All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 17

The coming of the day is heralded not by the tolling of church bells (with or without a dark secret), but by the back of a hand slamming down on my nose.

I manage not to yell out in panic by the very effective and expedient method of blinking in groggy confusion (truly, a masterful exercise in tactical thought), and thus I get the chance to see the lady Minami spread on top of me, her back to my chest and her mouth open in a silent, and no doubt scathing, challenge to the Heavens above. Her hand’s on my face after, presumably, she rolled over on top of me rather than intentionally ambushing my sleeping self.

…

I’m lying verystill.

Some may claim it is cowardice, that I’m just avoiding triggering her colossal wrath by not disturbing the sleeping dragon, but that would be baseless slander!

It would also be… wrong.

Because the actual reason is that I can feel a silly grin spreading over my face so widely it actually hurts a bit as I stare at the incredibly cute and moe girl atop me.

Really, I just want to wrap my arms around her and roll across the impractically wide bed, and—oh. There’s a mirror above us.

…

She looks so damn cute!

Dawn’s grey light filtering through imperfectly aligned curtains is enough to bring out the spark of fire in her hair, and her gently closed eyes bring to mind the tale—nay, the legend!—of The Sleeping Beauty, and… And that trace of dried-up drool on the right corner of her mouth is so obviously a moe point designed to bring attention to how the fiery, combative tsundere is actually tenderhearted and prone to showing her weak side once tamed—

I mean, not that I’ve tamed her. That would be… Improper. And a hentai trope. And not at all what a caring, gentle boyfriend should be thinking about the morning after losing his virginity, and—

… Damn it.

Morning wood.

I’ve got morning wood, a cute, naked girlfriend lying on top of me, and I can’t stop thinking about the possible connection between those two rather exceptional circumstances (well, one of them isn’t that exceptional, truth be told, even if I’d like to think otherwise about the General’s Blade—gods damn it!).

And… I don’t want to.

I want to watch her sleeping face, to rejoice in the feeling of her trusting me enough to carelessly sleep on top of me, to… to bask in the warmth I keep feeling inside my chest every time I look up at the mirror above us and see the disheveled state she’d never dream of letting anyone else witness in public. I just want to…

I just want to lie here, beneath warm covers, watching the girl I love.

… I’m far too sappy, aren’t I?

But… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Not today of all days, not after finally having become one with someone else, after letting her see…

…

I… Oh, I let her see too much, didn’t I?

Because… she trusts me, I think, and she says she loves me, but what I did yesterday, when I asked her not to let me be alone anymore…

‘She made you promise she wouldn’t be.’

That’s… true. But it was in the heat of the moment, and she likely doesn’t think my own declaration was the epitome of manliness—

‘After last night? I think she has a very clear idea of what the “epitome of manliness” could be...’

Inner Hachiman!

‘Come on, lifting her up and fucking her against the wall? That’s like… an extreme kabedon. And, if shoujo has taught us anything, it’s that girls like kabedons.’

I’m pretty sure it depends on circumstances.

‘Yeah, such as the guy they love being the one doing it to them. I’d say that’s the case.’

… I still have trouble believing it.

‘… Breathe. She promised, remember? And then made you promise in turn. She’s… Hard to believe, isn’t it? After all these years?’

I…

I try to hold back tears as I wrap my arms around her softly enough that she barely shifts atop me, just slightly turning to face me, her mouth still comically open. Vulnerable.

And then I close my eyes and concentrate on her warm body atop mine, on the still caress of her skin on mine, on the sound of her breathing, the tickle of her short hair on my chest, the…

I lie back, eyes closed, and let Minami be my world.

And then I fall back asleep.

***

“We are late!” the lady Minami yells at me from where she’s jumping up and down, trying to drag her stockings up her legs.

“I’m sorry!” I yell back from where I’m crawling on all fours across the lush carpet of this room in a futile attempt to locate my missing tie.

“You let us sleep too much!” she accuses as she rushes to the bathroom right before I hear water running.

“You didn’t set any alarms!” I defend myself, trying to divine how the inanimate accessory may be actively evading my search. It’s a green piece of cloth! It should be easy to spot!

“I’ve got no time for your excuses!” Her stockings accompany her verbal barbs as she throws them out the door, where they shall likely establish a treasonous alliance with my rounin tie.

“But you still have time to blame me for everything!”

“Yes! Because I’ve got priorities! Now get in here: we’ve got no time to shower separately, and you can’t go to school reeking of sex!”

I freeze.

