「I’m home.」
I announced my return home, directing my voice towards the living room. I could hear faint laughter coming from the room and see light leaking through the door, but that was the only thing that I heard. Even though they should’ve heard me, not a single person bothered to respond. Well, I expected as much, so it wasn’t like I had anything to complain about either.
Besides, if someone suddenly decided to have a change of heart today and welcomed me back home, I would’ve found it bothersome. Compared to that, I would much rather be ignored. Things felt more natural this way.
I had just finished eating an unhealthy meal at Miyagi’s place, so I wasn’t very hungry. Since I didn’t have a reason to enter the living room, I went straight for my bedroom.
The second I entered my room – which was furnished with just the bare minimum – I took off my clothes and changed into loungewear. I finished my homework when I was at Miyagi’s house, so there was nothing left on my to-do list for the rest of today.
I took my wallet out of my bag, and pulled out the five-thousand yen bill Miyagi gave me. I folded it, and slid it into the piggy bank I kept on top of my drawers. It was supposed to be able to hold up to a million yen, if you used five-hundred yen coins.
I wondered how much was inside of the piggy bank now.
Miyagi paid me five-thousand yen once, sometimes twice a week. I lost count of how many bills I deposited into the piggy bank, but considering our arrangement first started back in the summer, there was probably quite a bit in there.
I wasn’t going to go out of my way to break it open and check, and no matter how much money I put in there, I had no plans on spending it at the moment either. However, I was a bit curious about how much time I spent with Miyagi.
Rattling noises came from the piggy bank when I shook it around.
That was probably the sound of the five-hundred yen coins I had put in there, long before I started depositing five-thousand yen bills into it. Unfortunately, it didn’t give me a clue as to how long I’d been hanging around Miyagi.
I placed my piggy bank back on the drawers.
Miyagi gave me five-thousand yen just to order me around a little.
For a high schooler, it was a lot of money. It wasn’t exactly the kind of money she should’ve been able to afford to throw around so casually, but Miyagi paid me every single week. She said money wasn’t an issue for her, but when I thought about how much was sitting in my piggy bank right now, it made my heart feel a little heavy. If only the orders she gave me actually felt like they were worth five-thousand yen. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to think so much of it.
That being said, earlier today, the way Miyagi shoved her mechanical pencil into my mouth and then followed up with 『That’s the kind of face that I want to see』 made me feel like I’d truly earned the money this time around.
That moment was the happiest I’d ever seen Miyagi.
But if that was the price that I had to pay for five-thousand yen, then I wasn’t very receptive to that idea. I wasn’t wrong when I said「You really are a pervert, Miyagi」to her; unlike her, I wasn’t the kind of pervert that would willingly do things I didn’t like.
If I was, then I’d be nothing more than a dog who mindlessly obeyed orders.
The fact that Miyagi wanted to see my disgusted face made me think there was something really messed up about her.
「Just what is going through her head?」
I muttered under my breath to no one in particular as I untied my hair. A second later, I received a notification on my phone. When I looked at the screen, I saw that Umina had sent me a message that read『Did you watch it? 』 .
Now that she mentioned it, the new episode of Umina’s favorite drama aired today.
But by the time I turned on the TV, the episode was almost over, so I replied with:
『I was in the bath, but I’ll watch a recording of it. 』
If I started on the episode right now, even if I skipped through all of the commercials, I’d still be trapped for a whole fifty minutes.
Just the thought of that alone made me feel like it was too much of a hassle to go through.
The show I had to watch was a romantic drama. It wasn’t a genre I particularly disliked, but the kind of stories Umina liked didn’t suit my tastes at all. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a waste of time, but I’d much rather be doing something else than watch a boring drama.
Miyagi rarely called for me two days in a row, which meant I’d have to go somewhere with Umina and the others tomorrow after school. The things we did after school were pretty ordinary, and I didn’t dislike the girls I hung out with. But the lengths I had to go in order to make myself feel comfortable around them was kind of a pain.
And if we hung out tomorrow, we were definitely going to be discussing what happened in today’s episode.
「If I tell them I didn’t watch it, I’ll probably bring down the mood.」
If it were Miyagi, I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it for her.
I laid down on my bed and stretched my arms out.
I stuck my hand out towards the ceiling light and stared at my index finger.
The bite marks that Miyagi left on Valentine’s Day had long faded away.
Well, it would’ve been a problem if they hadn’t.
That day, I was surprised that she could bite someone else’s finger so easily, without even a hint of hesitation. But the marks had disappeared the very next day.
Orders that interfered with school were against the rules.
If her bite marks had remained on my finger, Umina and the others would never let me hear the end of it, and that would’ve been a violation of our rules. I guess in her own unique way, Miyagi was accommodating to me. That said, perhaps biting like that didn’t leave marks behind in the first place. I’d never actually been bitten before, so I couldn’t say whether this was Miyagi trying to be considerate, or if I was just lucky.
I caressed the area where the bite mark used to be.
It didn’t hurt or anything.
I pressed my lips against my finger. As if following an invisible trail, I traced over the path with my tongue.
It didn’t really feel like anything at all.
Well, there was no surprise there.
Miyagi had run her tongue from the second joint of my finger all the way to the fingertip.
The feeling of being licked by Miyagi was disgusting.
But at the same time, the sensation of her soft tongue stroking my finger made my nerves tingle, giving rise to a strange feeling in me.
―― In that moment, was I making the same face that Miyagi did before?
Back when I licked Miyagi’s foot and then bit her.
I remembered the face she made that day.
If that was the kind of expression that was on my face too, then―.
I let out a sigh as I got up from my bed.
You know what, maybe I’ll watch the episode after all.
Just to make the episode go by quicker, I turned up the playback speed. I pressed the play button on the remote and I watched as the characters moved around and spoke incredibly fast.
I didn’t like pain.
I also didn’t like being treated so rudely either.
But despite all of that, I felt more at ease being in Miyagi’s room than my own.
Maybe there was something messed up about me too.
Even if the things we did to each other had no deeper meaning to them, doing stuff like licking each other’s skin was probably distorting our sense of distance. But now that we’ve come this far, I had no intention of going back; Miyagi most likely wasn’t going to right herself either, after heading down the path of corruption.
I increased the volume on the TV.
The voice of the handsome actor that Umina liked grew louder.
Then, I focused all of my attention on the drama that I wasn’t even interested in.
Credits to himi for proofreading and editing this part!
Ave Lilium Translations 