looking like an exceptionally competent survivor who'd accidentally wandered into a crime scene and was calmly confirming the emergency exits anyway. The clerk behind the counter looked up.

A woman in her early thirties, makeup immaculate, lipstick shade genuinely aggressive. Her smile carried a very specific blend cultivated only by years in front-line service work — equal parts compassion and gossip. Her eyes swept across the two of us. From the wet hair. To the identically drenched shoulders. To the shopping bags. To the Puni Puni Mouse. To the way we were standing far too close together, obviously having sprinted in to escape the rain. It took her exactly one second.

Her eyes shifted into a look that understood far too much.

"Rest, or overnight?" My mouth opened. My brain went completely blank. In theory, it was a simple question. But when you're soaked to the bone, standing in a love hotel lobby with another girl, and the clerk is looking at you with an expression that says no need to explain, I already get it — even the simplest question on earth turns into a high-difficulty interrogation.

"We—" I'd barely gotten the first syllable out before Maki beat me to it.

"Quick question first — is this rain going to let up soon?" The clerk's smile picked up an extra layer.

"Forecast says this system's got at least another two hours left in it." Two hours. I nearly flipped off the sky right there in the lobby. With rain coming down like that, forget two hours — another ten minutes would probably be enough to wash us both straight back to the spaceport through the storm drains. The clerk glanced at the small puddle slowly forming around our feet and added:"And if you two run back out looking like that, you'll definitely catch cold."

She said it so naturally, so warmly, like she genuinely cared about her guests. For reasons I preferred not to examine, that you two landed in my ears carrying a very specific, very dangerous implication — that Maki and I had already been packaged together as a single unit. I cleared my throat, determined to salvage the situation.

"Actually, we're just—""Couple caught in the rain. Say no more." The clerk nodded, her smile as gentle as someone graciously preserving the last shred of dignity for two lost young women. I stalled out completely. Say no more? You understand nothing. Not a single thing. No — that wasn't even the point right now. I could practically feel my temple starting to throb.

"No, we're—""It's fine if it's your first time. A lot of guests are a little shy about it at first." She slid a room-type photo album across the counter with thoughtful efficiency.

"If you'd rather keep a low profile, we have some more discreet rooms. Excellent soundproofing, large bathroom, full drying facilities — perfect for weather like today."... Done for. The more I tried to clarify, the deeper black it got — and she was painting over it with the smooth, professional strokes of a true veteran. I turned to Maki, trying to fire off an SOS signal with my eyes. She had already lowered her head and started paging through the album. I nearly stopped breathing entirely.

"Maki." I hissed her name through my teeth.

"Mm?"

"Stop looking at that so seriously."

"I'm confirming the specs."

"That is not what you should be confirming right now."

"Why not?" She looked up at me, expression so level it bordered on innocent. For a second, I genuinely didn't know which angle to start criticizing from. The clerk, reading the room perfectly, launched right into her pitch:"This is the Classic Double — simple amenities, very reasonable rate. This one's the Starry Night theme, larger tub. And this one — the lighting's adjustable, and it comes with a massage function—""Stop." I cut in immediately.

"That last one does not need explaining." The clerk gave an oh my expression, her smile turning even more suggestive.

"Young people really are more direct these days." I wanted to tell her that wasn't it at all, but opening my mouth now would only make things worse. Maki flipped the album forward two pages, her gaze settling on one room's description.

"This one has a dryer?"

"It does," the clerk answered instantly.

"Bathroom's got a drying mode, plus a small garment dryer. With you two this soaked, it'll make things much easier." Maki nodded.

"Then this one." I spun around.

"Hold on — you're just deciding that?"

"What else?"

"What else—" I'd been about to say what else, we find a normal hotel — but before the words left my mouth, a dull crack of thunder rattled the windows, and the rain jumped another level, the glass door turning into a solid sheet of white.... Right. Perfect. Weather, location, and circumstance, all conspiring to shove me straight into the fire together. I closed my eyes and felt my dignity being ground into the floor by this storm.

"Shimo." Maki said my name.

"What."

"You're shaking." I blinked and looked down on instinct. My shoulders were, in fact, trembling slightly. Not from fear. At least, not entirely. Mainly because wet clothes plastered to skin, combined with air conditioning that had absolutely no regard for human survival, were draining my body heat fast enough that this place might as well have been drumming up business for the Federal medical system on the side. I was speechless for two seconds before managing a dry:"That's cold."

