Chapter 4: First Kiss

After all the twists and turns, I finally decided I was going to kiss Kameyama-kun.
Still, just suddenly kissing each other out of nowhere felt... wrong somehow.
I took my hands away from his cheeks and chest.
By now, the thought that Kameyama-kun might suddenly force himself on me hadn’t even crossed my mind.
He was doing everything he could to be considerate of me.
Even though he was so nervous he clearly didn’t have much composure left himself.
“If possible, I want to make this a good memory for you, Hamori-san.”
And then he went and said something like that.
Maybe he should think about himself a little too.
But how were you even supposed to make a kiss “good”?
I’d heard atmosphere mattered.
“M-Maybe... we should hug first?”
“Okay. Then... I’d like to hug you, Hamori-san.”
“O-Okay...!”
My voice cracked.
We both stood up and turned to face each other.
Then we slowly stepped closer, each of us trying not to startle the other.
We were both so nervous our hearts were already at their limit, so we were being absurdly careful about it.
As the hug got closer and closer, a question suddenly occurred to me.
Where were my arms supposed to go?
Under his?
Over his?
“Um... Hamori-san. Should my arms go over yours?”
Kameyama-kun was wondering the exact same thing.
“I’m a little shorter than you, so maybe it’s more natural if mine go underneath?”
“Okay.”
We tried it.
But since there wasn’t much of a height difference between us, Kameyama-kun ended up putting too much weight on my shoulders and practically leaning on me.
“This is kind of awkward, right? I’ll put one arm underneath instead.”
“Yeah.”
Kameyama-kun slipped one arm under my right arm.
I adjusted too and pulled his body closer.
I naturally rose onto my toes a little and rested my chin on his shoulder.
Then I tightened my arms around him.
Kameyama-kun did the same and pulled me closer.
There was a soft pressure against my chest.
Maybe because we were both wearing summer uniforms, I could hear his heartbeat.
Wait.
I wasn’t wearing a front-clasp bra today, was I?
There was no chance it could just... pop open, right?
Kameyama-kun’s body felt firm and bony overall.
But there were softer places too.
For some reason, I suddenly thought of my mother.
I never expected her to come to mind now.
Maybe it was because I’d seen Mom and Dad hugging before.
I whispered into Kameyama-kun’s ear.
“Hey. This might not really be the time for this, but... listen to me for a minute.”
Kameyama-kun nodded, and his chin brushed my shoulder.
“I... I hate my family.”
I was about to tell him something I had never told anyone before.
But I felt like Kameyama-kun would listen.
He was stupid enough to throw away the entire world for my sake, after all.
I trusted that no matter what I said, he would respect how I felt.
If he acted like that all the time, it would honestly be kind of creepy.
But just for now...
This felt special.
For the first time, I understood that atmosphere between two people I’d only ever seen in manga and novels.
“My dad... he was a weak person.”
My mother was the kind of person who couldn’t live without helping people who were vulnerable.
I had grown older and stopped needing as much looking after.
Then one day, she brought Dad home the way someone might bring home a stray cat.
He started staying at our house.
It wasn’t like he ever hit me.
Sometimes I thought it might have been easier if he had.
Then at least I would have had a clear reason to hate him.
But he was simply weak.
The home where it had always just been me and Mom became an uncomfortable place for me.
That was why I stayed in the classroom so long after school.
Sometimes I wished I had joined a club.
But at this point, I didn’t have the courage to start one.
I hated my father.
But at the same time, I thought hating someone for being weak was wrong.
One day during lunch, some friends and I watched a video.
It explained that teenage girls sometimes dislike their fathers as a biological mechanism to avoid having children with someone genetically close to them.
My friends were happy.
“See? That’s why I hate him.”
They liked having a scientific explanation for why they disliked their fathers at home.
I didn’t.
Because Dad wasn’t related to me by blood.
It gave me no reason to feel justified in hating him.
After I finished telling him everything, Kameyama-kun whispered quietly.
“Hamori-san... you need a reason to dislike someone, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Is that weird?”
“No. Not weird at all. You could be even weirder and it’d still be fine.”
“Hehe... What does that even mean?”
When I write novels, I often think about why I like the things I like.
Why do I like Sengoku warlords?
Things like that.
Maybe because of that, I wanted reasons for the things I disliked too.
Or maybe I was just trying to give myself reasons so I wouldn’t feel guilty for disliking someone.
If I could justify it somehow—
if society would acknowledge that my dislike was acceptable—
then maybe I could relax.
But...
was that really okay?
“I hate tofu, you know.”
“Huh? Why?”
I couldn’t imagine what there was to hate about tofu.
It didn’t even have some especially strange flavor.
“I don’t know. I hate it because I hate it.”
That was a weird reason.
But maybe...
that was enough.
“I like you, Hamori-san.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you... If I had to give a reason, I guess... because you’re cute?”
“Hmmm.”
So even something like that was okay.
Somehow, I found myself thinking that maybe it was.
I loosened my arms and looked at Kameyama-kun directly.
He still looked nervous, but the hug seemed to have helped him relax a little.
“Then... Kameyama-kun. Should we kiss and stop the world from collapsing?”
I hadn’t decided to kiss him because this was an emergency.
I decided because I wanted to kiss him.
Honestly, I still didn’t know whether I actually liked Kameyama-kun.
I definitely had feelings for him.
And by now, he was making my heart flutter too.
But did that count as liking someone?
I still couldn’t tell.
Maybe my own sense of causality had broken.
Cause and effect.
Maybe I didn’t need to identify the cause behind every feeling I had.
Kameyama-kun closed his eyes as he leaned closer.
Strangely enough, once I had decided to kiss him, I felt calm.
I had accepted that it was going to happen.
And I was really looking forward to it.
I put a hand up and stopped his face before he got any closer.
“Wait. No tongue on the first kiss.”
I was not mentally prepared for that yet.
“O-Okay.”
Kameyama-kun closed his eyes again and leaned closer.
I stopped his face again.
“Wait. Just because we kiss doesn’t mean we’re automatically dating, okay?”
I still wasn’t sure whether I liked him.
I wasn’t against dating him, but I wanted a little more time to think about that part.
“W-Wait, what...? Uh, okay.”
Kameyama-kun closed his eyes again and leaned closer.
“Wait. I’m giving you my first kiss, so you’d better take responsibility.”
“Didn’t you just say becoming a couple was a separate issue?”
“Of course it’s separate.”
“W-What...? Fine. Okay. If you say so.”
Even I thought I was being a little unreasonable.
Kameyama-kun looked mildly dissatisfied as he closed his eyes and leaned in again.
“Wait. Mm—!”
He suddenly pulled me toward him and kissed me.
H-He said he was going to respect my wishesssssssssss!!!