Ah, Valentine's Day. The day that lets me answer joking questions of 'What's the point' with 'Sex' instead of 'Candy.' Not entirely sure how I feel about how this one turned out, but here it is regardless; my contribution to this year's day of love and loving. Hope you enjoy it.

Hotel Motel

Len gave himself the sigh of relief that he felt that he deserved as he dropped his and two more bags filled with Neru's assorted clothes and belongings on the floor in front of the room the two of them reached together. He'd carried them from the ground up two flights of stairs to get there- which sounds like almost nothing, until one has had a firsthand experience with the true weight of the mass and amount of clothing Neru had discovered ways to fit into bags. The two of them were in full swing now of a road trip they'd had zero planning for up until the very minute the idea came into their minds, and had been in said swing for the past several days, and, now, as Len couldn't convince Neru that sleeping in their car was just as fine he swore as sleeping in hotel beds- or motel beds, for those who know the difference- they would have to pay for, they had stopped tonight at one which they could agree on at least looked like it had some amount of quality and poise. And while it appeared that way from outside and in the halls, the faintest whiff of intercourse of an intimate nature was in the air as they climbed their way to their room. And hotels usually cleaned up better than that.

As Len dug through his pocket looking for their room's key, Neru, walking up behind him, caught with her foot one of her bags as it was tipping over. "Watch out," she said, as doing so put her two inches away from Len.

Len looked over as he took the key out. "Oh, sorry," he said. "Nothing in there'll break, right?"

"No, but the floor here looks dirty, and the bag's side looks nice." She smiled. "Didn't want to mess it up."

"You could have just left it in the car," he said, "if you're that worried about 'messing it up.'" He put the key in the lock and turned. "I only brought up here what I need to change into tomorrow, not my entire wardrobe of everything."

"Well, what if it gets stolen?" she said as he pushed the door open and picked up one of her bags he brought up. "Then I'd lose it and where would we be?"

"Probably walking with the thing still in tow, because it's so heavy that if anyone did break into our car they wouldn't want to carry it off with them. And who breaks into cars for bags of clothes?"

"What would they steal, then?" she asked as the two of them entered. "You haven't plated the inside of the thing with gold. At least with the bag, they have a chance of getting something worth money out of it." She picked up the bag he left at the door. "And besides, see how nice it looks? Who could resist stealing this?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, flicking the room's light on and still facing her. "There's a radio. People still steal those, right?"

"Well, if there's something worth stealing in the car, why should I have left my bags in there?"

He stopped. "…Hm."

Neru stuck her tongue out.

"Right, whatever." He took enough steps to actually be in the room proper. "So, this is where we're staying tonight, then?" he said, not really looking around.

"Yep." Neru let Len walk in ahead of her and he placed the bags he brought in on the floor. Walking ahead of him from there, she looked around the room before he did. "…Um…"

"What is it?" Len stood up and looked at her. He glanced around the room and understood. "…Um…"

They looked at each other, then Len said, "There's… Only one bed."

Neru coughed. "Er… Yep…"

There was an awkward silence after that for around ten seconds. Len said, "…I… I guess that I'll go and talk to that girl behind the counter or something… And uh, see if we can get switched to another room."

"No!" Neru yelped out especially loudly and slightly too quick.

Len stopped mid turn to the door. "Huh?"

"I… I mean, it's…" She said, with several pauses, "It's not really a problem, right? We don't need to go and bother them about this." She waved her hand around a little. "Besides," she added, "It's probably too late to change rooms, anyway, and we've already walked up here, so…"

"…" Len looked, in a word, skeptical.

"She grinned nervously at his silence. "Er…"

"…Well, um…" He coughed. With great uncertainty, he said, "I guess if it's okay with you, then…" He rubbed the back of his head. "…Erm… Will I be on the floor, then, or…?"

"N-No, I…" Neru sat down on the edge of the bed. "I meant that we'd both sleep in this bed… At… You know… At the same time."

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds. And it was only a few seconds. But it felt like longer.

