Vol 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1: I am a Twintail

After school on the first day of my high school life. A day I should have had fond memories of.

I, Mitsuka Souji, together with my childhood friend Tsube Aika, was having a late lunch at the Cafe Adolescenza. It might seem pretty fas.h.i.+onable for us to be eating lunch at a cafe, but seeing as I live here, it’s like a normal meal for me.

Its main selling point is our special house blend coffee. It has lots of fans, but, being something my mom does on the side, the shop is p.r.o.ne to being closed whenever she feels like it.

The sign over the door read “Closed”. Of course, that meant that it was just the two of us in here.

The intense spicy smell hanging in the air was nothing compared to the weight of sorrow in my chest.

“Why the heck did I put down something like that...”

“There’s no such thing as the Twintail Club,” my childhood friend said, looking at me amazed. The smell of spice swirled around her.

“I was put on the spot... and wrote it down without thinking. I didn't mean to!”

“If you ask me, anyone that would inadvertently write down something like that is bad news. You have Twintails on the brain.”

“Shut up! How many times do you plan to make fun of me for that?!”

“Yeah, yeah, ta-daa―”

She took the two tails on both sides of her head, long enough to reach her hips, and swung them at me.

“.........ngh.”

She may be trying her best to make me angry, but to me it feels more like a refres.h.i.+ng greeting.

As always, her twintails were wonderful to behold.

Waist-length twintails framing the head ― they may be the most basic, but their simple purity shows you the elegant conceit of hair that has been worn in twintails every day for years. A great artist's paintings can draw people in even when they aren’t using flashy colours or a surprising subject. It’s like that, I think.

“Still, the teacher didn't have to say it out loud...”

“Well, what did you expect when you wrote something that bizarre?”

“Well, excuse me!”

No matter how long we continue the pointless argument, it will not overturn this fact: there are over a thousand days of my life as a high school student ahead of me, and on the first day, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

The private school that I go to, Yougetsu Academy, can take you straight from elementary school into university. A super-escalator school. I wasn’t going to feel different just because I’d moved up into high school.

That’s what I thought, but... the size of the school building, the gymnasium, everything was so much larger than junior high school that I was overwhelmed.

And the highlight was the orientation in the gymnasium by the leaders of the clubs, after the entrance ceremony had ended. The various sports and culture clubs took turns making their appeals to the new students. The pa.s.sion they showed moved me deeply.

But.

The image I see when I close my eyes is the girl who took the stage after that. To be exact, her hairstyle. Twintails.

s.h.i.+ndou Erina.

She may have been about as tall as a grade schooler, but her freshman welcoming speech as student council president would rival that of the greatest orators in human history. Her address touched the hearts of everyone who heard it.

“There are no limits to what you can accomplish here. I, together with the high school division of Yougetsu Academy, will guide your brilliant future on the path to its full bloom. I promise you!”

She may have been as tall as a grade schooler, yet the tone of her speech contained no hint of condescension. The dignified manner in which she stood was mesmerizing.

(She’s beautiful...)

I stared at her, forgetting to blink.

She may have been as tall as a grade schooler, but it was the first time I’d ever heard a woman use ’young lady’ language, and she made it sound so natural that I was shocked.

And above all else – her twintails.

Hair, of course, does not have a peerage. But if it did, then those beautiful twintails would have held a high and n.o.ble t.i.tle. The way the tips of her hair curled softly into circles also showed the excellence of her upbringing.

As she put heat in her words and moved more vehemently, the twintails danced through the air in response to her motion, as if she were a princess under a luxurious chandelier and the twintails were her partner on the dance floor.

I couldn’t get my heart to stop pounding.

It felt like everyone around me was staring at her as though a kitten had gotten up on the stage, but I'm probably imagining things.

The student council president has such amazing twintails. I can only imagine how wonderful the next three years of my life are going to be.

On the way back to my cla.s.sroom, I paid no attention to my chattering cla.s.smates. They were like a candle compared to the brilliant light still burning in my heart. The lingering memory of the orientation wasn’t much more than a fart.

All I could see was that beautiful scene. My head was full of twintails. I had my head in the clouds for the self-introductions once we got back to the cla.s.sroom, too.

And I don’t even seem to have noticed when they handed out the club questionnaire.

