Chapter 22.

Chapter 22. Midterms (7/7)

Her head lowered and the smile on her face gradually disappeared. Seeing how drastically the mood was changing I decided to change topics.

“Anyway, that sort of stuff doesn’t bother me so you shouldn’t let it bother you either. The fact of the matter is, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life right now. I have my precious girlfriend by my side to keep me company and I’m not lost trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life like other students may be. There’s something I sincerely enjoy doing from the bottom of my heart right now. I just want to live a simple life, with a simple job, and enjoy doing the one thing I found that I love doing from the bottom of my heart.”

“Something you love doing from the bottom of your heart? What is it?”

“Hmm… sorry, that’s a secret~”

“Jeez, what the heck? Don’t get my hopes up and then don’t tell me what it is~”

“It’s pretty embarrassing, so for the time being I’ll definitely not reveal it.”

“So in the future, you might?”

“Even in the future, I might not be willing to reveal it. If anyone discovered it… I wouldn’t have a hole deep enough to bury my head.”

“Would you be mad if I found out?”

“No. But I’d still rather you don’t.”

“Since you say you won’t be mad, I’ll figure it out myself. Don’t tell me though. You figured me out so easily without me needing to say anything. I definitely want to see your surprised, shocked, and embarrassed face when I figure it out. It’s not fair how I’m the only one reacting all the time and you’re always maintaining that annoying unchanging poker face. I’ll definitely break that mask and see everything one day.”

I raised my arms and pulled her close into my embrace.

“W-What’s this all of a sudden?” She stuttered out when I spontaneously hugged her without warning.

“For a second I thought I just wanted to hug you.”

“At least say something beforehand or my heart might jump out of my chest.”

“It seems you’re not very good when you’re on the receiving end of an attack, huh?”

“Shut up. Who asked you?” She raised her arms and wrapped them around my back.

Somehow it felt like our roles were reversed. It was like I ended up comforting her when I noticed she was still somewhat downcast on my behalf after our little talk.

“Hey, I’m being serious right now. If you’re still thinking about what I said before, you really don’t need to feel sad about anything. As long as you’re beside me, I’m happy from the bottom of my heart.” I decided to reassure her one more time.

She nodded meekly in my arms. Seeing her being cute, I pressed my lips to her forehead.

Returning my gesture she tilted her head up in my arms and kissed my neck softly.

Looking at the time it was honestly quite late.

“Hey, we should probably get to bed now, it’s really late already. I can sleep on the couch and you can just sleep on your bed.”

She shook her head from side to side.

“You don’t want to go to sleep yet?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. If we’re going to bed… don’t you think it’s fine if we share the bed? My bed’s pretty big, it can easily hold the two of us. It should be a problem.”

“Uh… you sure it’s a problem of whether it can hold both of us?”

“What do you mean? Is there anything weird about a boy and girl who are dating to share a bed?”

“Well… will you even be able to fall asleep if we’re sharing the bed? If you can’t fall asleep, won’t it defeat the purpose to begin with?”

“It won’t be a problem. Or could it be that you’re the one who’s afraid you won’t be able to sleep when you’re next to your pretty girlfriend on the same bed?” She suddenly took the offensive.

Not willing to take her sass, I stood up, placed my left arm under her knees, and my right arm behind her back then lifted her up off the ground.

“W-What are you doing out of nowhere! P-Put me down! I can walk to my bed on my own!” Despite her protest, she didn’t really put up much resistance to break out of my arms. It seemed she’d just put up a front for show. 

“We’ll just have to see who’s the one who can’t fall asleep. I’ll have you know, I’m sleepy as hell already. So, which way is your bedroom?”

Playing uncharacteristically shy, she raised her index finger and pointed out the direction of her room. “It’s that one, you jerk.”

I carried her to the door and she opened it for me. When I entered the room the scent I’d gotten used to throughout the rest of her apartment became much more pronounced. 

Her room was filled with a dresser and mirror in the far right corner, on top of it were a bunch of accessories. Her clothes were either neatly folded and stored away or on a hanger in her closet room just to the left of her dresser.

