courage dear heart | Yuki Ishikawa

13

Ishikawa's POV

I covered my face with one hand, frustrated by the situation.

Every time Nabi looks at me with those big green eyes, I lose all sense of reason.

But her eyes are so addictive that I wouldn't want to do anything else all day but stare into them.

That's why I turned her face towards me—I didn't want to feel like I did the first night we met, when she was doing everything she could to avoid my gaze.

I wanted those beautiful green eyes always focused on me.

But I wasn't prepared to see her with her cheeks tinted pink, and her eyes almost trembling under my stare. Her lips were so full and pink that I couldn't resist the temptation to find out how soft they were. And when she lowered her gaze to my lips...

I would have sold my soul to the devil just to know if they tasted as sweet as they looked.

And then, of course, her phone decided to cut my fantasies short.

I needed help, so I grabbed my phone to text Tomo.
Yuki: "Tomo, we need to talk."
A few seconds later, he replied.

Tomo: "It was Ran who hid Taishi's shoes, not me!"

I frowned at the message.

Yuki: "?? I need to talk to you about something else. Do you remember what you told me that first night when I came to get my suitcase?"

Tomo took a while to respond this time. I could see him typing, then stopping, then starting again. He finally deleted his initial message as if I hadn't already seen it.

Tomo: "Whenever you're ready :)"

I put my phone away just as Nabi came out of the bathroom.

I hadn't seen her dressed for snowboarding before. She was wearing a long-sleeve black thermal shirt, a t-shirt, and pants that were way too big for her, making her seem even smaller—and I found her adorable.

The complete opposite of this morning, when those damn leggings hugged her long legs and everything else just so perfectly...

There you go again Yuki, calm down, man...

When I first saw her in the gym, I was struck by how intensely she was working out—she wasn't holding back at all. Then, when she turned toward me, oh Gosh, she killed me.

I cursed myself for acting like some horny middle-school kid, but without thinking, I ended up checking her out, practically staring at her from head to toe.

Of course, she caught me, almost daring me with her gaze—she knew exactly what she was doing to me.

I had to look away and focus hard on Ran and his silly dance moves to avoid getting a boner right there in the middle of the gym... That would have been really embarrassing.

She grabbed her gear and looked at me with a thoughtful frown.

"I think you might want to grab something warmer if you don't want to freeze out there."

I looked down at my t-shirt. "Right, I'll just run back to my room and change."

I rushed to my room to change into something warmer and caught up with her by the elevator.

She explained that they wouldn't be heading up the mountain today, but instead, they would be training on jumps with big airbags—large inflatables where they could practice jumps safely.

"My goal is to land a backside 1800 triple cork, which is a trick with five spins and three flips... It's really tough to pull off and a bit dangerous too," she said, with a slightly more serious look than usual.