After having breakfast with Sendai-san, I went back to my room.

            I pulled out a skirt, then hesitated.

            December 25th.

            Christmas Day.

            The day of our promise.

            All of those words used to describe today were accurate, but that didn’t mean I had to wear a skirt because of it.

            I put the skirt away and took out a pair of jeans instead. The forecast said today would be just as cold as yesterday, so it made more sense to dress warmly.

            After changing into something not too different from what I usually wore, I applied the lip balm Sendai-san had given me. I also picked up the hand lotion sitting on my desk and unscrewed the cap.

            It smelled nice, and I liked the scent.

            But after hesitating for a moment, I closed the cap again without using any.

            I put on my coat, wrapped the scarf Sendai-san gave me around my neck, grabbed the mittens Maika had given me, and headed out into the shared living space.

            Sendai-san was nowhere to be seen yet, probably because she still wasn’t ready, so I knocked on her door.

            After knocking twice, I called out to her.

            「Sendai-san?」

            「Give me ten more minutes.」

            Her voice came from inside the room, so I went back to my own for the time being. I stroked the head of my black cat plush and spent the next ten minutes alternating between sitting down, standing up, and pacing around my room until enough time had finally passed.

            When I returned to the shared living space, the bedroom door beside mine opened almost immediately.

            The moment I saw Sendai-san, I felt relieved.

            She was wearing a skirt again like yesterday, but she wasn’t especially dressed up, and her hairstyle was the same as always too.

            I liked seeing Sendai-san looking like her usual self more than seeing her dressed up differently than normal.

            I didn’t want today to feel like a special day.

            「You’re so slow. Come on, let’s hurry up and go already.」

            For now, I decided to complain about how she’d kept me waiting longer than ten minutes.

            「There’s no need to rush, is there? It’s not like we’ve even decided where we’re going yet.」

            Sendai-san said with a smile and took two steps closer to me.

            She reached out her hand, and I instinctively stepped back.

            「Miyagi, do you still have the lip balm I gave you?」

            Lowering the hand she’d just extended, Sendai-san looked intently at my lips.

            「I do. Why?」

            「I figured you were probably running low by now. I’ll buy you a new one, so tell me when you’re about to run out.」

            「I’ll buy another one myself when the time comes.」

            「Let me buy it for you. We can fit it into our plans today.」

            「No, I’ll buy it myself.」

            「Well, at least let me pick one out for you.」

            「That doesn’t matter right now. Let’s just hurry up and go already.」

            Turning my back on Sendai-san, I headed toward the front door.

            “Fine, fine,” I heard her say from behind me, and we left the apartment together.

            After riding the train for a while, we got off at a random stop and started wandering with no real destination in mind.

            「Miyagi, did you have anywhere you wanted to go?」

            「Not really.」

            「Well, I guess that’s fine… but are you really planning to just wander around aimlessly all day?」

            Her tone didn’t sound like she was trying to scold me, but it wasn’t particularly gentle either, and I let out a heavy sigh.

            The cold air turned my breath white.

            My scarf and gloves were doing their job keeping me warm, but I could still feel the chill in the air. I looked up at the sky and saw the sun barely peeking out between the clouds, looking almost apologetic for trying to get in between them.

            This wasn’t exactly the right season to be wandering the streets aimlessly.

            「…What do you and your friends usually do when you hang out, Sendai-san?」

            I asked while absentmindedly putting one foot in front of the other.

            「Hmm, let me think… We usually just go shopping or karaoke… Oh, do you want to go to karaoke?」

            「No.」

            It wasn’t that I disliked karaoke. If anything, I wanted to hear Sendai-san sing. But today, I didn’t really want to go anywhere where it would just be the two of us. If we were going somewhere, I wanted it to be a place with other people around.

            Are there even places like that around here? I thought to myself.

            As we walked slowly and without direction, I glanced across the street and noticed a building that had a bookstore.

            「Sendai-san, can we go check out that bookstore over there?」

            I asked, pointing at it, and she answered with, “Sure.” With a destination finally decided, we picked up our pace.

            Escaping the wind that had been stinging our cheeks, we stepped inside the building and entered the bookstore.

            I didn’t have anything I wanted to buy, but it was warm inside, and it seemed like a good place to pass the time.

            「I’m going to go check out the manga section. You can go look at whatever you want, Sendai-san.」

            I said, glancing at her as I took off my mittens.

            「I’ll go with you.」

            Sendai-san replied, following behind me.

            After about twenty minutes, we moved from the manga section to the novels, browsing the new releases, then drifted over to historical fiction—a genre I rarely read. Sendai-san stayed beside me the whole time, quietly looking at the spines of the books around us.

            We checked out the magazine section too, then moved on to picture books.

