Miyagi Shiori’s POV:

            「Miyagi, shoebill.」

            At 11:21 PM, Sendai-san suddenly blurted that out.

            「What about them?」

            「”What” doesn’t work. You’re supposed to say a word that starts with an “l.”」

            「… Are you trying to play shiritori¹ with me?」

            「Yep. Now it’s your turn.」

            Sendai-san said with an unwavering smile, but I shot her down without hesitation.

            「I don’t want to play.」

            I was planning to turn off the lights and go to sleep soon. This wasn’t the time to be playing shiritori with her. But she didn’t seem willing to give up.

            「Why not? Come on, let’s play for a bit.」

            「No. I’m going to sleep.」

            「Don’t say that. Just give me a word that starts with an “l.”」

            Since it was spring break, staying up late wasn’t really a problem. Still, if I kept humoring Sendai-san, I had a feeling she’d eventually start talking about sleeping together. I had no idea what was going on in the head of the girl sitting beside me, but I did know it was about time she went back to her own room.

            「I told you, I’m not going to join in.」

            「Oh, that ends with an “n².” Looks like you lose.」

            Even though I’d already told her I wasn’t interested in playing shiritori, she was somehow declaring me the loser anyway.

            「I already said I wasn’t playing, so it doesn’t matter. Do you really want to play shiritori that badly, Sendai-san?」

            「It doesn’t have to be shiritori. I just thought, since it’s spring break, we could stay up a little longer and do something together. If you’d let me put some nail oil on you, I’d be happy to do that instead.」

            「I don’t want you putting nail oil on me.」

            Being arbitrarily declared the loser was annoying, but I didn’t want her touching my nails either.

            「Okay, then how about a video game? I don’t mind a racing game or a sports game.」

            「No. You’re terrible at video games, so it’s kind of boring.」

            I’d played video games with Sendai-san plenty of times by now, but she almost never won against me. She’d struggled with the claw machine around Christmas too, which made me think she hadn’t had much experience with that sort of thing growing up.

            I was curious what kind of life Sendai-san had lived if she’d gone this long without playing many games, but this wasn’t the time for that conversation.

            More importantly, there wasn’t anything I particularly wanted to do with her at this hour.

            So I decided to suggest a game with rules that would put an end to this as quickly as possible.

            「Fine, I’ll play shiritori with you, but only if we stick to things that fly. And I get to go first.」

            Before Sendai-san could respond, I quickly blurted out the name of something I knew she wouldn’t recognize.

            「Ramphastos³.」

            「Huh?」

            「Ramphastos.」

            「What’s that? Does it fly?」

            「Yeah. It’s a type of bird.」

            「What kind of bird?」

            「The kind with a big beak.」

            「Do you like birds with big beaks? Shoebills have big beaks, and platypuses too… or wait, I guess platypuses aren’t birds, huh.」

            「They’re mammals that lay eggs.」

            「Then let me rephrase that. You just like weird animals, don’t you?」

            「What’s so weird about them? You don’t even know what a ramphastos is.」

            「… I’m looking it up right now.」

            Sendai-san said quietly as she picked up her phone from the table.

            「What was it again? Ramphastos?」

            「Yeah.」

            「Oh.」

            The sound came from right beside me.

            「I think I’ve seen these before. So that’s what they’re called.」

            「It’s your turn now, Sendai-san. You need something that starts with “s.”」

            Seeing how interested she’d become, I reminded her that we were still in the middle of a game. To keep her from thinking too hard, I hurried her along.

            「Come on. Hurry up.」

            「Uh… Hmm… Something that starts with “s”… Shellfish⁴?」

            Just as I’d expected, rushing Sendai-san made her blurt out the wrong answer.

            「Shellfish don’t fly. Looks like you lose, Sendai-san.」

            「Come on. Picking a category only you know anything about is unfair.」

            「I’m not exactly knowledgeable about things that fly either.」

            「Then what are you knowledgeable about?」

            「Nothing.」

            I answered bluntly.

            「That’s not a real answer. That’s unfair.」

            Sendai-san sounded unusually sulky as she complained.

Sendai Hazuki’s POV:

            「It’s about time you went back to your own room, Sendai-san.」

            After accepting my suggestion to play shiritori, only to pick a category that gave her the advantage and end the game as quickly as possible, Miyagi said something incredibly mean.

            「Why?」

            「I told you earlier that I wanted to go to sleep, didn’t I?」

            「Isn’t it a little early to be going to sleep?」

            It was our first spring break as university students, and we still had tomorrow off.

            It wasn’t like I planned on staying up all night, but I did want to spend a little more time with Miyagi.

            「It’s not early at all. It’s already past eleven.」

            By most standards, it was already pretty late. Still, I wanted to stay with Miyagi a little longer. I’d suggested a childish game like shiritori to prolong our time together, but the moment I blurted out the name of a sea creature instead of something that flew, I ended up bringing the game to an abrupt end myself.