There were a variety of different beauty products and bottles of perfumes. There was some makeup, but it didn’t look like she had too much. It seems she didn’t rely on makeup that often.

At the far left corner of the room, she had a table and desk set up. She had a large rather bulky desktop PC chassis set up to the right of the desk on the ground. There was a large 40-inch flatscreen monitor mounted to the wall hung over the desk. The desk itself had her keyboard and mouse for her desktop PC. 

Closed, directly to the left of it was what appeared to be a laptop. There was also a gaming controller somewhat hidden behind a few other things on her desk which I found rather unexpected. She might enjoy playing video games in secret. She honestly hadn’t struck me as that type in the slightest. I never would have expected it or found out if I hadn’t visited her room.

“Uh… can you stop staring so much? It’s a bit embarrassing. I did tidy up a bit but… still.”

“Sorry about that… I think it’s probably my first time in a girl’s room now that I think about it. Your PC is pretty bulky

I closed the door behind us and looked over to the left where her bed was located. The short side was against the left wall in the room but it wasn’t pushed up against the wall on its longer side, there was a small gap between the wall and the long side of the bed, enough room for a person to walk.

I moved over to the right side of the bed and dropped her. Yes, I dropped her.

“Hya! Put me down properly on the bed, gently, gently! You got that? Do it again!”

“What? But I’m pretty tired right now~  It took all my energy just to get to the bed~”

She was fuming after I’d suddenly disrupted the food mood we had going. But I had to, if I kept things up we would have proceeded a lot quicker than I wanted to. I still needed to ensure I had appropriate rewards for each study session and I intended to gradually ramp up the value of those rewards each day.

Unfortunately, she’d just have to settle for a slightly brutish approach.

She glared at me demanding I do it over with her eyes.

I opened my mouth and cut her a deal.

“How about we make that tomorrow’s reward if you get everything we go over correct at the end? In fact… each day before the study session begins, how about there being a different reward. Each day it gets progressively… better? Does that sound acceptable to you?”

When she heard my offer she blinked once and thought it over before she opened her mouth.

“I’d like a bit more tomorrow than just you carrying me to the bed though. Is that fine?”

“Well, I can think of something. It should be fine. You’ll only get to find out tomorrow before we start studying what it is though.”

“Hmm, is it at least something I’d like?”

“I think so unless I’m greatly misunderstanding something. I wouldn’t use it as a reward if I wasn’t somewhat sure it would motivate you.”

“Fine then. I’ll agree. Those rewards better be good though.”

I made my way around to the other side, opposite the direction she faced, and laid down sideways with my back to her.

“If you have any complaints about them just let me know then and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Heheh, if that’s the case then I can relax.”

She pulled on the sheet on her side of the bed and rolled a bit closer to me and wrapped the two of us up. She ended up rather close to my back, to the point I could feel her warm breath whenever she exhaled onto it.

She didn’t go much further than that though. She simply placed her hand on my back and held onto my shirt. 

“This much should be fine for now, right?”

I pretended to already be asleep and didn’t respond.

“What? No way… asleep? Already?” She whispered to herself in disbelief.

“Jeez, at least pretend you’re a bit nervous to sleep together on the same bed as your girlfriend for the first time, you jerk.” She voiced a quiet complaint but didn’t try to really wake me up.

“Well… thanks for the hard work. Haha… though... you wouldn’t hear that now I guess.”

The bed rustled a bit and I could feel her heat drawing a bit closer. Eventually, I felt something warm, soft, slightly moist press up gently against the back of my neck.

Was that supposed to be a goodnight kiss? Really, taking advantage of a guy who’s allegedly asleep and forcing one on them. My girlfriend’s a bit too cute.

I had an urge to speak up and tease her a bit, but if I did that, who knew when we’d fall asleep.

After a while in silence, I heard steady breaths from behind. It seemed she herself was rather tired after studying for so long.

With a foreign warm sensation engulfing my heart that I wasn’t all too familiar with, I slowly drifted off and felt as if I was floating on fluffy clouds. It didn’t take long before I fell asleep to the reassuring sound of steady gentle breaths behind me and the intoxicating scent wafting off from the pillow my head was on.