            Sure enough, Sendai-san was still right next to me.

            Even when we reached the children’s books section, she didn’t leave my side.

            I’d lost track of how much time had passed, but with Sendai-san trailing me the entire time like some kind of stalker, I couldn’t really relax and browse in peace.

            「Sendai-san, do you have any books you want to buy?」

            I asked, glancing at her as we walked toward the stationery section.

            「Not right now. What about you, Miyagi?」

            「I might buy some manga.」

            I didn’t really have anything specific in mind, but I wanted to kill a little more time.

            「If you’re going to buy books now, you’ll just have to carry them around, so I think you should get them later. We can always come back right before we head home. Anyway, it’s almost lunchtime. What do you think about eating now?」

            「It’s already lunch time?」

            「Well, not quite, but soon. And if you want to eat exactly at noon, restaurants will probably be more crowded then.」

            「Okay. Can we go to a family restaurant?」

            「If you’re in the mood for Hamburg steak, I actually know a really good place.」

            「Why are you suddenly talking about Hamburg steak? I never said I wanted one.」

            We didn’t seem to be on the same page at all.

            I hadn’t said anything about wanting a Hamburg steak, and I didn’t remember ever mentioning it before we left home either.

            「You said the Hamburg steak I made you that one time was good, so I figured we should have some today. It is Christmas, after all, so I thought it’d be nice to have something that would make today feel a little more special.」

            「I’m fine with just having an ordinary meal, so let’s just go to a normal family restaurant.」

            I said firmly, and Sendai-san looked slightly displeased. I didn’t want her going out of her way to make today feel special, so after leaving the bookstore, we started looking for a family restaurant. After about five minutes of walking, we found one and went inside. I took off my scarf and coat, chose a regular pasta dish from the menu, and before long, the food was served.

            Since neither of us had anything in particular to talk about, we finished our meal in silence. We put our coats back on, and I also put on my mittens and scarf again. We wandered the streets aimlessly once more, but after a while, the cold started to get to us, so we took shelter in a nearby station building¹ with a lot of shops inside.

            While I was browsing a shop full of small trinkets, Sendai-san suddenly said she wanted to look at clothes, so I followed behind her. When we reached the store she was interested in, she started urging me to try on all kinds of outfits, so I made my escape. But Sendai-san quickly followed and dragged me into another clothing store, where she kept urging me to try on clothes even more persistently than the staff did.

            In the end, I tried on a few outfits, and afterward we went to eat pancakes together. Then we looked for lip balm at a shop with a cosmetics section, but left without buying anything. After that, we went into a hobby store filled with character merchandise.

            We managed to pass a lot of time that way, and after having dinner together, we kept wandering around the station building until Sendai-san suddenly stopped in her tracks.

            「Can I give this a try?」

            Sendai-san asked, pointing a crane machine near us. Inside, I saw it was filled with stuffed sea animals—sharks, dolphins, and the like.

            「Sure, but I didn’t know you liked stuffed animals enough to try winning one from a crane machine.」

            「Well, I don’t really, but you know…」

            Even so, Sendai-san had an oddly serious expression as she stared at the stuffed animals. She tilted her head, then furrowed her brow as if concentrating hard on something.

            “Hmm,” she mumbled to herself, leaning in closer for a better look before pulling back. Then she leaned in again.

            Thud.

            Sendai-san slammed her forehead against the glass with a dull thud.

            「Um… are you okay?」

            「Yeah, I’m fine.」

            She gave a short reply, then pulled a 500-yen coin from her wallet and fed it into the machine. The crane immediately started moving, but for some reason she stopped it nowhere near the plush she seemed to be aiming for. As it dropped, the claw simply jabbed the head of a half-buried dolphin plush before coming back up empty.

            Her second and third tries² went the same way—the crane kept stopping in the horrible positions each time.

            「Sendai-san, I don’t think you’re going to catch anything like that.」

            「Be quiet, Miyagi.」

            Sendai-san replied without even looking away from the stuffed animals, but even on her last try, the plush didn’t budge at all.

            「… Um, aren’t you a little too bad at this?」

            「I don’t really play crane games that often.」

            That much was obvious just from watching her.

            She was so bad at it that I felt like she should probably stay away from crane machines for the rest of her life. But when I glanced back at her, I saw she was already about to put another 500-yen coin into the machine.

            「Sendai-san, you do know you’re probably not going to win anything even if you spend ten-thousand yen on this, right?」

            「That’s not true.」

            「No, it definitely is. You’re that bad at it. Do you really want that stuffed animal that badly?」

            「Well…」

            「So you don’t actually want one?」

            「It’s not that I don’t want one…」

            「Which one do you want?」

            「It’s not like there’s a specific one I want or anything.」

            「Alright, move aside.」

            I said to Sendai-san, who was giving nothing but vague answers, and gently pushed her out of the way.

