「You can leave a hickey here if you want.」

       Miyagi readily accepted my request as she took her blazer off.

       She rolled up the sleeve on her blouse and stuck her arm out towards me.

          No.

          This is all wrong.

          It wasn’t like I wanted her to resist or anything, but I also didn’t want her to agree so easily. I wanted to drag her down with me, not have her meet me down here on her own accord.

       Now it felt like I was just copying Miyagi, which only made me feel more annoyed.

       Miyagi should’ve been confused, just like how I was. She should’ve been irritated instead of giving me the go-ahead to plant a hickey on her.  

       「You know what, never mind.」

       I unrolled Miyagi’s sleeve for her.

       Honestly, there was no reason for us to be leaving hickeys on each other in the first place.

          I really don’t care anymore.

       I took a deep breath to calm myself down. However, Miyagi let out a breath before I could.

       「Even though you were the one who asked me for my arm?」

       「I mean, this isn’t something that friends should be doing with each other anyway.」

       Regardless of our reasons for meeting up, Miyagi invited me to her home after school hours and we spent a lot of time together, so I considered her a friend.

       Our friendship was a bit unique compared to traditional ones, but she still fit the criteria of a “friend” in general.

       「―― You and I are not friends, Sendai-san.」

          Oh.

          That explains a lot.

       I was finally able to make sense of some of Miyagi’s actions up until now.

       Now I understood why she had that strange expression on her face when I gave her friendship chocolate on Valentine’s Day. It also explained why she told me not to make dinner for her.

       She never saw us as friends – that’s why she would always issue me these orders that were so obviously out of the ordinary.

       However…

       If that was the case, then what sort of relationship did we have?

       At least, I considered Miyagi my friend.

       Sure, we never hung out except on school days, and we kept our contact to a bare minimum, but if I could go over to her house and engage in banter with her, then she was definitely a friend to me.

       Looks like it was different for Miyagi, though.

       「If we’re not friends, then what are we?」

       I asked out of genuine curiosity.

       「Don’t ask me. I have no idea either.」

       Miyagi sounded angry as she spoke. Then, she rolled her sleeve back up.

       「Here.」

       She said curtly, extending her arm out to me.

       To be honest, it felt pretty bad hearing someone who you considered a friend deny it so strongly. But when I really thought about it, Miyagi and I didn’t exactly have the kind of relationship where a label was worth stressing over.

       Things just happened to turn out this way, after all.

       I was simply interested in Miyagi as a person, and wanted to see what kinds of orders she would give me. And if I was ever unhappy with the arrangement, all I had to do was return the five-thousand yen to her and be done with it. That was the sort of mindset I had going into this.

       The five-thousand yen was like a thin string tying our fragile relationship together.

       But unlike how Miyagi treated me on that day she drenched me in soda, she wasn’t actively pushing me away today – I wanted to be extra careful with choosing the right words to describe our relationship.

       「Look, I’m not your lover, Miyagi.」

       「Do we have to be lovers to leave hickeys on each other?」

       「Isn’t that how it usually works?」

       「How come you’re acting so pure and innocent all of a sudden? Even though you look like the type to get around.」

       「I’m not acting that way, I am pure and innocent. And I already told you, I don’t get around.」

       I could tell Miyagi was just saying that to provoke me.

       But I needed to defend myself from those disgraceful remarks that she kept bringing up from time to time.

       「If you insist, Sendai-san…… Anyway, aren’t there plenty of people out there who do these things to each other even if they aren’t friends or lovers?」

       「Yeah, there are, but I’m not one of them.」

       「You can’t really say that after you let me – someone who’s not your lover – leave a mark on you.」

       I see.

       I guess she has a point there.

          ―― Wait, wait, no she doesn’t.

       Even though I let someone who wasn’t my lover leave a hickey on me, that didn’t mean I belonged in the same category as those who actively sought to do these things with people that weren’t their partners.

       Moreover, when Miyagi asked me to put a hickey on her, it only made me not want to do it. I know I was the one who said I would, but seeing how readily she accepted it made me want to run away.

