In the quiet darkness of the bedroom, the mattress felt completely empty. The heavy, suffocating warmth of the brown sofa from a few hours ago still lingered like a phantom weight against his ribs. Zenjiro lay perfectly still on his back. He stared blindly up at the flat white plaster of the ceiling.
Footsteps padded softly across the wooden floorboards outside. The heavy door swung open, revealing Liora standing in the hallway frame. She wore her faded pink sleepwear. She raised her hand and rubbed her right eye lazily.
Zenjiro held his breath. He desperately craved the physical contact again. The vivid memory of holding her securely between his legs burned hot in his mind. He wanted her to walk straight past her own mattress, sit directly on the edge of his bed, and just lay her head down next to him to sleep.
"Good night, Onii-chan," Liora murmured.
She turned entirely away and walked to the opposite side of the dark room and collapsed onto her own mattress. The metal springs groaned under her sudden weight.
Zenjiro remained completely frozen. His chest tightened. He remembered what Liora said in the living room earlier that day. She said he could ask for anything without a single second thought. He could easily speak up right now. He could just ask her to sleep beside him tonight.
But that would sound incredibly weird, he thought.
It was highly suspicious for an older brother to actively request a bed-sharing arrangement out of nowhere. He swallowed the dry lump in his throat and chose absolute silence.
He decided to just wait. The digital clock on his desk glowed a dull red. He stayed awake for a few more hours, listening to the steady rhythm of her breathing.
He knew the statistical chances of her suddenly waking up and transferring beds were incredibly slim but he did not care about the low probability at all. The dark, twisting hunger in his stomach completely overrode his basic logic. He just wanted to feel her intense body heat again.
But...
It never happened. She slept soundly on her own bed until dawn.
---
Nine long days passed in a slow, agonizing blur.
Morning sunlight cut sharply through the narrow gaps in the window blinds. Zenjiro lay flat on his back. He stared at the exact same spot on the ceiling. The heavy, twisting frustration inside his chest had hardened into a permanent, dull ache.
Every single night for over a week, he had waited in the dark. He kept expecting her to cross the room and seek his body heat. It never happened. A total drought of physical contact settled over the house. There were no tight hugs on the sofa. There was no sharing of a narrow umbrella. It had already been nine days since he embraced her.
During their elementary and middle school years, Zenjiro completely ignored this kind of distance. If they didn't touch for an entire month, he never minded the lack of body contact at all. He just read his heavy encyclopedias and went about his quiet routine.
Now, he was an eighteen-year-old third-year high school student. The sudden, absolute lack of body contact was driving his mind completely crazy. He practically vibrated with restless, hormonal energy.
Across the bright room, heavy fabric rustled loudly.
Liora walked straight toward the edge of his bed. She was fully dressed in her dark high school uniform. Her blonde hair was tied back neatly with a blue ribbon.
"Onii-chan," Liora demanded smoothly. "I have to go early to school today. We have a group project. You have to wake up right now."
The unwritten rule of their daily routine was absolute. They always walked to the campus together. If she needed to leave early, he was completely forced to go early as well.
Zenjiro kept his eyes locked firmly on her face. He used his peripheral vision to calculate the location of her waist. He perfectly imagined the thick, dark pleats of her uniform skirt resting just inches away from his blanket.
But he refused to lower his gaze.
I will never look at it for now, Zenjiro told himself strictly. That pleated skirt of Liora is teasing me to pure insanity.
He threw his thick blue cover aside. He stood up quickly and grabbed his fresh clothes from the wooden chair, preparing for school in total silence.
Out on the paved sidewalk, the crisp morning wind hit their faces. They walked side by side toward the main campus gates.
With every third step, the rough fabric of his dark trousers brushed against the outer edge of her swinging skirt. Zenjiro stared rigidly straight ahead. He focused his entire attention on the cracked gray asphalt and the distant traffic lights. He did not bother to look down at her legs. He simply did not want to be teased by a piece of clothing he could not touch.
