Chapter 10 - A Night to Remember

Why?

“Ah, Shiraseki-kun.”

How?

“For the layout of this button over here...”

What on earth happened that—

“...? Heeeey? Shiraseki-kun?” Nanaka’s hand waved back and forth and brought Kai’s fleeing consciousness back to reality.

“Y-Yes?!” he said abruptly.

“Whoa! You surprised me. What’s wrong?” asked Nanaka. “Are you tired?”

“N-No, sorry,” said Kai. “I was just spacing out.”

“I see. Ahaha, so you have those moments too.”

“Well, of course...”

“Oh, it’s already this late?” said Nanaka, with dawning realization. “You wanna take a break? I’ll make some coffee.”

“Wait, if it’s coffee then I can—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she said. “Wait here for a bit.” Nanaka got up and headed toward the kitchen. Every step she took was accompanied by the quiet sliding sound of her socks rubbing against the floor, and the room was otherwise so silent that Kai could hear them peculiarly well.

From the living room, Kai could see Nanaka’s back as she went through the motions of making coffee. She opened the lid of the electric kettle, turned on the tap, poured in some water, and flicked the switch on. While she was waiting for the water to boil, she took two cups and—

“Shiraseki-kun,” she asked, “is this the one you usually use?”

Nanaka suddenly turned around and held up two cups in front of her chest. She raised one up slightly higher than the other and tilted her head to the side.

“Y-Yes! That’s the one!” he said.

After getting a response, this time she raised the other cup.

“Then, can I borrow this one?”

“B-By all means,” Kai answered formally.

“...By all means,” Nanaka mimicked, stifling a laugh. “Okay, I’ll borrow this ‘by all means.’” Then she twirled back around, returning to the task at hand. The skirt she was wearing was shorter than her uniform, and the motion of her turnabout gave it a light fluff of air, causing it to broaden outwards. Her white thighs and knees graciously displayed themselves.

Bad. Awful, thought Kai, who was basically ogling her at this point. Not good. This is not good. Despite that recognition, he couldn’t pry his gaze away from her. Nanaka was looking all around the kitchen for the tin containing his instant coffee. When she realized it was in the cabinet right beside her leg, she bent over to get it.

It was a simple story: if Nanaka bent over, her skirt would rise up. Video games often had gimmicks that would allow the player to uncover such a hidden scene within a stage. In this case, the hidden part was underneath her skirt and—before he could catch a glimpse, Kai’s reason came back to him and he whipped his line of sight away with enough force to snap his neck.

His averted gaze wound up on the clock, which pointed to a little past nine. On the coffee table in front of him were his and Nanaka’s laptops, surrounded by a bunch of printed documents.

Why? How? Those doubts returned to run amok in his mind. What on earth happened that led Nanaka into his home on a Saturday night? The answer—or rather, the source of the issue—laid with Aya.

On the day they convinced her to help out, Kai wanted to discuss what Aya could realistically accomplish by the competition—that is to say, he wanted to know how many improvements were feasible. Writing up an impossible specification document was meaningless, and regardless of how cooperative Aya was, their time was limited; they had next to none of it.

This rang especially true for the programmer, whose role came later in the schedule. That was exactly why Kai wanted to discuss how many improvements Aya could implement, and then they would only write specifications for the ones they could complete. And yet...

“No way, that’s bad practice,” Aya protested. “It’s like you’re half-assing it somewhere. You gotta give it your all, your all! You can straight up ignore how long it’ll take and how realistic your plans are. Put everything you want to change in that specs doc,” Aya insisted, full of overly optimistic ideals.

“But, look,” Kai tried to say, “if we can’t actually implement it, then...”

“Senpai? If you’re not gonna hit me with your best shot, then I’m not gonna work,” Aya insisted stubbornly.

With that having been said, Kai didn’t have any means to object. But, again, they clearly didn’t have time to spare. They agreed to hold their next meeting on the following Monday at the latest, so now he and Nanaka were in a frenzy to finish the specification document on time. He thought they’d finish by Friday, if all went well. But at some points, he’d had to pause to teach Nanaka about something while they worked, and they hadn’t been able to progress as quickly as he would’ve liked. By the end of school hours on Friday, they had more than a little ways to go.

“...Hey? Shiraseki-kun, you don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to...” said Nanaka, whose statement had begun fairly innocently. “But I could stay over at your house on the weekend to finish up together... if that’s okay with you?”

“No,” was not something Shiraseki could say. He couldn’t say it. There was no way he could say it. As a result, Nanaka explained to her parents that she was staying over at a friend’s house, he subsequently welcomed her in, and the two had silently worked away until this point.

