Nibiiro no Hana: Chapter 22

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He froze mid-step at the sight of light brown hair passing in front of him. Startled, he came to a stop. Reina, who had been walking beside him with her arms linked in his, looked up and asked, “What’s wrong?”

The man with the light brown hair turned around. His features were distinctly Middle Eastern, with dark eyes. A different person. Sagawa let out a breath of relief.

“I thought the foreigner walking ahead was a coworker of mine. I really thought it was him, but I was wrong.”

“Ugh, yeah. You never want to run into someone from work when you’re on a trip—it’s awkward,” Reina said with a laugh. The umbrella in her hand swayed gently from the motion.

“It’s a shame the weather’s been so bad, but hey, at least this way we can walk close together without looking weird.”

Reina beamed with satisfaction, but Sagawa couldn’t ignore the damp chill clinging to his right shoulder. He had tilted the umbrella more toward Reina out of courtesy, and as a result, he was getting soaked.

Last week, Reina had asked him, “Hey, want to go to Kanazawa for an overnight trip?” A college friend of hers was hosting a copperplate print exhibition there, and she’d received an invitation. Before she brought up the actual trip, she’d asked, “Are you free next weekend?” and he’d answered, “I don’t have plans,” which made it hard to refuse. Not wanting to stay the night, he had tried to subtly suggest, “Kanazawa’s close enough for a day trip,” but Reina had insisted, “There’s a place I’ve always wanted to stay at.”

Since breaking out in hives from the medication’s side effects, he and Reina hadn’t slept together. Maybe because she was being considerate, she hadn’t brought it up either. Still, Sagawa could feel the atmosphere of this overnight trip—it had the clear scent of a “second chance.”

Ever since then, he’d been working steadily on “rehabilitation,” trying to finish using only stimulation in the front. But it wasn’t going well. In the end, he kept having to rely on anal stimulation to finish.

His condition hadn’t improved, but he couldn’t avoid the issue forever. Once they’d committed to staying at a luxury inn, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he needed help—and went to a sex worker, choosing one known more for technique than appearance. But the result was the same. Even when he got hard, he quickly went soft again, and left in despair.

The woman, whose face looked like she had shaved at least ten years off her age, watched his lack of stamina with a calm expression and said, “Want me to try a prostate massage?”

“A lot of guys can come that way, you know.”

Hearing that, it finally sank in that she was a pro. If she’d seen many men like him, maybe she could offer some insight.

“I can feel something there, but I don’t want to come that way,” he admitted. “I want to get hard and finish without feeling it from there.”

She folded her arms, thinking deeply. Then she asked, “Mind if I try the prostate anyway?”

The result: when stimulated from inside, he could get erect—but the moment that stimulation was removed, he lost it immediately.

“If you’re okay with it… how about trying this?”

She took out a pink vibrator. He remembered that one—Dan had used it on him a few times back in the beginning. Once Dan started penetrating him regularly, it had gone into disuse.

“Some guys use it when they can’t control things well on their own. It helps.”

He remembered a senior from college who had been really into anal. And this woman had said other guys used it too. Maybe here, in this world, it wasn’t unusual. Not something to be ashamed of.

He was just another one of those “regular” guys she saw every day—she probably wouldn’t even remember him.

He worked up the courage to try it. The foreign sensation of something inside him actually felt good. When he added vibration, the pleasure intensified, and for the first time in a while, he was able to finish properly. Professional advice really is amazing, he thought. If he used this, maybe he really could have sex with Reina. A glimmer of hope emerged.

Sagawa wasted no time in purchasing a vibrator. Of course, he couldn’t let anyone find out he was using such a thing, so he chose a wireless model, one that was marketed as especially quiet. But no matter how many times the product description promised “silent operation,” when he turned it on, the vibration still made noise. He tested it a few times with it inside him, and though the sound was faint, in a quiet room, it was noticeable.

