“Haah… haah…”

While getting his breathing in order, Sandai looked up into the sky and saw a full moon and glittering stars floating in the sky. And before he noticed, snow was also falling like a flicker.

That Shino… even if she was teasing me, just now was really going too far. Is something wrong with her?

The one with something wrong was Sandai.

Thinking normally, it would be good to head to the inn’s lobby if he would like to run away, and yet he had gone to the open-air bath instead where no one could ever get in the way… he was nothing but a fool who had blocked his own escape path.

Could it be that Sandai was just this dumb?

He was.

Shoop, the sound of the sliding door being pulled open could be heard from behind Sandai, making him freeze up.

Sandai didn’t turn to look.

He could hear the sound of washing up, but he did not at all look back.

However, he was curious no matter what.

So, after the sound of the water was completely gone, Sandai looked back after several seconds had passed, and of course, only to find Shino there.

“An open-air bath~.”

Shino had tied her hair up in a bun and was wrapping her body with a towel. Sandai was relieved that she wasn’t naked, but he kept silent, realizing that the situation hadn’t changed in the slightest.

“…”

“What’re you keeping quiet for?”

“W-Well… I’m in here… so I just wondered why you came in…”

“I think it’s not weird at all for a boyfriend and girlfriend to get in together, though?”

Exactly right.

The people who would answer that it is weird for a pair of lovers to get into the bath together if they get asked about it are in the minority. The answer would be very simple: it’s crazy to become a couple of lovers with someone you don’t want to have a bath together with.

“…It’s not weird, but.”

“Then let’s just get in together.”

Shino entered the bathtub while cackling, quickly approached Sandai and went on to sit on his lap.

“W-Why on my lap.”

“Why’re you surprised? We do this all the time in your apartment, right? What’s wrong suddenly?”

Indeed, when spending their alone time in Sandai’s apartment, he would often have Shino on his lap.

However, even though it looked the same, the situation was different.

They would both be wearing clothes in Sandai’s apartment, but currently there was only a single sheet of bath towel that could fall off with just a little tugging blocking direct body contact, and he didn’t think of that as the same as usual.

“No good, something like this is just…”

“It’s fine, you know—I’ve also… come here prepared today.”

Holding hands, kissing, making memories… Sandai had thought that just these had been enough. He had thought it would not be an issue even without going further.

He had even thought that even if a time like a marriage would come someday, it would go on similarly like currently for a while, and getting into a physical relationship wouldn’t be needed.

Of course, it didn’t mean that he had no interest in being connected physically. For this reason that he had porn image, videos, games and such as well.

However, he had a reluctance to actually do such an act.

Since he understood that there was the implication of lust there as well, he might fall into self-loathing, agonizing whether he simply would like to feel good while using the feeling of love as an excuse.

So, he had been trying to not think about it.

He had put a lid on his dirty self, so that he wouldn’t see it if possible.

And yet, Shino was forcibly prying open Sandai’s heart. With her actions, with the mood, she was appealing to Sandai, telling him to show her his dirty part.

Well, umm, it wasn’t certain if that was what Shino was really thinking, though… but in any case, it was certain that Shino was implicitly saying that she would like to be deeply connected in both heart and body.

“I…”

Sandai was trying hard to regain his composure somehow, but a girly smell drifting from Shino’s nape grazed his nose, making him almost lose his reason.

Sandai was even beginning to think that it might not be so bad to lose to his instinct. As if a push from behind, slowly and gently, Shino went to entwine her fingers with his.

“…I’ve never done something like this before, it’s my first time, so I’m trying very hard to get the courage out, you know?”

“…”

“I wanna feel each other with the person I love, I wanna get ‘closer’… I wanna get to the next part after a kiss…”

Behind Shino’s roundabout words, it was a declaration of her feelings, that she wanted Sandai to desire it. Just anyone could see such an obvious thing.

On a weighing scale in Sandai’s heart, there was an unpleasant feeling towards himself placed on one side, and the feeling of wanting to fulfill Shino’s wish on another.

