Chapter 403.

Chapter 403.

Chapter 403. A Heart-Pounding Day Together with My Girlfriend: Eating Marshmallows while Telling a Campfire Story. (4/4)

Truly... getting deported when she did was the worst-case scenario. Having me with that timing too. Looking at it, everything was working against her. It was as if she was cursed. Plagued by misfortune after misfortune, a never-ending sequence of calamities and hardship. The world rejected her. She was one of the unlucky ones.

Nothing could be done about it.

That was life.

Nature’s natural course.

Her life was filled with ups and downs.

Untold hardships and pain.

From it, I understood working your ass off didn’t guarantee you anything in life.

There were countless hard workers just like my mother chasing after a pipe dream who met a similar end.

When I saw reality for what it was after I graduated from university and understood everything, I gave up on chasing the dream we were fed as children of those fancy unobtainable high-paying jobs.

One day, I eventually took things into my own hands. What started out as a little hobby while I was working several shitty jobs at once turned into a means to earn some money on the side. I worked at it for years on end until I was able to cut down on the number of jobs I had to work at once.

I wrote like a madman. As if my life was on the line while doing something I discovered I enjoyed the most.

I limited my life to forty years.

I wouldn’t slave away forever the way my mother did.

I took things calmly as they came and went at life with a level head. I never panicked or freaked out over everything the way she did. If something awful fell upon me, I took it on with an ‘Oh well, so what’s new?’ attitude.

Living that way, I was content at the end of my forty years. I didn’t believe there was anything wrong with me even if I was a defective, failure of a human from society’s point of view.

Others would have thought I was pitiful, but I enjoyed life my own way. I couldn’t care less whether people thought I was successful or not.

Success meant nothing to me, it was something completely worthless.

I was more than content being a failure so long as I enjoyed it.

In my eyes, failure was something far more interesting than success.

“Ran, what are you thinking about right now?” Rosa suddenly spoke up and broke my chain of thought.

“I’m not thinking about anything.”

“Liar, you’ve obviously been thinking about something depressing.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well aside from the listless spaced-out look in your eyes, there’s also the neutral expression on your face.”

A simple smile from them was all it took for you to feel over the moon. I naturally wouldn’t ever admit to that out loud though. I’d definitely keep that a closely guarded secret to my grave.

“So, shall we head to bed now?”

“Yeah. Let’s call it a night.”

I dumped an eight-inch-long piece of log that was harder to burn which would keep the fire going overnight in the fireplace. We’d prepared it in advance earlier in the day when setting up camp. It wasn’t close enough to anything that would catch on fire, plus, with the three rocks and our tent around it blocking out the majority of the wind, we didn’t need to worry about it spreading. It was well contained.

The two of us entered the tent together.

Inside we only had a single sleeping bag laid out on the ground. We decided to just share it as we were traveling light. I got into the sleeping bag first at Rosa’s behest.

Before she entered the sleeping bag Rosa suddenly pulled her arms inside the shirt she had on.

“Are you cold?” I couldn’t help but ask when she did that.

“It’s a little chilly.”

“It’s not that bad, is it?”

“You’ve lived in a cold city a lot longer than I have. My cold resistance just isn’t as high as yours.”

“Hmm, I suppose you’re right.”

“Therefore, it’s your job to keep me warm.” She slipped inside the sleeping bag as she said that. My vision went dark and I felt something pull over my head.

I felt the warmth of her bare skin directly. It took me a second to realize what happened. She’d pulled my head under the shirt she had on. My face slid along her belly up and over her soft breasts until my head popped through the collar. My chin ended up in a position over her right shoulder. Our bodies were stuck closely together with the elasticity of the shirt squeezing down on our bodies.

It only hit me when our bare skin was touching that I’d completely forgotten to put my shirt back on and I’d been shirtless this entire time.

“Was this really necessary?”

“I want to sleep like this. I can’t?” Rosa questioned cutely while she wrapped around my back under the shirt and snuggled closer.

“I guess... it’s fine.”

“Then please do a good job and keep me warm throughout the night.”

“Sure, I will.”

After I zipped up the sleeping bag, I hugged her back beneath the shirt.

Listening to the sound of her breathing and feeling her heart at ease beating through her chest, I felt calm. At peace. Nothing else in the world mattered right now. Like this, it only took a short minute to fall asleep.

If this is what Heaven is like, sign me up.

Well, I’m a devil so this might actually be Hell and I just don’t realize it.

If so, Hell really isn’t such a bad place after all.

I think I’ve grown quite fond of Hell.