Exusiai’s Next Fifty Years

Rei was a member of the dance club; I’d known that for a while. Her major was jazz dance.

Exusiai and I followed her into the academic building and down the stairs to the basement. Many clubs, like the dance club and the rock club, held their activities in the basement to avoid disturbing others with the noise.

Once we were in the basement, the natural light from the sun disappeared, and pale electric lights became the dominant feature of the quiet corridor. At this time of day, it seemed no one was around for club activities, so the basement was deserted and silent, filled with the perfect atmosphere for a paranormal livestream.

“Over there~” Rei, wearing cute overalls, bounced over to a clean, closed wooden door and pulled a key from the pocket on her bib.

“Tada~” she said, making a sound effect like Doraemon pulling a high-tech gadget from his pocket. Then the girl, whom I had honorably dubbed “Cute, I wanna…”, clicked the door to the dance studio open.

After she flipped on the lights, a spacious and bright room appeared before me and Exusiai. A waxed, gleaming wooden floor, and a clean, wall-sized mirror—it was a room that perfectly matched the popular image of a dance studio.

“Shoes off inside, okay~” Rei said, taking off her little shoes on the mat by the door. She stepped eagerly onto the wooden floor and said, “I’ll go get the dress~”, before pattering into a side room. It seemed to be the changing room.

I looked at Exusiai, then also took off my shoes on the mat, stepping onto the clean, smooth wooden floor in just my socks.

I was still sizing up the room, imagining Rei practicing her jazz dance in front of that massive mirror, when I felt something soft step onto my foot. I looked down and saw Exusiai’s little foot, clad in a black sock. The girl whose handsome face made it hard to tell her gender had very delicate feet. If you ignored her face and only looked at this cute little foot, you would probably be able to guess her gender in an instant.

At this moment, this black-sock-clad foot was gently pressing on top of mine, her big toe, which slightly pushed up the fabric of the sock, playfully tapping the spot where my foot met my ankle.

Exusiai looked at me and smiled softly. It was a mischievous smile, like a cute girl acting coy with her best friend or boyfriend. Then, as if she were unsteady, she reached out a slender little hand and gently tugged on the corner of my shirt.

…This girl, does she have to be such a flirt!

As a tough man, I would naturally not be so easily slayed, melting in this sweet atmosphere. So I lifted my other foot and, copying her, stepped on her other foot.

The feel of the wooden dance floor was, of course, far better than concrete, but no matter how good it felt, it naturally couldn’t compare to the top of Exusiai’s foot. The skin on her foot was delicate, and stepping on it lightly, I could easily feel the fine bones beneath. I just didn’t know how it felt for her to be stepping on my foot.

I was a bit unsteady, so I also grabbed her collar. We looked at each other from a very close distance, like we were dancing some strange, intimate dance, breathing in each other’s delicate breaths.

Exusiai’s pretty face, which had taken up my entire field of vision, raised a handsome eyebrow at me, and the corner of her clean mouth curved into a seductive smile that seemed to carry an electric charge. My cheeks grew a little hot, my heart started pounding again, and I subconsciously turned my head away, not daring to look at her.

Just then, Rei’s cheerful voice suddenly came from a short distance behind us. “Tada~ This is the Snow White dress!”

I jumped, subconsciously turning to look at Rei. But I had forgotten that my foot and Exusiai’s were stacked together like a lasagna. So the moment I moved, both of us instantly lost our balance and fell to the floor in a heap.

Thump—

Luckily, it was a wooden floor, so it didn’t hurt to fall on it. On the contrary, it was very soft, softer than a bed, and warm. The wooden floor even thoughtfully pulled me into its embrace…

???

I flinched. I opened my eyes and saw that this wasn’t a goddamn wooden floor at all, but Exusiai, who had wrapped her arms around me as we fell, using her own body as my cushion.

My feelings immediately became complicated, a mix of sweetness, shyness, and worry, like a multi-flavored ice cream swirl. The sweetness and shyness need no explanation. The worry was that Exusiai had been pressed to the floor by the weight of two people. What if she was injured? If she was injured, say, paralyzed or something, I would naturally have to take care of her for the rest of her life. All those… things… would have to be done by my own hands.

…That actually doesn’t sound too bad?

Despite that thought, I naturally didn’t want Exusiai to be hurt. I quickly got up and helped her up as well, checking the places where she might have been injured. “Did that hurt? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere? Do you need to go to the bathroom?!”

“…Why did you jump straight to going to the bathroom?!” Exusiai retorted reflexively, but then she gently patted my head and comforted me in a soft voice she would never normally use. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’m fine. This wooden floor doesn’t even hurt when you fall on it.”

Rei, who was standing at the entrance of the changing room holding the wedding-gown-like dress, also nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, that’s right. The wooden floor in this dance studio is very springy. We’ve fallen a few times while dancing and it was fine. You don’t have to worry so much~ But…”

Her lively eyes looked at me, who was practically plastered to Exusiai, then at Exusiai, who was patting my head, and a meaningful smile appeared on her face. “…But, you two are really close.”

Only then did I realize that I had just been acting all lovey-dovey with another man in front of the girl I liked.

…Wait, being lovey-dovey with another man in front of the girl I liked?

Why does that sound so weird?!

I quickly let out a light cough and, purely to change the subject, looked at the snow-white long dress in Rei’s hands. The fabric of the dress was very soft, adorned with gorgeous lace. It was clearly not something you could wear on a daily basis. At first glance, it gave the impression of a wedding dress.

I had seen this dress once before, a long time ago, right after we started school. Rei had brought this dress to our meeting under the cherry blossom tree. The description sounds quite romantic at first, but who would have thought that at the time, she just wanted me to cross-dress as Snow White?

Rei looked at the dress in her hands and also seemed to be reminiscing, a hint of regret in her tone. “Kiriko, at that time, I originally wanted you to cross-dress as Snow White, and I would cross-dress as the Prince, but you refused. I didn’t expect that after all this time, I… got bigger,” she said, shyly gesturing to the big grey wolf heads on her chest. “So I had to find Exusiai to play the Prince.”

The moment she said that, I froze. She originally wanted me to be the princess and her to be the prince? Then does that mean I…

…If I had just agreed back then, would we even have kids by now?!

#You want to have kids before you even graduate from university?!!#