Impossible for either to have a completely the same weight, the weighing scale in his heart eventually lurched to one side.

Rapidly, the weighing scale inclined towards the side of wanting to fulfill Shino’s wish. To Sandai, the feelings for Shino weighed more than his own feelings.

“Shino…”

“Yeah… hm.”

Normal kiss, peck, adults kiss, kiss to the nape and collarbone—they continued to express their love with their lips for around ten minutes.

Be it the sound of the hot spring, or the sound of their kiss, it was getting harder and harder to tell one from the other apart. He hugged Shino close at once.

However, right then Shino put her index finger on Sandai’s lips and said, “Wait.”

“…Even if you tell me we can’t, I don’t feel like stopping anymore, all right?”

“I’ll get angry too if you stop here… That’s not what I meant—let’s do it in the room. Let’s continue in the room, okay?”

“…You wanted to get to the next part after a kiss, right?”

“Yeah… please be gentle… Today you know, I brought the lingerie present you gave me, so I’ll put it on.”

After getting out of the open-air bath, Shino put on the Christmas present lingerie Sandai had given her and went to lie down facing upward on the futon. Still in that posture, she reached out her hand and pulled out a book out of her opened backpack.

“…Wanna try this, too?”

It was the book Shino had said she would rather study about, and had bought when they had been tailing the class president under the request from Takasago. It was: 20 Ways to Kiss to Deepen Your Love.

Sandai felt like now they weren’t at the stage where that kind of study would be needed either, but even so, as long as Shino would like to try it, he would simply do exactly that.

Having opened the book and laid it down on the side, Sandai hung over and hugged Shino close. After that, one by one, he went to try the kisses written on the book.

Each time their feelings gradually became aroused, a mysterious feeling as if climbing the stairs of adulthood one step at a time came attacking.

Their long breath intermingled with one another, and now it wasn’t even clear whose breath it was anymore.

And then, right at the time where it should finally be the time for them to become one—Sandai noticed Shino’s strangeness.

Shino’s eyes were wet and filled with anticipation. However, deep inside, Sandai sensed a small amount of anxiousness and fear mixed in as well.

Get the courage out—that was what Shino had said earlier on Sandai’s lap. What that meant was that, all of the inviting behavior had been a show of courage.

To have a physical relationship for the first time, in a sense different from Sandai, was something Shino could also do nothing about but feel scared and anxious.

That was why she had been teasing Sandai excessively much more than usual. By doing so, she had been desperately containing her shaky resolve.

However, Sandai wasn’t able to stop too at this point. That said, there was only one thing that he didn’t forget; to make an effort to not make Shino anxious, to not make Shino feel scared as much as possible.

Sandai grasped Shino’s hand, put it around his own back, and said, “…Go scratch and hurt my back with your nails.”

“Eh…?”

“If you do that, even your anxiousness, scared feelings and stuff should lessen up a bit. Probably.”

“I don’t think I’m anxious, scared or… whatever… though…”

“If you endure it, it’ll only turn into a bitter first experience, a memory you don’t really want to remember, or something like that. I want it to be the first time that both of us can think to be the best, enough that we want to recall it again and again. That’s why, scratch my back with all you’ve got enough to leave marks, and let out of your feelings, the scaredness, anxiousness, all of it without bottling it up.”

After hearing Sandai’s whisper close to her ears, perhaps the strain of her nervousness had been loosened up, Shino tightly closed her eyes and nodded repeatedly as small drops of tears floated up from the corners of her eyes.

“…Sorry. I wanted to become a lewd girl and make you happy, but as I thought, the first time is scary and makes me anxious.”

“No need to apologize. But, that part about you is really cute, too—I love you, Shino.”

“I love you too, Sandai… I love you a lot… I love you so much…”

Precisely because the heart and body are closely related that treasuring one side over the other would end up giving birth to one-sidedness, which could also lead to a distorted relationship.

