Inside the bag I was holding was something I’d bought while hanging out with Maika.

         I’d wanted to give it to Sendai-san after we had doria last night, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d been hesitating all day today too, and even after dinner, I still hadn’t worked up the nerve.

         I paced around my bedroom and came to a stop in front of my bookshelf, letting out a sigh.

         The black cat plush stared back at me.

         What should I do?

         After thinking it over for a bit, I stepped out of my room and looked around our shared space.

         Since she wasn’t here, Sendai-san must’ve been in her own room.

         I picked up the platypus tissue box sitting on top of one of our storage bins and knocked on her door—my first time doing so since we moved in.

         I knocked three times, the sound echoing faintly in return.

         A moment later, I heard her voice from inside, and then her door creaked open.

         「What’s up?」

         「Let me in. I’ve decided on your punishment.」

         「Right now?」

         Sendai-san sounded unsure as her eyes flicked toward the paper bag and tissue box I was holding.

         「Yes, right now. It won’t take long. If you really don’t want me in your room, we can do it out here instead.」

         When I’d left my room, it was just after nine—not too late, not too early for bed. There was plenty of time.

         The punishment I had in mind wasn’t anything serious. All she had to do was use what was inside the paper bag. It wouldn’t take long, and it wasn’t anything difficult either.

         「We can do it in my room. Come in.」

         Sendai-san stepped aside and opened the door wider.

         For a second, I considered saying “Pardon the intrusion,” but ended up walking in without a word.

         There was a small nightstand next to her bed, a desk, and a bookshelf.

         It was my first time inside her room since we moved here. The layout was different from her old place.

         She never had many books or a bookshelf at all, and the metal bed frame from her last room was gone. I hadn’t been in her old room often enough to feel nostalgic, but somehow, I couldn’t get used to this one being hers either.

         It left a strange, uncomfortable feeling in my chest.

         「Sit wherever you want.」

         She said as she sat down, leaning back against her bed.

         I hesitated for a moment before sitting down right next to her.

         「So, what’s this for?」

         She tapped the platypus tissue box.

         「It’s a tissue box cover.」

         「No, I know that. Are we using it for the punishment or something?」

         「Probably.」

         「What do you mean, ‘probably’? What exactly do you want me to do?」

         「Here. This is what you’ll be using for the punishment.」

         I handed her the paper bag and moved the tissue box to the table.

         「What’s in here?」

         「Take a look yourself.」

         She peeked inside the bag.

         「Miyagi, this…」

         She said, her voice lower than usual, her expression stiffening.

         She slowly took the contents out one by one and laid them on the table.

         A piercing gun. Disinfectant. Cotton balls.

         All the things you’d need to pierce an earlobe.

         Sendai-san let out a long, heavy sigh.

         「…You’re not allowed to do this kind of thing, remember? I said I’d do one thing you told me to, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do anything.」

         「But we never said piercings were off-limits, did we?」

         「No, but I feel like it should go without saying that any punishment that leaves a permanent mark is crossing the line.」

         Sendai-san wasn’t angry, but her voice was laced with exasperation. That was the exact kind of response I’d been expecting.

         I picked up the ear piercer from the table and pushed it into her hands.

         「Well, I’m saying it isn’t crossing the line.」

         「Miyagi. Even if you’re fine with it, I’m not.」

         「It doesn’t matter what you think. I’m the one getting pierced.」

         「… Huh?」

         「There’s nothing confusing about it. You’re going to pierce my ears, Sendai-san.」

         If I’d told her she was the one getting her ears pierced, she definitely would’ve refused. So I thought about how else I could get her to keep her promises.

         It didn’t take long to come up with something.

         I’d just have to carve those promises into myself.

         It was my body. I could do whatever I wanted with it.

         And as long as it wasn’t her ears being pierced, Sendai-san shouldn’t have had any problem doing what I asked.

         「I’m the one who’s supposed to be getting punished, right?」

         「Yeah, so do what I say. It’s not like it’ll be hard—you just have to use that on me.」

         I said, pointing at the piercing gun in her hands.

         「This feels… weird.」

         「It’s not weird at all.」

         「Have you always wanted to get your ears pierced?」

         「Not really. I don’t like pain, and I’m not that into earrings.」

         I made sure to emphasize that it wasn’t something I wanted.

         「Then why do you want me to do it?」

         「So you won’t forget your promises with me anymore.」

         「Huh? What do you mean by that?」

         Even though I didn’t have a part-time job myself, I knew that if she started working as a private tutor, her schedule would become too rigid to shift things around. And that meant her promises with me could easily be forgotten, cancelled, or delayed.

         I knew it was selfish, but I really hated it when our promises got brushed off. Regardless of whether she took the job or not, I didn’t want the things she promised me to be forgotten.

         So, I decided to use my own body to give those promises a little more weight.

         「If you did something drastic like piercing my ears, it’d make things harder to forget, right? I wanted it to be so that every time you saw them, you’d remember the promises you made with me.」

         There was a limit to how much we could remember—we couldn’t hold on to everything that had ever happened.

