Quick Hands in the Hot Spring

“Ah, wonderful,” Oto mused to himself as his body slipped deeper into the warm water of the hot spring. "Positively delightful.”

The day had been one of the best he had experienced in years, thanks to Hayami being at his side. Oto had enjoyed the beach unlike any other time he had been with friends or by himself. No longer was he locked to the shore, forced to watch everyone else enjoy the comfortable waters of paradise. Thanks to her, he was able to swim, and were it not for the restrictive signs on the walls, he would be swimming around the pool where he sat.

Hayami is amazing. He thought to himself, resting against the decorative boulders, feeling their warm surface against his back.

Oto thought of her touch, and how firm yet gentle it had been against his body. How, even as he struggled, she maintained her hold on him and kept him afloat in the ocean. The way she protected him from the waves, and as he panicked, how she calmed him.

His heart began to race as he thought of her forehead against his. How close their lips had been. How compassionate she was with him in that moment, and how much it made him—

I love you so much, Hayami. He thought.

The words were so true to his heart that he dared not speak them aloud for fear of them not being returned. Words he had let slip only hours after first meeting her, moments before losing consciousness. 

For him, it had been love at first sight, something he never believed possible. Something that he recognized as special between them, even though he couldn't see her through her horrid disguise when he first felt it. It had been the way Hayami held herself against him, literally and figuratively. The way she displayed her strength, passion, and determination on the train by not yielding to Oto's wishes. 

And the more he thought, Oto realized it was hardly love at first sight between them. Instead, it had been love at first fight. After all, he had fallen for her the moment she defended him on the train. He simply didn’t know it at the time.

Something stirred inside the boy as his heart began to beat faster. Awkwardly, he glanced down at the towel that wrapped around his waist. Even though the steam rising from the water distorted what he felt happening, his cheeks began to flush. Adjusting his posture, he slid back against the rocks and tried to calm himself.

But that was when the doors to the hot spring slid open, and Hayami stepped out.

Panicked over his current situation, he dove underwater and used his newfound swimming skills to navigate around the boulders. Emerging with a soft gasp for air, he listened as Hayami entered the pool.

“Ahhhh, god,” She moaned, moving deeper into the water. “This is sooo good.”

Glancing around, the girl saw no sign of Oto and, feeling comfortable, removed her towel as she sank into the warm water. Unlike the beach, which she had visited at least a few times, it was her first time in a hot spring. 

And it pleased her aching muscles.

Hayami sank to her chin, enjoying the heat of the water as it soaked through her skin and down to the bones. The wounds she wore proudly, which had been healing well, stung at the touch of the water. This only excited her more as she hissed at the feeling, the sound emerging as nothing more than bubbles as she dipped her mouth beneath the surface of the water.

With narrowed eyes, she scanned the pool once more, looking for the boy and where he could be lurking. But after a few minutes of quiet concentration, she felt a calm wash over her. Moving to the center of the hot spring, she rested against the warm boulder, unaware that the boy she had been searching for was hiding behind the same rock that she had slowly backed herself against.

“I guess it’s just me,” Hayami whispered to herself, sitting on the step provided and resting her back against the stone. “Probably for the better. The last thing I want is for Oto to see me like this. Little perv wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off my naked body.”

Behind the boulder, Oto clutched at his chest. He did, in fact, want to see her naked body. Like had happened many times before, it felt as though two separate beings fought for control over his actions. On one side, the gentleman thought it would be proper to announce himself from the concealment of the rocks to give her time to make herself decent. While the other thought about using the very swimming skill she had taught him to approach her underwater and surprise her. One would give him the faintest glimpse of her beautiful body in its entirety, but potentially instill her wrath. The other would keep her safe from his lecherous gaze but do little to satiate his curiosity.

The feeling of not being able to share the hot spring with Hayami was too much for him, though, almost as bad as not being able to see her in the nude. Therefore, Oto had an ingenious idea. He would do a little bit of both!

Quietly standing, he placed his hands on the rock that separated them. With careful movements so as not to disturb the water, he peered his head around to catch a glance at Hayami. Her body was mostly submerged beneath the steaming water, only revealing the top of her shapely bosom.

“Um, actually, Hayami—” Oto spoke cautiously.

With a shriek, the girl stood from the water. With a whip of her hand, the hot liquid splashed against Oto’s face, blinding him before something else hit him. A balled fist struck the boy's nose, sending him back into the hot spring.

“Oto!” Hayami screamed as she reached for the towel she had removed. “You pervert! I knew you had to be hiding somewhere!”

Emerging from the water, Oto grabbed at his face, blood pouring between his fingers.

“Hayami!” He shrieked through his hands. “Not the face!”