"All the more reason to get into a room." She was infuriatingly logical. Logical enough that continuing to resist felt less like defiance and more like picking a fight with my own lungs. The clerk already had her terminal ready.

"So — shall I set this one up for you two? Overnight, or rest?" I felt like that question had a trap embedded in both options. Whichever I answered, it sounded like I'd be notarizing my own future social death. Maki didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.

"Overnight." I nearly choked on my own spit.

"Overnight?" Maki looked at me.

"We still needed somewhere to sleep tonight anyway."

"But—""It's still pouring outside."

"I know that."

"Your clothes are wet."

"I know that too."

"And you were the one who complained the pipes at the business hotel were too loud yesterday." That's not what I complained about yesterday. That's what you complained about this morning. But I opened my mouth, and found I had nothing to throw back. Because, strictly by the logic of it, she was completely right.... Damn it. Being this right just made it more infuriating.

The clerk finished check-in with practiced ease, even mentioning, with remarkable tact, that only one form of ID is required for registration — the tone of someone who did this every day for people who'd rather not over-explain the nature of their relationship. By the time Maki handed her terminal over, roughly half my soul had already left my body. The clerk passed back a keycard and a small metal tag stamped with a room number, smiling with total professionalism.

"Room 707. Elevator's on the right. Would you like a few extra bath towels?" Before I could process the danger buried in that question, Maki had already answered:"Yes, please." The clerk nodded and pulled two thick towels from behind the counter with clean efficiency, adding a decent-looking hairdryer set on top.

"Also, the mini-fridge in the room has complimentary drinks, the hot water comes up fast, and the bedside lighting and speaker are both adjustable. If you need anything else, you can order directly through the in-room terminal." She paused, just slightly, on anything else. I had absolutely no desire to know what was in that catalogue. None whatsoever. Maki took everything and gave a quiet word of thanks. I followed her to the elevator in a state of full-body rigidity, soul hovering somewhere near the ceiling.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Only once the doors closed did I finally let out the breath I'd been holding for the past several minutes.

"I have a very strong urge right now." Maki stood beside me, still holding the towels and bags, voice perfectly level.

"What urge?"

"To blame everything on today's itinerary, starting from breakfast, entirely on that Puni Puni Mouse."

"It probably can't shoulder that much responsibility."

"Then blame the weather."

"It didn't make the rain fall either."

"Do you have to be this rational right now?"

"Someone has to be." I turned and glared at her.

"Do you really not feel like anything's off here?" Maki considered it.

"I do." My spirits lifted.

"You finally—""The air conditioning at the front desk was too strong."

"..." I really needed to stop harboring any romantic illusions about her capacity for shared feeling. The elevator chimed at the seventh floor. The doors opened, and the corridor beyond proved — silently, but with considerable force — exactly how indecent this place was. Dimmer than a normal hotel. Thicker carpet. Every few meters along the wall, a fixture with an overly rounded shape gave off a warm light with clear ambitions of its own.

Even the air carried a faint scent — not floral, not cleaning product, but something that had visibly exceeded the requirements of accommodation. I made it three steps before I started regretting being alive. 707 sat at the very end of the hall. Maki swiped the card. The lock clicked softly. The door swung inward. We both stopped. I finally understood what it meant for a room's décor to be actively complicit in a crime. The room was enormous. Too big for a standard hotel room.

Dead center sat a bed — not just large, but large enough that rolling across it might make you question your life choices, with enough room left over to hold a small tactical briefing. The headboard was a full padded wall in deep wine red, flanked by adjustable LED strips. Indirect lighting ran the perimeter of the ceiling, kept deliberately dim — clearly not designed for reading. On the left, a bathroom separated only by frosted glass. Inside: a round bathtub. Large.

Large enough that one look was all it took to decide I never wanted to investigate the design philosophy behind it. Further back, mounted on the wall opposite the foot of the bed, hung a massive screen. Below it sat a small cabinet holding drinks, an ice bucket, and a drawer I had absolutely no intention of opening. I stood in the doorway and, for one genuine moment, lost the ability to speak entirely. Finally, in the flat tone of someone who'd absorbed far too much civilization all at once, I managed:"...

Is this place even legal?" Maki paused for two seconds as well. Then, very calmly:"Based on the registration process, it should be."

"I wasn't asking about the legal dimension."

"Then the aesthetic one?"

