It's finally here, after so much planning I'm publishing this story. With the occasion of Valentine's Day, ladies and gentlemen, I'm giving you a Rentarō and Enju fanfic that will hopefully please at least some of you. Some background info before you begin reading though:
1) This takes place after the events of the anime.
2) I did not read the light novels nor the manga. In fact, this entire story is based solely on the anime so if I get a couple of facts wrong in this story that violates what happens in either of those (especially since I believe the light novels also cover what happens after the anime finishes too and some things happening in that might not coincide or mesh well with what happens here) then I apologize in advance.
3) This will be for the most part a hurt/comfort story that will take you to some uncomfortable places as a reader. I don't plan on going too dark but I won't shy away from some scenes either, particularly when it comes to cruelty towards children. So, if you find those subjects too troubling for you, just know that you have been warned. I'll try not to make it too sad though.
4) The formatting used in this story: text in italics means the character's thoughts and inner monologue and text in CAPS means a character screaming. Text in bold is context dependent but usually is meant to describe dialogue from characters who are not physically in the present location but merely talking from somewhere else (e.g. via a phone call).
5) Finally, the cover image for this story was created by DeviantArt user "J8d". No changes were made upon the image itself, outside of re-scaling it to change its aspect ratio to better fit in the cover frame it gets displayed in on this website. The license under which the image is distributed is the "Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License". A copy of it may be found at the creative commons dot org website under /licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode
I hope you will enjoy this story and that you will read it till the end. I welcome reviews of any kind, so please don't be shy in letting me know of your thoughts. Do note though that this story is pre-written so if you'll notice that I won't be taking into account your tips and constructive criticism, please don't take it the wrong way! It's just that after finishing this story I won't be willing to do any re-writes of it. Please keep on posting your criticism, though, as I will use it in future stories!
~Tokyo, random primary school, February 13th~
It was the early morning, a quiet day in Tokyo. For a city that would get attacked by giant monsters that threatened the well-being of all the residents there and who frequently attacked them at irregular intervals, now it felt very peaceful and relaxed, enjoyable even as the sheer tranquility that the place was bathed with left a very soothing impression on its populace.
Winter left an ugly mark on the city, though, as snow was high enough to make walking through it a rather difficult task and the winter service vehicles were being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work they had to perform. Tokyo was, after all, a big city even with all the giant monsters that would tear down some of its buildings every so often.
In the school, all the children were silently waiting for their math teacher to finish drawing their new exercise on the blackboard. Most of them were bored, some of them weren't even keeping track of what was going on and some were simply waiting for the door bell to ring.
Teacher: "OK class, here is the last exercise for today: 2x + 3 = 9. How do you solve for x?" she asked impatiently after finishing what was seemingly a gargantuan task for many of the children in there. "Christina? How about you solve this!" the older woman devilishly asked, knowing that the girl has not been paying attention at all to the class for quite some time and she decided that it was time for some retribution.
A young brunette girl, around the age of ten, stared at the blackboard annoyed by her teacher. She hadn't been paying attention at all in that class and, naturally, was now caught off guard and had no idea how to solve that equation. For any adult this equation would probably feel insulting but for a child as young as herself, it felt like a very daunting exercise. She thought about many ways of solving it but the actual methodology was sketchy in her mind and was missing vital parts so she was unsure how to address this.
Christina: "Uhhh…." was all she said for a little while. The teacher frowned.
Teacher: "Well, young lady? We've been solving this type of equations since the beginning of this class. Why weren't you paying any attention?" the teacher scolded with a somewhat angry tone in her voice. The girl stammered, scared because of her and tried to defend herself almost immediately, even though she knew she had no real excuses to supply.
Christina: "No, I was paying attention! It's just that….I need some time to figure it out…" she tried to defend herself although the teacher was by no means easy to impress nor to fool.
Teacher: "Oh really? And how much time do y-…." but before she could finish that sentence the bell rang loud and clear, signaling the end of that class and Christina's merciful salvation from her tormentor. "Uh…..fine. Class dismissed!" the older woman took no pleasure in actually putting down her pupils so she saw no real benefit in continuing her confrontation with the child. She knew full well Christina had lied to her and didn't really know how to solve that equation but she didn't care for that enough to sacrifice her little break for the sake of humiliating her in front of the class. So the older woman took all of her paperwork, organized it properly and exited the classroom in less than a minute, allowing the children to enjoy themselves in their break.
Christina, in particular, felt very relieved that the break came just in time to save her. She dropped down on her desk, sighing profusely almost like she had escaped a life or death situation for the very first time. Almost immediately, her friends gathered around her desk to support the poor unfortunate victim.
Ana: "Are you OK, Chris?" a blonde girl, also at the age of ten, approached her friend quickly.
Christina: "It was horrible! I had no idea how to do it! I thought she was gonna make fun of me!" the brunette cried out in despair, pleading for help from her friends.
Ana: "Seriously though, you should pay more attention in class! That exercise was very easy to solve!" her friend did take the liberty of scolding her a little too though despite the situation. At that point, another one of the girls barged into the conversation to defend Christina.
Enju: "It wasn't all that easy, Ana! I couldn't figure out how to do it either!" a very energetic redheaded girl this time interfered. "It felt harder than the exercises before it!" to that the blonde exhaled loudly, surprised at how her friends joined together against her.
Ana: "Listen you two, you won't get anywhere in life with that kind of attitude! The teacher showed you how to solve this type of exercise! It's fairly easy!" still convinced about the triviality of that equation, Ana refused to back down on her accusatory statements, maintaining that the other two were at fault for being rather careless.
