A Post-Modern Literature Club (fin.)

The way she stood there, arm outstretched towards the hues of gold and orange was picturesque. A moment that, if you managed to commit to memory, could’ve been transferred onto a canvas and immortalised as a work of art—her skin, porcelain smooth, her hair, still glossy from the bath, her eyes…

Impossibly still, glazed over and black like a doll’s—looking like they were searching for something that’d been lost forever—

It all combined to paint a stunningly gorgeous image, ruined somewhat by the fact she was dressed in an oversized shirt and PE shorts.

“You’re back,” Yukimura said.

With her side view facing me, whilst gazing at the horizon with a look I didn’t understand, while upset at something I only had a tiny inkling of an idea of—Yukimura delivered her words with a voice that sounded particularly ruthless. Even for someone dubbed the ‘Ice Queen’.

I recognised it as her usual voice.

“Yes… I am indeed back.”

“That’s a very dumb response. You are dumb.”

“…I’m sorry.”

I felt relieved that she was being her normal self.

“Hmph. Just so you’re aware, this might go down as one of those days where—for example’s sake—a character viewed by the audience as the deuteragonist becomes a primary villain.”

“What?”

“You know,” she continued, still reaching for the sun. “When a character has a change of heart. It may or may not result in a hard genre switch—like slice of life to murder mystery, for example’s sake.”

“…Senpai, please don’t kill me.”

“Oh, that would never happen. I was just explaining what the mood feels like.”

“Huh.”

Still, what an oddly specific comment to make.

“Though it does make me happy that from your point-of-view, you see me as the deuteragonist. I wonder if the audience thinks that too.”

I scratched my head. Weren’t my arms occupied by her clothes? Don’t question the continuity.

“Okay, you’ve officially lost me. I thought I knew what you were hinting at, but now I really have no clue.”

“I’m talking about out-of-universe. You know, them.”

“…I don’t?”

“Waifu wars?”

Yukimura started to make a snipping motion at her shoulders, but it still wasn’t clicking for me. She eventually waved the subject off.

“Nevermind. I just thought I would say something cryptic to establish myself as the mysterious girl. Anyway, your proof?”

Turning to face me completely, Yukimura’s face looked extra beautiful post-bath now that I wasn’t stressed by her lack of clothes—though the fact she was wearing mine meant it only receded to a state of ‘vaguely anxious’ rather than ‘normal’.

“Oh, right. Proof. Er…”

What proof? Or ‘how proof’, rather. My memory wasn’t bad to that extent.

According to my hippocampus, she wanted me to prove that I thought of her as a woman. But how do you do that and keep it PG-13 for a possible manga adaptation?

“Tch. Empty words, as usual.”

“N-no! I’m just shy.”

With a sigh, Yukimura stepped away from the window—and then took a seat on my bed.

“Forget the proof. Please sit down,” she said, patting the mattress.

“Oh… ah… um… bork.”

Setting her clothes on top of a random box, I took a seat a respectable distance from her—about seventy-five centimeters or so. Businesslike conduct, if you could call two high schoolers on the same bed that.

“So, the events of today make me wonder... Kouhai-kun, do you happen to enjoy subtlety?”

“I-if it’s done well.”

She made a big show of pausing to think.

“Hmm, your response seems stiff. Though girls do prefer it that way.”

“……”

Then she made another big show of gawking at me.

“I don’t understand what your problem is. If you dislike subtlety, why lie? Or are you trying to tell me it wasn’t done well? Or both? For your information, it is the second option and not ‘both’ that would offend me the most.”

I wanted to say that wasn’t subtle at all! But to be honest, it was a line that would probably fly in a kid’s anime as a hidden joke for the parents.

“To be fair, I didn’t know what context…”

“Fine. Let’s try the explicit approach, then.”

Scooting up next to me—a distance where we weren’t touching each other in the same way a seven year old goes ‘not touching you’—Yukimura whispered into my ear.

“Girls do prefer it that way.”

My heart rate shot up.

It almost crossed my mind to swat her away like a fly.

“A-all you did was repeat the line!”

“So both approaches are bad? Kouhai-kun, I’m starting to think that you just aren’t into women.”

“Not true…”

“Or do you hate me? That makes sense, actually—why else would you shove me with the intent to kill?”

“Not true!”

Well, the shoving part was missing a lot of context.

Speaking of context, my bed of semi-double size was situated in a bedroom about nine tatami mats large—lengthwise there was enough space on the bed to sit five, six, possibly seven high-schoolers if they were all anorexic. And yet, Yukimura and I were practically holed up next to each other.

So our exchange felt extra intimate.

“Domestic abuse aside,” she started, “I did some thinking while you took your time to come into this room.”

“About?”

“Whether or not you meant what you wrote in that essay.”

Oh, the essay.

For a moment I thought she was going to reveal if Kouhai-kun was a demotion or promotion.

The essay was how I introduced myself to Yukimura—something I wrote on the first day of school, after receiving badly explained instructions from Mari to ‘get to know my student mentor at all costs’.

“I meant it, Senpai.”

“In the past tense?”

“...Correction—I still mean it.”

I lied both times, but how could I not? Her voice sounded so full of hope.

Though I had no clue as to why. The essay was generic. Actually, ‘generic’ undersells how disgustingly uncreative it was—it was full of all the clichéd trite a high schooler would assume from the stereotype of an honours student nicknamed the ‘Ice Queen’. None of the educated guesses I’d made about her personality were correct—if anything, it showed just how little I actually knew about her. I’d described her as a ‘misunderstood, soft-spoken person’. Gross. I’d assumed that’s why she was so hostile to me on our second meeting.

But I was probably wrong—since she ended up smiling after I reassured her.

“Do you mind if I get your bed wet with my hair?”

“…And if I say I do?”

