The Burning Desire to Save

Chapter 12

Twelve minutes after leaving the festival together, Yui and Rentaro walked into the former's house, which was next to the shop her family owned. As the two of them took their shoes off and then walked through the kitchen, Yui asked Rentaro, "Do you have anything on under the yukata besides underwear?"

"No," he replied. "What about you?"

"Just a bra and underwear," Yui remarked. "The way the gods intended it. I'd go braless, but my boobs are a bit big for that, and I don't want them flopping around in case I have to run. It also kinda doesn't work when you have to go to the station in a yukata and change into your work uniform before putting your gear on. I'd rather not flash the guys while taking it off, after all."

"Ah, so you leave your work uniform at the station when you go to the festival, too?"

"You pretty much have to. Otherwise, you can't get your gear on properly and you won't be able to go to the call."

"So, uh... What do you want to do? We could watch a movie or some TV, right?"

"Yeah," Yui replied. "There's some really good anime airing this season, so we could watch an episode or two of whatever's on now. This whole year's been really good, actually."

"You follow a lot of anime, Kitagawa-san?"

"I'm not an anime otaku or anything," she clarified. "If that's what you're thinking."

"I didn't say you were."

"I do like quite a few shows. I appreciate good art and good stories. What about you?"

"I know a lot about anime," Rentaro explained. "When you work at a convenience store, especially at midnight, you can catch a lot of the more mature shows they air around like ten or eleven in the evening before you head to work, or even some around one or two in the morning if you work the evening shift. They also have a lot of merch they sell at our store, not to mention the various manga magazines, too. One of my coworkers is basically an anime otaku, so I get a lot of news about anime and manga from him, too."

"Ah, nice. I usually can't catch most late-night anime when they air since I still got a year left in high school and gotta wake up early for either that or for the diving shop. I usually have to hope someone uploads an illegal copy online later or maybe try to find foreigners who subtitle it in English."

Rentaro chuckled in response to her. Speaking of his own sleep schedule, he told her, "I don't think I've gone to sleep any earlier than like eleven at night since I graduated back in March," Rentaro replied with a shrug. "I went from maintaining a strict 10 PM bedtime so I could wake up on time for school to basically not giving a shit anymore as long as I woke up in time for work or for firefighting classes."

"That reminds me of something. Hang on. Let me show you a blu-ray of a show I got a few months ago." Yui then went to go get the boy-ray case from another room, but she accidentally bumped into Rentaro, causing something to fall out of his yukata and onto the floor. "Huh?"

Immediately embarrassed, Rentaro quickly picked it up and blushed. "I got it!"

"What was that?"

"It was nothing, I swear!"

"Wait a minute..." Yui then realized what he had picked up. "Did... Did you just drop a condom?"

"I..."

"Don't lie to me," Yui warned him as she got closer to him, leaning her face into his. "Was it a condom or not, Nojima-san?"

Not wanting to lie to her and potentially ruin the night, Rentaro admitted, "Okay, yes, it was. I bought a pack at the convenience store I work at before I met up with you. That's why I was a few minutes late, Kitagawa-san."