"Both." She shut the door behind us and set the towels and bags down on the sofa. Yes. There was a sofa, too. Black leather. I decline to comment.

"At least the bed's big," Maki said. I turned slowly to look at her.

"That sentence provides zero comfort right now."

"I'm stating facts."

"Could you turn your fact-stating function off for the rest of today?"

"No." I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and worked hard not to short-circuit in the first minute from sheer internal-commentary overload. The rain outside was loud, hammering the window and outer wall, amplified enough that it sounded like the sky itself was doing atmospheric sound design for this hotel. The room was overheated in a way that felt deliberate — like it wanted to soften whatever rational resistance a person had left, right along with their wet clothes.

I looked down at my soaked cuffs, then at the rain-damp ends of Maki's hair, and finally admitted, grudgingly: on the specific point of don't catch a cold first, she was right. Maki had already started checking the room's features. Not because she had some special expertise in love hotels — simply because she was the kind of person who ran an environmental sweep of any space she entered, even one that currently looked like couples-focused consumerism declaring total war on human shame.

She checked the bathroom, activated the drying mode, confirmed the clothes rack.

"Take your jacket off first," she said.

"That sentence sounds especially dangerous in this particular room."

"That's your mind, not the sentence." I nearly choked on that counterattack.

"My mind? Look at this room, then look at me, and you're putting this on my mind?" Maki actually turned and looked at the room. Then at me. Then delivered her verdict with total calm:"The room has issues, certainly. But so do you."... Great. A complete and total defeat, today. She handed me one of the large towels.

"Dry your hair first." I took it, but couldn't help glancing at the bed again. It really was enormous. Unnecessarily so. The kind of enormous that felt specifically engineered so that anyone who wandered in here by mistake would feel, in the very first second, the full weight of the universe's poorly-intentioned sense of humor. I closed my eyes and decided not to think about it further. Thinking about it wasn't going to make the bed any smaller.

"Shimo." Maki said my name.

"What now."

"If you're going to keep staring at the bed, at least dry your hair while you do it." I snapped back, ears immediately hot.

"I was not staring at the bed."

"Mm."

"That 'Mm' is not convincing."

"Because I saw you." This woman was getting more insufferable by the day. And I still had no effective way to deal with her. So I attacked my hair with the towel and mentally added the Puni Puni Mouse, the downpour, the love hotel signage, and the entire tourism industry of Parker-6 to a running grudge list. Once Maki went in to shower, the room dropped into a quiet that wasn't remotely healthy. Not ordinary hotel quiet.

The kind of quiet where the walls, the lighting, and the color of the sheets were all conspiring to remind you: this room isn't normally used for sleeping. I stood in the middle of the room, bags still in hand, and for the first time seriously considered a question — how had they even fit all this into one space? No windows. Cramped footprint. And yet a bed of near-arrogant size had been shoved dead center, as if the room wasn't built for a person to live in, but to orbit around this one object of worship.

The little table and sofa beside it looked suspicious too — scaled as if the designer had never expected anyone to sit there long, just long enough to redirect their attention to the room's single true focal point. As for the projection screen — I glanced up at it. Black mirrored surface, reflecting the room's deeply incriminating lighting, sitting quietly, as if waiting for some function that had no business being activated by a fifteen-year-old cadet. I looked away immediately. Great.

Last night I'd been doing face masks in a normal business hotel. Tonight I was trapped in a room that would show up as the cautionary example in a Federal disciplinary PSA. The turns a human life takes really can be unreasonable sometimes. Water ran in the bathroom. Steady, unhurried, the sound hitting tile and glass amplified by the enclosed space into a presence I did not need reminding of. I stared at the ceiling for two seconds and issued myself an order: Don't think about it.

Don't think about the fact that Maki's in there. Don't think about how, if this room's soundproofing is supposedly decent, the shower still carries this clearly. And definitely don't think about whether this hotel's designer calibrated everything exactly this precisely — never spelling it out, but making it impossible to pretend you hadn't noticed.

I took a deep breath, set the bags on the small table, and decided to find something to do before my brain hit an illegal speed limit heading down entirely the wrong road. That's when my terminal lit up. Jess, of course. She was venting in the group chat at full emotional volume — the rain had cut her afternoon short, and she'd run into Harvey at an arcade.