       「Okay, then I’ll give you an order.」

       When she saw that I wouldn’t budge, Miyagi chose to use the words she knew I couldn’t defy.

       「Do the same thing to me as I did to you earlier.」

       Her voice sounded like she wanted me to do this to prove that we weren’t friends.

       She was definitely trying to test my loyalty^[1].

       She wanted me to make it loud and clear that the relationship we had was not friendship.

       I’m sure that was what she wanted to get out of this.

       「Fine.」

       I understood the intention behind her order, but that didn’t necessarily mean I agreed with it.

       Still, I reached out and grabbed her arm. Then, I parted my lips and pressed them against the same area that Miyagi marked on me earlier.

       I sucked on her skin, as if I were trying to inhale it. A subtle noise that sounded like a kiss came from my lips and echoed in my ears.

       The tip of my tongue brushed against her skin, but it didn’t really taste like anything.

       It didn’t feel anything like the times I bit her either.

       I continued sucking on her skin like I was trying to drink through the straw of a juice box.

       The skin that was currently beneath my lips felt cold and soft to the touch.

       It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.

       I squeezed my lips together a bit harder and took another deep breath in.

       Right when my teeth were about to sink into her skin, Miyagi gave me a shove on my shoulder, and I lifted my head to face her.

       「It’s a lot redder than I thought it would be.」

       Miyagi said, which prompted me to drop my gaze to examine her arm.

       There was a red mark on her that resembled the shape of a flower petal.

       「So what are you going to do with this?」

       I said as I poked the mark that I made on her.

       「I’m not going to do anything with it. I’ll just leave it alone. It’ll disappear on its own anyway. As for you, Sendai-san, you can go around telling people your boyfriend left a hickey on you.」

       「I don’t even have a boyfriend, and I don’t really want to say anything that could lead to a misunderstanding.」

       Thankfully, I didn’t have gym class tomorrow, so I didn’t need to change my clothes in front of anyone else.

       No one should be able to find out about the traces that Miyagi left on my body.

       Well, I did have gym class a few days from now, but I wanted to believe that the marks would be gone by then.

       「Hey, Miyagi. Don’t you think you’ve been acting a bit strange today?」

       I squeezed my arm over my blouse, right where the hickey was.

       She had a lot more to say than usual, and she even pulled out a video game for us to play together.

       In fact, it felt like she’d put the whole order-giving thing on the back burner.

       「I don’t think I’m acting any differently than usual.」

       「No, you definitely are.」

       「In that case, I’d say you were acting pretty strange yourself, Sendai-san. You’ve never given me an order before.」

       「That’s true, but…」

       「That aside, can I undo this button?」

       Without warning, Miyagi brought her fingers to the third button on my blouse and pulled on it slightly.

       I didn’t have any good memories associated with that button.

       My brows naturally furrowed as I thought back to the day she drenched me in soda.

       「No. Besides, what were you even thinking of doing?」

       「I thought I’d leave a mark here too.」

       Miyagi said as she let go of the button. Instead, she slid her fingers beneath my collarbone.

       「Didn’t I tell you I’d beat you up if you even thought about putting a mark there?」

       「You didn’t really seem to dislike it when I put a hickey on you, Sendai-san. Besides, you only ever leave one button undone at most whenever you’re at school, so it’s not like anybody would see it.」

          Sounds like someone’s been watching me.

       What Miyagi said was true. Whenever I was at school, I’d keep one button undone at most, and I never really loosened my necktie either.

       I was breaking a few school rules, but I made sure that nothing stood out enough for the teachers to scold me. Even if Miyagi left a mark around the area she was currently pointing to, no one at school would ever notice it even if I changed clothes in front of them.

       But that didn’t mean I was okay with her leaving a hickey there.

       「That’s not the issue here.」

       「It’s fine, isn’t it?」

       Miyagi acted without giving me an order and suddenly took off my necktie while undoing the third button on my blouse.

       And without asking me, she brought her face towards my now exposed cleavage.

       Her breath tickled the side of my neck.

