Pranks Come With a Sigh - Chapter 18
The clock already pointed to 10am.
“I’d better head back.”
You might think that talking for three hours was a long time, but because we hadn’t been talking at all in the past few days, it felt too short. I wanted to be with her longer.
I didn’t want to let go of her hand, so I gripped it tighter.
“Sui?”
A parent and a child had come into the park.
“I don’t want to go home.”
I mumbled that as if I was an unreasonable child. Ena-chan hugged me.
“Cute.”
She patted my head.
“You’re so cute that I want to eat you.”
The kind tone she said it in made my heart feel full.
“I’m okay if you eat me.”
When I said that, her cheeks got red and she avoided my gaze.
Rather, if she ate me, then I could be with her forever… or something.
After she let out a deep sigh, she buried her face in my neck.
“You’re so mean.”
“Why?”
“Today, you’re acting a lot like a kid demanding attention.”
“Do you hate it?”
“I don’t… hate it. I don’t hate it at all.”
The sounds of the kid frolicking in the sandbox echoed throughout the park.
“Then next time.”
Ena-chan lifted her head.
“Huh?”
“Look forward to me eating you next time.”
I blinked repeatedly and a question mark floated above my head.
Did eating mean she was going to bite me again?
Ena-chan’s eyes narrowed. She laughed slightly and tilted her head.
Then, the corners of her mouth rose and she lowered her gaze.
“Sui. Did you actually not know what you were saying?”
She asked that while looking up at me.
I desperately tried to think.
When she said “I want to eat you”, I thought “If I got eaten, I’d be with Ena-chan forever”.
If I was part of Ena-chan… no, I was thinking of something impossible.
In general, the expression “You’re so cute I want to eat you” was used towards babies or pets. It was a simile to express just how cute something was.
“Well, it’s nothing.”
With those three words, I stopped thinking.
“Anyway, next time… even when I go over to your house, please let me know your answer. If you say “I don’t want to” afterwards, it’ll be useless.”
That declaration of some sort of horror made my eyes go black and white.
Ena-chan took my hand and walked me to the station.
She kept on holding my hand right until I walked up to the ticket gate and turned the corner.
That made me happy. To contain my joy, I gripped the string of my bag.
Even inside the train and after I returned home, I wanted to know what Ena-chan meant by those words, so I looked it up.
The results that came up were exactly the same as what I first thought.
After that were just scary articles about people actually eating people, advice on what to eat with your lover, and recommendations for shops.
I sighed.
I laid down on the bed and thought back to today.
I touched my lips.
I could easily remember Ena-chan’s warmth.
I curled into a ball.
Ever since I was talking to Ena-chan, my body felt somewhat weird.
Especially on the day of the sports festival, when we had our first kiss.
My body felt so hot that I thought I had a fever.
I’d checked countless times with a thermometer, but I wasn’t running warm at all.
I found that curling up with my hand between my thighs seemed to calm me down a bit.
Just a bit… if I moved my hand just a bit, then a jerk ran through my body.
“Haa,” a breath escaped me.
I wanted to meet Ena-chan quickly.
I liked both her first exciting kiss and today’s kind kiss.
So much so that I wanted to do it forever.
I didn’t know that kisses could feel this comfortable.
I thought again that there were a lot of things you couldn’t know until you actually experienced them.
There were kiss scenes in the movies and novels I saw. Because I hadn’t known about romance up until now, I never understood what those actions meant.
I even thought that those scenes were unneeded, which I thought was a sign of serious illness.
I even wondered why those things were needed.
But now, I kind of understood.
I was able to really feel that I was important to Ena-chan.
Ena-chan said that she’d done those things a long time ago to relieve stress.
She definitely didn’t have that same feeling of “being important to my partner”, but I still didn’t understand the difference between the two.
To me, everything that Ena-chan gave me, all of the words that she’d said to me: I believed that all of that was based on tenderness and kindness.
I wanted to believe that the pleasant feeling I felt was proof that she treasured me.
…the next time we could talk alone, maybe I’d try asking her if there was a difference between the others before me and how she treated me?
Eventually, we were going to do l*wd things… right?
As I was thinking that, my chest hurt as if it was being squeezed and my heart started racing faster.