“All right, pa.s.s your sheets forward starting at the back, ple~ase.”

“Oh!”

The cla.s.s rep's slow drawl brought me back down to Earth. The girl whose name I didn’t know (of course, because I hadn’t listened to her introduction) handed me some sheets. In a panic, I scribbled something on the the paper before me.

“Hm hmm... Huh~? Someone forgot to write their name on their survey~”

“Oh... Sorry. I think that’s mine. I was rus.h.i.+ng.”

The teacher looked up from the sheets she was going through and tilted her head in doubt, so I said my name.

“Ahh, Mitsuka-kun, was it? ...Twintail club? Did we have a twintail club here? ... Oh~h, you mean you want to set one up.”

”What!? No, I didn't actually want to do that, really! I was-”

I was even more nervous, and I had gone beyond rescue.

“I see~. ... Twintail club? You must really like twintails, Mitsuka.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Obviously.”

― Conditioned reflex.

And here I was hoping that I could start anew, in this place full of fresh faces.

That was the instant that decided my position for three years of high school.

“Alright everyone, that’s all for today’s homeroom. It seems like there have been some deviants in the area lately, so be careful!”

“Why are you saying this now!? Look, teacher, please wait! I am serious! I really, seriously love twintails!! Wait, that’s not what I... argh!!”

And so, the first day of my brilliant high school life ended, with me sabotaging myself in the most pathetic way imaginable.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah....”

Just the memory of it is killing me.

When I see a blank I write “twintail” in it. That is a pretty ridiculous conditioned reflex. It’s already part of my physiological makeup ― no, it might be closer to the area of ecology.

“Mguh... mm. Seconds.”

Ignoring me and the full cup of coffee that hadn’t even touched my lips, Aika calmly put her hand on the second plate of curry.

Uh, I don’t have any appet.i.te, so it’s fine, but still, that one’s mine.

“Writing that stuff down isn’t so bad, but that was pretty much the worst follow-up ever made. Why did you have to freak out so badly?”

“If you knew that I was nervous, then you should have come in and backed me up! Aren’t we friends!!”

“Friends... yeah.”

There was something sullen about the look on Aika’s face. What are you mad about? You just stole my lunch.

“You have to use questionnaires and stuff to make a good first impression. It's just an interest check, after all. Yeah, it says to write down clubs you're interested in, or clubs you want to start, and all that, but it's just a formality. What new student would suddenly a.s.sert themselves like that?”

“Uh... You mean...”

“You know what that means, don't you? By writing that down, you're telling everyone that, even after seeing all the clubs give their presentations, even after all their recruiting efforts, you still want to set up your own club. You get it, don't you?”

“And then I... wrote something strange like `twintail club’?”

“That’s right.”

“We can look back and a.n.a.lyze it calmly now, but you know, back then my mind was one hundred percent blank!!”

“Well, I could have at least stuck out my chest and said, ’A lot of people don’t even know the word for that hairstyle, so don’t suddenly start talking about it.’”

“That wouldn’t have helped at all, and what were you going to stick out, there’s nothing thbuhhh”

My little resistance was cut off in the middle. Aika's got a complex about her modest (non-existent) chest, which is why I like to rib her about it. But, as you can see, if you do that, she will punch you in the face with one hand while eating off her plate with the other.

It can’t be helped, the rest of her is perfect.

Especially the twintails, and the twintails.

“Ugh. If only I was better at improvising...”

I don’t think I’m exaggerating if I say that it’s indirectly the fault of the student council president that my future was destroyed, the exact opposite of what she said in her speech. Although, as Aika says, I was basically inviting this result by being such a loser.

Sighing gloomily, I wrapped my arms about my head.

“Besides, that obsession of yours would have been exposed sooner or later. Look on the bright side. At least you don't have to worry about it anymore.”

“You’re telling me I’ve come to a crossroads in my life? Then don’t just go on eating two meals worth of curry as if nothing's wrong! And I’m impressed you can eat curry while drinking all that coffee!”

You'd think someone like her, who could finish off two large plates of curry as if it were nothing, would have a bigger chest. Is it because of her hair? Does her body need all the nutrients just to sustain it...?

I felt a strange chill suddenly and glanced around the store.

“...?”

A woman customer was sitting alone. Her position was at an exact right angle to our seats.