            「Well, since it’s spring break, I’d say it’s still pretty early to be going to bed.」

            I caught hold of Miyagi’s hand as she tried to send me back to my room.

            「Even so, I feel like sleeping right now. You should get some sleep too, Sendai-san.」

            Miyagi said, pulling her hand free from mine.

            For a moment, I found myself wishing I were one of those weird animals Miyagi liked so much.

            If I were one of those weird animals Miyagi liked, maybe she wouldn’t have pulled her hand away from me, and instead of sending me off, she would’ve stayed up with me a little longer.

            「You can be so boring sometimes, Miyagi. Why don’t you say something like, “Let’s stay up all night together,” every once in a while?」

            Even though I wasn’t one of the weird animals Miyagi liked so much, I reached out and took her hand again, holding on more tightly this time so she couldn’t pull away as easily.

            「I’d never say that.」

            She answered bluntly, though she didn’t try to pull her hand free.

            「Fine. If you kiss me, I’ll go back to my room.」

            I said, pressing a kiss to her hand that was still joined with mine.

            When I pulled back, I looked up at her. Her brows were furrowed, but she hadn’t pulled her hand away.

            It wasn’t as though our hands were stuck together. If Miyagi wanted to pull away, she could have. The fact that she hadn’t was entirely her choice.

            Which probably meant this was her way of saying I could stay in her room a little longer.

            Or maybe I was just reading things the way I wanted to.

            But I chose to believe it anyway.

            「I’m not doing that. Stop saying weird things and go back to your room and sleep already.」

            She said coldly, but I pulled her toward me anyway.

            There was hardly any resistance as I drew her closer and wrapped an arm around her waist.

            「Fine, then I guess I’ll be the one to kiss you.」

            Before Miyagi could complain, I pressed my lips against hers.

            She didn’t push me away by the shoulders or shove me back by the stomach.

            Instead, she allowed me this moment to feel her warmth.

            Using the tip of my tongue, I parted her lips.

            My tongue slipped into her warm, soft mouth and intertwined with hers.

            But that seemed to be going too far, because Miyagi quickly pushed me away by the shoulders.

            「Come on, Sendai-san. What’s up with you today?」

            Miyagi asked, glaring at me with obvious annoyance.

            「Nothing. Isn’t it just nice to stay up together, even on an ordinary day like today?」

            I’d be happy if there were lots of days worth celebrating, but the vast majority of the days in a year were just ordinary ones.

            It would be nice if we could turn every one of them into something memorable, but that simply wasn’t possible.

            And if that was the case, then I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Miyagi on those ordinary days.

            「… Fine, you can stay until twelve. Then go back to your room.」

            There was a hint of displeasure in her voice, but she wasn’t trying to chase me out anymore.

            「Okay, I promise I will.」

            I reached out and brushed my hand against Miyagi’s ear.

            Then I pressed a kiss to her plumeria earring.

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1. Shiritori is a Japanese word game that involves chaining words off the last kana (character/letters in Japanese) from the previous word. It is every translator’s nightmare because wordplay that works in Japanese is extremely difficult to reproduce naturally in English. For example, in this scene, Sendai says ハシビロコウ (hashibirokou), the Japanese word for “shoebill.” But as you can see, the word actually ends in “u.” If I were to stubbornly stick to the original text, not only would I have to find a synonym for “shoebill” that ends with the letter “u,” I would also have to make sure Miyagi starts her next sentence with “u” as well… so I tried to rewrite the shiritori parts as best as I could. (1/4) ↩︎
2. Now to piggyback off the previous footnote, when you use a word that ends with the kana ん (“n”), you automatically lose the game. This is because virtually no words in Japanese start with that kana. This is also why I translated Miyagi’s line as “I don’t want to join in” as opposed to something more natural like “I don’t want to play.” (2/4) ↩︎
3. So Miyagi actually says オニオオハシ (onioohashi) here, which translates to Toco toucan. But as written above, the word “toucan” ends with an “n,” so I couldn’t use that directly. Now, I could’ve gone and used “toucans” plural, but I opted to use the scientific name for toucans as a whole, which is “ramphastos,” for two reasons. One, because if a word game like this was played out in English, using a plural word feels like cheating. And two, because I thought it would capture the knowledge gap between Miyagi and Sendai a bit better. (3/4) ↩︎
4. This is unnecessary as a footnote, but for those already invested in knowing what the heck these girls are saying in the original Japanese, Sendai uses the word シジミ (shijimi) here, which are basket clams. I opted to translate it as “shellfish” as it is a type of shellfish, but starts with “s”. (4/4) ↩︎

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This side story was featured as an exclusive purchase bonus if you bought volume 9 from Bookwalker.

Thank you to an anonymous reader for commissioning a translation for it!

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