Which brought him to the present moment.

“Here you go!” she announced cheerily.

“Thank... you,” said Kai, gingerly accepting the cup of coffee.

“Please enjoy,” Nanaka teased, “by all means.”

“Ah, I will, by all means...”

“...Pfft... Ahaha!” Nanaka tried to stifle it, but her laughter slipped out anyway. She always had a bright expression during class and club time, but she’d never burst out into laughter before. Another small laugh leaked out as she tried to hold it in. “Writing the document is tough,” she admitted, “but this kind of thing is fun.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kai. “If only I were able to explain it better...”

“...”

“Um... Aoi-san?”

Nanaka had frozen in place with her lips still on her cup, and her gaze was similarly frozen on Kai. She didn’t budge an inch. He tried talking to her a few times and even waved a hand in front of her, but she had turned to stone and wouldn’t move. Her large eyes simply continued to deliver him a disagreeable stare. “...Did my anger get through to you?” she finally asked.

“...Um, no. You’re angry...?” he asked. “I-I’m sorry.”

“That!!” she shouted.

“H-Huh?!”

“Shiraseki-kun,” said Nanaka, putting her cup down on the table and fiercely pointing her finger at him. “You haven’t done anything you should be sorry for. Right?”

“Uh, is that... so?” he ventured cautiously.

“That’s so,” she insisted. “Look...” Nanaka cleared her throat with an ahem, before putting her hand down and fixing her posture. She now knelt in a properly formal seiza position. “Shiraseki-kun... You didn’t want to join the social game club, so you rejected us once, but even then, you were nice enough to join us. I... was really happy,” she clarified. “On top of that, you spent hours and hours of your time teaching me... This also made me really happy. I’m happy now, too, and I’m super, super grateful to you! I’m grateful!”

Nanaka showed him a shy, happy smile. “So... I wish you wouldn’t apologize,” she told him. “If anyone needs to apologize here, it’d be me.”

“T-That’s not true!” Kai replied. “Aoi-san, you’re giving it everything you can! That’s the whole reason why I wanted to try my best, too!”

“O-Oh,” she mumbled. “So that’s how it was...? Th-Thanks... Am I supposed to say ‘thanks’ here?”

“Y-Yes,” Kai affirmed. “I think that’s okay.”

Neither of them could find a way to continue the conversation, and they both looked away in different directions.

What was it? Kai mused. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he felt like their conversation had been incredibly embarrassing. So much so that he might roll around the ground in shame every time he thought back on it.

Kai wasn’t the only one who felt that way. After a few seconds of silence, Nanaka began vigorously waving her hands in front of her face to hide her troubled expression. “Th-This conversation is over!” she cried out. “Over! Alright! Once we finish our coffee, let’s get back to it! Woo!” Her face was faintly red as she raised her fist in the air and urged Kai to do the same.

“W-Woo?” he tried.

“Shiraseki-kun, put some more oomph in it!” she insisted emphatically. “Woo!”

“W-Woo!”

“Woo!”

◇

This Woo!-ing they did with raised fists injected them with forward momentum, and then the two of them began working on their own parts of the document without further delay. Nanaka’s sections still weren’t quite perfect, so Kai periodically checked on them whenever she came to a good stopping point. If he found any issues, he would let her fix them and check over her work again. As they continued their back and forth, the pile of completed specifications slowly grew.

At 11 P.M., 50% of the specification document was completed, and they redistributed the workload.

At midnight, 60% of the specification document was completed. Nanaka washed the creeping sleepiness off her face and came back with vigor. On the other hand, the nocturnal Kai finally turned on the afterburners and began to quicken his pace as they moved to clean up whatever remained.

At 3 A.M., 90% of the specification document was completed. Nanaka’s eyes were practically closed as she clapped to celebrate their progress.

At 4 A.M., Kai noticed Nanaka’s faint breathing and realized she was asleep. He grabbed a blanket from his room and draped it over her. Then he double-checked the last part she’d been working on to confirm that nothing was wrong with it.

At 5 A.M....

“It’s done,” he announced. The specification document was finally finished. A sense of exhaustion spilled out across his shoulders and he surrendered himself to it, falling backward. His head hurt a bit from when he’d hit the ground, but the pain was overwritten by a fulfilling sense of accomplishment. Not only had he finished writing the document, he also had already looked over everything, including Nanaka’s portions. All that was left was to print it out and bring it to Aya.