Was it my imagination, or were her eyes flickering over here?

(That’s strange. I thought Mom already closed the store.)

But when I look at the cup on her table, it seems like she was sitting there from the start. We just didn’t notice. Probably Mom didn’t take a good look around before she rushed off.

Great. I thought there would be no one else around. Why did I have to run my mouth like that? I’m not surprised she’s looking.

“Hey, Souji... you’re doing it again.”

“Ah!”

Snapping back to my senses, I realized that I was holding on to Aika’s twintails. She breathed out a tired sigh and I hurriedly released my grip.

It’s half your fault for leaving them on the table and letting them slip into my grasp so easily ― but that’s a very selfish thing to say.

Because when they’re as long as Aika’s, if you don’t lay them on a chair or a table, they’d touch the ground the moment you sat down.

“Sorry. I really can’t help it. It’s been like this since we were kids. Touching your twintails just... calms me down.”

I know that already, Aika replied, coolly. She sighed again.

“Seriously. Thanks to you, I’m starting to feel ashamed of myself.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“What are you going to do if someone takes this the wrong way? They’ll look at my twintails, and... and us being friendly... and connect the dots...”

Having exhausted her coffee, Aika kept glancing between me and the table, all the while pressing her index fingers together bashfully.

“What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you want to change your hairstyle?”

“N-no way! Why would I change my hairstyle just because someone said something about it? I like my hair this way, thank you very much!”

Exactly. Seeing this steadfast determination of hers made me proud to be her childhood friend.

Despite her att.i.tude, Aika’s the one person who would understand my love for twintails. As she said, we’d often get made fun of because we were always together.

But ― neither of us cared about what anyone else had to say about it.

She’s my childhood friend. My best friend.

Everyone has a friend or two they’d keep for life. Someone they can open their heart to. As for myself, by pure chance - that someone just happened to be a girl.

Part of it was because we were neighbours, but it seems like our families have been on good terms for a long time. That’s why it’s almost as if we were siblings. As if we were from the same family.

Back in grade school, I was never able to beat her in a fight. It was only afterwards that I found out her granddad had been teaching her martial arts.

Suppressing my wounded pride, I eventually started training with her at the dojo. I suppose that was when it all started. Ever since then, we’ve always spent our time together.

For some reason, we’d always end up in the same cla.s.s. No matter how cla.s.ses got shuffled, or how many people transferred in, we’d see each other in cla.s.s every year.

To be honest, it was starting to get really weird.

Aika was always popular. She’s frank, honest, strong, and always so full of life - I mean, why wouldn’t she be?

And here I am, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g everything up in the first day of school. I hope I don’t cause her too much trouble.

“―!?”

I felt another s.h.i.+ver run down my back.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing...”

I kept my voice low. Aika seemed to have noticed it as well. That customer was still around.

“How... Why didn’t I sense her presence...!?”

Although Aika was whispering, what she was saying was even more grandiose than usual. Do you normally sense people’s presence as you go through your day...?

That woman was still sitting there. Quietly observing us.

Her eyes met mine. She hurriedly spun around, turning to face the wall behind her.

“What the heck...?”

Okay? That was strange, but I’d feel uncomfortable too if some other customer was kicking up a fuss across the room. Guess I’d better restrain myself.

While I started to relax, Aika was having none of it. I could tell she was on high alert.

Twintails have expressions of their own. Anger, sadness, joy, suspicion, and anxiety are just some of the emotions that they can show.

What I’m saying is - twintails are like a second mouth.

“...”

Aika gestured to me silently from the side of the table. That woman was now holding up a newspaper, as if to conceal herself from us.

She had poked a hole through it, and was peeping at us through it.

Are you kidding me?

It was beyond ridiculous. Was she filming some kind of comedy skit?

I became paranoid there might be some kind of hidden camera in the cafe. Please keep me from becoming Boy A in the credits.

“... Let’s try not to make eye contact.”

“Right.”

Aika had also settled on that being the best course of action in this situation.

Our a.s.sumed suspect folded the newspaper over, set it on the table, and stood up.

For a moment, I hoped she would leave. Instead she went right past the entrance, heading in our direction.

Stopping right next to me, unphased by our shocked expressions, she looked directly at me with a smile on her face.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

“Hold it right there!” Aika shouted in a rapid-fire manner, exasperated.