Maria: "Hai hai…..we get it!" came the final fourth member of the group, another brunette girl with a very dismissive and rather flamboyant attitude to calm down the tides among her friends. "We get it that you're the smart one of all of us, Ana! But rather than scold them for not doing so well, how about you show them how it's done! Wouldn't that be more helpful?" that was a rather powerful comeback as this time Ana didn't really have a very good counterargument.
Instead Ana decided to give in and listen to her friend's request and actually show them how it was done. As such, she grabbed a piece of paper laying around on Christina's desk as well as a pencil and began writing down quickly while allowing all the others to stare at her solving the exercise.
Ana: "Fine….Look: 2x + 3 = 9 can be solved like this: see the left side of the equation? 2x + 3? That one has two terms: that is 2x and 3. You take the term that doesn't have a variable inside of it, which in our case is 3 and move it on the other side of the equals sign!" all of the three other girls were comically staring at that piece of paper, fully engaged in this activity, so much so that they were actively trying to make as little noise as possible so that they could hear everything that Ana was saying. "When doing that, the 3 switches sign and becomes -3. So, we get 2x = 9 – 3. 9 – 3 is 6 so, in the end we get 2x = 6. This means that x is a number that, when multiplied by 2, becomes 6. Now, do you know any number that does that?" and, as instantaneous as you can get, Christina sprung back to life in a reinvigorated fashion and suddenly gave out the answer with so much power you would think she was answering the million dollar question in a TV quiz show.
Christina: "Oh…..it's 3!" she exclaimed, filled with renewed vitality. Ana smiled at her.
Ana: "Yes….Christina, it's 3! That means that x is in fact 3 and that's the solution to the equation! Do you now understand how it's done?" despite this solving taking less than a minute, it took a little bit for the other girls to process what had been explained to them. Enju, still somewhat unsure, was scratching the back of her head. She understood everything in a somewhat basic form but then she had another complaint.
Enju: "I…..kinda get what you did there. But how am I supposed to remember this? It's rather complicated!" she complained audibly trying to justify her frustration to the others.
Ana: "(sigh) That's why you have textbooks: to write complicated stuff like this down so you can read them back when you need to. The teacher even told you to write all of this stuff in them! Weren't any of you guys paying attention?" despite her over-the-top indignation at the behavior of her friend, the girl smiled sheepishly in response to her question.
Enju: "Well, I kind of use my textbook for drawing things in it…." Ana face-palmed when hearing that. No wonder they weren't good at school stuff.
Maria: "OK, thank you for your time, teach! We'll be sure to come back to you if we have any other questions…." the girl tried to release some of the frustration that their friend was in and attempted to change the topic of the conversation to something else so that they wouldn't quarrel over pitiful stuff like that. "Anyways, you guys ready for tomorrow? I already talked about it with my mom and she said she'll be helping me out with the preparation!" this was a more engaging topic for them to be honest, especially given the fact that they were one day away from the aforementioned event and didn't have very much time on their hands.
All the girls dropped the previous subject and responded by nodding. All except for one.
Enju: "Fun? What fun? And what preparations? Is there something happening tomorrow?" all the girls around her then stared at her, completely shocked by this reaction from her, not really believing what was going on.
Christina: "What?! Enju, you forgot about Valentine's Day?!" came the most direct question of that day, which landed like a bullet against Enju's head when hearing it.
Enju: "Valentine's Day?!" she shrieked, almost scaring everyone in the class because of the sudden loud outburst that reverberated across the room. Everyone turned their heads at the four girls in the middle of the class, a little scared.
Maria: "You, out of all the people here, forgot about Valentine's Day? Aren't you the one who claims she has a fiance?" that wasn't necessarily a disparaging comment addressed to her, it was more like the result of genuine shock at this news. Enju lowered her head in embarrassment, knowing how much of a surprise this probably was for all her friends.
Truthfully, Enju had told her friends about Rentarō being her fiance some time back and while most of them found it very suspicious how her, a very young girl, was living in the same house with a sixteen year old adolescent, who was in no way related to her, unsupervised and without the monitoring of any of their parents, and even proclaimed to be engaged with him, no less, they didn't want to intervene and didn't even question it since they saw how happy she was whenever she would exclaim such things. For the most part they wanted to be happy for their friend so they just accepted the creepy fact that a teenager was living with a primary school-er in the same house, without supervision, and were somehow engaged.
Children are way less likely to ask questions about stuff like that because they don't have a fair understanding about how the world works and their innocence doesn't make them think about the horrible things that such a setup can actually lead to. Hell, they don't even know much about the birds and bees outside what they had heard from their parents so they don't get to conceptualize the reality that such a thing would entail. They didn't even know what engagement was, hilariously speaking.
Enju: "I forgot all about it! I didn't even realize February was moving so fast!" naturally she couldn't really excuse herself since this was a huge mistake on her part, especially given the fact that she was a girl.
In Japan women, during Valentine's Day, are expected to make chocolate for their male counterparts and give them such gifts on this occasion. It's also popular to exchange chocolate among themselves as friends and even, sometimes, give chocolate even to the unpopular guys in the same class. But, most importantly is the chocolate that a woman gives to the man she's romantically involved with. This chocolate is, usually speaking, expected to be handmade and be as appealing as possible. And the most aggravating part for her is that she had never made chocolate in her entire life up until that point.
