All Beautiful Girls Want to Stick with Me

As Kotomi Izumi casually opened the front door with the key, Ayani Kika—who had been smiling faintly the entire time—finally let out a soft, cheerful laugh instead of remaining silent.

”What is it?”

Kotomi glanced at her in confusion, unable to figure out what exactly Kika was laughing about. Could it be that while she had been held in her arms earlier, Kika had secretly stuck a note with a doodle of a little turtle onto her back?

”It’s nothing. It’s just that seeing you use the key I gave you to open this door—such a simple action—somehow gives me an indescribable sense of happiness. It’s like we’re a pair of newlyweds who went out late at night because we were hungry, bought some midnight snacks at a restaurant, and now we’re coming home together, using the key to open the door.”

Ayani Kika explained with a warm smile, revealing why she was laughing so happily at this moment.

After hearing that, Kotomi’s cheeks instantly flushed red. The way Kika described it was far too vivid. Before she had even finished speaking, a clear image had already formed in Kotomi’s mind—no pink or citrus-colored fantasies, just the gentle warmth of ordinary daily life.

For a moment, she truly felt as though she and Kika were already married.

”...”

Normally eloquent, Kotomi suddenly seemed to lose her ability to speak. Blushing, she turned her gaze aside and shyly avoided responding. Only after a brief pause did she mumble softly,

”L-let’s go inside. It’s cold out here. Let’s go in first...”

”Okay~”

Kika’s smile grew even brighter. It was merely returning home—a place she came back to almost every day—yet she was smiling as though it were something extraordinary.

If she had to name a reason, perhaps it was because, in the past, whenever she returned home or stayed inside, she had always been alone. She had grown accustomed to solitude, but that did not mean she liked it.

On the contrary, after meeting Kotomi, her aversion to loneliness had only grown stronger. Yet she had no choice but to continue enduring those long stretches of solitude by herself, just as before.

Now, however, Kotomi was using the key she had given her to open the door and step inside together with her. The surge of happiness and joy that filled her heart naturally made her smile—smile so brightly that she couldn’t help but laugh.

There was something Kika wanted very much to say to Kotomi at this moment:

Kotomi, I’m actually not mature at all. I really want to selfishly make a request of you. But maybe because I’ve pretended to be mature for too long, that false maturity has grown larger than my true selfishness. So now, I can’t bring myself to say that selfish request.

Even yesterday, when she had finally gotten to cuddle with Kotomi as she had long wished, Kika had not fully expressed her dissatisfaction with loneliness. When Kotomi had prepared to leave, she had temporarily suppressed her reluctance and sent her to the entryway with a smile.

The seemingly considerate Ayani Kika also had a deeply selfish thought—one she had always wanted to say to Kotomi but had never managed to voice.

That was—she wanted to stay by Kotomi Izumi’s side every single moment. She couldn’t even accept being separated for a single second!

That was also why, when she learned that Kotomi had returned to Kyoto from Chiba and would be staying at her house for the night, the usually mature and elegant Ayani Kika had been so happy that she bounced around holding her phone.

Kika truly loved the feeling of having Kotomi by her side. Even if they did nothing—just sitting together and chatting casually—was the greatest kind of healing for her.

Loneliness was like an illness. It required good medicine to cure it. But everyone’s medicine was different. Each person had their own remedy, yet most people might go their entire lives without ever discovering what could truly cure their loneliness.

Ayani Kika felt she was fortunate, because Kotomi was the medicine that could cure hers.

The ingredients of this medicine were her love for Kotomi—and Kotomi’s love for her.

Good medicine is not bitter to the mouth.

After stepping inside, Kika looked at Kotomi sitting at the entryway changing her shoes and said with a soft laugh,

”I’m really looking forward to the day we can live together in this house. In the past, every time I came back here, the first thing I felt was loneliness. I always treated this place like a rented apartment, not a home. But now that your presence fills this space, it suddenly feels like a real home.”