"Onii-chan," Liora said brightly. She kicked a small pebble across the concrete. "We should ask Dad for the four of us to have a vacation. We never had a real family vacation before. It would be incredibly fun, don't you think?"
Zenjiro blinked. The sudden, cheerful suggestion broke his rigid focus.
"Yeah," Zenjiro replied quietly. "We should tell him."
Liora smiled a wide, brilliant smile. She seemed entirely satisfied with his short answer. She hummed a quiet pop song as they continued walking down the busy street.
A family vacation, huh, Zenjiro thought.
He recalled his distant memories, trying to remember the last time he actually traveled anywhere for pure fun.
A specific, blurry image floated to the front of his mind. He remembered the smell of cheap citrus soap and the sound of breaking glass. He remembered a dark hallway and a heavy black suitcase.
He remembered the thick steam of the outdoor hot spring. Natural stone and red maple leaves surrounded the bubbling water.
Fuyumi, his mother, carefully folded a small white towel.
"Look, anata," she smiled warmly. "He is almost as big as the wooden bucket!"
His father chuckled loudly. He leaned back against the smooth, wet rocks.
A heavy splash suddenly hit Zenjiro's face. Akiho pointed a dripping finger directly at him. "You can't catch me, slowpoke!"
Zenjiro giggled. He scooped hot water with his small red bowl and threw it back.
For one perfect afternoon, they laughed together as a completely normal family.
How are they doing right now?
He tilted his head back and looked directly up at the clear, blue morning sky. A sudden, heavy wave of raw nostalgia squeezed his ribs. He actually missed them. They were likely living an entirely different life somewhere far away.
---
At school.
Hours passed in a blur of boring lectures. The loud, piercing chime of the lunch bell finally echoed through the long school corridors.
Inside the busy classroom, thirty teenagers instantly stood up. Wooden chair legs scraped harshly against the polished floorboards. The room filled with a messy, overlapping roar of hungry conversations as students rushed toward the cafeteria.
Sitting quietly at his desk, Zenjiro simply waited. He did not rush to the sliding door. He watched the heavy crowd filter slowly out into the hallway, wanting the space to be entirely clear before he moved.
After three minutes, the classroom emptied completely. He grabbed his dark blue bento box and pushed his wooden chair back.
As he stood up, a sweet voice cut through the quiet air.
"Zenjiro-kun."
The tone was incredibly polite and gentle. It hit his eardrums like a physical blow.
Zenjiro stopped moving. A sharp, jagged pain twisted violently deep in his stomach. He still felt the crushing, heavy agony of her harsh rejection behind the old gymnasium. The brutal words she used echoed perfectly in his memory.
She is still my first crush, Zenjiro thought miserably. Despite the terrible pain, there is no doubt I am still entirely in love with her. I am pathetic.
He slowly turned his head. Shinohara Asuka stood just two desks away. She held her expensive canvas bag tightly with both hands. Her dark hair caught the bright midday light streaming through the tall windows.
"Let's have lunch together," Asuka offered smoothly. She smiled a gentle, flawless smile.
Zenjiro gripped the plastic edge of his lunch box and forced his dry throat to work.
"I'm sorry, Shinohara-san—" Zenjiro started. He prepared to walk straight past her to the rooftop.
"I'll pay you."
The three words stopped him dead in his tracks.
Asuka's voice suddenly shifted. The sweet, polite tone completely vanished into the warm classroom air. It was replaced instantly by a dark, flat, and entirely bored sound. It was the exact same cold voice she used when she brutally rejected his confession weeks ago.
Zenjiro startled violently. His shoulders jerked upward as he stared at her face in pure confusion.
"I don't need money, Shinohara-san," Zenjiro said flatly.
Asuka dropped her fake smile. Her bright eyes turned entirely hard and calculating.
"It's not money," Asuka replied. She took a single, deliberate step closer to his desk. "I'll pay you with something else."