            I rummaged through my bag, fishing out my wallet from under the scarf and mittens I’d stuffed in there when I was trying on various outfits, and dropped a 500-yen coin into the crane machine.

            I set my sights on a penguin plush, moved the claw into position, and released it. The claw caught the plush’s tag on the way up, but as it moved toward the chute, the plush slipped free and fell. Still, that didn’t matter. The goal was just to shift it into a better position.

            It wouldn’t be realistic to expect the claw to be strong enough to grab a stuffed animal on the first try. It was almost unheard of for it to actually hold the plush and carry it all the way to the chute on the first attempt. Even if the tag hooked onto the claw, it usually slipped off anyway, so it was better to use a few tries just to move it closer.

            「Here you go.」

            It basically cost 500 yen per plush. I wasn’t sure if that counted as a good deal, but I handed the penguin—slightly larger than the black cat plush I already had—over to Sendai-san.

            But for some reason, she didn’t take it.

            If anything, she looked a little sulky.

            「Was this not what you wanted?」

            「… I wanted to win one for you, Miyagi.」

            Sendai-san muttered quietly.

            It was rare to see her looking so pouty.

            「It didn’t look like you were ever going to get one, though.」

            「You never know. Maybe I would’ve gotten one eventually.」

            「No, you were definitely never going to get one.」

            「That’s not true.」

            「Yes, it is. You don’t know how to win on a crane machine, do you, Sendai-san?」

            「I don’t, but I think I still could’ve gotten one anyway… Or I guess not, huh.」

            Sendai-san, who rarely ever pouted, said in a sulky voice as she sighed. The way she was acting felt strangely childish, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

            「Wait, what? Was that supposed to be funny?」

            Sendai-san looked at me in surprise.

            「I just thought it was rare seeing you act like this, Sendai-san. Here, take the penguin as thanks for the scarf.」

            I said, pushing the plush into Sendai-san’s hands as she stared at me with widened eyes.

            「I wasn’t supposed to be the one getting this, but… thanks.」

            Sendai-san accepted the penguin and gently patted its head. She still looked a little bewildered, but seeing how attached she already seemed to it made me feel relieved.

            「Are you sure you don’t want one too, Miyagi?」

            「No. I already have a stuffed animal in my room.」

            There was already a black cat plush sitting in my room. I wasn’t really interested in collecting stuffed animals or filling my room with them, so I didn’t feel the need for another one.

            We left the crane game area and started wandering around aimlessly again.

            「Oh right, Miyagi. Did you still want to buy those books from earlier?」

            It seemed she remembered that I’d mentioned wanting to buy manga before we ate lunch earlier today.

            「No, I don’t really need to buy them today.」

            「Then should we start heading home?」

            Sendai-san, walking beside me, suddenly stopped. I didn’t want to stop walking, but she grabbed my arm, leaving me no choice but to stop with her.

            「I want to stay out a little longer.」

            「…What, are you planning to stay out until midnight or something?」

            She asked in a low voice, and I looked away.

            That hadn’t exactly been my plan, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping things might turn out that way.

            「Miyagi.」

            Sendai-san called my name as if pressing me for an answer, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

            The hand holding my arm suddenly tugged sharply.

            I stumbled and fell straight into her arms. Then she whispered into my ear.

            「Do you hate the idea of having sex with me that much?」

            Her voice was quiet, but I heard every word clearly, and I immediately pulled myself out of her embrace.

            「This isn’t really the place to say things like that, you know.」

            「Then why don’t we go home and talk about it there instead?」

            Still holding onto my arm, Sendai-san started walking again.

            With no choice but to follow, I walked beside her.

            Sendai-san was always kind.

            She didn’t have to indulge me this much. She could’ve forced us to go home much earlier, or refused to go out with me today at all, but she’d done neither of those things.

            Sendai-san was always like this.

            She granted almost every selfish thing I asked for. And because she was like that, a cruel part of me wondered if I could get away with breaking our promise if I just told her clearly that I didn’t want to do it.

            「Miyagi.」

            「… What?」

            「The rest of tonight belongs to me.」

            Sendai-san said as though she were rejecting the thoughts running through my head.

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Chapter debt: 95

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1. Not a super necessary footnote, but just wanted to mention that a lot of major train stations in Tokyo and other areas have shopping complexes in them, so it’s not unusual for them to go shopping in one. ↩︎
2. Also not super necessary footnote, but 500 yen buys more than one attempt at a lot of crane machines. I only put this one here because a lot of crane machines charge one attempt at a time. ↩︎

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