“…What a nightmare.”
“You started drowning out of nowhere — I was freaking out.”
“Sorry — both legs cramping was not on the bingo card…”
We were sitting on a poolside bench. I’d been wiped out earlier but was recovering.
“More to the point — I’d been saving my first kiss for eighteen years and you got it. You have to take responsibility now.”
“You got my first kiss too — equivalent exchange, right?”
“My first kiss and yours aren’t the same value — that’s not equivalent exchange.”
Plenty of people would pay a fortune for her first kiss. Mine — fewer takers.
“Also the hiding-Suzuno-contact lie hasn’t been punished yet — your debts to me keep piling up.”
“I might genuinely default on this debt — please forgive?”
“Will positively consider.”
“That’s a politician’s no.”
She politician-smiled at me. I called it out.
“Now that you’re recovered, back to playing.”
“What next?”
My calves still ached — strenuous out, but normal stuff was fine.
“Sauna?”
“Sure. But — no endurance contest.”
“Why not?”
“No.”
She pouted, I held firm. Adding to my debt — no.
After the sauna we did the jacuzzi and flowing pool some more.
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
”…That’s the time already.”
“Yeah, eventful but it flew.”
The wall clock said 17:00. We’d changed in around 14:00 — three hours had flown.
Time to find the guys and head home. They were easy to find, but something looked off.
“Why the long faces, guys?”
“Can’t you tell? Kaito and I got crushed trying to flirt.”
“Brutal — my heart’s broken.”
Kenji and Kaito were deflated. Made sense. But Shou’s slump was on another level entirely — and his cheek was red.
“Kenji and Kaito I get — but what about Shou? Why’s his cheek red?”
“Hey, listen — Shou had a girlfriend.”
“Hid it from us this whole time.”
Kenji and Kaito were unusually animated. Shou having a girlfriend was news to me.
“Okay — but why is he like this? You two didn’t bully him, right?”
”…Got caught flirting by my girlfriend. Punched in the face.”
”…Oh.”
The story: Shou had recently started dating a girl in a neighboring class. She’d happened to be at Tokyo Summer Hills with friends, saw him hitting on someone, dragged him out, and slugged him.
Kenji and Kaito had spotted the wreck from a distance and that’s how they’d learned he had a girlfriend.
“That is one hundred percent your fault, man.”
”…She was furious — I might get dumped.”
He looked like the world had ended. Why would you flirt while dating?
“Kaito and I are going to do a consolation thing for Shou somewhere — Yuito?”
“Hmm —”
“Go. The three of them had to share you for the whole pool day.”
Kano gave me the green light. I’d go.
(With a flirt-while-dating opening tone, this consolation session was going to be chaotic.)