101. Akihito and I, a college student, being all lovey-dovey…!

About three months after our enjoyable and passionate trip to Japan.

It was late February, nearly March already.

I lay on the bed in the studio apartment that had become our new nest.

I must have exerted myself too much last night, because even though I was awake, my body felt too tired to get up.

“……”

A glance.

Without moving, I shifted my gaze to the clock. The electronic display showed the current time as [AM 9:30].

The university entrance ceremony started at 11, and it took about 10 minutes by bus to get to school, so I had a generous hour to spare.

‘I could probably sleep for another 30 minutes…’

I slowly closed my eyes.

And entrusted myself to the slowly encroaching wave of sleep…

–BANG!

“My dear husband, are you awake~?”

Just then, someone opened the bedroom door and came in.

Though my eyes were closed, the lovely voice, like jade beads rolling on a silver platter, belonged to a girl I knew well.

“Oh my, you’re not awake yet…?”

Fujiwara Akihito.

The girl I loved most in the world, and my girlfriend who had started living with me since January of this year.

Mulling over this obvious fact, I slowly opened my eyes. First to come into view in the blurry vision was beautiful pink hair, followed by a small head and delicately featured face.

“……Akihito.”

“Ah, you’re awake?”

“Yeah, but…”

I lowered my gaze slightly.

Aki, clad in dolphin shorts and a tank top, was donning an apron with a cute bear ill*stration.

The curve the apron traced was quite pleasing, and yet…a part of me felt a slight regret.

“You have clothes on underneath?”

“Hmm…?”

“But I told you. I wanted you to wake me up with a naked apron in the morning…”

“…Ugh, come on!”

*Smack-*!

Aki tapped my thigh with her palm.

There wasn’t any real force behind it, so it didn’t hurt, but knowing she’d really hit me if I pretended it didn’t, I feigned pain and pushed myself up.

“Honestly, saying such strange things first thing in the morning…”

“Why? It’d be great. A naked apron.”

“…You gonna keep making perverted jokes, Darling?”

‘If I said it wasn’t a joke, she’d really smack me, wouldn’t she…?’

Every man’s fantasy, really, a beautiful girlfriend in nothing but an apron.

Being a man myself, I yearned to see it, and had actually asked her about it a few times like just now, but Aki always vehemently refused, saying she was too embarrassed when it came to the naked apron.

The way I see it, there’s no difference whatsoever between a bunny girl outfit with the sides and back completely open, a bikini swimsuit, or a naked apron, so I don’t really understand at what point she feels embarrassed. Is there a certain type of shyness that only women have? Is that it?

How should I coax Aki into waking me up wearing nothing but an apron? I was seriously about to ponder that, when Aki took something out of the drawer and offered it to me. Looking closely, it was a fresh pair of underwear.

“Here, I washed the ones you were wearing…!”

“Yeah, thanks.”

I took the underwear Aki offered.

I knelt and skillfully put on the underwear, and Aki glanced at me doing so, her cheeks flushing slightly when our eyes met.

“What?”

“…No, nothing.”

Glance, glance.

Aki kept looking at my lower half, pretending not to.

I had a good idea why Aki was acting like that, so I chuckled to myself. I mean, a morning… phenomenon…that happens to men is something that would be hard to understand unless you’re one yourself.

But still, she’s seen it plenty of times in the past few months, so she should be used to it by now. Still finding it fascinating, Aki even swallowed hard as she continued to look at my lower half.

Pretending not to notice Aki’s gaze, I finished putting it on. And adjusting its position with my hand, I asked.

“Aki, where are my shorts?”

“I washed them together with the underwear. When I got up, I noticed there was a lot of…stuff… on them…”

“Really? What did you get on your face?”

“…N-nothing. …Don’t ask.”

Aki’s face flushed crimson, and she avoided my gaze.

Her embarrassed reaction was cute, and I almost asked again, but stopped myself. I’d learned something during these last few months of living together: if I bothered Aki in the morning, the quality of that day’s lunch menu would plummet. If I wanted to eat something truly delicious, I had to limit my teasing to the evening.

I patted the space beside me on the bed with my palm.

It meant, *I won’t tease you, so come sit here.* Aki seemed to understand, because she smoothed her apron and carefully sat down next to me.

“Smells good…”

“It’s not *me* you’re smelling, it’s the toast…?”

I’d been talking about the savory aroma wafting from the kitchen, but Aki seemed to misunderstand, shooting me a glare that said, *Don’t talk nonsense.*

There didn’t seem to be a need to correct her, so I let it go and casually put my hand on Aki’s waist.

“Toast for breakfast?”

“Uh-huh, I couldn’t go grocery shopping yesterday, so I just baked toast with egg. It might not look pretty, but it’ll taste amazing, you’ll see…?”

“Oh, toast. I like bread…”

As I said that, I gave Aki a light hug.

Although hidden by her apron, her full chest pressed against my body, and I let out a deep sigh, feeling the ultimate happiness a man could experience.

“A-ah, let’s just have a light breakfast. I’ll make something proper for dinner later…”

“What are you making for dinner?”

I reached my hand around Aki’s back.

“Grilled eel. Grandma sent us some freshwater eel, and they said it’ll arrive around lunchtime today. So that’s what we’ll have for dinner… Ah…!”

I slipped my index finger into the small gap between her camisole and dolphin shorts and gently lifted it, revealing her slender waist. Aki flinched and glared at me.

“That means you want me to get lots of energy from the eel, right?”

“N-no, that’s not it! I’m just making it because she sent it, there’s no other meaning…”

“Sounds like there is…”

I gently stroked her slender waist.

