I don't know how long it has been.
Me and Tachibana are sitting under the bridge.
I am leaning back on the wall.
Tachibana is leaning back on me.
I have my arms wrapped around her waist as if to hold her and keep her from running away.
She has her hand overlapped with mine as if to tell me she is not moving.
I also have my face nozzled into her neck as I sniff at her odour.
My head hurts, my throat burns and my heart still stings.
Yet I am feeling calm as I inhale her scent.
"Kazama, someone might misunderstand. I think we should get up."
She shyly asks of me to let her go.
I raise my head from her neck and bring my lips closer to her ear.
"Akane..."
I seductively whisper her first name.
And surely, Akane starts squirming in my hands and has her ears dyed red.
I don't know about Japan in my previous world, but this anime-Japan is surely a place where girls get all shy when their first names are intimately mentioned.
"Akane, I think it it is time you start calling me Yuuta."
I deal her a second blow.
She covers her tomato-red face as she tries to hide her shame and shyness.
But she still wasn't willing to call me by name, so I opened my mouth and gently bit her neck.
"Ugh! Yuu-Yuuta. Here I said it, ugh!"
She moans and barely manages to say my name.
I stopped biting.
If I bully her more, she might just die of shame.
And I can't have her dying now since we have a lot to do together.
I brought my nose close to her neck and once again started inhaling her scent.
It was oddly calming, right to the level where I was starting to think she conditioned and trained me to associate the word 'calm' to her scent.
"And what do you mean by misunderstanding? Aren't we already dating? Didn't you promise me I could latch myself to you anytime and anywhere?"
I bully her again, I might be a sadist for tickling all these emotions out of her.
"Ugh, you know what I mean."
She cutely complains in a small voice but still doesn't make any effort to get out of my grasp.
"But Akane, why did you believe me? One would usually think I have delusions or I am making stuff up to run away from reality."
I seriously asked.
She shook as if I hit the bull's eye.
She might be worried that she couldn't trust me or was having some other weird and stupid thoughts.
I slowly brought my lips to her neck and started kissing her.
"Akane, it really is a normal thing to think of when one is acting like that. I mean transmigration? Even I sometimes struggle to believe it is real despite me being here. So just say what you want. Besides I could probably never hate you."
You stupid and naive idiot, you really are my shining star that is now keeping me alive.
How could I even possibly think of disliking you?
"Well, I did think so at the start..."
She hesitatingly started and waited for my reaction.
But I continued kissing her neck as if I wasn't bothered in the slightest before she proceeded with her story.
"... but once you started telling me all about your previous life, the pieces started to fall into place."
What pieces?
"The first thing was that your story was too detailed for someone our age. I wouldn't be able to think of something so detailed even if you gave me a whole year for it."
Well I didn't skip any details about my story so yeah I agree with her.
"The second thing was your mature atmosphere. It isn't something one of our age has. Even if they are mature, they are barely half of you."
I agree with this too I guess; the pain tempers you well.
"The third thing was your eyes. I looked into them and sometimes there was sheer loneliness in there. It looked like you were suffering too. I wanted to ask why does someone your age have such pain and sadness in your eyes but I couldn't bring myself to do it."
Hmmm, to hide the pain and sadness I wore a mask so thick I might as well call it my body part.
But it seems like this girl who was always properly looking at me saw though the window of my soul.
Ugh, my heart starts feeling ticklish, which would be a nice feeling if it wasn't stinging.
I don't know how many vows I make to myself to cherish this idiot, but I guess I might as well add another one.
"And the final piece is that you have never lied to me in this place. You have told me half-truths, diverted the topic and sometimes outright avoided speaking, but never once have you told me a lie."
I agree.
Never once have I spewed a lie whenever we met near the riverbank.
It seems like she fully trusted me from long ago.
Just why did she like me and trust me so much?
I strengthen my hands around her waist enough to not hurt her and I start inhaling her scent once again to calm down.
