It’s Too Early to be Having Newlywed Syndrome! ~Childhood Friends Who Rekindled their Love for Each Other ~ - 4 - 17 - The First Promise to Marry and the First Promise to Marry

The First Promise to Marry and the First Promise to Marry

“Iida-kun said that if everyone’s fine with it, he wants to treat us to dinner. However, because I kept talking about unrelated stuff, it’ll take them ten minutes to get here. He said to leave the decision to Morita-kun.”

While returning Naoto’s phone, Sakurako relayed Iida’s message.

“Oh, ain’t that great? I’m hungry myself, so should we go eat something?”

Naoto was glad. Naoto ate the most back at the family restaurant, so he held back on additional orders.

“I can’t eat that much yet.”

“I still have a little space for food in my stomach. But I feel like it’ll just be a waste if I eat now.”

Aki and Natsuki hesitated.

“So you’re not hungry yet, huh?”

Seeing the two’s reactions, Naoto thought deeply.

“If his belly’s empty……”

Naoto checked out the restaurants in front of the station, and found one where take-out’s available.

“You know, Iida likes boneless fried chicken. If there are many in our group who are hesitating on taking Iida’s offer, then we can just buy a take-out pack there, and eat slowly here on the square.

We wouldn’t be able to buy drinks that way, though. Does everyone still have remaining drinks on their drinking bottles?”

“I still have, yes. I drank all I want at the family restaurant, after all.”

“We can also buy coffee on the convenience store.”

“Then, I’m gonna go buy a chicken take-out pack.

If there are leftovers, we can just have Iida have it. Even if we declined his offer, Iida will just buy gyudon on the way home anyway, so I’m thinking we can buy chicken right now so the famished Iida can have something to eat immediately once he gets here. Based on his personality, Iida will be happy to eat boneless chicken without any waiting time. If Iida’s reaction is not quite positive, I’ll apologize myself, so why don’t we try buying fried chicken?”

Everyone agreed on Naoto’s proposal.

“——Uwa, this is good.”

“Even if I’m not hungry, I can still eat something like this.”

“But it’ll be scary to go on the weighing scale for a while.”

The three girls were smiling happily while eating bone-in chicken.

Looking at those smiles, Naoto felt relieved, thinking that Iida will also be really happy with it.

“I’m afraid to wear the clothes that you have to wear inside Health Land. If I wear one of those, my belly will stand out.”

Sakurako worried.

“If it’s the same outfit as the ones from when we went there in the past, then with Hirose-san’s figure, I think your belly will not stand out.”

Naoto, who has a cat’s tongue, told Sakurako while nibbling little by little on a juicy chicken.

“Is that so?”

“If I go into details, it’ll be more or less sexual harassment, though.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Naoto stoop up from the chair in the public square,

“I don’t really know what the outfits for girls are called, that one-piece dress-like thing?

Like this, from the top of the bulge on the chest downwards, it’s straight like a slab of stone. Like a one-piece dress but without the narrowing parts? Imagine a large-sized raincoat.”

Naoto explained while making gestures.

“Ah—-, so it’s spacious on the stomach part?”

“Yes, that’s right. From a guy’s point of view, there’s nothing of interest to be seen.”

“You know, Nao-kun—, since back then those kinds of things were all that you remember, right?”

Naoto, who was teased by Natsuki, pouted,

“The only reason I remember that was because I found myself in one together with Natsuki.”

He explained his reason to Natsuki.

“What kind of a game is that?”

Natsuki, not seeming to remember, asked Naoto.

“On the nap room at health Land, when we went in a futon and embraced each other, Natsuki went in my clothes without saying anything, then proceeded to bully me.”

“Hearing that, I’m becoming curious as to what sort of bullying are you talking about.”

Said Sakurako.

“Natsuki seduced me and made me swear a marriage promise.”

“Past Natsuki’s pretty passionate.”

Aki smiled.

“Eh but, I didn’t do anything pervy, right?”

Natsuki looked at Naoto.

“Yeah, I just lost to your seduction. Would it be better for Natsuki’s reputation if I elaborate on it?”

“I want to hear it.”

Sakurako, rather than for the sake of Natsuki, said it in order to satisfy her curiosity.