And then – *pinch!*

Aki’s face flushed even redder as she pinched my thigh. It really hurt this time, as if she were truly embarrassed by the close contact. I quickly took my hand away and rubbed my thigh.

“Darling, I told you not to do this kind of thing in the morning…?”

“Isn’t there still time? The entrance ceremony isn’t until 11, so we could do a little bit of…”

“It’s always *just a little bit,* and then we end up late, it’s happened more than once, you know…!”

“……Umm.”

That was the truth of it. Ever since Aki and I started living together, it wasn’t a rare thing for us to lose track of time in our own little world and end up late. Like, missing the start of a get-together with my high school buddies, or arriving at the cinema long after the movie had begun.

Digging into the reasons for our tardiness would ultimately point the finger at both of us, but there was little point in dwelling on it now. I swallowed my disappointment and let Aki go.

“It’s already 9:40, so hurry up and eat, then wash up. We have lots to do today…!”

“Why? Besides the entrance ceremony at 11, what else is there?”

“We need to go grocery shopping, clean the house, and get ready for guests. My high school friends are coming over tomorrow, remember, *dear husband*…?”

“Ah, right.”

“Ah, right…?!”

Aki’s eyes widened theatrically. Feeling guilty, I pretended not to notice and smoothly got to my feet.

“Dear husband, are you running away now…?”

“……I’ll just go wash my face.”

* * *

I washed my face, took care of business, and emerged from the bathroom.

Before heading to the kitchen, I pulled on a pair of shorts and generally tidied myself up. I found Aki in the kitchen, a savory aroma filling the air. As she had said, breakfast consisted of two slices of egg-coated toast and a glass of milk.

“Oh, you even have milk?”

“Of course. Can’t eat toast without milk, can you?”

Aki, seated across from me, said. She had already cut the toast into neat squares while I was washing up.

I bit into a piece of the conveniently sized toast and took a sip of milk. Then, belatedly realizing we didn’t have any milk at home, I asked Aki,

“Aki, where did the milk come from?”

“I went to the convenience store while *dear husband* was still sleeping.”

“Ah.”

So that’s why she wasn’t beside me when I woke up. I finished my milk without giving it much thought.

“Heehee. Why? Were you worried it was milk squeezed by *moi*?”

“…….”

I nearly choked on my milk.

Aki’s sudden, risqué joke caught me completely off guard. I coughed and sputtered, while she clasped her hands together, resting her chin on them, and gazed at me with a smile. A pose similar to the one they call “flower chin”…. But that’s not the important thing right now.

Struggling to control my coughing, I said to Aki,

“Aki, no matter what kind of jokes you make….”

“Heehee…. Sorry. Here’s a tissue.”

“……Whew.”

“Surprised, dear husband?”

“Well, of course, I’m surprised…!”

Put yourself in my shoes. Of course, I’d be surprised. If I were drinking milk and my girlfriend said next to me, ‘I wonder if that’s from milking it directly?’, anyone would be startled.

“I’ve made much more risque jokes, and now you’re only just…?”

“…Let’s stop this conversation.”

“…Hee, so cute.”

Aki straightened her posture.

“Alright. Then what should we talk about? The entrance ceremony? Or maybe our wedding~?”

“…What do they do after the entrance ceremony in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy?”

“Not the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy, but the School of Political Science and Diplomacy!”

“Right, the… School of Political Science and Diplomacy. What did they decide to do separately, there?”

“Hmm, I don’t know? From what I heard, it’s nothing special… Gather together, listen to the head of the department for a short while, and then those who want to stay behind eat together and introduce themselves. I guess that’s the end of it.”

“Sounds similar to the Department of Physical Education? I heard we listen to the department head and hang out together like that too.”

“Ah, but. I heard Physical Education gives harsh punishments, though? After your entrance ceremony, won’t the seniors try to assert their authority~? Hee…”

“After the entrance ceremony, they gather to eat, introduce themselves, and then drink, so there won’t be time to assert authority, probably?”

“…They gather to drink?”

“Yeah, it’s not like drinking themselves to death like an MT, just lightly, one or two glasses… Oh, why?”

“…….”

Suddenly, Aki’s face turned serious.

She crossed her arms, supporting her chest, and pondered something, then abruptly lifted her head.

“Dear husband, there are girls there, too?”

“Yeah. Of course, there are?”

“How many girls are there?”

“Um… I don’t know…?”

When I looked at the new student group chat I was invited to recently, there were roughly thirty or forty freshmen, but I don’t know exactly how many of them are female students. Because I’ve never bothered to count. I’ve been too busy living with Aki to have time to look at things like that.

“Check the group chat now, how many are there?”

“Just a second…”

As Aki told me, I looked at the new student group chat.

Thirty men and five women. The ratio is roughly six to one.

“Five women and thirty men.”

“……Why are there so many girls?!”

“Huh? So many what?”

“There are thirty guys, but only five girls. That’s a lot…!”

“Well, if you look at it that way, the Political Science and Diplomacy department has way more girls….”

“……Honey, stop!”

Aki jumped up.

She braced her hands on the table, leaning her upper body towards me.

“Come straight home after this ends.”

“Straight home…?”

“Yeah, don’t go to the after-party, just come home…!”

“No, but still….”

If I want to get close to the guys, shouldn’t I go to the after-party?

Just as I was about to say that, Aki suddenly hooked a finger under the strap of her tank top, pulling it straight down.

“…….”

Pale skin of her chest.

……That small mole, right there.

A chest mole that was strangely arousing, one that any man couldn’t help but have his gaze drawn to.

I found myself staring blankly, and Aki, having revealed her cleavage, said softly,

“If you come home quickly…. I’ll give you a chest job.”

“…….”

“……Got it?”

“……Yes.”

I nodded, as if possessed.