If I don't I have a feeling I might cross the line here.
And as if to comfort me, she brought her hands down from her face and started holding onto mine.
.
But there was still something important left.
"Akane, why do you like me so much?"
I asked her calmly.
I was truly curious.
I never lead her on, nor do I remember doing anything groundbreaking for her.
She thought for a while, and then her hands trembled.
I quickly noticed it and I opened my hands to intertwine our fingers.
After a while she calmed down and narrated her story.
"Well, when I was younger my parents often argued. At first, it was over small things but over time the issues got bigger. My sister tried to calm them down while I stood there crying and pleading them not to fight."
There was sadness in her.
This time I didn't kiss her neck or anything but let her continue her story while I hold her hands.
"It started getting painful in the house with me seeing memories of them fighting even when they weren't home so I tried to distract myself by joining the athletics club. I went out early in the morning and came late in the evening and even escaped to this place after dinner."
I see that is why she went to the field to practice even on days the athletic club didn't meet.
I continue listening to the rest of her story without comforting her.
"I became mature before my age and I became aware of my surroundings. I developed a mild hatred for men as I remembered the face of my father every time I saw boys. But then my parents decided to take therapy and decreased the frequency of their fights, they still did fight sometimes but every time they were reminded of moderation and stopped before it crossed the line.
My hatred for boys went away once that happened but I still scrutinized them heavily and wouldn't let anyone approach me. And then the boys in class went through puberty and start learning about adult stuff. I started to feel some of their sticky and uncomfortable gazes and thought all of them were only horny idiots in my age and stopped remotely hoping for any decent boy of my age and unfairly categorized them all as utterly useless.
But then I met you, a stranger who made me laugh like I never did in my life. I was shocked to learn you were of my age and did not believe you were any different from the other boys. But when I remembered seeing you slobbering on the stairs like they were your own personal property I felt challenged in my opinion that there were no decent boys of my age and tried to approach you maliciously. But you maturely told me off and told me to remove the fake mask I was wearing.
Oddly when I went home I was happy and curious: happy that you might be different from the others and curious about how someone can be so nonchalant. Hence I decided to approach you properly. As I felt your mature aura, I was more and more fascinated with you and started believing you were different. As I saw the sadness and pain in your eyes, I thought we might be able to share our pain with each other and heal each other's wounds.
Then the days went by and I found myself being more and more comfortable on the space we created on the stairs. One day I finally believed you are the one I might be searching for and if it is you, then the journey ahead won't be filled with pain. But before I could do anything you decided to get more socially active and made that plan to use me and my friends to establish your social position. I panicked and started thinking you might get fascinated by another girl and tried to hurriedly connect myself to you but it seems you were one step ahead of me and foiled my plans. I cried at home that day. I started to think you might hate me after all I did.
Despite me being scared to see you and confirm my fears, when I came up to the stairs you acted uninterested like you always do and didn't even treat me like a bother. You apologized to me when I was the one who was in the wrong, and it finally hit me. I was truly in love with you. I realized that I love you more than anything in the world and that I was foolish to have lost it when it was right there.
I cried myself to sleep that night wishing I could turn time back and smack the foolish me for losing the most priceless thing in the world. I finally decided to take advantage of you being nonchalant and stopped being greedy. I felt the few hours of out together time every night on the stairs were enough for someone idiotic like me."
This...
I want to say so much to her.
This girl truly fell for me, not my appearance or one of my masks, but the true me.
Despite being in a relationship, I was skeptical of true love and I entered a relationship with Akane not having fully believing in true love.
I feel like I am disrespecting her sincerity.
There is only one thing I can do here.
"Akane Tachibana, I love you."
I declare with my full sincerity.
"Yuuta Kazama, I love you too."
She responds with equal sincerity.
I turn her head to face me and finally kiss her pink lips.
It was about damn time I made even the gods jealous about our love.