"We're nearly at my place—aren't you going to turn back?"
Taking in the familiar surroundings, Mio glanced sideways at Yumiko.
At Mio's words, Yumiko's expression stiffened briefly—though it was hard to see in the dim light.
She'd genuinely only meant to take a short walk with Mio. She hadn't paid enough attention, and now they were almost at Mio's apartment.
Well. Since she was already here, she might as well walk Mio the rest of the way. Her own place wasn't far.
"Since I'm already here, consider it me walking you home."
"Since you're already here, why not just stay the night?"
Yumiko's heart jumped a tiny bit at the invitation, honestly. But after a brief hesitation, she shook her head. "No. There's school tomorrow."
"When your girlfriend invites you over, turning her down is kind of rude, you know."
Yumiko slid her a look. "Since when did you become my girlfriend?"
"Eh-heh~"
Less than five minutes later, they were at the entrance to Mio's building. Mio stopped under the streetlight, looked Yumiko in the eye, and said with her most tempting voice: "Yumiko, you really won't stay over? We could share a bed tonight. I sleep like the dead, you know. You could do anything to me and I wouldn't wake up~"
Yumiko leveled a flat, unimpressed look at her. She had strong reasons to suspect Mio was only being this brazen because she was confident Yumiko wouldn't actually take her up on it.
For a split second, Yumiko almost did stay, just to give this white-haired little bitch the lesson she deserved.
Maybe sensing that Yumiko's gaze had taken on a dangerous edge, Mio abruptly dropped the bitchy grin and put on a serious face. "Okay, okay. I'll head up. See you at school tomorrow."
Just as Mio was turning to go inside, she heard footsteps approaching from behind. She turned on instinct—and there was Yumiko, unexpectedly close.
Before she could ask what was going on, Yumiko leaned in. Her eyes flicked briefly to Mio's lips—a moment of hesitation—and then she pressed a kiss to Mio's cheek.
Even Mio wasn't prepared for that one.
She stood there blinking at Yumiko, genuinely not sure why Yumiko had just kissed her.
Seeing Mio's stunned expression, Yumiko swallowed down the heat rising in her own face and forced her voice into the calmest tone she could manage: "You said I had to kiss you tonight. I just did. So don't forget the promise you made me."
"Eh!?"
Without waiting for Mio to say another word, Yumiko turned and disappeared around the corner at speed.
Only once she'd put a safe distance between them did Yumiko stop, cover her still-burning face with her hands, and breathe. It hadn't been that she was desperate to get away—she'd just known that if she'd stayed any longer, she wouldn't have been able to keep her composure.
She'd actually kissed Mio. Just on the cheek. But for her, that was an enormous, reckless thing.
She hadn't actually intended to kiss her. She'd just wanted to give Mio a small taste of her own medicine, and then something in her head had short-circuited and she'd done it.
It had been the briefest peck, but right now her entire mind was replaying it. Along with one small worry.
What if Mio took something weird from this? What if it made Mio think something strange about her?
Then again, given how openly yuri-coded Mio usually was, probably not.
After a long moment, once her heart had stopped hammering, Yumiko started walking toward home.
Back at home, Yumiko had barely kicked off her shoes when her sister's voice floated over: "Yumiko, you went out for a walk and came back looking like a different person. Did you and your little girlfriend get up to something out there?"
"No."
Yumiko did not give her sister one second of gossip material. She sped straight back to her bedroom.
She locked the door behind her, and her gaze fell, naturally, to Mio's gift.
Curious despite herself, she sat down at her desk and carefully unwrapped it.
The moment she got the box open, her curious expression shifted into something a lot more complicated.
"Morning, Yumiko~"
Yui smiled at Yumiko as she walked into the classroom.
"Morning." Yumiko nodded lightly and went straight to her seat.
Yui, as usual, drifted over. She was about to start chatting when she noticed something about Yumiko in her school uniform that brought a flicker of confusion to her eyes.
Maybe she was imagining it—but something about Yumiko looked different today.
She took a closer look and, eventually, settled on the source: Yumiko's legs. "Yumiko, when did you start wearing tights?"
At the question, Yumiko pressed her lips together, nervously, then forced her expression back to casual. "The temperature's been dropping. I was starting to feel cold without them."
Yui blinked. Fair enough. It had been getting colder lately—she felt it herself every morning on the way out, especially since she still went bare-legged.
She was already thinking about picking up a couple of pairs of her own.
In the middle of the conversation, Mio strolled into the classroom.
She reached her seat, sat down—and her eyes dropped straight to Yumiko's legs. Without a word, she laid a hand directly on Yumiko's thigh, savoring the silky texture, and said, "I knew something was different about Yumiko today. So you're wearing tights now~"
Yumiko slapped Mio's hand off without hesitation. "Got a problem with that?"
"How could I? I'd go so far as to say it really, really works. Yumiko, there's something indescribably sexy about you right now~" Mio gave her a thumbs-up.
Make no mistake—the tights on Yumiko's legs were the gift.
There hadn't been anything weird about it, really. It was just that winter was here, and going bare-legged made it easy to get chilled, so Mio had gone practical. It had seemed like a solid, useful pick.
She'd figured Yumiko would resist wearing them for at least a few days, out of pride. Instead, Yumiko had switched to them literally the day after receiving them.