         But if something was memorable enough, it tended to stick.

         So if I tied our promises to my piercings, they wouldn’t be so easy to let slip.

         And that was why I needed Sendai-san to be the one to pierce my ears for me.

         「I want you to remember every time you break a promise to me and reflect on it.」

         「Are you being serious?」

         「I am.」

         「Well, I think you should pierce them yourself, Miyagi. If I do it when you don’t even want them, it’ll feel like I’m forcing it on you.」

         「No. You’re the one who needs to do it because I don’t want them. I want you to regret it, and I want you to feel like you did something wrong.」

         I wanted Sendai-san to feel even more guilty.

         I wanted her to remember it vividly—that she’d forced these piercings on me even after I told her I didn’t want them.

         「― I’ve never used one of these before.」

         Sendai-san sighed as she opened the piercing gun’s packaging. She pulled out the instruction sheet and started reading.

         「You’ve never pierced anyone’s ears before? Not Ibaraki-san, or someone else?」

         「Nope. Everyone else did it themselves. You’re the first person I’ll be using this on.」

         Knowing that made me feel a little relieved.

         If it was her first time, that meant it would leave an even stronger impression in her memory.

         I started explaining the process to her.

         First, she had to disinfect my earlobes. Then, mark the spots with a pen.

         It probably wasn’t much different from what the instructions said, but I walked her through it anyway.

         「Okay, I’ll start with disinfecting your ears.」

         Sendai-san tucked my hair behind my ears and dabbed the disinfectant just as the instructions said. Then she gently tugged at my earlobe, as if double-checking her work.

         「You know it doesn’t mean anything if you’re going to touch it right after disinfecting it, right?」

         I slapped her arm.

         But she didn’t let go.

         She kept tugging at my earlobe.

         「It tickles, you know.」

         「I just wanted to savor your ears a little before poking holes in them.」

         She finally pulled her hand away.

         Her fingertips brushed behind my ear, then slid down to my neck.

         The ticklish feeling only got worse.

         It was supposed to just be her fingers, but now her entire palm was pressed against my neck. I could feel her body heat sinking into me, and it felt like she was going to lean in even closer. I quickly pushed her back by the shoulders.

         「Disinfect it again.」

         「Okay.」

         She wiped down my earlobe again with cotton and picked up a pen.

         Maybe it was the disinfectant, but my ear felt slightly cold.

         「Where do you want them?」

         「Anywhere’s fine.」

         「Then I’ll decide for you.」

         She hesitated a bit, then drew a small mark on my earlobe. After that, she picked up the piercing gun.

         「You’re really sure about this?」

         「Yeah.」

         It was definitely going to hurt.

         Maika had said it wasn’t as painful as she expected, but I didn’t buy it. There was no way getting a thick needle shoved through your earlobe didn’t hurt. What scared me most was not knowing how bad it would actually be.

         I squeezed my eyes shut.

         But no matter how long I waited, the pain didn’t come.

         「Sendai-san, are you done yet?」

         I opened my eyes.

         「Not yet. I was just wondering if you really meant it.」

         「I already told you I did.」

         「Okay… then I’m really going to do it.」

         Sendai-san said in an unusually anxious voice, as if trying to confirm with me one last time.

         「Stop hesitating. Just hurry up and do it already, Sendai-san.」

         “I’m scared.“

         That was what I wanted to say, but I held the words back.

         「Well, here goes nothing…」

         Sendai-san said as I felt the piercing gun press against my ear.

         I shut my eyes and clenched my hands into tight fists. A loud snapping sound echoed in my eardrum, followed by a sharp sting. The pain didn’t last long—it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. What lingered was the strange tingling in my earlobe.

         「Okay, I’m going to do this one next.」

         I felt the cotton ball against my other ear, followed by the same cold sensation.

         This time, I kept my eyes open and looked straight at Sendai-san.

         “I’m going to do it now,” she said. A second later, the same snap rang out, and the sting followed right after.

         Sendai-san let out a breath and set the piercing gun down on the table.

         「Are you okay?」

         She asked as she dabbed disinfectant onto my freshly pierced ears.

         「That hurt a lot. My earlobes are still tingling.」

         I said, exaggerating the pain a little. It hadn’t actually hurt that much. I touched one of my earlobes, and my fingertip brushed against something that hadn’t been there before—a small, round accessory. There was something behind my earlobe, too.

         「Do you want to have a look?」

         Sendai-san asked, holding out a mirror.

         I looked at my ears.

         Now there were small, silver accessories in them.

         They didn’t match Maika’s exactly, but they looked somewhat similar. Just having something new on me made it feel like something about me had changed, too.

         「It feels kind of strange.」

         I said, touching my earlobes again as I glanced away from the mirror—only to meet Sendai-san’s gaze. She was staring right back at me.

         「It looks good on you.」

         I didn’t know if she meant it or not, but she smiled.

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