       A distinct heat, clearly belonging to someone other than myself, approached the area that she had been touching earlier.

       Her hair brushed against my skin, making me extremely conscious of what was happening.

       It felt like all my senses had gathered into one spot. Unable to handle it, I pushed Miyagi away.

       「Stop that.」

       「You’re no fun.」

       Miyagi said, sounding a bit disappointed, but she backed off without resistance.

       Instead, she used her fingers to pinch the area where she had intended to leave a hickey. Then, she applied firm pressure to my skin through my blouse.

       「Ow!」

       I shouted reflexively.

       I grabbed Miyagi by her arm, but her hand wouldn’t budge.

       「I can leave some sort of a mark on you like this as well.」

       Miyagi said as she applied more force to her fingers.

       She was pinching me so hard, it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration if I said I genuinely believed she was trying to tear my flesh off.

       「I told you, that hurts!」

       「This is just a little prank.」

       「Are you stupid? This isn’t a joke!」

       「It’s not like I could actually leave a hickey on you like this anyway.」

       That wasn’t the point.

       It was just plain painful.

       It hurt so much that I couldn’t even play it off as a prank of hers.

       Normally, people wouldn’t even think about leaving marks on others by pinching them.

          I swear, there are no screws holding Miyagi’s common sense together in her head…

       But even if I told Miyagi that all the things she’s been doing to me went beyond the realm of common sense, I’m sure it’d just be lost on her anyway.

          I let out a small sigh.

       「Do you want to have dinner here?」

       Miyagi asked in a professional, business-like tone.

       「Yeah, I’ll have something to eat.」

       I mean, even if I went home now, I’d just be dining alone anyway.

       If that was going to be the case, then I’d rather eat with someone else here.

       I fastened up the button that Miyagi undid earlier.

       「You’re okay with anything, right?」

       「Yeah.」

       When I answered Miyagi’s question, she got up without saying anything more and left the room, as if nothing just happened.

       I put my blazer back on and stared at my arm.

       Of course, I couldn’t see the mark that Miyagi left behind through it or anything.

       「Maybe I should’ve refused the order after all.」

       I muttered to myself as I followed after Miyagi.

       Perhaps my existence was necessary to Miyagi.

       Just like how this place was to me.

       Anyway, even if we were necessary to each other, things like what happened today needed to stop.

       There was a clear limit to our relationship. Once we were finished with high school, our arrangement would be over as well. In the grand scheme of our lives, this phase would likely occupy only a small portion of the whole picture. But even so, things like leaving hickeys on each other made me feel like we were going to be bound together for a long time to come, and the mere thought of that made my stomach feel heavy.

       I wonder how long this mark will stay on me.

       I held my arm out as I walked towards the living room.

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[1] Honestly, I’m not sure if this is footnote worthy, but I thought I’d include it for the language or history buffs out there.

In the original text, Sendai says: 「きっと、踏み絵みたいなものなんだと思う。」, which roughly translates to: “She was definitely trying to get me to do something like fumi-e.”

Basically, fumi-e was a test of allegiance used by the authorities of the Tokugawa shogunate back in the 1600s. Christianity was banned back then, and those that were caught being a Christian would be persecuted or executed.

The “fumi” (踏み) part in fumi-e means “to step on”, and the “e” (絵) means “picture”. The idea was that if an individual was suspected to be a Christian or a sympathizer, they were given a picture of Jesus or the Virgin Mary and they had to prove their allegiance by trampling on it in order to escape death.

This must sound pretty wild considering Sendai and Miyagi are just two high school girls in the modern era, but essentially, it just means “test of allegiance” now. There is no religion involved here.

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TL Note: HI GUYS! I’m so sorry for reposting this part, especially to anyone who was subscribed to this blog via email. I had to completely erase the other post for this part because the footnote actually bricked the entire thing, to the point I couldn’t make any edits to it. I wanted to leave the footnote in (I apologize for the budget footnote in its stead), so in the end, I decided to just post it again.

I’m really sorry! Please don’t throw rocks at me!!

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Credits to himi for proofreading and editing this part!

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