“Yes?”

Aika stood up while scowling at me. I flinched instinctively. Leaning her head back, the woman began to laugh.

“Who are you?!”

“Don’t mind me.”

“I do mind!”

“I have some business with this gentlemen over here.”

“With me?!”

Like a tour guide giving information, she pointed in my direction with her palm open.

“Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?! Standing there with that calm look on your face in those flashy clothes. I’m gonna jam a straw in your cleavage!”

“Now, now, Aika, calm down. Please,” I said, looking to defuse the situation.

I was taken aback by how beautiful she was. She may have been be a bit odd, but seeing her up close, she really was an incredibly beautiful woman - young lady, from the looks of it.

Her j.a.panese was excellent, but she was definitely a foreigner. She had white hair... no, wait. Make that silver hair.

Like it was dyed, yet it seemed natural. Which made it even more unnatural. Silver hair like hers doesn’t exist. Yet, it was still beautiful.

It seemed to glitter in the dim lighting of the cafe.

Along with her long eyelashes, her eyes were so blue they reminded one of sapphires.

Following my gaze down the bridge of her nose, she smiled brightly with her delicate pink lips.

Like something straight out of a movie, she was a mysterious faerie., It felt like her entire body was surrounded in a faint glow, like the twinkling light of a firefly.

Above all, just barely below visible when you look at her face, the enormous volume of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s demanded your attention. What an outrageous fairy.

She looked to be around the same age as Aika, and yet the difference between them was almost depressing. The thin clothes emphasizing her cleavage clashed with her clean-cut features. Over which she wore a white robe. One might even call it a coat. The design was quite fas.h.i.+onable.

Her skirt, which one might even hesitate to call a mini-skirt... traced a line that made one wonder how her panties weren’t visible. Yet, with one look at her long slender legs, any doubts about her ability to coordinate clothes vanished. It was certainly a sight not seen among the ma.s.ses.

It’s such a shame.

Twintails would undoubtedly suit sparkling silver hair like hers.

There I go again... I’ve barely even met this girl, and yet my brain was already filled with thoughts of twintails.

For a guy going through p.u.b.erty, undressing such a cute girl in your mind would be a natural instinct, honed over millennia.

Naked? With twintails?

Hmm...

I suppose that still counts?

“Ow.”

Aika jabbed me in the temple with her straw. What the heck are you doing, I asked, in a hushed tone. Aika simply turned her head away with a “Hmph!”.

Watching the two of us bicker, the girl looked like she was smirking while she laughed. Instead of an innocent laugh, I sensed a twinge of evil to her laugh. Maybe I’m wrong. She does seem like a very gentle person.

“Uhm, is there something that we can help you with?”

I unconsciously drew myself into the back of the chair.

The girl put her hand on top of the bench and leaned in closer to me.

“Yes. I have very important business with you.”

“...Important business?”

Pretending not to hear her clearly wasn’t working.

Re-iterating she only wants to speak with me... was it a language problem? Across the table, Aika’s frown deepened.

“My name is Twoearle.”

“I see... Miss... Twoearle...”

She’s definitely not from this country. Nevertheless, her j.a.panese was impeccable.

“You sure like twintails.”

“I love them.”

Oops... that’s what I felt inside. And I blurted it out immediately. Saying it out loud to someone I just met – I really didn’t learn anything from what happened earlier today, did I?

“Would you mind not asking why, and put on this bracelet for me?”

“What the heck does this have to do with anything!?”

The girl known as Twoearle suddenly pulled an object out of her coat pocket and handed it to me. It was a very beautiful glittering red bracelet.

Taking advantage of my confusion, she softly took the bracelet and gently prised my fingers apart.

“H-hey now―”

With a mischievous grin, she grabbed the back of my hand. At which point, a strange tingling feeling shot through my body.

“Now, please put it on.”

“He doesn’t need it!”

Leaning over the table, Aika roughly grabbed the bracelet and pushed it back towards Twoearle.

“What is with you?! You just waltz over here and start pus.h.i.+ng strange things onto him, how rude!”

“It is not anything suspicious.”

“At this point, it’s a little late to see it as anything but suspicious!”

As usual, she doesn’t hold back even with people we’ve just met.

...Well, I do agree it’s rather suspicious.

