Vol. 1 Chapter 23 – The Viewing Party

“Hey there! Coming in!” (Akari)

After I managed to get home safely without Aida-san pursuing me any further, around 8 PM, Akari opened the front door without even ringing the doorbell and barged into my room.

“Ring the doorbell, at least…” (Yuuto)

“Eh~? It’s Yuuto’s house, so it’s fine, right? Even if I rang, you’d probably just say ‘Come in~’ in a lazy voice, wouldn’t you?” (Akari)

She lowered her voice, perhaps conscious of me, but even if Akari, who had one of the higher voices among girls, lowered hers a bit, her girlishness didn’t disappear at all.

“Besides, you know I don’t ring the doorbell, so you leave the door unlocked for me, right?” (Akari)

“Thanks to you, our house has the worst security.” (Yuuto)

“Then you can lock it, you know?” (Akari)

“If you stop shouting my name in front of the door. It’s too much of a neighborhood nuisance.” (Yuuto)

“I don’t shout when I come at night, promise.” (Akari)

“That’s a given.” (Yuuto)

I lightly tapped Akari’s head with the novel I’d been reading while waiting for her.

“Where’s Nagisa? I figured you’d time your arrival together.” (Yuuto)

Since she’d declared a viewing party this morning, knowing Akari’s personality, there was no way she hadn’t invited her.

“Ah~. I invited her, but… she said, ‘I’m the type who doesn’t want to hear any impressions until the actual performance,’ and turned me down.” (Akari)

She expressed her feelings physically, theatrically slumping her shoulders.

“Well~ let’s just watch it anyway! Actually, I want to see it quick!” (Akari)

As she urged me on, flailing her arms and legs, I tried to pick up the smartphone that was right near my hand.

“…This is kind of embarrassing.” (Yuuto)

The feeling hit me suddenly. Come to think of it, she’d be staring intently at my acting on the screen. Considering only the princess and the knight would be on stage, the two characters had been made quite intense. And I was going in a cheesy direction…

“Eh? Don’t tell me you’re not going to show me after all?” (Akari)

“…Is that not okay?” (Yuuto)

“Of course not.” (Akari)

Akari, lying prone, replied with an unusually serious look in her eyes.

“…Then you can watch… I’ll be in the living room.” (Yuuto)

I understood that I couldn’t just say “never mind” at this point, so I sighed in resignation and handed Akari the phone, open to the video before playback. And then, novel in hand, I tried to escape the room…

“Wait.” (Akari)

Or so I planned, but Akari, leaning over from the sofa, grabbed my clothes.

“Yuuto? You can’t run away from something like this, right? It’s just one childhood friend watching. There’ll be way more people at the actual performance, won’t there?” (Akari)

Akari, her eyes still serious, had completely dropped her usual – to put it nicely, bright, to put it badly, foolish – demeanor and was steadily cornering me.

“Somehow, please…” (Yuuto)

“Not happening.” (Akari)

Giving up on escaping Akari, who shook her head emphatically with a deliberately slow tone, I returned to the bed once more and, resigned, pressed my face into the pillow. Besides, with this flow of events, even if I ran, she’d probably just chase me to the other room. Then Mom would join the viewing party, and the situation would only get worse.

“Yuuto, over here, over here.” (Akari)

When I lifted my head, Akari was patting the single-person space next to her.

“Let’s watch together?” (Akari)

Apparently, not only was she going to pummel me with her impressions, but I was also going to be made to watch the video with her.

“Honestly… Don’t worry, I won’t tease you! This time, I’m watching over you, thinking of it as Yuuto’s growth, okay? Your big sis is.” (Akari)

Perhaps reading my thoughts from my expression, she preemptively crushed my anxieties about watching it.

“I’m older than you…” (Yuuto)

Reluctantly, I got up and grudgingly sat next to her.

“And please hold the smartphone.” (Akari)

As she said that, the phone I’d just handed her was returned to my hands.

“And then, open your legs?” (Akari)

I did as told, opening my legs, and Akari settled into the space created.

“And then hold the phone in front of me.” (Akari)

I did as instructed… but.

“We’re watching it like this…?” (Yuuto)

“Well, yeah, if I held it, it would be hard for Yuuto to see, right? And my arms would get tired.” (Akari)

Given our difference in physique, the phone, positioned directly in front of Akari, was also clearly visible to me. Well, since I had to reach my arms around to Akari’s front, it was actually more tiring for my arms…

“We could just hold the phone between us and watch normally… I’ll hold the phone.” (Yuuto)

“Eh~? It’s fine! This is nice, somehow~. Human warmth is comforting, and apparently, listening to a heartbeat is calming, you know~” (Akari)

Saying that, she pressed her ear to my chest and closed her eyes as if to listen intently.

“Huh… That’s strange…?” (Akari)

After pressing her ear there for a few seconds, she suddenly spoke with a solemn expression.

“Such a cute childhood friend is this close, yet your heart rate isn’t going up at all…?” (Akari)

Her confidence in herself was plain to see, unconcealed in her serious words.

“I’m used to it.” (Yuuto)

“Oh? So you used to get flustered in the beginning~?” (Akari)

She asked, poking my thigh with her fingertip.

“Until the first year of middle school.” (Yuuto)

“Really? I didn’t notice at all~…” (Akari)

“So, for the current me, there’s no merit to this position.” (Yuuto)

“Well, well, it’s fine, isn’t it?” (Akari)

Saying that, she shook her head, making her hair sway. A gorgeous and elegant fragrance drifted on the gentle breeze stirred by her moving hair.

“I just took a bath, so I smell good, you know? So, Yuuto gets the merit of being able to fully enjoy the post-bath scent of an active high school girl! …And with that.” (Akari)

She fiddled with the phone in my hands, and as soon as she started playing the video, the image began to move.

“Oh~, Nagisa looks like a completely different person~!” (Akari)

Witnessing the moment a role switched, something not usually seen in her regular dramas, she clapped her hands and reacted. And then my lines began, but Akari’s scent flowing into my nostrils somehow calmed my heart. …It really is a nice scent…

I stared at the smartphone screen while thinking such things.

{“Please, take my hand, Princess.”}

On the screen, the me inside it uttered lines I would never normally say with a cool expression. Me, wearing only a school jersey, without the knightly costume or face-covering mask I should be wearing for the actual performance, was spouting cheesy lines.

I had braced myself to be teased, but as she’d said beforehand, not a single word of her usual mocking came out. The fact that Akari, who was probably holding back laughter, wasn’t saying a single word was, conversely, painful. Would it have been better if she’d just teased me outright?

I averted my eyes from the screen and lightly pressed my face into Akari’s head, which was in the lower part of my field of vision, filling my sight with her hair. From here on, there were some scenes that were embarrassing for me. I’ll get through it like this for a while…

And achieve mental concentration with Akari’s scent… …Wait, this is a little, or rather, quite creepy, what I’m thinking. Enjoying the scent emanating from my childhood friend who just got out of the bath… phrasing it like that clearly made it the actions of a pervert. I restrained myself and decided to get through it by calmly emptying my mind.

“…Yuuto?” (Akari)

Called by her voice, I returned my gaze to the front. At the same time, I noticed the video playback had stopped.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” (Yuuto)

When I asked, a blushing Akari slowly turned to look at me. Then, looking awkward and avoiding eye contact, she prefaced her words with, “It’s not that it’s not okay, but…”

“Maybe you’re enjoying the scent a little, just a te~ensy bit too much… It’s a bit embarrassing, I guess… maybe?” (Akari)

“…Sorry.” (Yuuto)

Seeing an expression on my childhood friend I’d never seen before, all I could do was apologize…