CH ss - 32

SS 32: The Couple Fighting Off Sleepiness

Translated by: chocolalaProofread by: Seiryuu

“Huaaahhh…What a good weather today,” In the literature club room as always, Yuzu tried to hold in her yawns.

Both of us were in the middle of leveling up to prepare for the upcoming boss battle, Yuzu seemed to be getting sleepy by the simple actions of defeating the weaklings, over and over.

“Well, this is what people call balmy autumn weather.”

The afternoon sun shining through the windows was neither too hot nor too cool, but it warmed the air in the clubroom just right. This perfect weather was soothing to my tired head after a day of classes, and I was feeling very sleepy as well as Yuzu.

“Huaaa… Even I’m getting sleepy here.”

“Yamato-kun too? Oh, by the way, what do you think of me when you’re sleepy? After all, no matter how sleepy you are, it won’t change how cute you think I am?”

“Oh my, even at a time like this, what’re you being bothered of?”

No matter how sleepy I am, it won’t change how bemused I can be of her.

“Whatever, we can’t play games like this. Let’s call it a day?”

Games are entertainment. It’s not something you have to force yourself to do, with that in mind, so I suggested that.

However, Yuzu showed a conflicted expression.

“Mmm… That’s okay too, but for a few days onwards, I heard that they’ll be doing a maintenance check on this old building, and probably we can’t enter here, you know? We also advanced the game till the good part, but if we skipped playing for a few days, I’m gonna forget the story…”

“Hm… That’s quite a dreadful situation.”

We were about to battle the boss ahead. If the situation wouldn’t allow us to get caught up in the emotions there, we might be lost in what we were playing an RPG for any more.

“Then, there’s no choice. Let’s do something to chase this sleepiness away.”

When I changed my mind, Yuzu put down the controller and nodded while stretching.

“I agree. It’s a bit of a waste to stop here.”

So we went to the save point and ended the game. Then I held my smartphone instead of the controller.

“Hmmm, methods to beat drowsiness… here we go.”

I searched the keywords, and picked up a random site that appeared.

“There’s this thing called ‘wake-up pressure points’. They say you can wake yourself up by pressing it.”

“That sounds good! Let’s try.” Yuzu also seemed to be interested as she peeked into my phone from the side.

“First, let’s try pressing this acupuncture point called ‘Labor Palace’.”

“Okay. Hm, it says, ‘The point that exists at the centre of the palm. Stimulate this point by pressing it using the other hand’s thumb.’” Yuzu pressed her palm while looking at the example on the phone.

However, she didn’t seem to feel the effect; her eyebrows were knitted close as he tilted her head in wonder.

“Not getting it well? Shall I do it for you?” I suggested.

For some reasons, Yuzu’s eyes snapped up in admiration as she replied, “Oh, that’s nice! I’m happy to have my pressure points pressed to help me stay awake and Yamato-kun is happy to legally hold my hand. That’s a great suggestion, Yamato-kun. Is it possible that you anticipated this and suggested the pressure points? If so, you’re quite a schemer.”

“I just received the most unpleasant overrated compliment in the world. I wouldn’t have the brains to go to all that trouble for such skin-to-skin contact, you know.”

“No, no, you don’t have to be so modest. If you’re my boyfriend, you have to be at least capable of doing that much, alright?”

“If so, I’m a failure as your boyfriend. I’m sorry for not being good enough for you.”

In spite of our silly exchange, I held Yuzu’s hand. The thin, white hand was a little lower in body temperature than mine and softer.

“How, did that make your heart skip a beat?”

“Of course not. I’ll be pressing it now.” I brushed aside Yuzu’s uptight teasing and began to press the pressure points. I slowly increased the force so that it would not hurt and asked her current condition, “Has your sleepiness gone away?”

“I don’t know yet, it won’t be that immediate. But it’s very good that I can feel Yamato-kun’s concern for me. I feel love.”

“You’re talking out of your sleep… Apparently the sleepiness hasn’t gone away.”

Pressing the acupoint didn’t work.

I released Yuzu’s hand and searched for the next method on the smartphone. “There’s ‘Waking up by cool air’… It’s clear that we simply need to make it cooler. I’ll open a window.”

It was not very promising in such a nice weather, but still, maybe there would be a nice breeze to cool us down. With a little hope, I opened the window… but unfortunately there was no wind.

And at that moment-

*blows*

I could feel Yuzu’s breath flowing on my neck.

“WHOAAA?!” It was such a surprise that I jumped back, screeching. “WH-what the hell are you doing?”

I glared at the culprit while covering my neck.

“Well, there was no wind, so I thought I could blow some artificial wind instead.”

“’Your thoughtfulness turned out horribly wrong! I’m sorry, but it was a rather unpleasant experience!”

Well, it did wake me up in the right way.

“*pouts* You should be pleased about that. You’re the only one in the whole world, you know? The only person who can make me do something like this for you.”

“I see… There are so many people in the world and I don’t think I can share my current discomfort with anyone then.”

People are lonely creatures, I thought to myself.

“Rather than that, since there’s no wind, let’s find other ways.”

When I was lightly contemplating about life, Yuzu thought it was a waste of time and started to check on her phone.

“Hmmm, it says here it’s good to pull the ears.”

“Ears? What the heck?” At first thought, the act was completely unrelated and made me cock my head in confusion.

“They say there’s an acupuncture point in the ear which can be stimulated by pulling on it.”

“Wow. That’s my first time hearing it.”

“You mean you’ve never heard of it?”1

“Shut up.”

