The silvery-white strands of her hair slipped through my fingers, damp and carrying a faint, pleasant fragrance.
I casually picked up the hair dryer from the table and dried her hair, just as I always did.
Arisu wrapped her arms around my waist, grinning happily like an idiot.
"Why are you grinning like an idiot?"
"I'm just happy~"
She rubbed her forehead against my stomach, then hugged me again.
Love really did turn people into fools.
"You're getting water from your hair all over my clothes."
"I just want to lean against Seisuke. Smelling your scent makes me happy."
"Do I have a scent? I've never smelled anything on myself."
I lifted my collar and sniffed, but still couldn't smell anything.
"It's the kind of scent... that makes you feel at ease!"
A scent that made you feel at ease? That was a pretty unusual way to describe it.
"All right, your hair's dry now."
I turned off the hair dryer and checked once more to make sure her hair was completely dry.
Arisu obediently lifted her head to help me.
"All done."
"Mmwah."
Arisu kissed my cheek, then padded back to the bed.
"Why'd you run back to bed again?"
Arisu propped a pillow up behind her like a backrest and opened her arms to me.
"Lying in bed is comfy. Besides, we don't have anything to do this morning."
"And you're usually lazier than me, Seisuke. You have no right to criticize me!"
I guess she had a point...
We had nothing planned for the morning, so we decided to find something to pass the time.
With nothing else to do, I opened my mobile terminal.
The mobile terminals provided by the school were, for the most part, similar to phones outside.
Of course, strictly speaking, they had all kinds of phone features, with the sole exception of being unable to communicate with the outside world.
There were messaging apps much like LINE, as well as news apps for keeping up with national and international affairs. Since the school had blocked outside communication anyway, it couldn't completely cut students off from society.
So the school also encouraged the development of all kinds of apps.
The Go game app we were using, for example, had supposedly been made by students from the previous year. It wasn't very polished, but the school had still shown it a great deal of support and awarded its developers a generous sum.
On top of that, the school had introduced plenty of other interesting apps, though I hadn't tried them yet.
The app's UI was clean. You could choose a custom nickname, but if you didn't see the need, you could simply use your real name.
Arisu's nickname was:
"Seisuke's Keeper"
Incidentally, the app had an on-campus ranking. Whenever the monthly rankings were broadcast over the school's internal system and she came in first, I felt a strange sense of embarrassment.
Since our points were a little high, it took some time to find an opponent.
Arisu leaned her head against my chest.
I wrapped both arms around her slender waist, resting my cheek against her head.
After a while, we were matched with an opponent.
The player on the other side had the nickname "God."
Yikes, that was probably Koenji.
I remembered seeing a post on some school forum questioning whether his absurdly high win rate was due to cheating. Someone had joined forces with the Go Club to challenge him: if "God" proved he wasn't cheating, they would pay him a very large sum of Personal Points as an apology.
Koenji had easily won a string of games, just like he did online, but he hadn't taken the points offered as his prize.
"I only wanted to see the looks of disbelief on ordinary people's faces when they witnessed a god's might. That's all."
Then he'd flicked his bangs and left.
That was so very in character for him.
Arisu, who had been chatting with me while we played, suddenly sensed that something was off.
She furrowed her brow and studied the board.
"I underestimated him a little at first. I didn't think he'd be this good."
"If you got matched with him, he definitely wouldn't be weak."
Arisu held her mobile terminal up to me and gave my hand a tug.
She looked like she'd been bullied outside and had come to complain to her boyfriend.
"Seisuke~ Help me beat him. I don't think I can win..."
She scrunched her nose, buried her face in my chest, and pleaded softly.
"Hurry, hurry, we're almost out of time~"
Arisu waved her little fist, urging me on.
"Your opponent has offered a draw."
A request popped up on the mobile terminal.
"Seisuke, you're so good!"
"No, I'm not. It was only a draw."
"I was at a disadvantage from the start, but you still forced him to offer a draw. My boyfriend really is the best!"
"I couldn't have done that without you cheering me on, Arisu."
I kissed her forehead. We'd only drawn, but Arisu seemed even happier than if she'd won herself.
Even something as ordinary and small as this could easily sweep us up in the moment, as long as we were sharing it together.
Even the smallest joys were an indispensable part of what made happiness.
I was grateful that my love was so pure and simple.
Before you continue