My Childhood Friend And The Bath

According to my childhood friend, “They say sharing a bath bares your heart as much as your skin, but even between girls you still need a little modesty — I mean, getting all touchy-feely in the tub is just going too far, don’t you think!” …apparently.

For my part, I agree with her there, and being that prickly about it must be exhausting, though it’s really none of my business. I feel it all the more watching Hina and Hotaru lay it on so thick with her.

Now then, as for said childhood friend, Sakura Ayuri…

“Ayu, you said something good this morning, didn’t you~”

Dinner had just ended. In the mellow lull that settled once some time had passed, Hina floated it to us out of nowhere. She was smiling as always, but I thought I caught a mischievous glint deep in her eyes.

“Ehh, you think so…? I dunno what you mean, but—ehe-hem!”

Oblivious to every bit of that, Ayu decided she’d just been praised and puffed herself up, delighted and preening. She’s known Hina every bit as long as I have; you’d think she’d have started catching on to this kind of thing by now.

“Yep, yep, good girl, good girl~”
“Ehe-hem-hem!”
“…So, what’s this thing Ayu said this morning? Did she say something that weird?”
“Hold on, Gin? What d’you mean, weird — I only ever say good things, don’t I?”
“Ah, yes, yes, good girl, good girl.”

Brushing Ayu and her nonsense aside, I nudged Hina to go on. When some hassle’s brewing, nothing beats meeting it head-on and getting it over with.

“Well, what I’m getting at is~ this morning Ayu said it, right? ‘Staying cooped up at home is a waste of electricity!’”
“She did say that.”
“So then? When Ayu and I got back from our outing, we each took a shower one after another, right? And on top of that, if you think about the utility cost of four separate baths coming up, that’d be a waste too~”
“…Eh.”

Sure enough, my bad premonition had hit the mark two days running. Only now did Ayu seem to catch on; her eyes started darting around, plain as anything.

“And! That’s why~… let’s all take a bath together~! Clap, clap~”
“Clap, clap~”
“E-even you, Sumire…”
“…”

At some point Hina had roped her in. Even Sumire, who’d been quietly watching this unfold, was clapping along, taking Hina’s side.

Naturally, this came as a bolt from the blue for Ayu and me.

“N-no no~… true, the bath at Hina’s place is big, but… four people would be a bit cramped, wouldn’t it~”
“The bath at Hina’s place is big, sure…”

Hina was utterly unfazed by our balking. She’d probably called our reaction in advance; as if she’d been waiting for the objection, she whipped out something she’d been holding behind her back.

“Figured you’d say that~… this!”
“What’s that, disposable chopsticks?”
“Four really is a squeeze~, so let’s use these to draw lots and pair up two by two~”
“Draw lots…”

This is bad.

Ayu has terrible luck with lotteries; Hina, by contrast, has a decent streak. Hina was almost certainly angling to pair up with Ayu, so if we played it straight, that was how it would land.

“N-n-no no~ th-that kind of thing’s no good~ a fair young maiden in the bloom of youth, baring her skin to others~”
“You said that yesterday too, Ayuri.”

She was way too rattled. Though honestly, part of me couldn’t help thinking: wasn’t it fine already?

“Ayu, do you not like taking baths with people?”
“N-no~ it pains my heart to show everyone this lowly, shabby body of mine~…”
“That’s not true~ there’s nothing weird about your body, Ayu, and if you like, you could even compare it against mine~?”

That’s exactly the problem, though. That was probably the one moment Ayu’s heart and mine fell into perfect sync.

“A-and besides, look! Even after my shower I was scurrying around and worked up a sweat! So right now I’m all sweaty and gross, and it’d be too awful to bathe together~”
“Then all the more reason we should bathe together~, doing your hair, washing each other’s backs — it’s better with someone else along, right~?”
“Urgh!”

One by one, Ayu’s escape routes were being sealed off. I felt for her, but really, wouldn’t it be fine? She could humor Hina’s request once in a while. I was even starting to feel that way myself.

Hina seemed to read Ayu’s silence as agreement; she spun around and held the chopsticks out to me.

“Then let’s draw~. Gin, mind going first?”
“What kind of lots are these?”
“There’s two kinds — ones with tape on the tip and ones without~”
“Hmm…”

I did as I was told and reached for the chopsticks in Hina’s hand… and that’s when I realized. Come to think of it, Hina had clearly roped Sumire in ahead of time.