“...Uhm, well... hmm... ah!”

Twoearle abruptly clasped my hands and said, “It’s me, Souji-kun. Me.”

“...Eh?”

I was perplexed by her suddenly friendly tone.

“You remember me. Look, it’s me. Twoearle. You see, I’ve got a bit of a problem right now – so, could you please put that bracelet on?”

I think I’m imagining things, but the way she thoughtlessly leaned forward, exposing her cleavage to me, seemed as though she was begging for me to look at her ample chest.

“Uh, weeell...”

“What kind of idiot would use an ore-ore scam to someone’s face!”

“Eeaagh!”

A whirlwind tore past me as I hesitated. Aika hit Twoearle’s cheek with an open-palm strike of terrifying power, improved by a snap of the wrist.

“Are you insaaane?! Don’t hit people that you just met, seriously!! That was a really sharp sound!”

My shout was already close to a scream.

And it was no wonder. That wasn’t a slap but a little trick that aimed for the cheekbones ― one of the jujitsu techniques of the Mizukage school taught by Aika’s late grandfather. Overturning all theories of martial arts, it was meant to cause as much sharp and serious pain as possible to its target without moving the chest too much. Close to a torture technique.

And it had been carried out brilliantly and flawlessly by a mere high school girl.

It was no wonder that the old man had wanted to make her his successor right up until the moment he died.

“Souji, I’m sure this woman is a crook! Just like those people by the train station who say, I’ll tell your fortune, come into this alleyway! But then they have a bunch of people with mohicans and spikes on their shoulders or something waiting there for you!”

“I don’t know about the first part, but not the second!!”

If there is a villain here she’s in front of me.

Twoearle was bent over with a hand pressed against her cheek. I felt worried and looked over at her.

“A-are you okay? This girl, sometimes she doesn’t know when to hold back.”

She’s so beautiful, and she’s a foreigner. It would really suck if this turned into an international incident.

“Huh?... I was holding back, it shouldn’t be that...”

Aika started to look uneasy, although about at the level of a young kid with a knee sc.r.a.pe that you can fix by rubbing spit on it.

If you were holding back, then what was that noise.

“Oh, y, es... I am... fine...”

“Are you really okay...!?”

The way you’re cupping your cheek and trembling tells me that you’re not! I started to hold out my hand to her, and ―

“!”

Aika desperately caught my wrist.

“Oh.”

...Twoearle had gotten the bracelet into my blind spot and was trying to put it on my hand.

“So you were just acting!”

“Why are you trying this hard? What do you want me to put my hand in that bracelet for...!?”

Getting a little uncomfortable with this after all, I took a step back. And my heart felt like it went back a hundred meters.

“But I am not asking for any money! ...Just put it in! All I want you to do is put it in! Please put it in, if you don’t put it in I don’t know what I will do!! If you want me to, I will put it in for you.”

I’m pretty sure she’s talking about the bracelet, but you could hear it as something else, so stop, please.

“You can’t, Souji, if you put it on, they’ll say you can’t cancel any more or something and take a huge amount of money off you! Those mohawk guys are going to crash through the entrance of the store on armored buggies!!”

Aika’s got a keen sense of danger, but her information seems to be a little bit lopsided. Twoearle put her hands together as if praying and looked straight into my eyes.

“Please. I will do anything you want if you wear the bracelet...”

“Eh?”

My mind was screaming no, but my heart skipped a beat. My eyes moved towards Twoearle’s hair.

“Anything... you said?”

“Yes... I will do anything you ask of me. I will be fine with whatever special interests you may have! Especially the kinky stuff... ha... ha...”

For some reason, Twoearle was starting to breathe heavily. Her face was red.

“Don’t say things like that!”

This is bad.

Is this what you call a cultural divide? Are the differences in humanity that difficult to reconcile? Even though we speak the same language, I don’t think we’ll ever be on the same wavelength.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but asking him something like that is useless. The only thing he ever thinks about are twintails. He’d just ask you to tie your hair up or something.”

“R-really!? But, he’s a guy, isn’t he!?”

I’m not surprised that Aika could tell what I was thinking, but Twoearle seemed more than a little shocked.

If you say you’d do anything...

Yeah.

Of course.

Twintails.

Twoearle raised her hands, half-smiling.