Somewhere in the middle, she'd also filed a missing-persons bulletin for Roy and Lan, in a tone that suggested those two hadn't just wandered off, but had actively conspired to abandon their beautiful, kind, endlessly talkative friend. At the end, she'd tagged me specifically. With a sticker that read You got this.... Right. No comment. I stared at the sticker for two seconds and decided not to reply yet. Not because I felt guilty. At least, not entirely.

Mostly because my current environment was not conducive to typing. One slip of the thumb, one accidentally-too-descriptive sentence, and my reputation aboard the Yukikaze could be sealed in a black box and archived permanently. I set the terminal face-down on the table and went back to the largely pointless mission of looking like a normal hotel guest. For instance: find the mini-fridge. Hotel rooms have mini-fridges. That's reasonable. Even a love hotel should have one.

Whatever else is going on, humans still need cold drinks. After a full sweep, I discovered this room didn't have one. The spot where a fridge should have been was occupied by something that looked like a small vending machine. I stood in front of it and let three seconds pass. Behind the glass, a neat row of products I didn't particularly want to examine too closely. Drinks, yes. Snacks, yes. And mixed in among them, several items whose packaging alone made a person want to pretend they couldn't read.

I looked at it and had exactly one thought: the design philosophy of this room was probably — If a guest suddenly needs something inconvenient to buy outside, we've already thought of it for you. That isn't thoughtful. That's premeditated. Expression flat, I looked away and went to check the nightstand instead. One glance was enough to make me regret it. Beside a cluster of lighting controls whose icons I had no interest in decoding sat a small storage compartment.

Inside were a few items, packaging minimal, names highly suggestive. One of them had two words printed across the front in large letters: Ultra-Thin. I stared at the thing for two seconds. Then two more. Then, very slowly, my brow pulled together.

"... What exactly is this Ultra-Thin supposed to be?" I'd been talking to myself. Which was, of course, exactly when the bathroom door opened. Maki walked out toweling her hair, already changed into loungewear, steam and heat trailing after her — pushing the room's already unsafe atmosphere firmly into problematic territory. She followed my line of sight. Just once. Then said, with complete calm:"Something we won't be using." I froze completely. Not because I didn't understand.

Because I did — which made me want to induce localized amnesia on the spot.

"... Right." A single, entirely useless syllable. Then I slammed the compartment shut at record speed, as if moving fast enough could retroactively erase the last ten seconds of conversation. Maki glanced at me and didn't twist the knife. That much, at least, counted as conscience on her part. The problem was, the less she pushed, the more thoroughly I replayed the whole exchange in my own head — three times over, with unnecessary commentary added.

I grabbed my clean clothes, working hard to look like someone who just wanted a shower, not someone hoping hot water could wash away the thoughts already drifting well off the approved flight path. But right before stepping into the bathroom, I looked back once. Maki had walked over to the small vending machine. She stood there, head slightly bowed, studying the interface with the kind of focus you'd give an unfamiliar piece of military supply hardware. I stopped.

"... What are you looking at?" She didn't turn around.

"Drinks."

"Just drinks?"

"What else?" I went quiet for two seconds. Reasonable. Too reasonable. And exactly because it was that reasonable, the defensive static currently filling my own head felt especially pathetic. This wasn't her problem. The room was the problem. That obscenely large bed was the problem. This windowless space, seemingly engineered specifically to suggest you shouldn't fall asleep too early, was the problem.

The shower sounds, the heating, the lighting, the vending machine, the nightstand drawer, and that one flat sentence — something we won't be using — had all joined forces to launch a thoroughly inhumane siege on my mental hygiene. Standing in the bathroom doorway with my clothes in my arms, I had a sudden, urgent need to defend myself — I wasn't thinking anything strange. I was simply being forced to notice that every single object in this room was designed to make a person think something strange.

And the worst part was that Maki herself still looked as undisturbed as if nothing at all was happening. One hand held the water bottle she'd just bought. The other tapped through the machine's product list with the focused expression of someone about to draft a Field Assessment Report on Temporary Frontline Accommodation Vending Equipment. A spike of irritation went through me. Not at her. At the universe. Why did she get to be this calm, while I was stuck fighting a street war against my own brain?

I stood there a few more seconds, then, with a sulk I'd rather not admit to, muttered:"... I'm taking a shower." Maki looked up.

"Mm." I shut the bathroom door, locked it, and stared at the face in the mirror — clearly a little worse for wear — for two seconds. The moment the hot water hit, the noise in my ears finally began to recede. The rain. The room's overly soft fragrance. That damned Ultra-Thin in the nightstand. And Maki's flat, even — something we won't be using. I pressed my face into the water and stayed quiet for two seconds.... Too natural.