Enju: "Aaaahh…..what am I going to do?! Rentarō's never going to forgive me!" she wept, feeling the gravity of her mistake on her shoulders now. She genuinely felt sad because of her recklessness. Seeing this, her friends tried to show some support.
Christina: "Don't worry about it! You still have one day left! I'm sure you can manage!" came the encouraging reassurance that Enju needed so desperately.
Ana: "Yeah, just ask your mother to help you too! I'm sure she can give you a hand if you really needed it!" Enju froze for a second at the hearing of her mother. She stopped, realizing how she didn't want her friends to know that her mother wasn't alive anymore and how, thus, she never told them that fact. She didn't want to give away the fact that she was a Cursed Child, seeing how Rentarō had specifically warned her not to reveal such a thing as that would surely lead to her being expelled from school, and so she kept any clues as to her true nature as hidden as possible from her friends, one of them being her dead mother.
Enju: "Ah…..that won't be a problem! I'm sure she's gonna help me!" she lied nervously, feeling very uncomfortable. She hated lying to her friends, especially since, as a child, she didn't know how to lie very well. She had to train with Rentarō at home a lot for her to learn to develop a convincing lying performance. And even then, she wasn't that confident that she could pull it off. And even if she pulled it off, she still felt very guilty for having to lie to her friends so much. "Still it's not gonna be easy! I never tried making chocolate before..." given her early age, that wasn't a particularly surprising thing.
Ana: "If he's really your fiance and really loves you then I don't think he'll mind that much! After all, it's the intent behind the gift that counts, not the gift itself!" the other girls nodded in agreement almost in unison, trying to continue supporting her.
Maria: "She's right! I'm sure he'll love whatever it is you'll make for him! Just give it a shot! It won't hurt anyone!" with all of their support being conveyed to her, Enju smiled a hopeful smile and allowed herself to consider the possibility that maybe she can pull this off, even if she had never tried it before.
Christina: "Buuut…..first things first" came a sudden sentence interrupting their optimistic chat. "We need to get you to buy the ingredients! At the very least you'll need to buy cocoa powder and vanilla extract!" that was a very technical thing to say coming from a ten year old so this made all the girls in the group stare at Christina in awe.
Ana: "I…..didn't know that!" ironically, the one who had scolded her before for her lack of knowledge was the one who was being impressed now by this.
Maria: "You did some research yourself, Chris! Anyone in particular you want to make chocolate for?" came a teasing remark from Maria who sneered at her friend. Christina blushed lightly and looked away from her, avoiding eye contact.
Christina: "It's….just for a close friend of mine" she tried to not blurt out too many things and so used a very minimalist answer. Maria would have wanted to press on and find out more things about this mysterious boy that their friend had a crush on but Christina intentionally continued the conversation before she could hijack it into that topic. "(clearing throat) Anyways…..I know a convenience store close to your house where you can buy that stuff, Enju! Are you interested?" to that, the one in question beamed a radiant smile.
Enju: "Sure!"
~4 hours later, Satomi residence~
In their home, Enju and Rentarō were mostly keeping to themselves and being unusually quiet that day. Well, unusually with respect to Enju as Rentarō was always quiet. So if she would not engage in conversations with him every so often, he would simply fall into silence and think of something, disconnecting from his environment.
Now, Enju was quiet because she was reading something on her phone. She was surfing the web trying to see what she could find with respect to homemade chocolate recipes. Luckily for her, there were many websites that touched upon the said topic, some very detailed and thorough and others more short and very specific. The amount of information she was being flooded with was overwhelming for her.
Enju: "The internet is an incredible thing" she thought to herself, impressed by the sheer volume of information she could access just from her smartphone. After having browsed approximately twelve different websites on this topic, she suddenly turned to Rentarō and asked an unexpected question. "Rentarō, what do you like more? Bitter sweets or sweet sweets?" she inquired, which made the man immediately figure out what she was doing.
Rentarō: "(sigh) No" came his adamant and actually very straightforward response to her query. Hilariously her question wasn't even a yes/no question.
Enju: "What?" naturally she was confused by his enigmatic 'no'.
Rentarō: "I don't need your chocolate, Enju! I appreciate you putting the effort into it but I already told you a million times that you shouldn't make me chocolate at all!" indeed, there were many times in the past when Rentarō specifically told Enju not to make him Valentine's Day chocolate. Obviously she didn't really want to listen to his wishes though.
Enju: "Why not?" came a now somewhat angry comeback from an indignant Enju.
Rentarō: "Because, for the last time, we aren't lovers! I'm not your fiance and we won't marry! I don't want chocolate!" he sternly told her, feeling very assertive that day. The girl stood there, annoyed by his rather cold attitude towards her dedication to him.
Enju: "Yes we are! And even if we weren't lovers, I'd still give you giri-choco since we work together!" she persisted, not allowing him to deny her her right of giving him a gift, especially not on such an occasion.
Rentarō: "If that's the case then you can simply buy me a chocolate from a nearby store! You don't have to hand make it for me!" he replied, again, still trying to deter her from continuing with her plans. "Look, Enju! It's too early for you to cook, especially make something as complicated as chocolate! Now, if you want to make chocolate for your classmates then I can help you with that! But if you wan-…."
Enju: "NO!" came a just-as-stern reply from her as well. "I want to be the one to make you chocolate! You shouldn't help if you're also the one who should receive it as a gift!" apparently she was just as stubborn as he was, a trait Rentarō thought was somehow passed onto Enju while she had been living with him for such a long time.