“To start, saying ‘Until Mom goes to sleep, let’s talk to each other to stay awake, okay?’ we went into a bed, and kept talking in a low voice.

Once our moms fell asleep on the beds beside ours, Natsuki hid the two of us by covering us with two sheets of blanket. Just like that, she crawled in my Health Land outfit, and from inside my clothes she popped her head out, hugging me. While saying ‘This smoothness feels nice’ in a low voice, she kept touching my back. We just finished taking a bath, so Natsuki’s hand was quite warm, and my back’s not sticky yet.

On top of the room itself being dark, we were covered by two blankets, so my vision was blocked by the darkness. In that state, she sticked to me like a glue, and her fingertips were touching my back, that I was already trembling.

I was about to let out my voiced, but she stopped me, saying ‘Our mothers will catch us’, so in order to close my mouth, she proceeded to kiss me. With that once again, I felt really good that I was close to crying.

The reason being, at Health Land’s changing room, the toothpaste included with the disposable toothbrush are for grown-ups, so there’s a mature aroma and cool feeling still left in our mouths. It was different from the kisses we had before, it made my heart beat fast. Her saliva’s also a bit sweet, it’s tasted good just like a chewing gum, that I got lost in our kiss.

The smell of shampoo; the smell of hair conditioner; the smell of body soap; the smell of milk bath; the smell of toothpaste, all of those fragrance permeated the inside of the futon for a while. Of course, Natsuki’s hair was also smooth, when I touched it the smell of a different shampoo than she usually has scattered around. As I touched it, it was a different feeling from what I used to when touching Natsuki’s hair, both the texture and the smell seemed like it’s from a different person. It’s already the hair of a woman. She spoke to me in a low voice close to my ear, so her sighs got mixed in, even her voice felt different. As my sense of sight was like that of a blindfolded person, my sense of taste; my sense of smell, my sense of hearing; and my sense of touch are all heightened, I couldn’t help but be excited.

On top of all that, understanding that ‘If I go and strip Nat-chan’s’s clothes here and we get caught, it would leave Nat-chan an embarrassing memory. That’s why just this time, I have to hold back my urges’, even though we’re just kids, I couldn’t do anything lewd to her. All we did was kiss and hug. Thinking that all I could do was kiss her, all my focus turned to me sense of taste, wanting lots of that tasty saliva, I pleaded to her, ‘Kiss me more’.

Natsuki asked me, ‘Would you marry me if I kiss you more?’, to which I would evade answering directly by saying ‘I would love to, but I can’t do it yet.’ While Natsuki was sticking her cheeks that were smooth from the milk bath on my own cheeks, she whispered ‘You can do it on a time that suits you. If you promise that you would, I’ll give you a kiss. Don’t you want to have a kiss with Natsuki every day?’ to my ears. I really wanted that kiss, so I ended up saying ‘I’ll marry Nat-chan, so kiss me.’

……That would be our first time promising to marry each other, right?”

“That’s wrong!”

Natsuki denied with a red face.

“Was my memory of it wrong?”

“It should be, definitely!

Because, the first time we made a promise to marry was during a winter after we had a fight over something.

I forgot the reason, but we had a fight when you went to our house for a sleepover and fell asleep. I already said it before, but back then, Nao-kun’s not the kind of person who apologized with words. Nao-kun would either hold my hand, or show apology through his mannerisms, but at that time, I was so mad that whenever he tried holding my hands, I would brush him away. Even so, he immediately went to approach me, so I went in my bed and told him ‘If you climb to my bed, I’ll tell my mom’. So he just sat on the cold floor beside the bed, and kept looking at me. I told him ‘Don’t look at me’, and threw all of the stuffed toys on my bed at him, but he picked up all the stuffed toys I threw, even those who flew to the far corners of the room, put them on top of my bed, bud he still won’t stop looking at my direction, so I covered myself with the blanket.

Even though I was really mad, because of the darkness and boredom, I ffell asleep. When I woke up due to Nao-kun’s consecutive sneezes, Nao-kun-kun was lying on the floor, his face looking ill.