“Mew...” Kai heard a soft sound, like that of a small animal, as Nanaka roused her upper body. She was still asleep. The right side of her face was resting on her laptop, and she was gently breathing in and out. She may have felt a little discomfort, since she made a little chewing sound with her mouth before she turned the angle of her head.

“Ah—” Kai hadn’t meant to wake her up, but his hand shot out instinctively.

Nanaka’s coffee was still right next to her, and had been about to fall when she moved her head. Kai reached over and grabbed the cup from above. He managed to stop it from falling over and had a moment of relief, but then gulped when he realized his new situation.

The position Kai was in was one where his arm extended directly across his sleeping guest. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Nanaka’s face before, but now it filled his entire line of sight. He could clearly hear her steady breathing. From the side, he was able to see her long eyelashes, which almost seemed too pretty to be real.

And now, the eyelids they were attached to slowly opened. “...Huhhh?” Nanaka mumbled sleepily, gently straightening herself out as Kai moved back in sync.

“G-G-Good, m-morni-ning,” he stammered.

“.........Huh? Huh?! Five A.M.?! D-Did?! Did I fall asleep?!” Nanaka asked, sounding horrified.

“It’s okay,” Kai said reassuringly. “The specification document is completely done.”

“Shiraseki-kun, were you awake this entire time?!” Nanaka wailed. “And I just fell asleep on my own?!”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that,” he told her. After all, Kai was the one who hadn’t woken her up. “Aoi-san,” he went on, “you finished all of the parts you were responsible for, and by the time you fell asleep, the only parts left were things I needed to do. Also...”

I was happy just to have you here. The words almost came out of his mouth before he slammed on the emergency brake. When he used to stay the night at Tsukigase to finish something, Kai hadn’t wanted to trouble anyone, so he’d always ended up alone; the only thing lighting up the dark club room would be the glow of his own computer. He never knew that it would be so different to ride out a night with someone else beside him.

“Anyway,” he went on, “there’s really nothing you need to worry about. This,” he said, showing her his laptop, “is the specification document that you and I completed together.”

“...The way you said that is so unfair...” she grumbled. “Geez! Fine, if you’re gonna go that far, I won’t worry! Good job, us!”

“G-Good job.”

A bright, yet dry clapping sound rang out as Nanaka raised her right hand and Kai responded with a high-five.

“...Hm? Whoa!” said Nanaka, who noticed something as her hand brushed across her head from the high-five. She had been sleeping on the right side of her face the entire time. She probably wouldn’t have minded so long as her hair went neatly downward, but reality was not so kind, and her hair was now a spaghettified mess as a result. She repeated, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” while attempting to comb it down with her hands to no avail.

“Plus...” she added, sniffing at herself. Nanaka closed her eyes and nodded her head with some sort of determination. Then, she took a step back to open up space between herself and Kai.

“...Shiraseki-kun,” Nanaka said, “I, um, have a request.” She held down the worst of her bedhead with her right hand and spoke with downcast eyes. “As you can see... my bedhead is always super strong,” she explained. “I need to shower to fix it, and... well, I always take a bath first thing in the morning.”

“R-Right,” Kai agreed shakily.

“...Can I borrow yours?” she asked.

For a second, Kai had absolutely no idea what she’d said. Then he clarified, “You mean... um... uhh... like... my bath?”

She responded with a nod.

“I-I’m totally fine with it, but—” Kai figured there would be a bunch of points she wouldn’t be totally fine with.

“It’s okay!” Nanaka said reassuringly. “Shiraseki-kun, I know you’ll be okay with that kind of stuff. I trust you!”

“I-I see...” Kai was happy that she trusted him. But that trust also left him with a strange sense of disappointment, causing him to be unable to decide whether he should be happy or sad.

With all that having been said, Nanaka headed toward the bath. There was a changing room in front of the bath with a door leading into it, but it didn’t lock. Were someone to, say, try and peek on her...

If someone wanted to do it, they could. Which meant that Kai’s self-control was the only lock to that room. At first, he began meditating to silence his thoughts, calm his heart, and make his way to a land of nothingness. However, it was so quiet that he could hear the sound of Nanaka showering, so he gave up. He gave up instantly. That didn’t mean he had any alternative solutions, though.

What to do, he wondered. What was he to do? He could burst out into song, but that would be strange, and he didn’t want her to hear his tone-deaf singing.

I see, Kai thought stoically, and resolved himself to simply wait outside. He’d found his answer after some deliberation, but the moment he did...

“Morning, Kai! You up yet?!” Misako sang out. “Nee-san’s here!”

A calamity descended at the worst possible time.