“Don’t pad the wordcount with useless dialogue,” she glowered.

“...Okay, fine, go ahead.”

She believed so wholeheartedly in her remark, she misspelled ‘word count’ as ‘wordcount’. I felt falsely accused because I really did hate having damp bed sheets.

“Since you said so...”

With one hand around the far side of my shoulder, she dragged both of us down onto the sheets.

You could say she was strong, or that I didn’t resist—either way, the end result was that we were lying side-by-side on my bed with our legs dangling loose. My white ceiling looked more like a shade of black now that the sun had retreated beyond the horizon.

We must have stayed that way for at least a minute—her arm around me.

“……”

“……”

We both lay in silence.

It was all so surreal.

Yukimura felt so much smaller than usual.

Listening to her shallow breaths like that.

My bed felt so much softer than usual.

My heart was racing so much faster than usual.

“…Kouhai-kun,” she mumbled.

“Y-yeah?”

“Your body… is cutting off the blood circulation to my arm.”

“Oh.”

I began to sit up to give her space, but once Yukimura had shifted her position slightly—

“I can bear it, though.”

“…I see.”

—she’d thrown her other arm around my chest.

Now I was the only one staring at a dark ceiling, because her face was pressing up against my body.

She didn't have any underwear on.

What had I gotten myself into?

She felt so warm.

I didn’t understand anything.

Maybe I’d forgotten something important.

Hmm.

No, I definitely hadn’t—I just didn’t understand her at that point.

That’s all there was to it.

What she’s about to say might shock you, Yukimura said, breaking the silence.

“Sorry for that sudden disclaimer.”

Just about everything she said or did shocked me, so I wasn’t sure what the point of it was.

Felt like an exercise in futility.

“Mhm?”

“I’m actually a published author.”

“…Whoa.”

“Unexpected, isn’t it?”

“Not for the reason you’re thinking of.”

I thought she was going to talk about love.

What she’d chosen to share was already so established in my mind that it somehow looped back to being shocking.

Shockingly disappointing.

“I considered telling you other things, but I thought this was best.”

“Out of curiosity, what were the rest?”

“I wanted to talk about how I’d received a lot of fan mail for my pen name over the past year, but never as Yukimura Kiku. Or how I’d been dirt poor until recently, and that I’d never been bothered by that fact till you spelled it out so bluntly. Or that I’ve yet to meet my biological parents. Or that I’ve never celebrated a birthday party before. I was born on 27th May, by the way. That means I’m a Gemini. I also wanted to ask you to take me out on my birthday.”

“Yeah, all of those things sound heavy.”

And so did the pounding in my chest.

By the way, how does one pinpoint the exact moment they fall in love?

Do they just know?

Do they look back with the benefit of hindsight?

If you asked the Mizuhara Kohei of that moment if he was in love with Yukimura Kiku with a gun trailed on his forehead, demanding an answer—he would probably have said no.

Although it should be mentioned that 16 year olds aren’t known for their steadfastness. Minds change easily.

With that being said, the scene continues with Yukimura tracing shapes on his chest.

My chest.

Yukimura's tone shifting to one of demureness.

“T-there was one other thing, Kouhai-kun.”

“Mmm?”

"Don't laugh at what I'm about to say."

"...Have I ever?"

"I'm very serious about this."

"Of course."

“I... I wanted to tell you I’ve never liked a younger guy before."

"I see. Actually, come again?"

"I've never liked a younger guy before," Yukimura said.

"You've... never..?"

"Liked a younger guy before," Yukimura said.

"One more time."

"I have. Never. Liked a younger guy before," Yukimura said.

It was the fourth try that did it.

The sentence that began a revolution.

The message was so intense my heart stopped. The message was a bolt from the blue. The message caused a whole ton of literary techniques about repetition and rule of three and metaphors and similes about shock and love and confessions that don’t come to mind immediately, the closest of which being 'butterflies flew around in my stomach'—but really, it would be more accurate to describe it as 'the butterflies all decided to revolt simultaneously and expose me for the blind lovestruck idiot that I was'.

“Yukimura-senpai, I’ve never liked an older girl before this.”

To reiterate, infatuation is blind.

An exercise in futility.

Sorry for the spoiler.

“That doesn't sound quite right," she said. 

“Huh?”

"Your statement is completely different from mine."

The tracing suddenly stopped.

The physical contact suddenly stopped.

The warmth suddenly stopped.

"Y-Yukimura-senpai?"

"I said, 'I've never liked a younger guy before.'"

There was no 'before this' in her statement—only ice.

Separating herself from me—in the same manner one expels intrusive thoughts of becoming an axe murderer or running into a moving car from their mind—Yukimura proceeded to sit upright on my bed.

I was still staring dumbly at my ceiling when she spoke our contract into existence.

I couldn't bear the sight of her.

“Kouhai-kun, I want to make a proposal.”

“......”

“No… more like a deal? A transactional agreement? Mutualism? I’m not quite sure what to call it.”

“......”

“...Ah, a promise. That’s what it is.”

Fighting feelings of breaking down, rejection, the whole lot—all I could do was stay silent and agree.

That was when I heard her taking off my t-shirt.

“If you promise to never think about loving me, I will fulfil all your deepest, darkest desires. You can interpret that in any perverted or romantic way you can think of—just remember the rule.”

Please don’t fall in love with her, Yukimura said.

I didn’t manage a response before losing my first kiss.

The Laws of Romance Anime can go and screw themselves.

That was how our unofficial 2-man club started—every Wednesday, at 5pm, there would be a private club session between just Yukimura and I. For her, it had to do with adding ‘realism’ to the romance in her novels. A way to blow off steam. A test relationship.

For myself, I did it because I was in love.

Fact Three: Post-Modern Literature Club (END)