Katawa Shoujo - Akira Satou Route

Act 3-1 Insight

"A-Akira, your, uh..."

"What's up?" she asks as she grabs the chair arm and twists around, popping her back. Such an action only exacerbates the problem and tears me between my two instincts. Given free rule, one eye would focus all of its energy on the perky exposed flesh while the other would look as far away as physically possible - like some kind of googly-eyed, refined pervert.

Unable to form the proper words, I point to my chest frantically, not even bothering to worry about the stereotypical slap or thrown object that would be sent my way.

She tilts her head in confusion before glancing down and noticing the 'problem', a long-winded chuckle escaping her throat in response.

"Ah, that's not very ladylike of me, is it?" she comments as she grabs both halves of her shirt and pulls them in, doing up the rest of the buttons with a light blush emerging on her cheeks. "Sorry about that; you stop paying mind to things like this when you've been living alone for a while."

What has been seen cannot be unseen. And now that she says something like that, I can't help but imagine a lazy Akira on her day off not even bothering to put clothes on.

"Oh, but you seem to be paying a lot of mind to it~." she teases.

The only word I'm able to squeeze out in response is an embarrassed "sorry," the amount of heat rushing to my face cutting off the possibility of any witty retort.

"Nah, don't worry about it. It's my fault for lying around in my pajamas when company is over to begin with."

"Well, it is your place; you have the freedom to do whatever you want." I reply.

"Are you only saying that because you liked what you saw?" she counters, the sides of her mouth curled up into a catlike smirk.

The only answer I'm able to call upon is a flustered sigh as the palm of my hand flies up to my face.

"Oh c'mon, I'm just having fun. You're supposed to laugh too."

"Hah." I huff.

"See, you have the sense of humor, you just refuse to use it. Lighten up every once in a while."

Well, there's plenty of things I could have said in response to that, like 'yeah, that's exactly why I said it,' or 'I'm just saying you shouldn't change how you behave because I'm here; you could lie around naked if you wanted.'

But things like that are...

There's no way to feel comfortable making jokes like that. Not yet, anyway. 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should' or some other proverb like that.

"I know how to have fun. It's what I was doing last night, wasn't it?" I reply.

That's no understatement either. From the arcade to the jazz club and all the way home, I don't think there was a single dull moment. It might be because of the person I was with though; she could make watching paint dry interesting.

"It was a good start, but you've still got a long way to go." she comments, scratching her chin in thought.

"How so?"

"Well, you're gonna have to start getting out of that school more if you want to be the wild rebel you claimed to be last night." she answers with an amused smile.

"That was a joke; I'd rather not go down that path." I reply, shoulders dropping in embarrassment as I remember the fact that I even said such a thing.

"Good man." she replies with an almost relieved smile.

"I don't want to stay as the boring, dull shut-in I am now, but I'm definitely not going to turn into a wild animal. There's so many ways that wouldn't work out."