“Oh, you are awake. I’ve never seen those shoes before, is someone... hm? What’s wrong? Not even a murderer caught on-site would look as obviously nervous as you do—what’s this?”

Misako made her way to the living room, looked at Kai, looked at the table, and looked at Nanaka’s bag sitting next to it. She took another step forward and put her hand onto the spot Nanaka was sitting in. “...It’s still warm,” she observed.

“Nee-san,” Kai said, all while thinking, something. He had to do something. Kai heard a sound when that thought came to mind; it was like the sound of a distant waterfall, brought to his ear by the whispers of the wind. The sound of water hitting a surface was noticeably different from that of rain and filled the air around the two siblings.

In an instant, Misako shot forward at full speed. Her hand was a hair’s breadth away from the door leading into the bathroom when Kai grabbed it and wound his arms around her to hold her back.

“Hey...! Stop!” he cried out. “Nee-san, wait!”

“Kai! Why are you stopping me?!”

“You know why!”

“Do you know what you’re doing?!” Misako demanded to know. As soon as she’d grasped the situation, she made off for the bathroom with all the flexibility of a wild beast.

“I know!” Kai yelled back, knowing that it would be catastrophic if he let this sister of his have her own way. Extremely catastrophic. If Kai hadn’t happened to have already been in her way, he wouldn’t have been able to stop her, and he’d probably be suffering serious damage by now. Like to his dignity, or the trust he’d received from Nanaka.

“Kai,” said Misako.

“What?”

“Let me say this again,” she continued. “Do you understand what you are doing right now?”

“I’m going to send those words straight back to you,” Kai replied.

“Listen, I won’t pry on the details—well, no, I’ll ask about those later,” said Misako, “like why Nanaka-chan is taking a bath here to begin with. But right now, I don’t mind putting the particulars off for another time. What’s important now is time and speed. What if she has some quick-shower-technique and comes out?! Every minute—every second you stop me here bears the potential to throw away something you’ll never get back! Do you understand?!”

“I’m stopping you because I understand!” Kai insisted.

“You don’t! You don’t understand the sanctity that comes with a chance to peek on your hot classmate...!” Misako wailed.

“Whoa!” said Kai, who felt Misako suddenly increase her strength as he held her back. He was using his entire weight to restrain her, but Misako’s ridiculous, animalistic power caused his feet to float off the ground.

Up he went.

“Ah—”

“Wha—”

Without his footing, Kai’s body was jerked forward by Misako’s forward momentum. They started in a sort of piggy-back-ride position, but Kai ended up nearly somersaulting forward off of his sister’s back—causing him to kick open the door and roll into the bathroom. All at once, his field of view flipped about, pain ran through his body, and time froze while his vision settled.

Nanaka must have just gotten out of the bath. Her hair was soft and damp, sensually dying her neck a light beige. Luckily enough, the bath towel she was using to dry herself barely managed to hide her. But, of course, a single piece of cloth wasn’t enough to cover everything: her shoulders, back, stomach, arms, legs... The color of flesh burst out past the cloth and burned into his eyes, grinding his thoughts to a halt.

“Kyaaaaa?!”

The scream that came from Nanaka’s beet red face rebooted Kai’s frozen brain. “I-I’m sorry...!!!” he yelled, slamming the door shut and turning around. His sister had passed out, standing straight up with her right fist pumped in the air and blood coming out of her nose.

◇

Afterwards...

—Nanaka got one absolute command. That was the deal that Kai and Misako struck in exchange for forgiveness. In the first place, Nanaka wasn’t upset with Kai—who was only trying to stop his sister—but the responsibility of his failure wouldn’t fade away. And in the end... the fact that he saw a little of this and a little of that wouldn’t fade away, either. While Kai was kneeling and bowing in apology, she suggested the condition, “You have to do one thing for me, whatever I say.” Then, turning to Misako, she said, “Oh, but Misako-san, you should think about your actions, okay?”

There was nothing jolly about Nanaka’s tone of voice as she used Misako’s order up on the spot. They ended up having brunch at the most expensive restaurant around the train station to celebrate the completion of their document—as Misako’s treat. She started spouting more nonsense, saying, “An absolute command from a high school girl... O, Lord, is this truly punishment? Nay—” so Kai couldn’t tell if it was sufficient punishment.

“It wouldn’t change anything if I ordered you to forget... hmm. I’ll decide your order some other time, Shiraseki-kun!”

“O-Okay,” he agreed.

“Alright, see you tomorrow!” Nanaka told him.

With that, Kai’s order was put off and Nanaka went home with a full stomach.