Chapter 2: “Bath Towels and Boundaries”

House meetings were supposed to be for responsible adults. Mature discussions. Clean negotiation. Civil discourse.

Instead, Yui and Haruki’s “house meeting” was held on the living room floor, cross-legged on mismatched cushions, armed with a dry-erase board and a level of tension usually reserved for hostage negotiations.

Haruki held a marker like it was a sword. “Okay. First order of business: the bathroom schedule.”

Yui nodded seriously. “You can have it first in the mornings. I take longer. Hair, skin, ritual sacrifices to maintain this level of cuteness, etc.”

Haruki blinked. “...Noted.”

“And no more than three shampoo bottles in the shower caddy at once,” she added. “I like variety, not a chemistry experiment.”

Haruki wrote “Yui = shampoo goblin” on the whiteboard, then looked very proud of himself.

She threw a pillow at him.

Next came the kitchen duties. Yui offered to handle dishes. Haruki offered to cook. It felt fair, balanced, and appropriately romantic in a domestic anime couple sort of way.

Then came The Bed Problem.

There was one bed.

And yes, Haruki had a futon. But it was more of a temporary solution, like a band-aid on a broken arm.

“Just until I find a new place,” Yui insisted, cheeks a bit pink.

Haruki nodded. “Or until we invent parallel dimension technology and both sleep in the same room but on separate astral planes.”

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll draft the patent paperwork.”

When the meeting finally ended—after a very unnecessary debate over whose job it was to clean behind the fridge—they high-fived like victorious warriors.

And for one blissful moment, everything felt under control.

Naturally, that’s when it all went sideways.

Yui liked to shower at night. It helped her unwind. Let her pretend her life wasn’t a chaotic whirlwind of surprise cohabitation, fire-related trauma, and being in love with a boy who now lived approximately four feet away from her toothbrush.

After twenty blissful minutes of shampoo therapy and trying not to scream into the loofah about how insanely cute Haruki looked in pajamas, she stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and reached for her clothes.

Only to realize—oh no—her comfy PJs were still packed.

Okay. Chill. No need to die. I’ll just borrow something from Haruki’s laundry pile. He said I could, right? He offered. He said “go ahead if you need anything.” And I need not to flash my boyfriend. So, technically, this is self-defense.

She grabbed a clean(ish) white T-shirt from his drawer and slipped it on.

It was huge on her. Like, halfway-to-her-thighs, sleeve-length-of-doom huge.

Also? It smelled like him.

Cool. Great. No thoughts. Head empty. Brain melting.

She was towel-drying her hair, eyes half-closed, humming softly, when—

Click. Creak.

“Hey, I forgot my charger in—OHMYGOD—”

Yui froze. Haruki froze.

The universe blinked.

There she stood, hair wet, face flushed, legs bare, and very clearly wearing his shirt.

Haruki’s brain short-circuited. “AH—SORRY—I—DIDN’T—YOU’RE—CUTE—I MEAN—GOODBYE—”

He spun so fast to leave that he slammed straight into the doorframe with a solid THUNK and crumpled backward like a cartoon character.

“Haruki?!”

“I’m fine!” he squeaked from the floor, holding his head like he was auditioning for Romantic Embarrassment: The Opera.

Yui rushed to him, crouching down as her towel slipped off her shoulders. “Oh my gosh, are you bleeding?!”

“Only emotionally,” he groaned.

They stared at each other in panicked silence for two seconds too long.

Then both blurted at the exact same time:

“I’m sorry!”

“No, I’m sorry!”

“You should knock!”

“I should knock!”

“I’ll change!”

“NO—I mean—only if you want to!!”

Yui buried her face in her hands. “Oh my gosh, kill me.”

Haruki gently bonked his head against the floor. “I already did. Spiritually.”

Ten minutes later, they sat at the kitchen table, each gripping a mug of instant cocoa like it contained the secrets of the universe.

“I didn’t see anything,” Haruki lied convincingly.

“I wasn’t trying to be suggestive,” Yui lied back, eyes wide and full of panic.

“Should we, like, make a bathroom sign? Like an ‘Occupied’ flag?”

“With a skull and crossbones?”

“Exactly.”

Silence.

Then laughter. The kind that starts small and explodes out of you until you’re both hunched over, half-wheezing, cocoa sloshing dangerously close to the edge of the mug.

“Okay,” Yui said, wiping a tear from her eye, “new house rule: we both knock. Every time. Even if we’re sure the other isn’t in there.”

Haruki held out his pinky. “Deal.”

She linked hers with his. “Deal.”

And then—just for a second—they sat there, pinkies intertwined, and didn’t pull away.

His eyes softened. “You look cute in my shirt, by the way.”

Yui’s soul ascended to another plane of existence.

“Don’t say that while I’m drinking,” she warned. “I will choke and die and haunt you.”

He smiled. “Wouldn’t be the worst haunting.”

She flicked a marshmallow at him.

That night, as Haruki set up his futon and Yui curled up in the bed, separated by a neat little line of stacked pillows (the “official no-smooch border,” as he called it), they turned off the lights at the same time.

“Night, Yui.”

“Night, Haruki.”

Pause.

“…Still cute in my shirt, by the way.”

“Go to sleep before I throw this pillow at your face.”

He chuckled.

And in the soft quiet of their second night living together, both of them lay awake with matching grins, hearts fluttering, brains buzzing, and thoughts very clearly not sleeping at all.