Traveling With a Beautiful Girl - Volume 2: Chapter 1: Prologue ②
–I want to hug.
It was in the autumn of my sophomore year of high school when I, Takahashi Sho, had this thought.
A hug, another name for an embrace, refers to the act of holding someone close.
It’s not like I want to do it with just anyone.
I have a girl I’m interested in.
I want to hug her.
–I want to hug.
But why a hug in the first place?
The trigger was a somewhat dubious online article.
When I first searched for “how to approach someone you’re attracted to”, the first article I found was “Top 5 approaches to make her fall for you ♡”. The article mentioned that when you think you’ve gotten a bit closer, a hug can be very effective. That resonated with me.
The girl in question is a classmate I’ve known for five days. We haven’t spent many days together, but during that time, we’ve eaten meals together, visited various places, and even stayed overnight (though nothing special happened).
It’s exactly the “relationship value” that’s started to close in.
I definitely want to hug her to advance our relationship by a step.
–I want to hug!
…No, let’s put aside the pretexts.
Simply put, I just want to hold her close.
I want to wrap my arms around her slender frame.
I want to feel her body heat, her scent, her heartbeat up close.
Frankly, that’s all it is!
Ah, I want to hug!
“…I want to hug.”
“Pug, did you say?”
“…………Ah.”
It’s past 10 pm on Monday, October 25th.
Inside the Tokaido Bullet Train “Kodama” to Nagoya.
Upon hearing my mutterings, the girl in question, Nanase Riho, seated on the aisle side, furrowed her brows in confusion.
“Ah-uh, Nanase-san, do you prefer pugs? Or Golden Retrievers?”
“Isn’t the normal question ‘are you a dog person or a cat person?'”
“The deity of binary choices living inside me commanded me to choose between a pug or a Golden.”
“What are you talking about? Is your brain bugged?”
“Because of the pug?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. I said your brain is bug-sized.”
“……? What does that mean?”
“I mean bug as in a small insect. You were sleeping during English class, weren’t you?”
“How could I know! You think too fast!”
When I retorted, Riho snorted in satisfaction.
Meanwhile, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, it seems I managed to sidetrack the “I want to hug” statement.
“We will soon be arriving in Nagoya. The Tokaido Line, Chuo Line, Kansai Line and…”
Just then, the announcement came on. Looking out of the window, I saw a cluster of gigantic buildings that rival the skyscrapers in Tokyo. The high-rise buildings in front of Nagoya Station are our next travel destination.