The more naturally she handled all of it, the more I felt like an idiot running on static. She hadn't done nothing. No — she'd done plenty. Chosen the room. Gotten the towels. Studied the vending machine. Reminded me the water was hot. Even glancing at the thing in the drawer, she'd given it one look and moved on, calm as someone assessing emergency rations. That was exactly the problem. The more she acted like there was nothing worth overthinking, the sharper every thought I shouldn't be having became.

After the shower, I stood in front of the mirror a few seconds, trying to assemble myself into someone capable of walking out without incident. Hair towel-dried, loungewear on, the heat in my ears hopefully down a little — or so I chose to believe. I pushed the door open. The room was neater than before. Maki had hung our wet jackets on the drying rack outside the bathroom. Two water bottles had appeared on the table. Even the bags from the park had been sorted and stacked.

The Puni Puni Mouse keychain — still ugly with total conviction — now hung shamelessly off the corner of the table, bearing witness to the day's entire catalogue of disasters. Maki sat on the edge of the bed, terminal in hand, probably checking tomorrow's transit or the weather. She looked up when she heard me. Just once. Very brief. But somehow the whole room felt narrower for it.

"Done?" she asked.

"Mm." I stood where I was, suddenly unsure where a normal person was supposed to go. The table — too deliberate. The sofa — too small, like a seat reserved for someone serving a sentence. Straight to bed — too much like cooperating with the room's criminal atmosphere. Maki watched me for a second, as if she'd already seen straight through the entirely unnecessary tactical assessment running in my head.

"Your hair's still wet."

"I know."

"Dryer's over there."

"I see it."

"Then why are you just standing there?"... That question was lethal. Because I couldn't exactly answer: I'm working very hard to pretend I haven't become a different person just because we're alone together in a love hotel. I forced myself over to grab the dryer. The cord snagged the second I pulled it — not badly, just tangled around the table leg. I bent to sort it out, and Maki had already set her terminal aside and crossed the room.

"Don't pull. It'll just tighten."

"I know."

"You don't."

"... Do you have to be right every single time?" She didn't answer. Just crouched and slowly worked the tangled section free. She'd just showered too — her hair still carried a trace of dampness, the cuffs of her loungewear rolled to the elbows, her fingers steady against the table leg. The room was very quiet. Just the rain, the AC, and the faint friction of the cord being drawn loose. I looked down at her and felt a flicker of something that wasn't quite irritation. Not at her. At the whole situation.

Why was she always the steady one. Why was I always the one fighting a war inside my own skull. Why could she sort out every small, messy thing like it was nothing, and still look like that was simply the natural order of the world. Maki stood and held the dryer out.

"There." I didn't take it. She looked at me.

"Shimo?" I still didn't take it. In that moment, I knew exactly how unreasonable I looked. Like a child throwing a tantrum. Like someone picking a fight for no reason. Like a cat that had puffed up its own fur first, and still insisted on blaming the other person for being too calm. But I suddenly, genuinely didn't want to take that dryer. I reached up and grabbed her wrist instead. Maki didn't move. She just lowered her eyes to the hand holding hers — her gaze so still it was almost unsettling.

"Shimo," she asked quietly.

"What's wrong?"

"... Don't do that every time." The words were out before I'd thought them through. They sounded like a complaint. A childish one. Maki didn't laugh. She didn't pull her hand back either.

"Do what?"

"Act like everything's completely normal." My voice came out lower than I'd meant it to. The room was too quiet — quiet enough that even a shift in tone this small became obvious. The rain was still there, but it had faded into background now. The real noise was my own heartbeat, refusing to cooperate. Maki watched me, quiet for two seconds.

"Because I genuinely don't think there's anything to panic about."

"... I know." Knowing was exactly why it was worse. I let go of her wrist and grabbed the cuff of her loungewear instead, pulling her a little closer. Not a big movement. Clumsy, even. But the distance closed noticeably enough that the air itself seemed to pause. Maki still didn't step back. She just looked down at me, her breathing a fraction heavier than before. Just a fraction. But I heard it. And in that exact second, something surfaced in me that was almost defiant.

