The Beautiful Kuudere Woman Who Always Reads Books While Standing Next to Me at the Laundromat Turns Out to Be the Vice President of One of Our Clients
It was Saturday afternoon. I was sitting on a black Italian sofa, reading a mystery novel. The only sounds in the room were the hum of the air conditioner and fan, and the turning of pages.
Tsukishima san was lying on the sofa with her legs on my thighs, relaxing.
Suddenly, I looked away from the passage explaining the complicated trick and saw a mosquito resting on Tsukishima san’s white leg.
“Oh, a mosquito.”
I tapped Tsukishima san’s leg. “Eek !” she exclaimed in surprise, and I showed her the crushed mosquito stuck to my palm.
“Oh, thanks.”
“No problem.”
We exchanged few words and returned to reading.
Tsukishima san has been hanging out in my room for about two hours now. She said, “To relieve the mental deadlock accumulated from a week of work, there is no effective solution other than lying around on this sofa at the moment.” so I let her in, and now she’s been lying on the sofa the whole time.
It seems my room has turned into her charging station or something.
“Hey, Minato san.”
“What?”
“I want some tea.”
“Go get it. You can use the cup.”
“Don’t you want any, Minato san?”
“Will you bring it for me?”
“No, actually. If you’re going to have some, I’ll just bring it for you.”
“You’re such a slacker !”
“Well, it can’t be helped…”
Tsukishima san reluctantly got up, and I stood up at almost the same time.
We walked toward the refrigerator together and stopped, looking at each other.
“No, Minato san. I’ll do it.”
Tsukishima san raised her hand with a smug look on her face.
“No, I’ll do it. Tsukishima san, you’re a guest.”
“No, this is basically my home. That sofa is my place to live.”
Tsukishima san said that while heading toward my refrigerator and taking out a PET bottle filled with tea. I took two cups from the shelf and placed them on the kitchen counter.
“…If you like it so much, why don’t you put the same one in your own home, Tsukishima san?”
“Well, you’re right… But I don’t want to add any more stuff to my home. When physical objects increase, the management costs increase exponentially.”
“…Are you a minimalist?”
When I asked that, she twitched her temple for some reason. Then she puffed out her chest.
“I have some, you know?”
“……..Eh?”
“Like I said, I have some, you know?”
Tsukishima san tapped her chest with the plastic bottle.
“Minimalist isn’t just another word for flat-chested ! I’ve never even thought they were small !”
As I blushed and hurriedly denied it, she nodded slightly, looking satisfied.
“Then that’s fine.”
…It’s not fine. It’s not fine at all. This person sometimes throws out completely unexpected curveballs with a straight face.
Tsukishima san leaned on the kitchen counter, drank her tea, smiled contentedly, and murmured, “The tea is delicious.”
Immediately after, she took the hair tie she had been wearing on her wrist and placed it in the corner of the kitchen.
“If you put it there, you’ll forget about it.”
“No, this is a marker.”
“What for…?”
“If I leave it here, when another woman comes over, she’ll find it. Then Minato san will start making a nonsensical excuse like, ‘Oh, my sister just came over !’”
“Even if you say that…..there’s no one else who would come here in the first place…”
“Oh, really? Don’t you ever use the excuse, ‘My house has a nice sofa,’ to bring someone over?”
“I do have some pride, you know !? I wouldn’t do that on a sofa someone bought for me !”
“Fufu…I see. The tea is delicious.”
“Do you like tea?”
“Well, it’s just another way of saying ‘I feel at ease.’”
“That’s clever…”
Holding the cup of tea, the two of us returned to the sofa. Tsukishima san waited for me to sit down, and as soon as I did, she lay face-down on the sofa and placed her legs on my thighs.
She then began reading a book.
When I lowered my gaze to read the book, my eyes naturally fell on Tsukishima san’s calves. My gaze seamlessly moved to the back of her knees, her thighs, the edge of her short pants, and her buttocks. It must be man’s nature.
I shook off my desires and concentrated on the book.
However, her legs kept catching my eye, and I found myself imagining Tsukishima san as the characters in the novel.
I shifted my gaze to Tsukishima san’s head. Then I thought to myself. I hardly know anything about this person. Just her workplace, title, name, approximate income, and personality.
Likewise, she probably doesn’t know much about me either.
Family structure, whether I have siblings, educational background. And……whether I have a girlfriend or female friends, or someone I like.
There’s a kind of unspoken understanding, but it’s strange that Tsukishima san can relax so much in the home of someone she knows so little about.
“Tsukishima san…what kind of person are you?”
Tsukishima san turns around and smiles wryly.
“What’s wrong? Why all of a sudden?”
“Well…I just realized there’s a lot I don’t know about you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. For example…I don’t know if you have any siblings.”
“I’m an only child.”
Looking at her leg resting on my thigh, I think, “I thought so…”
“Well…but I know a lot about you, Minato san.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Because I searched about you.”
“By name?”
“By name.”
A cyberstalker !?
“Um…did anything weird come up?”
“A few blog posts from your current company and your thesis from when you were a student, I think.”
“Oh…I see. That kind of thing comes up, huh…..”
“Then there’s a social media account with your real name that you made when you were in middle school or high school and then abandoned. You tweeted things like, ‘I started Twitter~ Now~’ and ‘School sucks~ lol.’”
“That’s embarrassing ! Didn’t you tweet anything weird !?”
“Now, now. I wonder…”
Tsukishima san smiled and looked ahead.
In retaliation, I tickled the soles of her feet, and she responded with a cute “Nya !” and kicked her legs around.
“Minato san, it’s tickling~! Nyo~!”
“Stop it !? That’s how you used to talk back then, right !?”
“Well, I don’t remember…I was in elementary school back then…”
“There’s a slight age difference, isn’t there…”
Tsukishima san muttered, “I guess so.” while still looking ahead.
“Well…there are a lot of things we don’t know about each other, but I think there are also a lot of things we understand. We can’t prove why 1 plus 1 equals 2 in math, but we can just say it’s 2 because it feels right. It’s like it’s ingrained in our bodies…that kind of feeling.”
“I see…”
“So, I don’t think we need to force ourselves to cram knowledge.”
Despite that, it seemed like she was Googling people’s names, but I decided not to mention it since it would be rude.
“Then, don’t you want to know anything about me?”
Tsukishima san turned around, propped her cheek on her hand, and smiled.
“If there’s an opportunity. Question time?”
“Well…if I can answer it.”
Since it’s Tsukishima san, I agree while preparing myself for another harsh joke.
“Then, what about your relationship with the girl named Rina who was constantly interacting with you on Twitter when you were in middle school or high school?”
“You’re cramming in a lot of knowledge, aren’t you !?”
“No, that’s not the point.”
Tsukishima san’s sharp remark cuts in.
“Ah…no…well…well, it’s not like we were dating or anything…”
“Huh…I see…”
Tsukishima san looks at me, who is flustered, with a stern expression, but her mouth is smiling happily.
“…Should we change the subject?”
“Pfft…yeah…fufu…”
Tsukishima san buries her face in the sofa and laughs.
When she finally looked up, she turned her face toward me as if looking at something else and said, “The tea I drink with Minato san is delicious.”
“I can’t taste it…”
“Is my tea not delicious?”
Tsukishima san asked me anxiously.
“No. It’s delicious.”
“Hmm. I’m glad.”
Tsukishima san looked relieved and turned her face forward, resuming her reading while kicking her legs.
Maigetsu