Even without vibration, it felt good—but unless it was on, he couldn’t stay hard. So he decided he would only activate it for the brief window between insertion and ejaculation. During that time, he’d just have to figure out a way to cover the sound. If Reina were the type to be vocal in bed, it might help mask the noise, but based on their earlier attempt, she didn’t seem particularly loud or quiet—just average. Leaving the TV on was probably the safest bet, but this wasn’t a love hotel. It was a luxury inn. There was no telling whether it would even have adult channels, much less if he could just leave one running.

And so, with the noise problem still unresolved, the day of the trip arrived.

It rained in Kanazawa, and the lingering anxiety about that night left him unable to enjoy sightseeing. Reina had said, “Isn’t this amazing?” when they viewed the copperplate print exhibition, but to Sagawa, it was too avant-garde to make sense. It’s probably not that they didn’t hold the exhibit in Tokyo, but that they couldn’t, he thought, though he kept the comment to himself.

Afterward, Reina wanted to visit a modern art museum, so they went, but it felt like something made to entertain children—utterly uninteresting. He had no real interest in contemporary art to begin with.

He told Reina he needed to use the restroom and walked off to the smoking room instead. Lighting a cigarette, he let his frustration swirl up with the smoke, the heavy humidity in the air pulling it upward. A boring woman. A boring trip. And sex, packed with stress. The more he thought about it, the more it nagged at him—What am I even doing here? Wouldn’t it have been better to stay home, lounging around and playing video games?

He heard English and turned toward the sound. An older white couple, likely tourists. The woman spoke quickly and was hard to understand, but the man was saying something along the lines of, “Wonderful.” This city had always attracted its fair share of foreign visitors.

Dan’s face floated into his mind. The sex had been good. If that man had been a woman—wealthy, respected, skilled in bed—he might have been the ideal partner. How ridiculous, he thought, dismissing the childish fantasy and heading back to Reina.

Apparently the scent still lingered, because she immediately said, “You smoked, didn’t you?” but she didn’t get mad.

He kept thinking about quitting his job. But he couldn’t pull the trigger. If he left now, it would almost certainly lead to working at Reina’s father’s company. And once that happened, marriage would no longer be a vague future concept—it would become concrete. And that was what Sagawa hesitated to decide. Reina wasn’t a bad choice. She was decent-looking. But he found her boring. A part of him kept hoping there might be someone better out there—someone with higher specs.

Dinner was at a discreet, hidden-away restaurant in Kanazawa that Reina had booked in advance. The seafood was fresh, the Kyoto-style seasoning refined. In a trip that had been mostly depressing, this was the one moment he could say he truly enjoyed.

Then, a little after 10 p.m., they returned to the inn.

The room had a traditional Japanese atmosphere, but it was outfitted with two modern beds. Even something as simple as that felt like silent pressure, and Sagawa couldn’t help but feel deeply uneasy.

Sagawa let Reina shower first and entered the bathroom after her. He locked the door securely behind him, quickly washed his body, and—just like he would when meeting with Dan—cleaned out his insides thoroughly.

He applied lubricant to the pink vibrator and inserted it. The moment it was inside, he felt a rush of sensation and nearly grew hard right then. Things were off to a promising start.

The wireless vibrator came with a cord, but there was no way he could let Reina see something dangling from him like a tail. So he pushed it just far enough in that he could still retrieve it without needing help. When he tested the remote, it buzzed gently inside him—just the right amount of stimulation. Everything seemed in working order, so he turned it off again for the time being.

Clutching the remote in his palm like a soldier ready for battle, he gave himself a mental pep talk, steeling himself before stepping out of the bathroom.

“You were in there a while. I started worrying something might’ve happened,” Reina said.

She was wearing the inn’s yukata. He’d always thought those were a bit outdated, but the way she wore it—slightly loosened—gave her a charm he hadn’t expected. It stirred something in him.

Ah… I’m going to be okay, Sagawa thought. In that moment, he truly believed it.

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