Rentarō: "(sigh) You're very persistent…..Don't you want to do something better with your time? Like go outside and play rather than staying indoors and learning how to cook?" his dissuasion tactics were not very effective.
Enju: "I do believe that you're my fiance. And as your fiancee I want to make you chocolate! It's not just because I want to, it's because I have to! If you accept it or not is entirely up to you!" this was an argument he knew he was doomed to lose, despite how strict he tried to appear to her. In the end, outside of banning her from using the kitchen entirely, there was nothing he could do to stop her from making him chocolate.
Knowing that, he resigned himself to his fate and decided to let go of this pointless squabble.
Rentarō: "Fine…..whatever, do what you want!" he finally gave his consent to this entire thing. He didn't really expect her to accomplish her task. After all, a ten year old attempting to make chocolate wouldn't really sound feasible, especially if she wasn't helped at all. She had no parents or relatives at all (at least any that either her or Rentarō knew of) and the only one she was living with was the one who wasn't allowed to help her.
He knew she wouldn't succeed, regardless of how hard she tried. Because of this he wanted to stop her before she would put any effort into it and cut her work short. Still, she seemed very persistent and continued to keep the idea that she had to make him home made chocolate no matter what. And it looked like it was very little he could do about it.
The girl then gave him a triumphant smile, proud of herself for obtaining his agreement to this dilemma. Having his blessings, she continued to browse the websites to keep on reading recipes.
Rentarō: "And I don't really like sweets at all, either bitter or sweet! Just make me whatever you can!" that was his only real contribution to their discussion and even that wasn't meaningful for her purposes. Still, she decided to remember that for when she will cook. "I can at least help you out with the ingredient shopping!" he tried to help her as much as she would allow him.
Enju: "Already did the shopping after school! My friends helped me pick out the ingredients!" that was a very warming thing for him to hear since it meant that she was actually bonding well with her classmates, a promising evolution considering how often Enju changes schools. "I'm gonna start using them in making the chocolate tonight!" she revealed, something which raised suspicion in the boy standing right next to her.
Rentarō: "Why tonight? Can't you start making the chocolate now?" came a natural query.
Enju: "No! It has to be when I'm sure you won't enter the kitchen while I'm cooking!" whatever was going on in this girl's head, Rentarō had no idea what that was. "So I'll start cooking as soon as you go to sleep!" that sounded very annoying.
The thought of her waiting for him to go to sleep to do anything made him feel very anxious, especially since he had very little faith in her cooking skills at all. What was she planning on doing that night?
Rentarō: "Why?"
Enju: "I can't really give you a reason. Think of it as a woman demanding her privacy!" that obviously didn't satiate Rentarō's curiosity at all but he didn't want to further inquire too much. He had better things to worry about, after all, than waiting to see what she would do. He could only hope though that she won't make a complete mess out of the kitchen.
~Next day, morning~
She felt horrible. After an entire night of cooking and experimenting various recipes over and over again she felt like she was about to drop dead after this much effort. This was the very first time in her entire life when she expended so much energy and effort into anything. Her eyes were burning intensely, she felt a nauseating headache and an incredible urge to go to bed to sleep already and her fingers were so dry because of how much she had used her hands in her concoction making that she felt like the skin would crack at some point.
She wanted to sleep so badly she was barely even fighting her instinctual temptations to just lay her head on the table for a second and close her eyes. Her body felt heavier then than she had ever felt in her entire life and even the simple task of moving suddenly became gargantuan chores that challenged her willpower.
Enju: "So….this is what it means to become a woman…." she jokingly thought at the idea of becoming a housewife who does cooking till late in the night. The idea, while ridiculous, did warm her heart a little when thinking of her supposed 'husband' who was in bed now, oblivious to her burdens and exhaustion from overworking. It looks like he did indeed took to heart his response to her request of not invading her privacy that night while she would cook for him. He hadn't stepped foot in that kitchen all night, not even to check up on her.
Enju: "He was probably very tired…." she said to herself. Then again, she had been neglecting the fact that she herself had been just as tired for hours at that point. "I hope he'll like this…." after many many trial and efforts she finalized her work and managed to successfully complete the task, more or less anyway. Her body was covered in chocolate, flour and baking soda, mostly on her arms and face. She would be horrified of the mess she had caused to both herself and the kitchen had she not been so tired that her brain was already refusing to process these new pieces of information.
Instead, she took a glance at the digital clock nearby to confirm the hour: it was a little past 5 in the morning. She had literally spent the entire night learning how to cook chocolate. This simple fact scared her. She was so glad that she had listened to her friend's advice about buying extra quantity of the ingredients so that even if she failed in cooking once, she would have enough raw material to try another couple of times. And she did just that, having retried that same recipe four times that night (as well as other recipes too). To say that she was ecstatic now that the torment was finally over would be an understatement.
Enju: "I guess there's really no point in going to sleep at this hour. I might as well go take a shower now. Rentarō would yell at me if he saw me like this…." at least she acknowledged the fact that she was really messy. Not only would a shower clean her of all those ingredients on her body, it would also force her brain to wake up if the water was a little colder. That was something she needed considering that she wouldn't get the chance to sleep that night.
So, she packaged her chocolate creations in a heart shaped box, put a small handwritten note in and wrapped it in a cute pink ribbon for extra aesthetic. Afterwards, she went to the bathroom, put all her dirty clothes in the dirty laundry basket and took the liberty of occupying the bath tub for an entire hour, diligently scrubbing every single part of her body to ensure that she would be clean for the upcoming day.
