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“Hey, hey, Yukino.”
“What is it?”
“Ehehe, just felt like calling your name~”
“Geez, what was that?”

Lying on the bed in a pitch-dark room, I savored the joy of being under the same blanket as Yukino.

I had believed that if I confessed, Yukino would say yes—but still, the fear of being rejected had always lingered. If she turned me down, maybe she wouldn’t want to stay by my side anymore. That vague fear had gnawed away at me for so long, but I could finally say goodbye to it. Because now, I was officially Yukino’s girlfriend.

“Yukino, do you love me?”
“Ugh… O-of course I do.”
“I love you too, Yukino~”

I reached out and pulled myself closer to her, wrapping around her as she lay beside me. Through the thin fabric of her loungewear, her body heat seeped into me. Even though it had been a while since we got out of the bath, her temperature was still much higher than mine, and that warmth spread into me, making my own body start to feel flushed.

“If you cling to me like that, I can’t sleep, you know.”
“Come on, it’s just a little cuddling. You can use me as a body pillow too, if you want.”

Even in the dark, I could tell Yukino was blushing. She had always been bad with too much physical affection. Whenever I hugged her, she’d turn bright red but pretend like it was no big deal and try to play it off. Back then, I used to touch her gently just to tease her when she acted like that—but now, I was just being honest about wanting to be close to the person I loved. I wasn’t doing it to mess with her, so I wished she’d just let me spoil her a bit.

“You smell really nice. How come it’s different from mine?”
“Wha—don’t sniff me like that!”

As I cuddled her, I pressed my face into her chest and took a deep breath. Her sweet scent filled my lungs.

We used the same body soap, the same fabric softener in our laundry—living together, all of that should be the same. And yet, when I smelled Yukino like this, it was clearly different from my own scent. I couldn’t help but wonder why that was.

“I wonder if you’d taste sweet too if I licked you?”
“I won’t! And you absolutely better not!”

As I absentmindedly licked my lips in curiosity, Yukino flinched, then grabbed my cheek and peeled me off her.

“Okay, okay. I won’t lick you. Just let me cuddle.”
“I mean it.”

She made sure to hammer it home, but even I knew there were limits. If I suddenly licked her, she’d probably faint. I’d have to slowly ease her into that kind of intimacy—because Yukino, who secretly had a naughty side, would easily get overwhelmed if I pushed too far.

“Hey, can I ask you something? Or are you already sleepy?”
“Thanks to a certain someone, I’m too flustered to sleep. So? What is it?”

She probably couldn’t handle any more physical affection right now, so I decided to just talk instead.

“Lately, I’ve been really feeling how much you love me… But I was wondering—when did you start seeing me as someone special?”
“…Huh?”
“You liked me even before I confessed, right? I didn’t really get it back then, but thinking back on everything, I feel like you’ve had feelings for me for a long time now.”
“…Huhhh?”

Not that long ago, I hadn’t understood my own feelings—or Yukino’s at all. But now, it was different. In fact, now I could hardly believe I didn’t notice just how obvious Yukino’s feelings had been.

Even though Yukino was dealing with her own tough job, she had still poured her heart and soul—literally and figuratively—into looking after me, her childhood friend, just because our parents had been close and we’d naturally grown up that way. To put it bluntly, childhood friends are still just unrelated individuals. And yet Yukino had done all that for me, most likely because she’d felt the same way I did.

“I only realized it after you started working, but thinking back… maybe it wasn’t high school—maybe it was even back in middle school? Around then, you were already totally sweet on me. Were you in love with me even back then?”
“…Why do you think that?”
“Well, in high school, you made me lunch every single day. No one else did that, right?”

Hardly anyone even made their own lunches, but I was probably the only one who got a handmade bento from a classmate every day.

“Th-that was just for your health…”
“And back in middle school, you used to glare at any guy who tried to get near me, remember?”
“Guh…”

To be honest, most of the boys were probably into Yukino, not me—but Yukino had been so focused on me that she didn’t seem to notice any of their attention at all.

“So… when exactly did you start liking me?”

There were just too many clues. I couldn’t pinpoint when Yukino’s feelings had started. It felt like they’d already bloomed in high school, but even our middle school days seemed suspicious.

“…Kindergarten.”
“Come again?”

Even though we were lying in the same bed, cuddling close, I almost missed it. Her voice had been that small. But if I hadn’t misheard her, she hadn’t just meant middle school or even elementary school…

“I said, kindergarten!”
“…Seriously?”
“I’m serious… I didn’t want to say it ‘cause I figured it’d freak you out…”

Kindergarten. That meant Yukino had loved me ever since she was old enough to form memories. In other words, she’d been harboring feelings for me for nearly twenty years. That realization made my chest tingle with a strange warmth, and with it, the urge to feel even closer to her welled up inside me.

“Falling in love at three years old is pretty precocious… But I was just naturally drawn to you from the moment I could form thoughts.”
“Hey, Yukino. Look at me.”
“Wha—mmph!?”

I had just promised myself not to push things any further… and yet, I lost all self-restraint and stole Yukino’s lips without thinking.

“Mm… Yukino. I love you.”
“Wa—wait… mm… ngh…”

I showered her with kiss after kiss, gentle like pecks from a bird, and even so, the rising tide of emotion inside me kept building. I kept gazing into her eyes, closer than we’d ever been before.

We were just touching skin to skin—nothing more than that—and yet it felt overwhelmingly good, so much so that my heart felt light and floaty.

If just touching could make me feel this warm inside, what would happen if we went even further?

I tried to find that answer… but stopped myself just before crossing the line.

“Huh? Yukino?”

The girl in front of me, who had moments ago stiffened and shut her eyes tightly, had now completely relaxed. Her peaceful breathing rose and fell, steady and soft.

“Ah—whoops. Guess I overdid it. She passed out.”

It had been a while since Yukino had lost consciousness in my arms. As I held her close, I let my mind wander to the day I would get to find out that answer, and slowly drifted off to sleep as well.

“Oh well. Good night, Yukino.”

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