"Finally back."
Mio dumped the things in her hands onto the floor and flopped onto the bed, sprawling out without a shred of dignity.
She hadn't pitched in today the way she had yesterday, but a full day of standing in line had still wrung every drop of strength out of someone with a combat power of five like her.
"You call that tired? We've still got a whole other day tomorrow~"
"I'm not going tomorrow." Mio rolled over lazily and looked at Eriri.
"Eh!? Why not?"
"Tomorrow I've got something else to take care of."
Mio gave a helpless little smile. The "something else" she meant was Shiina Mashiro.
Tomorrow was the day Sengoku Chihiro and Hiratsuka Shizuka set off, so she had to head back too.
"What kind of something? Something you've absolutely got to go back tomorrow for?"
Catching the faint reluctance in Eriri's eyes, Mio felt the corners of her mouth curve up in delight. "Aw, is Eriri sad to see me go?"
"W-who'd be sad? I can't wait for you to leave. All day long you're yapping nonsense in my ear, and when you're not getting handsy, you're trying to plant one on me."
As she said it, Eriri couldn't help thinking of earlier today, when Mio had snuck a kiss on her while she wasn't paying attention. Something like that, back in the day, she'd have recoiled from for sure. But now, for some reason, she just couldn't dredge up any resistance to it. If anything, it almost felt...
Whatever it was she'd just pictured, Eriri suddenly felt a wave of heat rush up her cheeks.
To keep Mio from noticing her blush, Eriri spun around without hesitation, pretended she needed the toilet, and slipped into the bathroom.
Looking at her own flushed face in the mirror, Eriri pressed her hands to her cheeks, faintly distressed. Lately, maybe it was all the extra time she'd been spending around Mio, even her own train of thought seemed to be getting swayed by the other girl.
After splashing some cold water on her face, Eriri finally got her emotions back under control.
Leaving the bathroom, she looked at Mio. "So when are you planning to head back?"
"Originally I figured I'd go tonight. But I'm wiped, and on top of that a certain someone seems pretty reluctant to let me leave. So I'll just go back tomorrow morning instead~"
"W-who's reluctant to let you leave!"
"I never said it was you. But the way you're getting all worked up... could it be..."
"It's not. Don't read too much into it."
That was what her mouth said. But the moment she learned Mio wasn't leaving until tomorrow, her heart gave a tiny, secret flicker of happiness.
Sensing that her thoughts were veering somewhere strange again, Eriri quietly hunted for a way to distract herself, and that was when she landed on the Club President's doujinshi.
Looking at that oddly familiar-looking cover, Eriri hesitated a moment, then flipped it open and started reading.
She found that the Club President hadn't lied: it really was an all-ages doujinshi, and the story was simple. Two girls who liked each other, spending every lunch break in an empty classroom whispering sweet nothings.
The story was simple, with nothing in the way of intricate plot, yet somehow Eriri found it inexplicably gripping.
What Eriri didn't notice, just then, was the goofy little smile tugging at her own lips.
She had no idea how much time passed before she finally finished the last page, and even then she wasn't satisfied. She was half-tempted to pull out her phone and ask the Club President whether she'd ever thought about doing a sequel.
At that same moment, Eriri sensed something was off. On instinct she turned her head, and there was Mio, standing right behind her, watching her with a sunny little smile.
"Y-you, when did you show up behind me?" Eriri asked, tense all over.
"I've been standing here a while. You just looked so engrossed, Eriri, that you never noticed." Then Mio's gaze dropped to the doujinshi, and she asked, curious, "Is the Club President's work really that good?"
"I-it's so-so." Eriri cut her eyes to the side.
"Really? Because just now it looked like you were grinning the whole time."
"You saw wrong!"
Right now Eriri was like a kitten with its fur all puffed up. Fierce, sure, but cute too. Cute enough that Mio couldn't resist reaching out and giving her hair a few gentle pats.
Eriri didn't usually mind getting her head patted, but the look on Mio's face while she did it irritated her for reasons she couldn't name.
"Okay, joking aside. I'm gonna shower and hit the sack. Wanna join me, Eriri?"
"No." Eriri said it without a flicker of hesitation.
What had happened yesterday when she'd showered with Mio was still vivid in her memory.
It wasn't as if she'd never bathed with other girls before. But for whatever reason, only with Mio did this strange feeling well up inside her.
The fluttering feeling of her heart skipping a beat.
"I'm leaving tomorrow. You sure you don't want to reconsider?"
"Could you not make it sound like some tearful farewell? It's not like I'm never coming back. It's one day."
"Ehe~"
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"What're you looking at?"
Coming out of her bath, Eriri found that Mio, instead of flopping on the bed like the lazy dog she was, was sitting at the desk, looking at something.
Hearing Eriri's voice, Mio waved the doujinshi in her hand. "The doujinshi, obviously. Wanna come study it together, Eriri?"
If it had been your average person, they might've turned her down flat, because studying a doujinshi together wasn't really any different from watching some 18+ film together, and the situation could get awkward fast.
But Eriri was different. She was Kashiwagi Eri, after all. And besides, what Mio had said was study.
So, toweling off her damp hair, she came over and settled in beside Mio.
And then the two of them launched into a perfectly straight-faced discussion of everything doujinshi-related, from plot to poses, to the point that anyone watching who didn't know better might've assumed they were debating some serious academic topic.
The discussion ran well over an hour.
Mio closed the doujinshi they'd just finished dissecting, then stood and stretched lazily. "Alright, let's call it there for today. It's getting late. I'm gonna go take a shower~"
"Hold on, didn't you just shower a little while ago?" Eriri asked, puzzled.
Mio put on a bashful little act, pinching the hem of her skirt. "Eriri, you get what I mean, right?"
"I..." Eriri started to say she didn't get it, but then it clicked: she understood exactly what Mio was getting at.
She caught herself rubbing her thighs together, then said, "...Right, well, be quick about it. I need to shower too."
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