June Story - Dagashi Kashi: Sugar-Free Love (Chapter 3) (Patreon)

Kokonotsu couldn’t sleep that night. He was a mixed bag of fright and excitement. His life seemed alive again knowing Hotaru was in town. At the same time, he quivered with nervousness at ruining their friendship. He stayed up until almost 4:00 looking at old photos of them together with their friends. Those days seemed so far away.

“Oh man,” he murmured. “Oh man, oh man, oh man…”

He wondered if Tō had told her everything by now. Hotaru probably hated him now. Worse, Hotaru would think he was a perverted freak. He tossed and turned having nightmares about the two of them condemning him. Saya would persuade Hotaru to be on her side, and they would condemn Kokonotsu for being a pervert.

When he awoke, his bed was a mess, and he was hanging from the edge of it looking down. Even though he never really drank, he somehow felt hungover. It took him a good hour and a half to find the motivation to get out of bed.

Hajime covered the store on weekends (and some weeknights, when she wasn’t being particularly lazy). Saturdays until 18:00 and Sundays until 16:00. Kokonotsu whipped himself a small breakfast and groggily stumbled downstairs to start the day late around 14:00.

Hajime sat at the register, sighing while reading a magazine.

“Oh hey. You’re up really late,” she said as he came downstairs.

“Yeah. Don’t remind me.”

Kokonotsu hated accidentally oversleeping. He hated the gross feeling of still being in his pajamas in the afternoon and starting the day obscenely late.

He made himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. He still had a view of Hajime through the curtain. He thought about how he hadn’t really developed feelings for Hajime despite her working there for almost 5 whole years. She was almost in her thirties by now and had become a startling woman who would make heads turn. But she was always oblivious and still very much lazy and late for everything. She still wore business outfits as if she were going to a board meeting. That was the strange thing about her. She was always late and lazy, but she over-did her appearance for a cashier at a small village dagashi shop.

“How was your date?” Kokonotsu asked, walking back into the shop room.

Hajime actually lit up. “Oh, it was wonderful! He’s so sweet and kind.”

“What’s his name?”

“Kondo-san. He’s a composer for the Tokyo Philharmonic!”

Kokonotsu was genuinely surprised. “Oh. Wow.” Hajime’s ability to nab a guy like that was beyond him.

“By the way, your girlfriend called.”

Kokonotsu nearly dropped his coffee. “Wh-WHAT?”

“Hotaru something?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” he shouted, defensively. “That’s Hotaru Shidare. Don’t you remember her?”

Hajime thought for a moment. Her reaction was really delayed. “Ohhhhh. Yeaaaah! Her! Wow. We haven’t seen her in a long time. I just thought you were seeing someone. She said she kept texting you and calling you, but you wouldn’t answer, so she called the store. She said to have you call her back right away.”

He sipped his coffee and trudged back upstairs. With all his tossing and turning in his sleep, his phone was lost somewhere in his blankets. He finally found it and uncovered nearly 20 missed calls and dozens of texts.

Hotaru’s voice practically shouted through them.

YOU AND SAYA WENT OUT TOGETHER?

AND THEN YOU BROKE UP?

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?

WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?

He cringed, not wanting to scroll down the rest. Surely, he was going to read how Hotaru found out why they broke up.

Kokonotsu, pick up. PLEASE. We need to talk.

Kokonotsu.

Coconuts.

Come on. Pick up!

FRIENDS TELL EACH OTHER THINGS!

Kokokokokokokokokokokoko

>:[

And then the last message was sincere for once:

Kokonuts, I know you must be hurting. I’m sorry for pushing it. You must really not want to talk about it. But please let me know you are doing okay and I will stop pestering you about it.

He put his phone down and contemplated. A door of opportunity had opened. Hotaru was openly willing to walk in. He sat there thinking where it could all go from there. He could say he was fine and leave it at that, and maybe she would leave and not see him for another x amount of years.

Could it work? Could he really start working towards being closer to Hotaru? And be more than friends? The opportunity was screaming at his face. Years ago, he let moments like this pass by.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

He texted back:

Hey. Didn’t sleep well, sorry. Woke up late. Yeah. I didn’t really know how to tell you since I know you were close to Saya. We tried it and it didn’t work out. I still think about it a lot.

Kokonotsu’s heart raced as he sent it. Then he felt better. He went back downstairs and checked the dagashi on the shelves to make sure they were stocked on the popular items.

His attention strayed when he heard the unmistakable sound of a fart. Had he still been texting, he would have maybe not heard it. But it was the dead silence that gave it away. It was the kind of fart that sounded as though the culprit tried so hard to let it out as quiet as possible.

He turned around to where the fart came from, and Hajime looked back at him with a strained look on her face. She sweated and shook and moaned a little.

“A-are you okay?” Kokonotsu said.

Hajime cried out and ran to the bathroom, hands on her butt. As she ran, a few loud purts erupted from her sphincter.

Once inside, Hajime wailed. “OH PLEASE DON’T LISTEN! PLEASE! IT’S SO GROSS! I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! I DIDN’T EVEN EAT THAT MUCH FOR BREAKFAST! I THINK IT WAS THESE WEIRD GUMMIES ON THE REGISTER. EVER SINCE I ATE THEM I HAVE BEEN FARTING NONSTOP! OHHHH THE FAN ISN’T LOUD ENOUGH THIS IS SO EMBARRASSING JUST CLOSE YOUR EARS OKAY?”

“O-okay!”

Kokonotsu of course didn’t. He remained standing there dumbfounded hearing the grotesque bowel movements coming from the bathroom. Hajime wailed, groaned, and moaned as trumpet blasts shook the bathroom door. Each one sounded awfully violent. Kokonotsu actually became concerned. Was there no end to her capacity?

Hotaru no doubt left a bag of gummies on the register yesterday. Kokonotsu had been so smitten and awestruck by her that he hadn’t been paying attention.

He gasped when he realized the bag was empty. He saw the fine print about how the laxative effect would take place after approximately 5 gummies.

“Y-YOU ATE THE WHOLE BAG?” Kokonotsu exclaimed, more to himself out of sheer amazement. He was becoming turned on at the thought of Hajime’s bowels ceaselessly farting all day long, but also became conflicted at how it was troubling her.

“DON’T LISTEN! AUGH!”

Another tremendous blast sounded, and it was like she had farted right next to him.

“IT JUST DOESN’T STOP!”

PPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

Hajime’s moan after that ten-second-long monstrosity was halfway between pleasure and discomfort. Kokonotsu couldn’t bear to stand there and listen anymore; he ran upstairs to his room before an unsuspecting customer walked in and saw his boner.

“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” he muttered to himself.

When his phone buzzed, he yelped.

Hotaru! She texted back!

He eagerly read it with wide-eyes, and then re-read it to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding something.

Wanna talk about it over dinner? Ramen?

His heart raced again. That terrifying mixture of nervousness and excitement swirled in his stomach. The very thought of being around her again was intoxicating. He nearly fell into a stupor just imagining things.

Yeah. Where at?