((Continued from http://www.xeneth.net/urpc/index.php?to ... g30851#new ))

Eld's thoughts mirrored Etsu's almost exactly: it was too late to really do anything substantial (leaving out a few ideas that it seemed a bit too soon for), and he didn't feel like reading the journal and just leaving Etsu to her own devices, even though boredom didn't seem to be something that ever bothered her.

"I suppose I'll lay down too," he replied, also thinking it would be fine to just be next to her for awhile. He'd already changed into his nightclothes, so he simply climbed in bed and got comfortable.

He didn't realize that Etsu intended to sleep in just the towel; he figured either she'd go change in the bathroom, or if she was particularly trusting today just ask him to look the other way while she did.

Once Eld was laying down beside of her, she wormed her way up close to him, intent to lay upon him. She had slept with him like this before on several other occassions, but now it had a different feeling. She wanted to lay there with him, in his arms, her head upon his chest, and just drift off to sleep--and wake up the next morning in the same position. Nothing would have been better. If she could, she'd subtly try and get him to hold her, but she wouldn't be too insistent; that just went against her nature.

"Ai shite imasu," she'd inevitably whisper, though not loud enough that Eld might hear or understand--but nonetheless, she smiled joyfully as she whispered it, and shut her eyes contently. Truthfully, it wouldn't be long before she'd actually fall asleep . . .

It may have been early, but there had been quite a bit of excitement during the day. As seen in the past, Etsu really wasn't use to doing too much during the course of a day. For her, her body was accustomed to fishing for a majority of the day, coming back, eating dinner, and sleeping soon after. There was no real emotional involvement. Days like this, though, when she felt a great deal of emotions during the course of the day and was actually quite active during it, she wound up getting worn out and falling asleep quite quickly.

Eld was a bit surprised to have Etsu crawl on top of him with only a towel on, but it was far from him to complain. He was perfectly content to have her with him regardless of how much or little she was wearing.

Normally he simply lay still, but now he didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around her. He had no reason to hold back his feelings anymore, no reason to restrain his actions. And though he didn't hear her whisper, nor would he have anything but the vaguest idea what she said if he did, the message was still clear as day.

I love you Etsu. It was still a bit embarrassing to say it out loud, but even being able to think it was an improvement from the way he'd suppressed his feelings until now.

And it wouldn't be long before against all habit, like Etsu he'd drift quickly to sleep...

It was the next morning--morning. The first time that Etsu had woken up in the morning in some time. The sun was just rising--what time was it? Eight? Nine? Ten? It was autumn, so the sun rose at a later time anymore, but to the just-waking Reaper, that didn't matter.

What mattered to her was that she was waking up in Eld's arms. It was the very first thing she felt. His skin upon her skin, his arms around her back, loosely holding her. For a moment, she considered opening her eyes, but wound up deciding against it. She'd have preferred to just lay like this for awhile, rather than get up, move around, and go about the rest of the day. Either way, she was going to be with Eld--and therefore happy--but if she could help it, she'd be at peek comfort for as long as she could.

Etsu hadn't even noticed that her towel had been undone a bit, and though she was still laying on it, it had slid off of her back. She had simply failed to realize that there was a problem with that, which inevitably left her entire backside exposed. Certainly a surprise for Eld in the morning . . .

Almost as unusual as Etsu waking up in the morning was the fact that she was up before Eld; normally, he'd end up getting up a good half-hour before she did, not to mention she rarely got out of bed as soon as she woke up.

Around fifteen minutes after Etsu awoke, Eld's eyes fluttered as the first pangs of consciousness returned, and as usual his first reaction was to groan, turn his head, close his eyes and attempt to go back to sleep. This rarely worked, though--he was just the type that had trouble going back to bed once he woke up.

After a few minutes of vainly trying to fall asleep again, he sighed and opened eyes--whereupon his breath caught. While she was still decent thanks to laying on the towel, Etsu was still showing quite a bit of skin, and in his usual morning haze Eld even forgot for a moment that there was a towel between them at all.

He failed to notice that she was awake, as well; with her eyes closed and her body relaxed, she seemed to be sleeping to him. He might have been able to tell normally, but not after just getting up.

For a moment he considered waking her up, but he rejected that thought; there wasn't any pressing reason to. Judging from the sun it was actually pretty early, which meant they had plenty of time before they needed to meet Emma to head into Galaens. And he was kind of enjoying the view, something he now could feel much less guilty about. Of course, since she was already awake she'd just have to open her eyes to notice him staring...