Like if I didn't do something now, the room, the rain, the bed, and this entire day of being led along by her rhythm would all end up counted on her side of the ledger — and I'd be nothing but the idiot who'd spent the whole time getting taken care of, seen through, and quietly shut down, line by line. I hated that feeling. So I lifted my other hand and touched the side of her face. Just lightly. Her skin still held the faint warmth of the shower. Her damp hair fell against her neck.

The instant my fingertips made contact, I froze for half a beat. Maki didn't flinch. Only her eyes changed — a little darker, a little quieter.

"You're being bold right now," she said, her voice lower than before.

"... Is that not allowed?" I'd meant it defiant. The end of it still wavered. Maki looked at me. Close. Close enough that I could clearly catch the clean scent of her hair mixed with the room's overly suggestive fragrance — clean and dangerous, tangled together, making it very hard to stay rational.

"It's allowed," she said. She said it was allowed. But she still didn't move first. Didn't push me away. Didn't close the distance either. She just stayed exactly where she was, leaving the next move entirely to me — and that, somehow, was worse than either option. Like she wasn't forcing anything at all, which made it impossible for me to retreat. I don't know if it was stubbornness, or simply the fact that she looked completely unfair right then.

Either way, the next second, I leaned in, forehead nearly touching hers, breathing already a mess.

"Don't regret this," I said quietly. Maki looked at me, her lashes moving just slightly.

"Make sure you don't regret it first." Damn it. That was too completely her. I didn't give myself any more time to think. I kissed her. Not hard. Not skilled enough to call it a real kiss. More than a kiss, it was more of a touch — carrying a stubborn edge, a need to confirm something, a refusal to concede. The instant my lips touched hers, my heartbeat went completely out of order, my fingers tightening on the fabric. Maki didn't pull back. She really didn't.

She just held still for half a breath, then slowly, quietly followed. Not taking control. Not pushing for more. Just steadying the whole thing in place, letting me know she wasn't refusing. That was more devastating than any other response could have been. I'd assumed I'd touch and pull back. But once it actually happened, that one second stretched far longer than I'd planned. The rain went distant. The AC disappeared. What was left was just breath, too close, and my own increasingly disobedient heartbeat.

Then I pulled back first. Not because I wanted to. Because if I didn't, I genuinely wouldn't know what to do next. We were still close. Close enough that our noses almost brushed. Close enough that I could see the trace of darkness in Maki's eyes that hadn't fully receded yet. She didn't speak right away. Neither did I. The room had gone so quiet it felt like that single touch had pulled all the sound out of it, leaving only our unsteady breathing suspended in between. In the end, Maki spoke first.

Her voice was light, but it landed exactly where I least wanted it to.

"Shimo."

"... Mm."

"Your hand is shaking." I felt caught red-handed, ears burning instantly.

"That's because the room's too hot."

"Is it."

"Yes."

"But you kissed me pretty fiercely just now." I had nothing. She could say something like that in a tone this calm, this near-innocent. This woman was genuinely underhanded. I gritted my teeth, trying to claw something back, and only managed:"... You're annoying." Maki looked at me, then smiled — very faintly. Not obvious. Which made it the worst kind. Because it didn't feel like she was laughing at me. It felt more like she wasn't doing much better than I was — she'd just gotten better at controlling it.

She lifted a hand, fingertip brushing lightly against my lower lip.

"We stop here." I went rigid. Not because of the touch. Because of what she'd said. Not a rejection. Not avoidance. A clear, deliberate statement — she knew exactly what had just happened, and exactly what it would become if it kept going. So she was stopping it now. That was crueler than being pushed away. And harder to sit with than continuing would have been. I stared at her for two seconds, then, entirely without dignity, looked away.

"... I never said I wanted to keep going." Maki gave a quiet "Mm." The kind of "Mm" that made it very clear she didn't believe a word of it. I genuinely wanted to throw her out of the room. Or throw myself out. Or grab the Puni Puni Mouse and take it out on that instead. Unfortunately, none of those three options would fix the tight, overheated pressure currently sitting in my chest. In the end, I just snatched the dryer out of her hand and turned my back.

"I'm drying my hair." Maki paused behind me for half a second, then said, just as quietly:"All right." She didn't press closer. Didn't say anything else. But I knew — that moment wasn't something we could walk back from. The rain was still falling. The room was still wrong. That bed was still infuriatingly enormous. But the biggest problem wasn't the room anymore. It was that now, the second I closed my eyes, I'd see nothing but the fact that she hadn't dodged.... This was genuinely going to kill me.