In the middle of her bath, though, she paused a little and contemplated how the rest of the day should play out. Obviously she would affirm her love to Rentarō once again, using this occasion as a means in expressing her affection for him. If all were to go well, as she hoped they would, he would impatiently wait for her to return from school and then take her out on a date.
There, they would have lots of fun together and then, at the end of the day, she hoped he would reward her efforts for him with a kiss. Given that she used up so much energy to do her due diligence as a fiancee, she considered it to be natural for him to reward her efforts in some way.
Enju: "I wonder if he's going to kiss me on the lips this time…." she blushed furiously at the thought while childishly giggling to herself and allowing her imagination to take over. "He's going to kiss me deeply, make me feel happy and excited, and then he's going to touch my body…..start caressing my breasts gently with one hand and then move his fingers in my underwear with the other and….and…." she was thinking hotly before a sudden and rather unwelcome sneeze came upon her and interrupted her smutty trains of thought. "Uh, the water is getting really cold….I should probably finish soon or I'll catch a cold…." and so she stopped conjuring lewd images of her and her supposed fiance in bed and focused again at the task of washing herself. Needless to say, though, that she was very impatient and could barely even wait for the rest of the day to play out. She wanted for Rentarō to finally give her some affection. After all, in the past couple of weeks, he had been especially cold and distant towards her. She couldn't really explain why exactly but he had shifted into a darker and more emotionless attitude recently.
She hoped now that this Valentine's Day would put an end to the awkward silence that their relationship had plummeted into and allow them to manifest themselves as lovers once again. At least, that was an honorable attempt.
After an hour had passed since she had entered the tub, she finally finished with her ministrations, pulled the cork and allowed the water to drain while she wiped herself dry with a towel.
Enju: "Today's gonna be so much fun!" she was so excited. Every single nerve in her body was screaming in joy. She now felt bolder and happier than ever. "Maybe Rentarō will forgive me if I wake him up today…." she mischievously considered while grabbing her fresh clean pair of underwear and putting them one before also grabbing her pajamas and putting them on as well.
Next, after cleaning the tub properly and brushing her teeth, she headed towards Rentarō's room. Now, Rentarō had specifically ordered her, many times in the past, to never enter his room again, especially while he was sleeping at night. He had forbidden that for so long that Enju stopped counting and while she had begun to actually consider his decision recently, she decided to make an exception that day since she just couldn't wait for him to wake up on his own.
Gently and silently she walked across the hallway until she arrived in front of his door. Gulping subtly, she braced herself and slowly turned the handle on his door to open it, doing her best to ensure that she wouldn't make any noise to wake him up.
Even though the entire purpose for her visiting his room was to wake him up, she wanted to surprise him by being literally next to him when he would rise up. And so she stealthily sneaked inside, closing the door behind her with a lot of attention, and then made tacit steps towards his bed.
The boy was deep in slumber, obviously not used to being awake at that hour. Normally he would be a very light sleeper, as his past had forged very strict and powerful instincts in his body that increased his subconscious awareness of his environment, so much so that he would jump straight up even at the smallest of disturbances.
Enju, though, after living with him in the same house for quite a significant while and even sleeping with him a handful of times, had learned how to bypass his natural defenses, often times to achieve vile and evil purposes, at least from Rentarō's perspective. Taking advantage of such knowledge, she preyed upon her defenseless victim, hungrily scanning his unsuspecting vulnerable body, not unlike how a cheetah would target and sneak upon a group of delicious gazelles.
She enjoyed watching him sleep, for whatever reason. Seeing him this peaceful and relaxed made her happy. It proved to her that even someone as strict and on-the-edge as him had his soft and delicate moments. It made him look more human in her eyes.
Rentarō: "No….you can't!" came an unexpected and rather scary development from him. Enju immediately tensed, thinking that she had woken him up by mistake while sneaking.
However, she afterwards noticed how his eyelids wouldn't lift and his breathing remained just as slow and calm as before, indicating that he was still sleeping. Confused, the girl payed even closer attention, trying to figure out why he suddenly said that while not even being awake.
Enju: "That was weird….I could have sworn I heard him say some-" but no sooner had she even initiated that thought than another sudden group of seemingly random words came out of his mouth.
Rentarō: "No! We can't! I don't even have a condom with me!" and then his arms moved slightly, almost as if he was reenacting what was going on in his dream. At that point, Enju's face lit up and she immediately realized what was going on: Rentarō was talking in his sleep.
She chuckled to herself, smiling at him a devilish grin, even happier now that she had the opportunity to spy on her fiance's inner desires.
Enju: "So….this is what a wet dream for men is like. I heard my friends talking about it so much at school. It looks….fun!" she thought while closely analyzing the boy's every gesture. "Doing it without a condom with me? Rentarō, you're even naughtier than I thought!" she was going to use this information for a long time in the upcoming days, for sure. He would not hear the end of it. "I wonder….what position we are using" the blushing became even more intense than before. She was beginning to wonder if there was some way she could probe him for more information about his dream without having to wake him up. Clearly this was an invasion of privacy but she didn't really care. She was too fixated on what her and Rentarō must be doing in his erotic imaginative adventure.
Rentarō: "No….get off of me! You can-…..aaaghhh" he yelled lightly, visibly moving his limbs around under the sheets while struggling futilely.