I felt a pulsating around my abdomen—actually, somewhere a little lower than that. I put more strength in my hand that was between my thighs.
My flushed body didn’t cool down.
I let out a sigh again.
***
Come to think of it, I forgot to ask about Ena-chan’s mom… I remembered that on Monday when I saw Ena-chan sleeping during class.
I was thinking of asking her, but my mind went blank when we’d kissed at the train station.
Then I remembered and was going to ask, but she licked my neck and the thought left my head again.
After that, I kept thinking about “eating” and couldn’t remember anything at all.
Before we met, I was thinking about what we’d talk about. In the end, though, I could only ask Ena-chan what she thought of me.
…I was happy to ask just that, though.
I was happy we’d also decided whether to tell everyone about our relationship or not.
But we’d still put on hold the topic of how we were going to talk at school, and I still had a lot of things I wanted to ask Ena-chan.
My school life passed as usual.
In the end, time passed without a chance for both of us to talk, nor a plan for us to think of a reason to talk to each other.
Maybe because there were 2 weeks before finals, a lot of people were awake during class.
At these times, teachers would often give hints like “This is going to be on the test, okay?”.
On Thursday, Ena-chan was sleeping during class as usual.
“Is she going to be okay?” I worried.
Ena-chan’s grades were good, so there probably wouldn’t be a problem, but…
During breaktime, I wrote down what the teacher said was going to be on the test on a loose leaf paper.
I put all of my subjects into one binder. That was so I could look back at it again.
That was why I even had papers from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all compiled together.
At the end of the next lesson, Ena-chan woke up.
I nervously headed to her desk with the compiled loose-leaf paper.
Having guessed that she was already awake, Satou-san had already moved.
My seat was closer than Satou-san’s.
When I came up to her, she was already leaning on the seated Ena-chan’s back and was happily talking to her.
With the other girls sitting beside Ena-chan having joined in the conversation, my nervousness heightened.
“E-”
My voice betrayed me.
I was going to call out “Ena-chan”, but I hurriedly swallowed.
“Morozumi-san.”
Ena-chan’s eyes opened wide.
Seeing her already-glimmering smile, my chest tightened.
Satou-san was still leaning on Ena-chan’s back and her smile disappeared.
She squinted and looked suspiciously at me.
“Um, you were sleeping during the whole lesson, so… this…”
When I passed her the loose-leaf paper, Ena-chan looked at it interestedly.
“I compiled everything that the teacher said was going to be on the test. …also, some of what I thought would be important to know.”
Ena-chan enthusiastically lifted her head. “I’m so happy! Thank you!” she laughed.
“Sorai-san, I will lend Ena my notes, so she is already fine, you see?”
The pressure coming from Satou-san strengthened.
“If I have two people’s notes, then it’s going to be easier to understand. I’m grateful for either one of them.”
“But we wrote the same things, right?”
Ena-chan lifted her head and looked at Satou-san.
Both their faces were so close to each other that it made my heart race.
It seemed that Ena-chan’s head was going to rest on Satou-san’s chest…
I stealthily averted my eyes.
“Chiyo, you wrote all the content that was covered in the lesson, right? And Sui said that she collected everything that the teacher said was going to be on the test, right?”
When she called me “Sui” so casually, my heart started racing for a reason that wasn’t nervousness.
“Isn’t having both of them more convenient? …or is that too much to ask?”
Satou-san’s gaze trembled and she avoided eye contact with Ena-chan.
“I… don’t really care.”
She muttered that softly and her cheeks puffed out.
Aah, it made me jealous that Satou-san looked cute doing those gestures.
Ena-chan grinned and straightened up.
“Thanks, Sui. I’m happy you’re letting me hold onto them.”
She held the loose-leaf papers I’d given to her as if they were precious and grinned.
Because of that, I started uncontrollably smiling too.
From afar, I heard someone saying “Is Sui Sorai-san’s first name?”
Ena-chan casually answered “Yeah, it is.”
“It’s a pretty name, right.” When she added that, I placed my head on the desk from embarrassment.
It felt more embarrassing than her telling me directly. What was this feeling?
“Ena, when did you start calling Sorai-san by her first name?”