When Eld stirred a bit, Etsu knew that he had finally woken up, too. Though it was morning at the moment, it wasn't like that hadn't gone to sleep early. The two Reapers may very well have slept the same amount as they usually do, just at different times, and now they weren't going to be so zombified in the afternoon. In fact, given a couple of hours, they'd be wide awake.

Etsu looked up at him, unable to help but smiling a bit when she saw him looking back at her. This was decidedly the most pleasant way to wake up in the morning. Etsu made a conscious decision to savor it as much as she could, as she didn't plan on having the luxury for too long . . .

"Ohayou . . ." Etsu whispered.

She didn't notice at first that she was almost completely unclothed, and since they went to bed without covers last night, there really was nothing keeping her decent, excepting the fact that she was laying on him. It took Etsu a moment to realize what he was staring at, and as soon as she did, her face started to turn a few shades of red. Lethargically, she reached around for the other sides of the towel and tried to wrap it around her again, but to little avail--before she finally just tugged at a bunch up cover at the end of the bed with her foot and pulled it over her. Then, she was able to lay on her side without too much concern.

"E-Er-rd-kun . . ." she pouted, ". . . you are be hentai again . . ."

As Etsu looked up at him Eld's cheeks flushed a bright red, and he was too flustered to notice that she hadn't realized he'd been staring at first. But she soon figured it out and before he could reply she ended up moving around to pull the covers over them, giving him a significantly better view for a second as she lifted her leg to do so.

"S-Sorry," he stammered at last, but then frowned slightly. "Though...it's not like I can help it when you're in just a towel."

He wondered about to do. He figured that actually doing anything hentai would be taking things too fast, but...staring was alright, now that they were going out, wasn't it? Actually, when he thought about it it had technically been alright before...

In any case, now that she was more comfortable he was perfectly content to lie there with her even if he couldn't see anything, though he'd likely need to turn his head whenever she decided to get up.

"Actually...I'd probably be staring even if you were fulling clothed," he added. Even after just waking up, it didn't take long for the thought that they were now boyfriend and girlfriend to get his heart beating fast again.

"A-arigatou . . ." replied a shy Etsu.

She blushed again. Eld was always nice like that, and best of all, she knew he was being honest about it. While she didn't think of herself as attractive, Eld did, and he didn't have to do much convincing to make her believe that his opinion was genuine. Though it wasn't enough to get her to like her own appearance, it was still enough to make her blush and feel giddy and bubbly--giggly, even . . .

The feeling of being Eld's girlfriend was phenomenal, albeit lethargic. She could have laid like this with him all week long, though she knew that he was going to wind up getting bored with that eventually. Etsu was lazy and easily occupied, though; she couldn't help that.

". . . but it wour-rd . . . no be hentai stare, no?" she asked, somewhat curious.

Which, of course, stemmed from her lack of self confidence, self worth, and self esteem. Eld giving her perverted stares meant he was attracted to her in a perverted way, too, which admittedly made her feel good inside, too--but she hadn't encountered him thinking perverted thoughts about her when she was fully clothed.

"W-Well...I-I," he stammered, the question surprising him. He didn't realize that she could tell what he was thinking just by how he stared...though he supposed in this case it was only natural.

He flushed as he thought about it--there was no definite answer, but he tried to be honest anyway. "I guess it depends on what you're wearing, and...well, on my mood," he admitted. Sometimes, it didn't really matter what she (or the other girls for that matter) wore--if he was just in one of those moods, his imagination would run wild at the slightest prodding.

It made him nervous, because he wondered if Etsu would think he was a pervert...though she may very well be justified if she did come to that conclusion.

Though she was under the covers to avoid any sort of perverted stare from Eld, Etsu reached with her hands to gently tug at Eld's, pulling them under the covers for the sake of trying to get him to wrap them around her back and shoulders again. Etsu loved the way it felt when he touched her bare skin. It wasn't a lustful sensation, but a comforting one--soft, warm, contenting. She enjoyed the feeling of skin against skin.

It was worth noting that Etsu had no semblance of lustful urges, though; excepting times in which she tried to get Eld's attention, she was exclusively innocent in that regard--whereas she had no personal urge or need for it, but knowing that Eld, who was now her boyfriend (something she kept saying in her head sporadically), had those sorts of wants, she had no qualms dressing up or doing something to appease his perverseness. Etsu, on the other hand, was much more innocent regarding touch and appearance--more or less very shy and reserved about it, hesitant to look at Eld when he was naked, even after their rendezvous a little over a month ago, and blushing just at the thought of it.