Enju: "It's in…." she comically remarked, amusing herself at the helplessness that his partner was displaying in front of her. "My my….I never knew you were this much of a pervert, Rentarō!" at this point she didn't even care anymore if she was talking out loud since his voice was already louder than hers and he didn't seem to be waking up at all. "If you really wanted us to do that I wouldn't have minded! You could have just asked!" she was feeling the urge to take advantage of this situation and suddenly assault the boy with a few invitations of her own.
She felt her heart pounding faster all of a sudden. Her body was getting excited as well from this shameless display of lust. She considered making moves on him now while he was in this state since he clearly was enjoying himself too much. Selfishly leaving her out of this was not something she was happy with. She wanted to play with him for real.
Enju: "Hmm….maybe when he'll get close enough to finishing I'll give him a good morning kiss! That will satisfy him!" she wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away. She needed to take advantage of this now that he was so aroused.
Rentarō: "Ahh….I'm almost….get off! I might just…." he was starting to shake a little as the girl continued to keep watch.
Enju: "You're almost there, Rentarō!" she encouragingly whispered in his ear before approaching her lips to his own. "Almost theeee…." but just before she could do the deed, a new twist arrived:
Rentarō: "No….stop! Kisara-san, stop it!" came the reality shattering confession that the girl could never have expected. Immediately when hearing that, Enju's eyes widened so hard from the shock that she put a lot of distance between her face and Rentarō's and simply stared back at his sleeping figure in disbelief.
Enju: "Ki-….ki-…..Kisara-san?!" she felt like yelling at that, only barely managing to contain her furious anger as she did her best to not wake up the boy sleeping right next to her. All of her libido that had been building up inside of her had been brutally and mercilessly blown to smithereens. She could feel her heart now racing even harder than before and her face becoming even redder than ever, although this time because of her rage, not because of blushing.
Now she didn't mind anymore if she woke him up. In fact, she even felt entitled to question him because of his dubious dreams involving other women. Still, the girl tried to maintain a tactful and more sophisticated approach to this problem and decided to use another strategy.
So, she approached her mouth to his ear once again, starting to delicately whisper once again.
Enju: "Rentarō, Rentarō…." she began, trying not to overdo it and actually wake him up as that would defeat the purpose of what she was attempting. The boy stopped with his exhibitions, noticing the strange voice disrupting his sleeping cycle and processing its information.
Rentarō: "….." he stood there, not doing anything in particular but simply laying there motionless, as opposed to earlier when he had been moving around and randomly spouting gibberish. Now he was listening to Enju's talking, which encouraged the girl to continue.
Enju: "Wake up, Rentarō!" came the sudden request, the girl trying to mask her anger and attempting to sound as persuasive but inviting as possible. The boy, hearing this, realized that he must have been in his bed and began to slowly wake up.
Rentarō: "Not now….Enju! Let me sleep a little more!" he responded in a grumpy and dissatisfied voice. He wanted to be left alone, of that much he was sure. He had already set the alarm on his clock so he didn't need her to disrupt his sleep. Because of this, he tried to compel her to leave his room.
Enju: "Wake up, Rentarō! You're gonna be a father! Me and you are going to have the most amazing child together!" she directly landed her hardest and most effective hit against his half-unconscious fiance. The boy didn't know how to respond, still analyzing what piece of information he had received from the girl. His brain was obviously not functioning at its fullest capacity yet as a lot of energy was being used to maintain his sleep and so he could only marginally process this news. Still, the impact it had on him became clear very quickly and, almost as if on command, the very small fragment of his encephalon that actually payed attention to her voice, jump-started the entire rest of the organ almost in an instant, as a sudden rush of adrenaline was felt and the boy went into overdrive. In a split second he rose up from his sitting position, with a face that quickly whitened so hard it looked like he was about to faint and began quickly scanning his environment for the source of that voice.
Noticing the girl sitting next to him, the boy grabbed her shoulders with his hands and looked at her directly in the eyes, with a voice that betrayed fear.
Rentarō: "We have a baby?! How do you know that?! Did you stop having your periods yet?!" he began rapidly asking her, taking the poor girl by complete surprise. Enju, feeling overwhelmed by his overly energetic spontaneous mood, thought about his question, trying to think of a proper way of answering.
Enju: "Uhhh, what's a period?" she responded with what she honestly thought. The boy, the moment he understood what she had said, fully woke up and realized, then and there, the absurdity of the supposed pregnancy claim as he had then remembered, finally, the girl's actual age.
Rentarō: "Enju….why do you think you're pregnant? We never had sex!" he barely asked with subtle hatred in his voice before the girl burst out laughing in his arms.
Enju: "I can't believe that worked so well!" she admitted, continuing to amuse herself at his extreme and otherwise irrational behavior. The boy glared at her, with so much fury that he wanted to yell at her for this cheap trick that she tried on him. The girl didn't seem to mind the obvious daggers that he was shooting at her from his eyes. He let go of her shoulders and pulled his face closer to hers.
Rentarō: "You're going to pay for that, Enju…." he warned, letting her know of his now vengeful intentions. The girl, upon hearing this, calmed herself down from her inane laughing session and tried to pull herself together to have a serious conversation with him now that he was fully awake.
After finally managing to achieve that, she cleared her throat and began attempting to justify her actions to him.
Enju: "Well, it's because you were having lewd dreams about Kisara-san!" she tried pointing out to him. The man suddenly remembered, at that point, the erotic dream he had had just before he was taken away from it by this noisy little creature.
Rentarō: "No, I did not!" he lied, avoiding eye contact with her to try to ensure that she wouldn't catch on. Sadly for him though, she was not gonna allow herself to be that easily fooled.
