1.24: My DanceNatalia-sama walked toward me with my bodysuit neatly folded in her arms. She stopped just in front of me and held it up, proudly presenting the repaired rear.

  I colpsed on the spot.

  I had expected a miracle.A seamless restoration.A clean, invisible mend.

  What I got instead was…

  …well, you’ll know soon enough.

  Let’s just say embarrassment detonated inside me like a nuclear bst.

  Rui giggled at my reaction and waved her phone at me. “Hurry up and put it on.”

  Click.

  Her phone fshed.

  I noh-gred at her so hard I swear sparks formed around my empty eye sockets. I reached to snatch away her phone, but she spun it around in her hand, showing not the photo… but a giant clock.

  Five hours and forty-six minutes remaining.

  Right. Time was evaporating. I had better things to do than stress over my butt.

  Natalia offered me a sympathetic little smile… the kind you give a puppy who fell off the couch. “Come, Susumu-san. At least now nothing is exposed. Truly, I saved you.”

  I nodded weakly. She had helped me. My butt would be safe again.

  Sort of.

  “C-Can I have some privacy?” I whimpered, clutching the bnket she’d loaned me like I was shielding my maidenhood.

  “I won’t look. Gross.” Rui waved a hand. “Just put it on, noh-nuts.”

  “Stop calling me that, you bratty wretched oni!” I snapped, leaping to my feet. I stomped on the tatami dramatically, the bnket wrapped around me like a tragic cloak.

  “Oni?!” Rui barked. “Keep talking like that and I’ll find something to smack you with!”

  “Oh my,” Natalia murmured, watching us like we were an odd, bickering couple on a reality show. “Your time is precious. Please don’t waste it.”

  “Get that thing on, noh-nuts,” Rui said, folding her arms. “It’s the least you owe Natalia after bleeding all over her floor. Which, by the way, I cleaned.”

  Her smugness sent a violent tremor through me. She turned to leave the room.

  So naturally, I stepped between her and the door inside a blink.

  The bnket whipped around me like the dramatic cape of a naked avenger. Rui froze mid-step, eyes widening as I towered over her, very much unclothed and very much faceless.

  She stiffened, cheeks reddening. “GET AWAY FROM ME, NOH-NUTS!”

  “I’M NOT A NOH-NUTS!”

  I hurled the bnket onto the floor and stood with my arms and legs spread wide like a deranged sumo wrestler. “Look at my nuts! They’re right here! EXAMINE THEM AT YOUR LEISURE! DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A NOH-NUTS TO YOU?!”

  Rui stared at me with an expression usually reserved for rabid animals. “I am witnessing the birth of a new species.”

  “Enough bickering,” Natalia-sama cut in. She put her hands on her hips and stamped a dainty foot, surprisingly commanding. “How can you work together like this? You have serious issues, the both of you.”

  “ME? Work with this perverted noh-nuts?!” Rui screeched. “If he ever does that again, I’m DONE. Absolutely DONE!”

  Hearing that, something inside me snapped.Something primal.Something extremely stupid.

  I began to dance.

  Once when my father had pushed me too far… always ignoring me, his nose buried in his newspaper every time I saw him. It was like I was a ghost haunting his house instead of his son. One day I’d had enough and snapped. My frustration and anger took form as an obscene dance, designed to completely piss him off.

  Mother brought our breakfasts to the table that morning. I sat across from my father, whose nose was buried in his beloved morning newspaper as always. The smell of breakfast sausage drifted up as I nibbled one slowly, my eyes drifting toward the bold headline spshed across the page he was reading.

  The Corporation Serial Killer Continues to Outrage Tokyo

  A dramatic artist’s impression of the killer stared bnkly at the reader. It told no one anything at all.

  Father didn’t look at me, but then… unexpectedly, he did something rare.

  “Susumu,” he said quietly, still staring at the paper, “why don’t you try hard enough?”

  My chopsticks froze.

  What kind of question was that?

  “Susumu, means tomorrow, son. All you do is live for today.” My mother had given me that name, full of hope and promise. I absolutely hated it. It felt like I was born in debt to the future.

  “Ahaha…” I forced a ugh. “I always do my best, father.”

  Was this about my grades? Since when did he actually care?

  “...” My father said nothing, his silence practically shouting that I was lying. His newspaper rustled as he flipped a page.

  “You don’t care about my grades,” I added quickly. “And they’re… decent, if you actually bothered to check. I’m not failing.”

  He nodded absently and flipped another page, settling deeper beneath the kotatsu.

  Breakfast, coffee, paper… his sacred morning ritual. He read the newspaper any time he was at home. Probably to avoid looking me in the eye too often. We barely talked. He provided for our household. He judged me, but he never pushed me toward pursuing a career or dream.

  My parents expected chores from me, and rightfully so, but nothing else. There was no pressure. No guidance. Until now.

  So why ask that question now?

  “Is that all?” I finally pushed. The question cwed at my throat until I let it out. I poked at the food on my pte, waiting, waiting…

  “This girl,” he murmured at st. “Reiko, was it? She’ll be showing up here again today, right?”

  Still staring at the newspaper.

  A spark of irritation fred in me.

  He had never even met Reiko-chan face to face. What was his angle?

  “Uh… yeah,” I muttered. “We’ll probably py some Tekku.”

  He nodded again… still not looking at me. A whole conversation while his attention was glued to the one thing in the world he loved more than us… his paper.

  “Ah, I see,” he said.

  That was it? That was his dramatic fatherly inquiry into my affairs?

  I stabbed a sausage in frustration. Mother was an amazing cook, but my annoyance ruined the taste.

  My curiosity boiled. The conversation touched Reiko-chan. He didn’t get to be vague about her.

  “Why?” I snapped. “Is it suddenly a problem? Is it because she’s a girl? Because she comes into my room and we’re alone for a long time? Did it finally bother you? You never cared before! Neither of you ever say anything!”

  That finally got his attention.

  He lifted his head, turning toward me, giving me a rare full share of his attention. I felt like I’d just leveled up in a game.

  He shook his head slowly, his expression calm.

  “No. I don’t care about that. I encourage you, actually.”

  My eyes widened.

  Encourage…?

  That word was so unlike him that my brain stopped. I leaned forward.

  “…Then why did you ask?” I demanded, too tightly wound to back down.

  His gaze softened… something almost human peeking out from behind the fortress of his typical indifference.

  “Because,” he said gently, “every time she comes over, you light up. You’re actually… alive. Son, you never try for yourself. But what if it’s something for her? You strive for something without even realizing it.”

  I froze.

  He continued, turning a page with maddening serenity.

  “So I wondered… Why do you only try hard when she’s involved? Why not do anything for yourself?”

  My heartbeat fluttered painfully.

  Emotion surged… confusion, embarrassment, a burning surge of defensiveness.

  …

  He added, almost under his breath, “…Maybe you should show me that energy the rest of the time sometime.”

  Something inside me snapped.

  I stood.

  Then I stomped.

  Then I stomped harder.

  And without thinking… without logic, reason, sanity, or dignity… I unched into the dance.

  The ridiculous, furious, filing, primal dance of a humiliated child.The dance that would haunt my adulthood.

  Arms out.Legs stomping.Pelvic thrusts… too many, too enthusiastic.A ritualistic tantrum choreography of shame and chaos.

  Mother gasped.Father’s newspaper slowly lowered…

  He stared at me as though I’d grown another head.

  He was totally expressionless.

  Utterly unreadable.

  Then, with the gravity of a death god passing judgment, he calmly said...

  “Please never do that again.”

  Relwing