I was annoyed but I simply gave the smug-face Yuzu a cursory glance and pinched my earlobes.

“Hm… It feels like my sleepiness went away, but not really?”

I suspected the pain of the pulling might give it an immediate effect, and it seemed to work better than the pressure points on my hands. Well, a little bit, really.

“Hmmm, it does seem to work a little bit, if you ask me. But the effect will wear off soon.” Yuzu was also disappointed that the effect was so subtle and took her hand away from her ear.

And then she seemed to think of something and her expression suddenly brightened.

“Oh, yes. Why don’t we pull on each other’s ears as we did with the hand points?”

“Why? It’s not difficult to do this, is it?”

“Yes. But you see, Yamato-kun is still a novice boyfriend, so I’m sure you’ll wake up with a jolt of excitement when you touch me. So, what do you think of this considerate me?”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say except that I was annoyed.

Therefore, I decided to argue back, “You’re the one who’s a novice in this. Did you forget the ‘Chocolate Bonbon Earlobe Incident’? Who was nearly embarrassed to death when someone touched her ear?

It was an incident where I got drunk after eating a chocolate bonbon with brandy and went on a rampage, becoming a sorry sight. It was an abominable tragedy that had left me traumatised, but I had no choice but to bring it up after what she said.

“Oh, that was because Yamato-kun got drunk and had a mysterious personality on display!”

She must have remembered that incident, because her face turned a little red.

“If it’s the usual lame Yamato-kun, I’m not afraid of being touched on the earlobe! In addition, if both of us were to touch each other, Yamato-kun would have died of embarrassment before I would. Therefore, I’m safe!” She talked petulantly when all she had was paper armoured mentality.

Well, now she has said that much, how can I forfeit here? It’s time for battle!

“Owh? You really wanna try? Let’s see who’ll die of embarrassment first!”

“Bring it on! Now it’s time for my cuteness to render someone dead!”

We faced each other with sparks flying.

“One, two, go!”

Then we both pulled on each other’s ears at the same time. As soon as I felt the plump earlobe on my fingers, I felt Yuzu’s small hand pull my ear.

“Ngh..”

“Mmmmn…”

Clearly both of us were embarrassed, but we tried our best to hide it by frowning and making angry faces.

The ears usually wouldn’t be the part of the body that people touch. For that reason, the situation of touching each other’s ears gave me… a peculiar sense of immorality or perhaps bashfulness…

No-no! If my train of thoughts went that way, I’d surely be the first to die of embarrassment!

“Yo-your face is red, Yamato-kun. Isn’t it better to give up already?” Yuzu urged me to surrender, while looking redder than I was.

“Do-don’t look down at me! I can still manage it, no problem at all. You’re the one who’s turning as red as an apple, aren’t you pushing yourself?”

“I-I’m alright!”

However, both of us were nearing our limits. If we continued to fight in a dead heat, we could both be knocked out. To prevent that, something must be done-

“Yamato-kun,” just before I could collect my thoughts, Yuzu called my name. She looked me straight in the eye and gave me a small smile as she spoke directly to me in a different, more honest tone of voice than usual, “I love you.”

Oh no…! She caught me by surprise, one step ahead of me!

“Urgh… Ngggghhh!”

The dam of my spirit, which had built up to its limit, was given one last nudge and broke. To avoid dying of embarrassment, I removed my hand from Yuzu’s ear and slumped down.

“M-my lost…! You’ve got some nerve coming up with a line like that at that moment.”

My face was hot and my heart hammering hard.

It was my complete defeat. I bet I could set a world record for fastest heart rate right now.

“Dammit… I couldn’t believe I could lose to the paper tiger Yuzu.”

When I calmed down a little bit, my frustration started to rise up slowly. I looked forward in fear, wondering how much more Yuzu would tease me.

Then, for some reason, she was crouched down in front of me, holding her face with her hands.

“Um, Yuzu?” Worried, I tried to look into her face, but she was still red up to her ears, covering her face with her hands and trembling.

“Stop, don’t look over here! Don’t look at me, I was going to make a joke out of it, but it came out sounding surprisingly honest!”

“Err…No-no, isn’t that your plan?”

“No, I didn’t! That’s why it’s so embarrassing! No, don’t look at me! Forget what I just said!”

Unexpectedly, Yuzu, who was supposed to have scored the finishing blow, recoiled and died of embarrassment.

“Aaaaaahhh…! Just why did I have to let out my true voice there…?! And it was the perfect timing to win over you!”

What a no-win situation. We learned the hard way how futile fighting could be.

“Hmm… We only intended to fight off the sleepiness, but now it only makes us even more tired.” I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall.

“True… I wanna take a break.” Yuzu, who was still red-faced but had recovered enough to talk, also leaned against the wall some distance away.

“Let continue our game… after the break…”

“Ok…ay…”

Two exhausted brain, two minds on the verge of embarrassment, and a sunny day.

Thus there was only one conclusion.

“ZzZzZz…”

“*snores*”

Later, we only woke up when the final school bell marking the school was closing rang.

chocolala: Yay, more sugary-sweet moments, but there, Yuzu slipped! But well, their relationship remains the same. I think the only time they would officially accept each other in real romantic term is when Yamato actually proposes marriage (who knows even if that’ll happen)… But anyway, SS chapters would be out sporadically whenever I get the chapter done, so see you next time!

Footnotes

This is actually a joke lost in translation and I can’t figure out any way to make an English version of the joke. Yamato-kun was using the phrase ‘hatsumimi’ (first time hearing it) and Yuzu joked with that ‘mimi’ (ear) since they’re talking about ears.