"…You…" Len said, "Do… Do you mean that we'd…?"

"What?" Neru said quickly, "Do you think I mean that we'd…? That, uh…" They looked at each other's eyes and she turned away to blush. "N-No! I mean, it's just for us to sleep, you know? And that getting a room with two beds would cost more, that's all right? I didn't mean… You know that I just meant… Uh, right?"

"Oh, uh, I didn't mean that, I just thought-!" He quickly shook his head. "No, no, I just wasn't sure that you would want to… Uh, share a bed with…" He paused. "Er… With someone else."

Neither of them were fully comfortable. "…Well…" Neru said, "I don't think it's a problem. Because, we won't be… You know…"

"…Yeah…"

"…Sooo…" she started. "Are you okay with that?"

"Uh…" Len asked, "Are you?"

"Well, I mean… If it's not a problem for either of us, then…" She gulped. "S…Sure…?"

"Uh, alright then." Len asked, "Right… Right now?"

Neru looked at the room's clock. "It is late…"

"Well then, I'll just…" Len coughed. He was a little red. "I'll wait outside while you get ready… Alright?"

"Okay." She said, "I won't take too long… Uh, getting ready."

"Um… Y-Yeah." Len turned, and left the room for her.

Neru fell over sitting and lay completely across the mattress. "…Eep."

Outside the room's door, Len stared at the wall in a silence quiet enough that, within a few seconds after he left, he could hear the shuffling sound of clothes being changed and tossed to the side. Very vague, but audible; he was hearing her undress. This put him under a lot of emotional pressure, as now his mind couldn't help itself but put images to those sounds, and he soon found himself standing in the hallway thanking God he was alone there because his face was turning even redder than it was while he was inside the room with Neru talking about what put him here. He shifted in his stance, coughed silently, and stared more intently at the wall than he was. This was probably normal for people his age to do. And he did think that Neru was… Attractive, to put it politely. But still it made it awkward for him to imagine himself being there, standing just outside the door, hearing a female friend of his just a few feet from the other side. Undressing. Half naked. Sexy.

Len didn't realize it until his mind had wandered back to his eyes to show him, but he had reopened the door without waiting for Neru to call him in and with some measure of fake confidence was making his way around the one corner that would put an actual image in his mind to the sounds. He noticed what he was doing- what he was about to do- and almost smacked himself. 'Oh no,' he thought, the corner getting nearer. 'Oh no, this, this is not good.' He didn't quite slow down, but he had convinced his body not to speed up. Not that his body was really listening to him.

He didn't have any more thoughts when he finally turned the corner to face where Neru was, his eyes falling on what the dim light behind her made initially a soft silhouette of her form. Neru didn't notice him right away, her mind wrapped up in its own thoughts, half her clothes sprawled out on the bed and the shirt she'd just removed in her hands. But Len fell into the edge of her vision eventually. And when he did, she really only looked at him in the same general way he was looking at her. Their eyes met once or twice. But neither was really themselves at the moment, and neither was talking. And neither was really looking at the other's eyes. Len was looking at the more… Obvious features of Neru's body more often than the girl's facial ones. And she… She wasn't quite sure what she was looking at. But she was looking at him. Oh yes; she was looking at him. And both were looking with a gaze that had the clearest traces of instinct mixed with lust in them humanly possible- which turned out to be just enough to give both a look in theirs that was emanating an aura of attractiveness. The eyes themselves gave off a vibe of sexual lust. Neru wasn't covering herself; she almost did, at the beginning, when she first saw that he had walked in, but decided against it, subconsciously. Neither one of them, really, was thinking for themselves anymore. But what little they were thinking, they were thinking the same way.

Len's foot caught the door's edge and pushed it shut just in time to catch Neru's arms with his arms and to meet his lips with hers. Neru's fingers ran into his hair and Len's hands ran up her back. Moans met. And the scent that floated about the hallways outside came into their room from the inside. Neither, despite their earlier uncertainty, had any trouble sharing a bed with the other now.