When I look up, I see a very naked, very imperious lady Minami leaning from the bathroom’s entrance, her arms once again proudly crossed below her magnificent set of titties—

‘Kinda losing the poetry of the moment, right there.’

Those are enough poetry to last me a lifetime.

‘Can’t say I disagree.’

“Well?” she asks with a tone that may as well be saying, ‘I’ve stated my desires, and the world isn’t accommodating them—this is an unacceptable state of affairs.’

‘… If you add Inner Minami in here, your head’s gonna get too crowded.’

“I… All right?”

She arches an imperious eyebrow, and her arms slightly lift her breasts in a way that makes the soft flesh bounce a single, mesmerizing time.

“All right! Yes! Let us adjourn to our ablutions!” I answer with a bit less uncertainty and quite a bit more panic.

She sighs.

And turns around.

And sways her very naked hips in a way that—

Huh. I’m already inside the bathroom. It turns out the art of the flash step was real enough.

The lady Minami looks at me in momentary surprise that she manages to cover with a harrumph before she sashays into the bathtub, the running water already steaming the room.

I hesitate for a single moment in joining her, but then she grabs the shower head and lets the hot water wash over her lithe body, her skin gleaming with droplets that I desperately want to lick off her, and I’m suddenly standing behind her, the running water warming the soles of my feet.

“Wash my hair,” she asks of me, handing me a bottle of shampoo over her shoulder without looking back.

Wordlessly, I take it and get a dollop of the bluish gel on my hands before letting a bit of water mix with as I rub my hands together to get a bit of foam before I…

As soon as I touch her head, she purrs and leans her back against my chest.

Once again, I feel her warm body, completely defenseless and resting on my own, and I…

“Yoshiteru?” she asks, her tone barely above the volume of the falling water.

“I… I’m sorry. It’s still… Hard to believe.”

I shut up at that. Because she likely understands, but maybe she doesn’t, and if that’s the case, I don’t want to explain, to tell her how wretched I am, how weak, how—

“I love you,” she whispers, her face hidden from my eyes by wet, matted hair, and the low angle of her head. “And I… I want you to believe it. Me. I want you to believe that I do love you, that I… That I’ve given you more than I thought I could give, that I… That I won’t forgive you for how much you’ve made me change in such a short time, and so you’ll have to stay with me until you make up for it. Until I…” she trails off, and then she turns around and hugs me, her naked, wet body flush against my own as she once again buries her face on my chest even as my hands remain on her hair. “Until I let you... you aren’t allowed to leave me. Because you made me realize how alone I truly was, how badly I had handled things, and I… I can’t live like that anymore—don’t want to live like that anymore.”

“My lady, I—”

“Minami. Just Minami, please.”

I take my hands off her hair and have the water wash away any trace of foamy suds off them before I gently clasp her chin and make her look up at me. Her face’s free from that makeup she so subtly applies, her hair a matted mess with white blobs of foam, her eyes reddish, either because of emotion or soapy water.

She’s breathtaking.

“I love you,” I tell her—except I don’t. Because my throat is raw, and I end up croaking the words, almost growling them, but her eyes are still on my own, still showing me that gray that sometimes is steel, yet others…

I lean down, my hands on her waist helping her raise up to me, and my lips meet hers, our kiss deepening with every beat of our hearts, the drumming of the water falling away as the rush of blood in my ears overtakes it, and I feel her against me, her warmth almost burning me with all the danger of believing something that’s too good to be true, that I had given up on ever finding, that I—

Her arms wrap around my neck, and she pulls herself up with such impetus I end up wobbling, and I try to sit on the bathtub before we both fall down. I end up sitting Indian style, with Minami on my lap, her legs around my waist, her—

“We’ve got no time to deal with this,” she says, looking at a part of me proudly standing between us.

“Your devotion to academic pursuits does you credit. Still, one could say relaxing the rules from time to time—”

“I punched two girls yesterday, Yoshiteru. I can’t skip just because we both feel like—because youget horny when sharing a shower with me.”

“Woman! You’ve been making sure I get my eyes and hands on you since you woke up!”

“Then maybe you should have taken advantage of that rather than look for your ridiculous tie!”

I blink at her, the gesture only partially motivated by the splashing water falling behind her.

“Are you… punishing me?” I ask in what I hope is not a pitiful voice.

She looks at me, as stern as ever, and then lifts her chin in an imperious gesture.

“I told you to call me Minami,” she says.

I look at grey eyes that aren’t steel. That may be too dark for moonlight, but just right for tarnished, aged silver, the same tone as the grooves on her cross.

