Clara reached out. She grabbed Liora's left shoulder. She gave it a firm shake.
"Liora," Clara whispered sharply.
Liora didn't wake up. She just shifted her weight and buried her face deeper into Zenjiro's shoulder.
Clara shook her much harder. "Wake up right now."
Liora groaned. It was a rough, annoyed sound deep in her throat. She kept her eyes completely closed.
"Transfer to your own bed," Clara ordered. "You are bothering your brother. He cannot sleep well if you place your heavy arm and leg all over him like a giant blanket."
Liora frowned in her sleep. She raised her left hand. She pushed Clara's fingers roughly away from her shoulder.
"Leave me alone, Mom," Liora mumbled. Her voice was thick and heavy with sleep. "I am trying to sleep."
"Get up," Clara said. She reached down and grabbed Liora's waist. She tried to physically roll her off Zenjiro's body. "You have your own mattress. Go use it. This is completely ridiculous."
Liora actively resisted the pull. She hooked her right leg much tighter around Zenjiro's knees. She clamped her right hand firmly onto his shirt. She anchored herself tightly to his body.
"No," Liora whined. She kicked her left foot blindly at the empty air. "It is freezing over there. It is warm right here. Go away."
Clara pulled harder. "It is not freezing at all. You are just being incredibly stubborn. Move."
"Stop pulling me," Liora complained loudly. She pushed her face harder into Zenjiro's neck. "You are going to ruin my sleep. Just leave me alone."
Clara finally let go of her waist. She stood up straight. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. She looked completely exhausted. The argument was entirely useless. Liora was too tired to listen to any reason.
Clara looked down at Zenjiro. "It is entirely your fault, Zenjiro-kun. You spoiled her way too much."
Zenjiro kept his voice perfectly flat. "I am sorry, Mother. I just wanted to be a good brother to her. I guess I overdid it."
Clara shook her head. The hard tension in her face softened just a little bit.
"You do not need to apologize," Clara said. Her voice dropped to a much quieter volume. "Years ago, I made a request to you. I asked you to be a good big brother to her. It is fine. But do not spoil her too much. When you were still little kids, this was not an issue at all. But you both are growing up now."
Zenjiro blinked. He stared at Clara's face. He heard her words perfectly, but he did not understand the meaning behind them at all.
He was actually unsocial. He had absolutely no friends in school. He never hung out with other boys. His only friend in the entire world was Hina, and she was gone far away now. He spent his entire life inside his house or reading heavy books.
He could solve a complex mechanical problem easily, but he lacked normal social cues at the moment. He didn't know what Clara was talking about. He didn't understand the hidden implications about maturity, gender separation, and inappropriate physical closeness.
To him, they still fit on the mattress. The physical space was sufficient. He thought Clara just wanted Liora to sleep on her own bed to stop stealing his blankets.
"I will take her to her bed, Mother," Zenjiro said. He braced his arms against the mattress. He prepared to push Liora's heavy body off his chest. "I will do it right now."
He tensed his stomach muscles to sit up.
"No," Clara said quickly. She held up her hand to stop him. "Do not stand up."
Zenjiro relaxed his arms. He lay flat again.
"If you force her to transfer beds right now," Clara explained, "she might wake up completely. Then she will complain about the cold and she will blame me for ruining her night. I do not have the energy to argue with her until sunrise. Just let her stay there. Go back to sleep."
Clara leaned down. She grabbed the thick blue blanket from the floorboards. She shook the dust off the fabric. She tossed it over the bed. She pulled the heavy material all the way up. She covered both of them securely above their shoulders to block the chill.
"Goodnight," Clara whispered.
She turned around. She walked out of the room. She grabbed the brass handle and pulled the heavy wooden door shut. The latch clicked loudly.
Zenjiro was alone with Liora again.
He turned his head to the right. He looked at Liora. She was sleeping completely peacefully again. The brief argument with her mother hadn't disturbed her deep rest at all. Her face was incredibly close to his cheek.
His right shoulder felt entirely numb. The heavy weight of her head cut off the blood flow to his arm. A dull, throbbing ache started to build deep in his joint. He didn't complain. He just endured the sharp pins and needles spreading down to his fingers.
Ten minutes passed in the quiet room.
Liora shifted her heavy weight in her sleep. She grumbled softly. Her head slipped off the high curve of his shoulder.
She slid straight down his side. Her face pressed firmly against his ribs. Her nose landed directly against his right underarm.
She stopped moving. She settled into the new position. She took a deep, slow breath right against his armpit.
Zenjiro's eyes went completely wide. Total panic hit him like a punch to the stomach.
