September 2nd. Early morning.
Kuroha Akira woke first.
Despite having gone to bed incredibly late—or rather, incredibly early in the morning—his meticulously calibrated internal alarm clock still dragged him back to consciousness just before six. Biological clocks were cruel that way. They didn't care about your circumstances.
He opened his eyes and was immediately confronted with the white, expansive symbol of motherhood directly in front of his face. He'd slept on his side all night, his head pillowed against it. The softness was incomparable to any manufactured cushion—this was nature's original pillow, and it was spectacularly comfortable.
He'd only managed less than three hours of sleep, but somehow he'd still entered deep REM. No wonder infants slept so peacefully in their mothers' arms. It wasn't just psychological—it was physical. The "pillow" quality was simply unmatched. It genuinely felt like returning to the womb.
And so, against all odds, he'd actually slept through until morning, held securely in Toshiro's embrace.
Now came the real question: what was his next move?
Could he extricate himself quietly without waking her? Slip away like a ninja, leaving no trace of his overnight presence?
He couldn't just lie here and wait for her to wake naturally. Who knew how long a drunk person needed to sleep off the alcohol? And he had school. The cruel machinery of the Japanese education system waited for no man, regardless of his nighttime adventures.
Kuroha Akira decided to start with a strategic approach: carefully pry away Toshiro's arm from around his neck, creating enough space to escape.
The moment his fingers touched her forearm, she stirred.
"Hmm..."
Tashiro Kurenai frowned in her sleep and, apparently on pure instinct, tightened her grip.
"Ugh—!"
The sudden squeeze drove Kuroha Akira's face deeper into the valley. His nose was completely submerged, his nostrils pressed shut with no pathway for fresh air. For a terrifying moment, he understood the existential dread of suffocation.
He was going to be smothered by breasts!
Just kidding.
Humans were strange creatures, evolutionarily blessed with backup systems. When the nose failed, the mouth took over. Kuroha Akira opened his mouth slightly and began breathing through it, each exhale warm against her skin.
Problem solved.
Except the solution created a new problem.
The sensation of hot, rhythmic breath against her chest—like a small furnace pressed against her—slowly pulled Tashiro Kurenai from her drunken slumber. Her eyes fluttered open, still clouded with confusion.
Before her was... black weeds? No, that was hair.
The ethanol fog in her brain hadn't fully cleared. She reached down uncertainly and grabbed a handful of the black strands.
"Ugh..."
The hair made a sound.
This feedback delighted her intoxicated mind. How interesting! She continued playing with it, running both hands through the locks like a hairstylist working on a client, completely missing the context of the situation.
After a few moments of this amusement, some cognitive function returned. She realized the "weeds" were attached to something larger. And her body seemed... entangled with that something.
Sensations from all over—the warmth, the weight, the contact—gradually pulled her toward sobriety. A terrible suspicion formed in her mind, too horrifying to acknowledge. With trembling hands, she slowly pushed the hair aside.
Kuroha Akira's helpless, resigned expression came into view.
"...
!!!!"
When terror reached its absolute peak, the human body sometimes failed in fascinating ways. Her vocal cords locked up completely, unable to produce even a single scream. She opened her mouth wide in a silent shriek, her eyes rolling back, and promptly fainted again.
Just like that. Out cold.
Kuroha Akira finally regained his freedom.
He extracted himself from her embrace and stood up, stretching his stiff muscles. He scratched his head and glanced back at the two snow-white mounds that had been pressed against his face for hours, and the red bra that contained them...
Red. She wore red. That was... suggestive. A small, intrusive thought crossed his mind: were the bottoms also red? Not everyone could pull off red underwear, after all.
Of course, he only thought about it. Kuroha Akira wasn't about to actually check. But even without doing anything, the current scene was incriminating enough. If anyone walked in now, it would look exactly like the aftermath of something unspeakable.
He should probably be grateful she'd fainted silently instead of screaming. If she'd yelled and attracted the other Kobayashi residents, he'd never be able to explain this away.
But was she okay just fainting like that?
Worrisome possibilities floated through his mind: cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, cerebral hemorrhage... He'd read countless news stories in his previous life about people dying from alcohol-related incidents. And given his own rather undramatic death in his past life—just closing his eyes and never waking up—he knew how fragile human life could be.
So, armed with the perfectly legitimate excuse of "checking her vital signs," Kuroha Akira reached toward the pillow that had supported his face all night.
He could have taken her pulse. That would have been the logical, sensible approach. But some part of him—probably the male part—automatically skipped over that option in favor of something else.
The moment his hand made contact, he felt her heartbeat twice before her eyes snapped open.
"Ugh..."
Tashiro Kurenai's eyes focused immediately this time, and what she saw was herself in a state of partial undress with Kuroha Akira's hand positioned over her breast.
Caught red-handed. Literally.
Kuroha Akira's brain short-circuited for a moment before instinct took over. He raised both hands high in the air, striking the classic "I surrender" pose, and launched into damage control mode.
"Miss Toshiro! Please don't misunderstand! I was just checking your heartbeat—I was worried something might be wrong with you after you passed out! I had absolutely no other intentions! Pure medical concern! One hundred percent!"
Tashiro Kurenai covered her chest with one arm and fixed him with a teasing, knowing gaze. A light chuckle escaped her lips.
"Heh... you little pervert."
"Uh..."
The tone was so perfectly older sister. Playful, unbothered, almost amused.
It was like she'd become a completely different person from the weeping, desperate woman of the night before.
But Kuroha Akira wasn't surprised. Miss Toshiro had always been like this—her personality fluctuated depending on the context. The version he encountered at night was timid, socially anxious, barely able to make eye contact. She'd hide rather than greet him.
During the day, however, she occasionally revealed this mature, steady side. It suited her age, carried the approachable charm of the girl next door, and radiated a certain grounded stability.
Every functioning member of society wore multiple masks. The face you showed your boss differed from the one you showed colleagues, which differed from the one you showed friends, which differed from the one you showed parents. Corporate slaves learned early that survival required knowing which mask to wear and when.
Recalling Toshiro's heartfelt, desperate pleas from last night—the raw, unfiltered cry for help from someone at their breaking point—Kuroha Akira felt a pang of understanding. She'd accumulated tremendous stress in her workplace. That much was obvious.
Now all of that was buried deep again. Tashiro Kurenai had switched back to her composed mode, the mask firmly in place.
But the hangover wasn't so easily masked. She clutched her forehead, a pained groan escaping.
"Ugh... my head is killing me... I really overdid it with the drinking..."
She shook her head slowly, located the shirt she'd discarded earlier, and pulled it on. Then, to Kuroha Akira's surprise, she thanked him.
"Akira, thank you. I must have caused you a lot of trouble last night."
"It's fine." He paused. "But Miss Toshiro... why did you drink so much?"
A bitter smile curved her lips.
"How to explain it... I was at a point where I felt like giving up, so I tried to numb myself with alcohol. I thought it would be fine—I didn't expect to actually get affected..."
Wait.
Did she think she had a high alcohol tolerance? Was she surprised she got drunk?
But her entire body had been flushed red last night—that was the classic sign of someone whose constitution couldn't handle alcohol. Did she seriously not know her own limits?
Could this have been... her first time getting drunk?
At twenty-four?
What an eccentric older sister. Truly.