"It is o-kay," Etsu whispered as she snuggled into Eld's chest, "You can stir-rr be hentai be-cause, a-ano, I am your girr-r-f-riend, and coupr-re are ar-rrowed be hentai."

She was only speaking in general terms, though. Etsu didn't mean that he could be perverted right now, but considering Eld's history of fouled interpretations . . .

Even on the best mornings (and this was certainly one of his better mornings thus far) Eld was a little spacey, and though he'd gotten a good night's sleep he was also awake much earlier than he was used to.

And even with that, he normally might have gotten what she meant, seeing as how she was just pouting about how he'd been staring--but her easily misinterpreted words combined with the fact that she was currently pulling his hands under the covers meant that he was guaranteed to get the completely wrong idea.

"U-Umm...o-okay..." he stammered, blushing. It was to him a complete 180 from what she'd just been saying, but with the way she was tugging his hands it was the only conclusion he could come to.

So rather than wrap his arms around her like she wanted, his hands instead began stroking up and down her sides. Though not yet being definitively hentai, it was pretty clear what his intentions were...especially as his hands drifted further and further towards her chest.

Feeling Eld's hand running up her sides, Etsu relaxed and smiled a bit. That felt nice . . . and it got her wondering--was he going to hold her, like she had wanted, or was he going to give her a bit of a back rub, or something along those lines? That would have actually been pretty nice, but probably easier if she had her back to him or something. No matter how much she relaxed, though, it was sorely interrupted when she felt his touch encroaching upon her sides, closer and closer to her chest, moving with intent to feel . . .

"H-hentai~!!" she exclaimed, shouting, although still so very meek with her voice that no one was going to hear her outside of the room, 'less they had their ear pressed to the door.

She squirmed and used her hands to pull Eld's hands back down to level with her hips. Still, she wanted him to hold her . . . even though he was being perverted twice within the same five minutes! Etsu looked up at him, pouting her lower lip out and narrowing her eyes just a bit--showing disapproval, but almost playfully so. Mayako had said that boys were perverted, but not this perverted!

". . . onr-ry want to be hor-rd . . ." Etsu whispered, pouting. ". . . why Er-rd-kun so hentai?"

"E-Eh?!" Eld exclaimed at her sudden shout (well, shouting for her), stopping any movement of his hands and allowing them to be pulled back down to her hips. He gave her a wide-eyed stare, now very thoroughly confused and flustered.

"W-What? I though you wanted--y-you said it was okay, then you pulled my hands down..." He trailed off, realizing that whatever he had thought he'd obviously been wrong.

Pouting a bit himself now, he did as she wanted and wrapped his arms around her. "It's your fault for giving me the wrong idea," he said, though not really meaning it, which showed as his lips quirked upwards in a small smile.

A misunderstanding, it seemed--something she was probably at fault for, too. Etsu's Common was extremely broken and choppy; there was a good chance that it was all because of that. Her features softened upon this realization, but she was simultaneously prompted to move a bit so she was laying on her side--while still mainly kept decent by the blanket, but he still might have been able to see cleavage or something of the sort of he looked down at her; that was something she couldn't necessarily conceal given the situation.

She wasn't offended or anything of the like, but Eld was certainly being mean by picking on her! As such, she had felt it necessary to move a little, and say a little speech:

"Er-rd-kun is hentai and mean . . ." whined Etsu, who, though she was accusing him of quite a bit, made no motion that suggested she wanted him to let go.

In fact, she was perfectly comfortable where she was. Etsu reached down for his arms and hugged them to her body, altogether doing what she could to keep him close, and keep him holding her . . . reassurance that it was real, and that she truly was his girlfriend . . .

Eld was about to protest that statement, but Etsu's movement caused him to get an eyeful of cleavage and he realized that denying anything probably pointless. He knew that it was too soon, that they shouldn't do anything yet, but with Etsu laying on top of him and essentially only kept decent by the covers, it was hard not to want to touch her.

"W-Well, I don't see you trying to get away," he countered lightly. He didn't want to do anything truly hentai, he couldn't resist touching her a bit, though he limited himself to just lightly rubbing her back.