I jumped to my feet. When I touched his hands, they were very cold, so I immediately put him in the bed, while I hugged him to warm him up in desperation, I was crying the whole time, telling him ‘I’m sorry’. But Nao-kun wasn’t mad at all, he just smiled and told me ‘It’s all okay’, and embraced me in return. When I asked him ‘Will you forgive me?’, he told me ‘If you agree to marry me’, wasn’t that the first time we promised to marry each other?”

“Wait a minute. Natsuki’s always being called Nat-chan by our mother’s, so I’ve naturally come to call you Nat-chan as well, right?

On the next day at Health Land, you told me ‘Since were already husband and wife, whenever our moms are gone, call me Natsuki, okay?’, and after that, we’re on a first-name basis, isn’t that, right?

The day that we had a fight, wasn’t that after Natsuki has already said that? That’s why haven’t I said ‘I’ll marry you after all’ instead of ‘If you agree to marry me’? Otherwise, you might have heard me wrong because I was so overcome with emotions that I wasn’t able to articulate what I wanted to say well.”

“Eeh?! Didn’t Nao-kun just decided to call me Natsuki on your own?”

“I think I wouldn’t be able to call you just Natsuki on my own, though.

Also, the reason we had a fight that day, wasn’t it because I lied to you about something? I lost the toy wedding ring that we got through a children’s set meat or something, and I was afraid of you getting angry at me, so I kept silent about it.

I think that was the closest we had as a symbol of proposal.”

“That ring, was that the plastic one with de flower design?”

“I don’t remember that much.”

“For some reason, I feel like Natsuki’s the one who has a lapse in memory.”

“Me too.”

Sakurako and Aki backed Naoto.

“At any rate, regardless of whether that’s the place where we proposed to each other or not, chronologically the thing at Health Land happened first.

On the day I fell asleep on the cold floor, my toes got chilblains, but I hid it from my parents because I feared they will scold Natsuki for it. I wasn’t able to apply ointment for it, so it wouldn’t heal that fast. When Natsuki twines her toes around my chilblains, they felt randomly ticklish, so I would ask her to do them more. Because of that, I came to really like Natsuki’s feet.

Back at health Land, I don’t have any inclinations towards Natsuki’s feet yet, so back then I didn’t touch her feet at all. That’s why the thing at Health Land happened first. If I had my chilblains first, then I would’ve took a feel of Natsuki’s feet at Health Land.

In fact, even when we played doctor, rather than focusing on your skirt, I would start on your feet instead.”

“As I thought, Marita-kun’s story is more convincing, isn’t it?”

“That chilblain thing definitely happened afterwards.”

“Eh—-, so was my memory of being proposed to a lie? Did I make you propose against your will?”

Natsuki looked at Naoto with a face of regret.

“I don’t know about that. Natsuki’s story might be the right one, both of us might be right, or both of us might have remembered it wrong. It’s just that, I am confident that I developed chilblains after we went to Health Land.

Well, what Natsuki remember is a good memory, so once we get home, I’ll check our photo albums to find one where I’m wearing the ring and check the date—— come to think of it, what kind of conversation are we having in front of the station, talking about proposals and liking feet?

Please stop asking weird questions while we’re outdoors, Hirose-san.”

Naoto suddenly came to his senses, then laughed why looking at Sakurako.

“It’s my fault?! I didn’t think you would be doing that kind of full-blown teasing at a place like Health Land. It’s Natsuki’s fault for being lewd, isn’t it?”

“I’m not lewd! Maybe, the truth is it was Nao-kun who forced me to crawl in his clothes.”

“That’s obviously impossible! I can clearly picture Natsuki having great joy in clinging to Morita-kun.”

Saying that, Sakurako laughed off Natsuki’s excuse.

At that moment, Iida arrived,

“I’m glad to see you’ve eaten.”

Saying that, he sat beside Sakurako, and took a peek at the take-out box which has fried chicken inside.

“Ah, Iida-kun welcome back! We just ate fired chicken earlier, thank you.”

Sakurako corrected her posture in a panic to keep appearances, but in her mind, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

That guffaw I made just now, Iida-kun heard it, didn’t he? Will that make him dislike me?

While taking small glances at Iida, Sakurako had that genuine worry.