He remembered his terrible choice from earlier that evening. He was too exhausted to care about basic hygiene. He had completely skipped his bath. He had sweat through his shirt while walking home from the park in the warm spring wind. His underarm probably smelled terrible. It was likely a foul, sharp odor of dried sweat and street dirt.
Liora was breathing it directly into her lungs.
"Liora," Zenjiro hissed. He reached over quickly with his left hand. He grabbed her shoulder and pushed hard. "Move your head. Wake up."
She didn't wake up. She just whined loudly in her sleep. She tightened her grip. Her right arm wrapped completely around his waist. Her right leg locked his knees together. She anchored her face even harder against his side.
He pushed her shoulder again. She refused to budge. She was like a heavy, warm boulder glued permanently to his ribs.
Zenjiro dropped his left hand onto the mattress. He was completely trapped. He could not pry her off without waking her up completely and causing a big, loud scene.
He let out a long, defeated sigh. He gave up entirely and let her sleep there. He let her breathe right against his unwashed underarm. If she woke up complaining about a foul smell tomorrow morning, he would just accept the blame.
Then, a sudden, bright thought struck him.
He lay perfectly still in the dark room. He realized exactly what was happening inside his own head.
He was currently pinned down by a girl. She was wearing very short sleep shorts. Her bare thigh was resting heavily on his legs. Her chest was pressed flat against his side. She was hugging him tightly in the middle of the night.
But he was no longer freezing. His heart wasn't pounding out of control. His hands weren't shaking at all. He wasn't unstable anymore.
He was just terrified that she was going to smell his body odor. He was just annoyed by the heavy weight of Liora's arm and leg.
It was like it became completely normal to him again. The strange, unstable heat in his chest was gone. The terrifying paralysis had vanished. The mental trick he used had held its ground. He could think perfectly straight right now even though Liora was so incredibly close to him.
He turned his head away from her. He stared up at the ceiling. A feeling of pure relief washed over his tired body. He closed his eyes. He listened to the steady sound of her breathing against his side, and he drifted easily back to sleep.
Four years later, Zenjiro learned a few social cues he didn't know before. He was so confused what Clara was talking about back on this day and he also remembered what teacher Shiratori told him about bad things that shouldn't be done. These two incidents drove Zenjiro to learn things about basic common sense.
---
There is a specific moment in life that catches people completely off guard. It usually happens when they least expect it. A person might be walking down a loud street, or maybe they are just standing in line at a convenience store.
Then they see someone. The air turns too thick to breathe. The background noise just fades away into nothing. Most people probably experience this sudden jolt at least once in their lives. It feels exactly like waking up from a long, dreamless sleep.
Zenjiro walked into his new classroom. He was a sixteen-year-old first-year high school student now. The room smelled strongly of fresh floor wax and cheap chalk dust.
Thirty teenagers talked over each other in a loud, messy blur. Some kids laughed near the green blackboard while others pushed their wooden desks together near the back wall. Zenjiro ignored the loud crowd. He just scanned the neat rows of desks to find the small white paper tag with his name printed on it.
He found it near the middle row. He walked straight down the narrow aisle and stopped beside his assigned seat. He let go of the thick leather strap.
Thud.
The heavy bag hit the wooden floorboards.
I grabbed the top edge of my chair. I planned to pull it back and sit down so I could wait for the homeroom teacher. But the air shifted in the room. A strong gust of wind cut through a wide-open window on my left side, and it hit my face hard. I stopped moving. I turned my head to see where the draft came from.
The loud chatter of the classroom just disappeared. The rough scraping of chair legs vanished. Total silence filled my ears.
A girl sat at the desk right next to mine. She was looking out the window. The sudden breeze caught her dark hair.
It didn't look normal. The movement seemed incredibly slow. I watched a few long strands lift into the morning air. The sunlight filtered right through the loose hair, catching tiny dust motes drifting around her shoulders.
Gravity seemed to stop working entirely. The fall of her hair took way too long. It felt like I was watching a movie playing at a fraction of its normal speed.
A heavy weight dropped right into the center of my chest. My lungs tightened up. My heart skipped a violent beat against my ribs, and then it started hammering fast. A strange, hot flush started at the back of my neck before crawling all the way up to my ears. My fingertips went completely numb. I couldn't think straight.
I just stared at the soft morning light hitting the side of her pale face. She probably smelled like expensive shampoo, judging by the way the wind carried a faint, sweet scent toward me.
The wind finally died down. The last few strands of her hair settled gently back onto her shoulders. She shifted her weight in her wooden chair. She probably felt me standing there in the aisle staring at her. She slowly turned her head away from the bright window.
She looked up.
Her eyes found my face. They were wide and incredibly clear. Our gazes locked perfectly together.