Enju: "(suddenly glaring at him) Don't lie to me! I know you were having naughty dreams involving her! You said her name at one point!" she accused him, clearly letting him know that she was fully aware of the truth. The boy blushed at that accusation as a new revelation had been made to him.
Rentarō: "I did what?!" up until that point he had never even known that he would talk in his sleep. This was news to him. "I….I talked in my sleep?!" to that, the girl nodded while pouting adorably.
Enju: "'No, get off of me!' 'I don't even have a condom with me'…..is what you said!" she comically reenacted some of his movements herself, wrapping her arms around her own torso and closing her eyes while acting out his lines in an over-the-top manner to annoy him. "You were even moving around! I never knew you could be so lewd, Rentarō!" this time that wasn't used in any way as a compliment as the girl continued to look at him with anger in her eyes.
At this point, realizing that nothing he would say could save him, Rentarō dropped any lies and simply embraced the embarrassment he was feeling at having his privacy invaded in such an unkind manner.
Rentarō: "I….can't control what I dream! Besides, who I fantasize about is none of your business! If the truth hurts you so much then don't sneak into my room in the first place!" obviously that reasoning didn't help his cause by much, as such a retort only served to madden his wanna-be fiancee all the more.
Enju: "I can't accept that!" she declared, almost as if his dreams were in fact indeed controllable and that this act of infidelity was on par to being caught cheating on your wife in bed. She felt betrayed and so she was taking this especially badly even though Rentarō had every right to defend himself given the circumstances. "You're my fiance! That means that you're only allowed to dream about doing naughty stuff with me and nobody else! I'm the only woman who you should see naked!" she proclaimed proudly, sounding so unreasonable that the boy face palmed.
Rentarō, after having enough of her crap and very annoyed that he had been woken up that early in the morning, decided to cut this conversation short and go back to bed to recover on whatever sleep he could until actual morning would come. So he grabbed Enju's tiny body once again while she was throwing her mildly annoying tantrum, lifted her up from the ground and began carrying her.
Enju: "Oh….you want to apologize by carrying me to my room? That's so sweet of you!" she comically dropped all the hostility she had harbored for him just mere moments ago. "Will you undress me too when we get to my bed? Because that's the only way I'm willing to for-…." and then, before she could finalize that thought, he threw her in a very cartoon-ish way directly through the door into the main hallway, having her land face flat onto the wall opposite to his room's door. "…..ow" was all she ended her conversation with.
Rentarō: "This is the last time I'm tolerating this! Sneak into my room one more time and you're getting grounded!" he harshly told her as the girl picked herself off the ground. "Now get back to your room and sleep!" he felt that he has had enough of her shenanigans and what was even more frustrating for him was the fact that that day hadn't even begun yet. But as he grabbed his door and was ready to shut it closed and leave the girl in the hallway, she turned around at him with half formed tears in her eyes.
Enju: "That's not fair!" she yelled one last time in desperation to get his attention. "You sleep for almost the entire night and I'm the one who got to work throughout all of it! And this is the treatment I get?!" at hearing that, the boy stopped in his tracks and refocused his attention on her, giving in and not continuing to disregard everything she was saying to him.
Rentarō: "You what?!" and it was then when a sudden light bulb turned on brightly over his head as the realization finally got through his thick skull. "You…..made chocolate for me all night?" he calmed down then, relaxing and taking a more gentle and friendlier attitude when hearing that.
The girl didn't start crying yet and tried to maintain a dignified look while dusting herself off and getting back on her feet.
Rentarō: "Why?!" he asked what was probably the dumbest question that day. The girl pointed her finger at him to relay even more frustration towards him.
Enju: "Because I love you, you idiot!" his conscience was finally starting to get the better of him and he was now feeling guilty for having acted so directly and brutally to her.
When he finally let his guard down, the boy allowed Enju to pull him from his room across their home and into the kitchen where she had spent almost all night.
The man, upon entering the room, was greeted with an even more nauseating and merciless sight to behold. When he entered the chamber, his still-waking-up brain was incapable of properly deciding what to make his eyes focus on as the amount of information he was receiving from that room was so huge and shocking that he was actually refusing to accept the reality in front of him: semi-molten chocolate hand prints were smudged systematically across many of the areas that were once clean, among which was the oven, the primary dining table, all the cooking utensils which Enju used (and they weren't few), a couple of cracked egg shells on the floor, flour and footprints in it that littered the floor and just an overall messy collection of randomly scattered opened bags of various ingredients, among of which was baking soda, vanilla extracts and more.
The kitchen was in such disarray that the boy even considered the possibility of them having been robbed. But then again, what would a robber get out of pillaging their cooking area? Enju ignored his complete shock as she hadn't noticed it and simply walked up to the box of chocolates she had prepared for him before and grabbed it to hand it to him. But it was then that she noticed his horrified expression.
Enju: "What's wrong, Rentarō?" the naivete in her voice would be charming to him, had it not been for the circumstances that was causing the boy's blood pressure to rocket into the dangerous unhealthy levels.
Rentarō: "Enju…." he began, his voice shaking almost like on the verge of crying. The girl, noticing his troubled behavior, immediately ran up to him to aid.
Enju: "Rentarō, are you alright? You look like you just saw a ghost!" she was so oblivious to what was going on that the boy couldn't even get mad at her. This was undoubtedly because of the exhaustion that she was enduring that her brain was incapable of acknowledging the disaster that she had caused to their kitchen. In such a situation, as much as Rentarō wanted to, he simply could not muster the rage necessary to properly punish her for this herculean catastrophe that she had brought to their home, especially since she did all of that for his sake supposedly.