Through tear-soaked eyes, Oto tried to make out the blur of movement that was his companion. Unfortunately, as he moved his hands to rub away the tears, he cried out again.

“My nose, I think you broke my nose! Hayami, you Rowen Wilson’d me!”

“Oh, stop complaining, you pervert." She hissed as she wrapped the towel around her body. "You’re fine. There's no way I hit you hard enough to break your nose.”

“But my nose!” Oto continued, pulling his hand away. “It hurts, and I think it’s bleeding. Can you check? I can’t see!”

With a sigh, Hayami tucked the towel into place over her chest and approached the boy. Reaching her hands up, she first wiped the water from his eyes before taking hold of his hands. She pulled them away, listening to him hiss as he flinched to move from her.

“Hold still.” She growled, glancing down at the bloody hands before looking back up at his hurt expression.

Hayami’s heart stopped as she stared into his childlike stare. He appeared to be once again like the confused puppy she had seen in the car, except now he was hurt. That was when one of the strange feelings she had been cursed with lately overcame her once more as she suddenly felt bad for causing him pain.

“I-I’m sorry for hitting you.” She stammered through the words, trying to make the guilt go away. “J-just stop flinching and let me look at it.”

It was strange for her to feel bad for hitting someone. In fact, it was usually the exact opposite. Hayami really enjoyed hitting people. But as she looked at Oto’s sad expression, she felt an unusual sense of remorse—A feeling she rarely, if ever, experienced.

Glancing at the boy's nose, Hayami confirmed that it was bleeding. But even as he winced and hissed as she touched it, she was convinced that it wasn’t broken. Without hesitation, she pinched it, causing Oto to wail and pull away.

“Owww! Hayami!”

“It’s fine!” Hayami yelled in response as she ripped at the bottom of her towel. “It’s not broken, promise. But it is bleeding. Here—”

She stepped closer to him and helped shove the pieces of cloth into place up his nose.

“There, that should help with the blood.” She huffed, looking away before crossing her arms over her chest and glancing back at him. “Next time—don’t sneak up on me! Especially not in the bath.”

“Definitely.” Oto’s nasally voice came through as he gently poked at the plugs. “I now know that. Sorry, Hayami.”

“What were you doing here anyway? This is the girls' bath.”

“No?” Oto responded, tilting his head yet again like a confused puppy. “It’s the evens bath.”

“The what?”

“The evens bath? For an even number of people? My friends would always bathe in this one while we were on the island. But since there was always an odd number of us, they called me 'oddo' and made me bathe by myself in the other spring.”

Oto looked to Hayami, watching her expression change as he explained the people he often brought on vacations with him. The tender look she wore while inspecting his face shifted to sadness before settling into shock. Eventually, it transitioned to anger and the ferocity he loved so much to see.

“What?!” She yelled out angrily.

“Yeah. You know. It’s so everyone can help wash each other’s backs in the evens bath. Meanwhile, the odd one could do it himself. So all of them would bathe in the evens…” He slowed his explanation as a realization began to settle in his mind. “Wait…Hayami, was that—did they also lie about that?”

“Oto,” Hayami spoke carefully. “Listen very closely. Those people—the ones who said there was an evens bath and that you had to be born to be able to swim—they’re bad people. Okay? Friends don’t lie to friends.”

Hayami held her breath after speaking those words. Even she was self-aware enough to understand the hypocrisy of her statement. But, in the last few weeks, she could have killed Oto plenty of times and hadn’t, which she believed counted as something for her.

“You…won’t lie to me,” Oto asked. "Right? Hayami?"

Freezing, the girl thought about the question. To say yes would require her to divulge her purpose for being with him. But even she wondered if that was still her purpose. With all the things she felt and how much she protected him. Was she still trying to kill him? If she was, then why hadn't she simply thrown him off the cliff at the villa or drowned him in the ocean?

Though for her to say no, she would invalidate her previous statement. This, to her, was even more unacceptable since every new thing she learned about Oto’s 'friends' made her increasingly sure that she despised them.

Finally finding her answer, Hayami opened her lips to speak only to be silenced by a distant rumble. A chill ran down her spine as she glanced back towards the ocean and the setting sun. There in the dim light, creeping across the horizon from the north, storm clouds approached.

“Oh, delightful!” Oto's nasally voice suddenly exclaimed. “The first storm of the season—you know what that means?”

“S-storm?” Hayami stammered, her voice trembling.

“Indeed! And since we shouldn’t be sailing back at night in that, we will get to stay the evening here. Meaning fresh storm cookies! I do hope Giles makes snickerdoodles—ooh, or those fluffy haystacks…”

But Hayami was not listening to Oto ramble. Instead, she attempted to control her racing heart. Because to her, a storm only meant one thing. Terror.