Only when you become one with both that you can be lovers in the true sense of the word for the first time. Lay bare each other’s innocence, accept each other, and it would be the beginning from there.

So, it could be said that Sandai and Shino too finally stood on the starting line.

5

As if it wasn’t enough, his back that had gotten scratched by Shino was stinging in pain and also strangely felt like burning. It was now slightly better, but there had also been the sensation of blood oozing until just a short while ago.

Curious as to how his own back had turned out, Sandai checked it on the mirror—only to get startled at the so many scratch marks.

There was also a considerable number of scratches so deep it would definitely leave marks.

“Y-You’re the one who told me scratch! You told me enough to leave marks!”

“It’s not like I’m angry. It’s just, every time you see my back, it might make you think back that you’re the one who did it, but are you all right about that?”

“It could also look like a marking that this back is mine, so I’ll be satisfied every time I see it instead.”

“I-I see. Then that’s good.”

“Actually, the one who bled wasn’t just you, but me too. So we’re even~.”

The blood that she emphasized she had also bled was one due to the breaking of hymen.

It hadn’t gotten noticed at the beginning, but midway. And not to mention Sandai, Shino had also been dumbfounded.

Sandai had known that blood could come out. Precisely why he had tried to be gentle in his own way even while enduring the pain from Shino scratching his back.

Even so, blood had come out, so Sandai had gotten surprised.

Shino too had gone, “Eh? Eh?” confused, and seemingly had gotten into extreme panic, she had suddenly hugged Sandai close and gone to scratch his back more strongly.

Ninety percent of the wounds deep enough to leave marks had been from this time.

“At any rate, the fact that blood came out… was it painful, too? I tried to be gentle, though.”

“It did feel weird, but… it’s not like it was painful, that’s why when I saw it I got really so surprised.”

Sandai was relieved. It might make for an unpleasant memory for Shino had it been painful, so he was happy that he could avoid that.

“I heard there’s also a lot of people who wouldn’t bleed even on their first time, and if it’s a lot, I wondered if I’d be like that too, though…”

“So there are people who wouldn’t bleed, huh.”

“Yeah. I heard there are a lot of them… Actually, you know what? This is so funny.”

While lying down on the futon, Shino pinched the used and bulged up condom and laughed.

“So full like a balloon~.”

“…I-It just can’t be helped, all right? I mean, I just had sex with the girlfriend I love for the first time. Spare me at least on that.”

“Fufu. It’s like a diluted Calpis, somehow looking like a drink, isn’t it? …Maybe I should give it lick?”

“I-Idiot.”

Shino was saying weird things, so Sandai snatched the condom, tied it up so the inside would get out, and threw it into the trash can.

“Ah…”

“No licking it!”

“But I’m curious, like, I wonder how it tastes, like that.”

Sandai let Shino eat a light flick on the forehead, making her go, “Auwh,” and shut her eyes.

“Don’t say any weird things.”

“No need to get into a bad mood like that… I’ve let myself get spoiled by you and kept scratching your back, but after the sex and I’ve calmed down, to tell you the truth, I did feel slightly sorry. But, seeing the used condom, I understood like, ‘Ah, so Sandai’s fully satisfied, too!’ and so after that, I’ve come to see the inside as cute, too.”

Shino was certainly saying weird things, but it appeared to be purely words coming from her true feelings, making it hard too for Sandai to complain.

However, even though it was hard to say, Sandai thought that drinking it, licking it, and such really was weird, so he would like to tell Shino off, although in a mild manner—though, before he could, he noticed Shino was already sleeping peacefully.

It seemed Shino was quite tired.

Their first sex had ended without a problem, the excessive nervousness had come undone, and then there was the sense of relief as well. Adding all that up, Shino was exhausted.

“…Good night,” Sandai said and kissed Shino on the forehead.

Immediately after, although Shino was still asleep and hadn’t woken up, there was a smirk on her face and drool spilling from the corner of her mouth.