Satou-san asked that and everyone around her grew curious as well.
“Huh? When? …about two weeks ago?”
“Why, why?” everyone said, so I started eavesdropping.
What was Ena-chan going to answer?
“We got closer since everyone was skipping out on cleaning. That’s okay, right?”
She laughed and I hid my grin inside my arm.
“Ena, you were skipping too!” someone quipped. Loud laughter rang out.
It looked like Satou-san wasn’t one of the people laughing.
***
The next day, a shadow suddenly fell on me as I was reading.
When I looked up, Satou-san was standing in front of me imposingly.
“Sorai-san, do you remember what I talked about last time?”
“Umm…”
“Last week, I told you that I liked Ena, right?”
When we were talking alone, Satou-san didn’t use formal language.
I nodded and Satou-san crouched.
Uu… as expected, I didn’t know where to look.
“At that time, our conversation got cut off midway through.”
…huh, we were midway through.
The ringing of the chime had definitely interrupted us, probably…?
“I was with Ena since middle school. I know Ena the most out of everyone in this school, so I can write notes that are easy for her to understand.”
I know Ena the most out of everyone in this school.
She had been confidently repeating that.
…but Ena-chan said that she had told no one about her mom.
I felt apprehension towards Satou-san’s words, which I hadn’t been paying attention to before.
“Honestly, I think that Ena was just worrying about you because she’s kind. She really doesn’t need those notes. Mine are already enough.”
“…um, Satou-san.”
Satou-san furrowed her brows.
“Sorry. Could you first button up your second button?”
“Huh?”
Her already-big eyes grew so big that it looked like they were going to pop out.
“Well… I can see your chest.”
Her face suddenly reddened. “We weren’t talking about that!?” she yelled and stood up.
The classroom grew silent and Ena-chan jumped awake.
After Satou-san took one look at the classroom, she lowered her head.
“Um… right now, a lot of incidents are going on, so it’s better to be careful with…”
“Shut up! That doesn’t involve you!”
I was going to say “because you’re cute, Satou-san”, but I was interrupted.
Ena-chan came running.
“What happened?”
Satou-san’s hand was curled into a fist and she was shaking a little.
Ena-chan looked at me and seemed a little worried.
“Did something happen?”
“I warned Satou-san that her chest was a little too visible.”
When I said that, half the class returned to their own conversations.
After checking that, Ena-chan patted Satou-san’s head.
I unconsciously grinded my teeth.
Even though I understood that Ena-chan would do those things to people who weren’t me, it was still hard to watch.
“Chiyo, I say that a lot too. There.”
Chiyo-san buttoned her shirt.
“This is fine, right?”
Saying that, she left the classroom.
Ena-chan sighed. “Sorry,” she said, knitting her brows.
“No, it was because I said unnecessary things…”
“That wasn’t unnecessary, it was something important.”
Ena-chan scratched the back of her head, said “I’ll go for a while,” and chased after Satou-san.
Whether it was because I loved her or because I felt lonely, I desperately contained the urge to say “Don’t go”.
Oh, that’s right.
I might’ve interrupted what Satou-san was going to say again.
The last time was because of the chimes, though.
From before, I had no idea what Satou-san wanted to tell me.
Was it something like “I started liking her first, so don’t steal her”?
In a hugely popular romance novel on the internet that I’d read before, there was a scene like that.
Or was she trying to indirectly restrain me by saying “I like XX, so please support me”?
After hearing what Satou-san wanted to say from the end, I regretted mentioning her chest.
The next lesson, both of them hadn’t returned.
I was curious on where they were, what they were doing, and what they were talking about, so I couldn’t focus on the lesson at all.
I was able to copy down what was on the blackboard and I could make out what the teacher was saying.
Even so, I was immediately distracted and pinched my face.
After school, the both of them returned.
It was when I thought to go home and placed my bag on my shoulder.
Satou-san’s eyes were a little watery, maybe because she cried.
I made eye contact with Ena-chan for a moment and she smiled as if troubled.
I didn’t know whether to call out to her. Satou-san returned to her seat and Ena-chan patted her head, then I left the classroom.
Satou-san smiled happily and got patted more.
A thin fog fell over my heart.
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