“Hey, Hina.”
“What~?”
“This is purely a game of luck, right?”
“That’s right~”
“Then why do I go first?”
“…No particular reason~”

A lie. Her eyes darted for a split second.

“Hey, Hina… I’m actually pretty into watching magic tricks, you know. Remember why?”
“…Let’s see, it was… you enjoy figuring out the trick and how it works, wasn’t it~”
“Good memory… See, I don’t mind cheating; so if a friend pulls a little something on me, I’m not going to nitpick. But you know…”
“…”
“What I like best is the moment I see through the cheat that’s been pulled. So once I’ve noticed, I can’t help calling it out, even on a friend. Remember that one too?”
“…I remembered you liked it, but I didn’t know it was your favorite part~”

I remembered the time Ayu got hooked on a gambling manga and came up with the idea of playing a round of no-holds-barred cheating cards. We’d had a little prep time, sure, but we were all amateurs, so our technique should have been clumsy. Except everyone but Ayu turned out to be surprisingly meticulous, and it devolved into an all-out war of mutual deception in which Ayu alone got completely wrecked.

Incidentally, the best of the lot was Hotaru.

“…All right then, let’s have Sumire draw first. Then Ayu, then me, and Hina last.”
“…Okaay~”

Hina accepted my proposal without a fight. Going by how she’d roped Sumire in beforehand, she’d probably meant for Sumire to draw whichever lot matched mine, leaving herself paired with Ayu. Simple but sure-fire. Her misfortune was that it snagged on that little quirk of mine.

“Mine… has the tape, huh.”

Well, from here the rest came down to Hina’s and Ayu’s luck.

Would Hina’s good fortune win out, or Ayu’s…? Then it hit me. No matter who she ended up with, wasn’t it basically a loss for Ayu either way?

Well, whatever.

I just like seeing through the tricks, that’s all.

In the end, for Ayu it probably came down to nothing more than picking the lesser of two evils. Or so I found myself thinking.

◆◆◆

“So, how did it end up like this?”
“I wonder how, huh…”

My lament echoed through the changing room.

By the results of a strict, luck-only draw, the one bathing with me turned out to be… Ayu. Seriously, how.

“So, what do we do? Gin.”
“Do what?”
“You don’t wanna bathe with me, right, Gin? For now I’ll close my eyes and wait here, so you go in first?”
“…I think it’s better not to do that. Look—”

I threw the changing-room door open, a little surprise attack, and then…

“Whoaa—!” “Whoops.”

A figure came tumbling into the changing room, and another stood frozen before the door. Hina and Sumire, caught mid-eavesdrop.

“See?… What are you two doing.”
“W-well, I was wondering if you two might get up to something naughty in my family’s bath~”
“As if we would. Come on, shoo, shoo.”

The two of them scattered every which way like a startled brood of spiderlings. Going by that, they’d be right back at it the moment we gave them an opening.

“Those two are like that, so if anything happened we’d definitely get grilled about it later. Ayu, can you play that sort of thing off convincingly?”
“…Probably not.”

Figured. Ayu might be good at hiding her feelings, but she’s a hopeless liar. If we didn’t just get in the bath now, it’d look like we were weirdly self-conscious about it, and that could get our relationship read the wrong way… no, granted, it is a weird relationship.

“Mm, what should we do~”
“I’m fine with it as long as you don’t stare, though.”
“A girl who isn’t even married yet shouldn’t be saying such things!”
“You’re one to talk, ya dummy.”
“I’m fine, since I’m probably never getting married anyway.”
“Is that even the issue here?”

And the one who actually mattered here, Ayu, was like this. If the two of us didn’t bathe together, we’d get grilled about why later; but every time we edged toward actually getting in, Ayu kicked up another pointless fuss and we got nowhere. What a pain. I even started to think it was precisely because Ayu’s mind worked like this that her bad luck won out and the draw landed the way it did.

Just as I was starting to regret calling out Hina’s cheat, wondering if I’d kicked over a hornet’s nest, it happened.

“Mmm… oh, I know! I’ve got a great idea!”

Ayu, who’d been cocking her head to one side in an exaggerated show of deep thought, snapped upright as though something had just flashed into her head. So blatant an “aha!” that in an anime a lightbulb would’ve popped up glowing beside her head.

“You go on in first! I’ll go grab something good!”
“Ah, hold on—”

There’s no time like the present, or more like no time at all, and before I could even ask for details, Ayu had already breezed straight out of the changing room.

“…Well, whatever. Let’s just get in.”

Probably nothing good. That was the feeling I had, at any rate.