“You must be kidding me... It is alright! Think of this as advance payment. I’ll let you squeeze them, right here... hurry... they’re surprisingly soft!”

Her softly wobbling chest seemed to explode in my vision. I didn’t know where to look.

Cupping her hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Twoearle thrust herself at me.

“Get away, you pervert! I’ll crush your spine in self-defense if you come any closer!”

Why are you even explaining to her what you’re going to do in self-defense?

“Calm down, Aika! ... I get it, I get it!”

I have to stop this mess before Aika crosses the line.

“I’ll take it. She said it was free, didn’t she? It’s almost like picking a tissue off the sidewalk. If that’s all it takes to make her happy ... it is free, isn’t it?”

“Of course!!”

Her sudden smile, like a flower blooming, caught me off guard. If only she’d act a little more normal...

“No! Don’t! She’s just trying to scam you! It’s like those spa treatment packages where they say the bath salts are free but it ends up being really expensive! She’s just like one of those door-to-door salesmen!!”

“What are you talking about this time?”

“If he does not wear it, the world will end! Also, it is against the law to bait people by giving out bath salts for free!”

“That’s exactly what I was saying, you free-bath-salt merchant!”

Seriously, what kind of a conversation is this? And what’s up with all the bath salts?

“Anyway, if you do not put this on! All the twintails in this world are going to vanis.h.!.+”

“―What!!”

Twoearle’s sudden exclamation was like a punch to my stomach. I stepped up to her.

“What the h.e.l.l did you just say!?”

“Hup.”

In that brief moment, Twoearle grabbed my arm, and slipped the bracelet onto my wrist.

“Wha―”

Normally, I wouldn’t have been caught off guard like that. However, the spirit-shattering thought of all the twintails in the world disappearing, coupled with that pair of all-encompa.s.sing, enveloping, Gaia-cla.s.s motherly b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressing against me ― the a.s.sault on my heart and mind left me unable to avoid it.

“Thank goodness. Like this, we will be ready when it finally appears.”

Looking at the clock, Twoearle breathed a sigh of relief before turning her teary eyes towards me.

Oh s.h.i.+t. I don’t think she noticed, but when she’s that close... every inch she moves makes her chest jiggle, pus.h.i.+ng their soft, undulating ma.s.s against my body... this is bad.

Stay strong, Mitsuka Souji! You mustn’t be defeated by something like this!

She’s a foreigner, okay? This level of intimacy is probably completely normal for her. Don’t imagine anything lewd! You’ll destroy the esteemed image of j.a.panese men if it ends up showing on your face!

“Take it off! Throw that thing away!!”

While I was lost in thought, Aika grabbed me by my neck, forcefully pulling me away from Twoearle’s embrace.

“Whoa!”

It felt as if I was flying. Can you believe it? She just lifted me up with one hand!

The sudden movement sent the cups, plates, and cutlery on the table flying all around me.

“Come on... h-huh!?”

Aika was pulling on the bracelet with both hands, her face twisted in exertion. Guess it fit better than I thought.

“Argh! I can’t... get it off!!”

“Ouch! Ow, ow, ow, ow!! What the h.e.l.l is this thing? It’s like a wedding ring that’s gotten stuck on a finger joint!”

And unlike Twoearle, Aika has no `cus.h.i.+ons’, so having her press herself against me was very uncomfortable to say the least.

“A wedding ring!? Aaargh——!”

“Yeaaargh!! Stop! You’ll rip my arm off!”

For some reason, Aika started pulling at it even harder than before. My arm jerked around as if it were a candle flame in the wind.

“This is... strange... Why is it... so tight...!? Look! There isn’t even... a gap on this... thing!”

She’s right. It’s made of metal, and definitely isn’t elastic. How did Twoearle even manage to get it on my arm in the first place!?

I wonder if you can unscrew this thing, I heard my childhood friend say. Stop! Humans don’t work that way!

I almost wanted to cry from the suspicion and despair flooding my mind.

It’s strange asking Twoearle to take it off after I let her put it on me, but I don’t have any choices left.

“Um, excuse me, could you please―”

In a flash.

We were enveloped in a retina-burning, polychromatic stream of light.

As if we were melting into the air, our bodies began fading away along with the light―

And then, we were gone.

“I am very sorry about all this, but I thought it would be faster than an explanation.”