Rentarō: "Next year…..I don't care if you plan to give it to me or not! I'm helping you with the making of chocolate! And that's final!" was all he could say in wake of that. The girl wanted to protest but before she did so she looked in the same direction as he was to see if she could better explain his erratic behavior. And, after finally investing a little more effort in trying to understand and identify his cause of shock, she finally realized, just then, what was the real reason for her partner's distress.
When she expended a little more attention to her surroundings, she finally understood why he had been so distraught now: the entire room was a complete mess because of her.
Enju: "Oh…..I see" she calmly stated, with a forced smile on her face almost like trying to pretend that it wasn't that much of a big deal at all, even though the teenage boy next to her was almost about to erupt in a wail of tears in desperation. "Uh…..I think I can clean this up?" was all she could add in an attempt to make the boy feel a little better, even though he knew full well that allowing her to aid him in cleaning that kitchen, especially with her exhaustion, would probably backfire considerably. And at this point he could not afford any more surprises.
With a twitching eyebrow giving away the level of emotional stress he was under, the boy contained all of his anger and calmly just replied.
Rentarō: "Why? What did you cook that required this amount of work and ingredients?!" by the looks of it, he estimated that probably at least 10% of the ingredients she must have bought were now scattered and stained their kitchen in various areas, instead of ending in actual food. He was so taken aback by the sheer scale of the aftermath of Enju's disastrous culinary quest that he could only wonder what Guinness Book recipe had this child attempt to follow.
Enju: "Eh…..uhmm, I can't really say. It's supposed to be a surprise after all" she nervously laughed in response, not really earning her any credit from the miserable teenager.
Rentarō: "Why couldn't you have just bought regular chocolate bars from the convenience store, melted them into cream and then simply add some powders for flavor while they cool back down? Isn't that what most women do during Valentine's day? Wasn't that good enough?" again, at this point he was too tired to even get mad. He just felt the incredible urge to turn back around and head to his room and hug his bed.
Enju wasn't that particularly happy with his remark though.
Enju: "That's cheap! I wanted to show you all my love for you by working hard and making you something special!" despite her commendable devotion for this, he couldn't help but wonder how much less of a pain this could have been if she simply followed the regular tradition and didn't go overboard. "I guess I might have overdid it a bit though…." now she couldn't really deny the fact that Rentarō actually had good reasons at that moment to be mad at her.
The boy allowed a sigh out of his system, arguably the heaviest sigh he had had in weeks. Then, inhaling deeply almost as if he was about to enter battle like usual, he gathered the courage necessary and began walking towards the disaster that was awaiting him. He opened a nearby drawer and pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, a face mask as well as a handful of sponges, bottles of various chemical cleaning solutions and, of course, the good old broom.
He immediately began to perform the necessary actions to clean that room, although not without grunting every so often, reminding the girl overlooking of his discomfort.
Enju: "I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble" she responded with a sorrowful face that showed genuine remorse. "Do you hate me now?" naturally, when a little girl like her would ask such an innocent sounding question, there was no way Rentarō could answer that without trying to downplay her fault.
Rentarō: "I don't hate you, Enju. I just wish you were a bit more careful when you do stuff like this…." he explained while continuing to do the necessary work as she was watching him. "You made such a huge mess out of the kitchen, it will probably take the entire day for me to properly clean it up!" suddenly, at the hearing of that estimation, the girl tensed up and a bad feeling came over her.
Enju: "All day long? Uhh….Are you sure? Can't you somehow finish it by the time I come home from school?" she inquired sheepishly, trying to remind him of the fact that they were supposed to go on a date later that day. Naturally, Rentarō did not pick up on that.
Rentarō: "I'll do my best but this will take time. Why? Do you have plans to do something after school today?" of course he had forgotten his promise to her pertaining to their upcoming Valentine's date. Enju couldn't really say that she was surprised but she did feel a little furious because of his disregard to anything romantic.
Enju: "Yes, Rentarō! You promised me, last Christmas that you would take me out on a date today! Remember?" it was then that the boy stopped in his tracks and actually recalled the promise he had made with her back then.
Rentarō: "I did what?!" came the debilitating scream from a both surprised but also annoyed teenager. It was at that moment when Rentarō realized that that day would be a true nightmare for him.
Author's note: chapter one finally complete. Sorry for the exaggerated length of this chapter. I guess I went a bit overboard with it. I'll try to keep the future ones a little bit shorter, not by much but noticeable at least. As of right now, I'm planning on maintaining a weekly upload schedule for this story (meaning I plan on uploading one chapter every week from now on until I'm done). However, if you guys think that's not appropriate enough and you want more frequent updates or less frequent ones, please let me know in your reviews how often you would be comfortable with me uploading this content. The story will already be fully written by the time I publish it so I can upload as often as you want me to. Since the chapters are so large, though, I'd imagine you won't want them to be too frequent.
Also, to explain what giri-choco means: giri-choco is the type of chocolate handed out by women in Japan during Valentine's day to men who they are not romantically involved with. A common misconception about Valentine's day in Japan is that women there give out chocolate only to the men who they love. In actuality, they also give out chocolate to men who they are only acquainted with (such as their male co-workers, classmates and others). This type of chocolate gift is usually cheap and easy to make and doesn't require much effort. It's merely symbolic of formality.
Have a nice day!