いとしいこと

Previous   TOC Sanctuary Afterwards No matter how many times I told him that I had classes from the first period tomorrow, he wouldn’t listen. He was unusually persistent, and as expected, I woke up the next morning frustrated, with an aching waist. It was still early, so I closed my eyes and stayed in bed. The season was clearly passing into autumn, and the mornings were getting colder. Only my back was warm. The arm draped over my stomach didn’t bother me anymore. When we first started sleeping together, I couldn’t stand the presence of another person in the bed, and I spent many sleepless nights. I thought I might lose my mind from insomnia, but gradually, my body adapted, and I somehow managed to treat the man behind me like just another part of the sheets. Eventually, the alarm clock went off, and I reached out to stop it. As I tried to get out of bed, the arm that had been lifeless suddenly tightened around me, pulling me back. “No, you can’t.” When I tried to shake off...

Previous   TOC   Next Sanctuary The content warning is in the footnotes. 0 Soaked by the rain, Kazuya’s body was thoroughly frozen. Just stepping into the apartment’s entrance, sheltered from the outside air, felt almost warm. He pulled off his wet socks before stepping onto the hallway floor, holding the damp, cold fabric like a soggy rag in one hand. “It’s cold,” Miura muttered, shivering beside him. Ignoring the man, Kazuya headed straight to the laundry room. He tossed his socks into the washing machine, then started undressing, shedding his shirt and slacks one by one. Miura followed him to the laundry room but stopped at the entrance, not stepping inside. Kazuya acted as if Miura were invisible, continuing into the bathroom. He braced his hands against the wall and let the hot water cascade over his head, reviving the nearly dead cells of his frozen body. "Get it together," he told himself. There was no time to zone out—he needed to stay sharp. He had to fight the man o...