“Fuhehe… fuheh…”

“Look at you, making a funny face… Wait hold up… funny face?”

Suddenly, come to think of it, I still haven’t given her my payback for taking a photo of my face kissing the train’s window before, Sandai remembered.

Since right now was the perfect chance for it, Sandai took a photo of Shino’s drooling face with his phone.

Let’s show this to her sometime on the way back.

6

The night came to an end. Sandai and Shino leisurely woke up around after seven, got ready to head home, and after that they went to have breakfast.

After getting to the hallway, Sandai immediately noticed that Shino seemed a little weird. Shino wasn’t walking straight but staggeringly.

“Oof…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, umm, around under my stomach still feels weird, a little…”

Body part wise, without a doubt, the weird feeling was caused by the sex last night. Of course the one mainly responsible for it was Sandai, and the one in question was also aware of it.

Then, although not meant as making up for it either, Sandai decided to give Shino a piggy back. “Get on,” Sandai told Shino. Then she staggeringly went to climb his back.

“Thankies.”

“I’m also partly to blame here.”

“Not partly but all of it, isn’t it? Who was the one who thrusted, I wonder?”

“You sure can look at it that way too, huh.”

“I think there’s no other way of looking at it, though.”

And then, after finishing their breakfast, they decided to take a look at the inn’s kiosk since there was still a bit of time left until their check-out.

It wasn’t like there was something they would especially like to get, as it was simply to buy souvenirs to bring to their workplace. It was a casual gesture, but the piling up of such a small thing would shape people’s impression and appreciation.

“I wonder what to get… Is something like confections good?”

“You’re right. Something like confections might be good. Even if we buy and give stuff like straps, it sure could trouble the one getting it if it doesn’t suit their taste.”

“I see. If it’s confections, if the one getting it knows someone like within their friends or family who might like it, they could just give it away even if they don’t really like it?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

While discussing it between themselves, they bought mizu manju and castella. They were bothered by the slightly high price, but well, it was the so-called location price, and adding to it also was something akin to ambiance price.

Technically, it was similar to food stalls at the festival and the like. Added value is there to be abused.

No, putting something like that to the side, since it was now the time anyway, they decided to check out and head home.

Then, the manager came out flying from inside the inn to hurry after them as they were leaving and said, “P-Please wait! Umm… I wasn’t sure if it would be good to bring it up again, but when I thought about the unlikely chance that my request had been forgotten, my mind simply cannot… Therefore, regarding the accident yesterday, I beg of you…”

Why were the living things called adults so desperate to protect themselves like this? Nakaoka as well who Sandai had seen in a bunny suit before, later on she had also desperately tried to have him keep quiet about it.

For the time being, “Did something happen yesterday?” Sandai said so, indirectly conveying that he would forget the matter. The manager patted his chest in relief.

Now then, afterwards.

Having arrived at the station nearest to the inn, they decided to use the bullet train on their way back instead of the conventional train that would take time as they had done their trip sightseeing yesterday.

And the fare cost money, making Sandai’s part-time job earning gone too with this, but even so, he prioritized not getting tired.

The bullet train really was fast. It came out of the tunnel in a flash whereas it had felt so long on a conventional train. The snowscape too ended immediately.

“The trip’s done just like that~. I had so much fun!”

“You’re right. By the way…”

Sandai took out his phone from his pocket and showed Shino the photo of her drooling sleeping face.

It was the picture taken last night.

“T-This is… when did you…”

“I took it when you’re asleep,” Sandai said nonchalantly.

Shino peevedly pouted her mouth, and then immediately jumped to try to snatch away his phone.

“Delete that!”

“W-Whoa whoa…”

“I don’t sleep with my face like that!”

“Nah, you’re sleeping with a face like this that’s why I’m saving it as a photo, though…”

“Noooo! Delete that! Delete that!”

“It’s cute so it’s fine, right?”

“Drooling like that isn’t cute! Don’t be mean!”