“I love you, Minami,” I tell her, the raw honesty making my heart clench.

And I see her face melt into a smile, so pure and genuine, I—

“Then no, I’m not punishing you,” she says as a dainty finger alights on the tip of my member. “But I’m delaying this until lunchbreak.” She cocks her head, trying to turn her smile into a grin and not managing it. “Now kiss me, you fool.”

And I do.

I don’t care about whatever else gets postponed or whatever she calls me: I’m not foolish enough to refuse a chance to kiss her.

***

“I… can’t have lunch with you,” she tells me, her cheeks reddish, her expression bashful, her hands clasped below her navel.

My heart broken, and my erection very disappointed.

“Don’t look at me like that! I’ll make it up to you, I swear, I just have to talk to another teacher about… well, about yesterday. Well, not ‘talk,’ just have him watch as I finish that composition Ms. Hiratsuka told me to write, and I kinda forgot due to a certain someone deciding I needed to revisit the Ghost of Christmas Past, and—stop looking like that. I swear, it’s like kicking a dumb, horny puppy.”

“The lady Saotome implied girls like puppies,” I comment, for lack of anything else to do as I try not to despondently lean on the school’s corridor’s drab walls.

For reasons beyond my understanding, the lady Minami shoots me a sharp glance.

“She did, did she?”

“Ah… yes? That’s what I stated?”

“And did she say anything else?”

“That you and I are made for each other?”

For some reason, at my words the lady Mina—Minami goes from the crossed arms and imperious gesture she so naturally adopts to twirling her fingers and bashfully looking down as a pleased grin spreads on her lips accompanied by a very pretty blush that I can easily see through whatever makeup she’s managed to apply since we came out of the hotel.

“She… did?” Her tone wavers as she asks the question.

“Yes, then she started to say something, cut herself off, and said that it felt like kicking a puppy.”

Minami freezes.

Then, very slowly, looks up at me.

“You two are forbidden from being alone from now on.”

“I… don’t think she has any interests in common with—”

“She’s a chuuni martial artist and occult nerd, of course you’d have things to talk about! Andmy oldest friend! You have a lot in common!”

“So you’re saying I should give her a call—”

“No.”

“I feel you’re being slightly bewildering at the present moment.”

“I feel you’re being dense enough to star in a harem manga. So, no speaking to Mika without me present.”

…

“Are you jealous?”

There’s a hand clasping my tie and dragging me down to—

Oh.

She looks gorgeous when she’s angry. Which is a good thing, considering the frequency of said event.

“You’ve already pulled a miracle. I’m not giving you the chance to pull two,” she growls.

And then she kisses me.

Fiercely, roughly, demanding.

And in the middle of the corridor just as the lunch period starts.

…

Fine.

I grab her hips and raise her up to me as I straighten my body, her own glued to me as I hold her as close as I can while we’re still both dressed, and I allow her tongue to search out mine, the kiss becoming more passionate with every passing second until she finally pulls away, her eyes glued to my own in a kind of demand I’ve just recently started to learn about—

“After class,” she says.

“My home should be available,” I answer without even thinking about what I’m saying.

“Good,” she purrs. “Now, let me go. Apparently, I’ve been a very bad girl, and I need to be punished—”

“Don’t even joke about that, woman—”

“But that’ll have to wait for after class,” she cuts me off before laying a mischievous peck on my lips and squirming out of my grasp.

Then she saunters away, her hips swaying from side to side like they did this morning when she lured me to our shared shower. And it takes actual effort for me not to follow.

I take a deep breath, calming myself down and trying desperately not to think about everything the lady Minami just implied would happen today, and then I turn around to—

Apparently, to find Saika staring at me with stars in his eyes.

“Yoshiteru! Want to have lunch together?”

I blink at him, and his enthusiastic smile doesn’t abate in the slightest.

Then I notice the other students in the corridor staring at me and whispering things that I can only deduce are related to the lady Minami’s display from moments ago. Which could explain Saika’s sudden eagerness to break bread with me.

…

I’m not used to being part of the rumor mill.

‘That’s a lie, and you know it.’

Fine. I’m not used to being part of the rumor mill for reasons that don’t make me want to crawl inside my bed and never come out.

‘Much better. Now, I think Totsuka’s owed some juicy gossip—’

A gentleman doesn’t kiss and—

‘Zaimokuza, if you deny anything Totsuka asks of you, I’ll recruit Outer Hachiman, and we’ll murder you.’

… Sometimes, I think I’ve made you a tad too realistic, Inner Hachiman.

‘Praise me more.’