How the hell had she let herself get talked into this again? It was the strangest thing. She kept on wondering that question, kept running the conversation back through her mind, and Mikami still didn’t have a particularly satisfying answer.
“As I said before, this is Candy,” Jim had said, gesturing to the woman he had requested assist in this weird-ass training regimen. It was a funny thing. The woman’s name had conjured an image in Mikami’s mind of some bimbo in a halter top and miniskirt (though given the short and clingy nature of her dress, she really shouldn’t be casting those stones about). Instead, the woman was confident. Beautiful, certainly, but not nearly as trashy as Mikami had been expecting upon hearing that name.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Candy had said, offering her hand with a rather charming smile. “Jim has told me all about the problem. You’re trying to lure out a perverted ghost, and need to learn how to do an effective lap dance so you can get close enough. Right?”
Well. No. That wasn’t even remotely right. Mikami looked past Candy towards Jim, who shrugged mischievously. What was he up to?
“Lap dance?” Yukina had said. “What’s that?”
Candy smiled, and then -
“No, no!” her… teacher admonished, bringing Mikami back to the present with an almighty crash. “You’re being much too stiff. You’ve got to let the feeling flow throughout your body, feel the rhythm and let it take control.”
To demonstrate, Candy began to dance. Again. It was like a wave of energy passing through her body, and if anything it was getting increasingly impressive each time she saw it. Each move seemed to flow into the next, whether it was the rolling of her shoulders, the motions of her belly, the beckoning gesturing of her fingertips right down to the position of her feet. It was like watching a well-oiled machine, assuming that machine were designed to mimic an erotic dance.
“You have to loosen up those muscles!” Candy said with a playful lilt to her voice. “See? Yukina understands it!”
Oh, yes. Mikami turned to look at the former ghost. She did seem to be understanding it rather well, and was obviously enjoying herself tremendously. When she had first emerged in that abbreviated schoolgirl uniform, Mikami thought Yokoshima was about to faint. She might have joined him. But before she could insist that the girl change out of it, she flashed an innocent smile, gave a little twirl and said something like, “Oh, I’ve never seen a uniform like this before! It’s rather comfortable!”
The girl had looked far, far too adorable for Mikami to say no. Now look at her. Still smiling that innocent, carefree smile and dancing, dancing just like Candy like she was having the time of her life.
“This is so much fun!” Yukina said with her hands trailing down the side of her body and her barely covered butt shaking right in Yokoshima’s face. “I’ve never heard of a dance like this before. I want to learn all about it!”
To his credit, Yokoshima probably couldn’t even see this anymore. He hadn’t moved for the last five minutes. Still! The sight of poor, innocent Yukina unknowingly giving that creep an erotic dance made anger spike inside Mikami. How dare he take advantage of that innocent girl like that! Before she could do anything, however, a pair of firm, feminine hands gripped her by the shoulders and began to make her sway to the beat of the music.
“Ignore her,” Candy said. “You gotta feel your own rhythm if you wanna dance.” She gripped Mikami’s wrists and made her hands trail along her curves while pulling her own body into Mikami’s back, pressing up against her so very tightly. “Just follow my lead,” she whispered, and Mikami shuddered without knowing why. This whole thing was stupid. How was learning how to lap dance supposed to keep her from getting rightfully angered by Yokoshima’s inappropriate behaviour?! This training was a stupid idea. She should just - “There we go!” Candy said, and Mikami blinked in confusion, suddenly aware that Candy had stepped away from her. “Let go of your inhibitions and just let your body move to the natural flow.”
Mikami looked down at herself. She was doing it? She was dancing without even noticing. She was dimly aware of Yokoshima slightly tilting his head in her direction, his expression unchanged from the completely stunned and shocked expression he’d been wearing since the lessons began, and - Ah! Mikami bit her lip. She was not enjoying this. She wasn’t! Really, she wasn’t! This stupid dance was actually rather embarassing, if she were quite honest, and Mikami was not the sort to humiliate easily!
An image leaped unbidden into her mind, and the room seemed to shift around. It transformed completely. Her office was suddenly a luxurious room covered in silk and gold. A man sat in a throne, staring in rapt attention as Mikami and other girls around him, dressed in clothes that might as well have been see-through, danced for his amusement. She danced with all of her soul, knowing that whoever impressed him the most would be given their own weight in gold and diamonds…
Huh? Mikami shook her head and came back to reality. Where had that come from? A flash from a past life? That’s what it felt like, but… There had been nothing like that when she time traveled to see her past life, just… The embarrassment of seeing her first incarnation so completely in love with Yokoshima’s past life, the sorrow when his life had ended, and the conviction that when she reincarnated into Mikami she wouldn’t hold back from being with the man she loved so much this time.
Mikami shuddered and gave a little head shake as she pushed away the thought, but then she somehow felt that shake flow into a rolling of her head, the shudder smooth into a rhythm. And as she looked at Yokoshima, she realized that she was maybe feeling something, a connection between her and him and the music. A connection that did have a rhythm and flow to it, a flow she could feel as she let her body move in sync to it. Not because she was enjoying it or anything so completely absurd. Only because she wanted to get this nonsense over with as quickly as possible.
From the side of the room, Jim watched, considering what he was seeing with great interest. ‘Hmm. Both Mikami and Yukina… Definitely seem to be feeling something from Yokoshima. Yes. Yes! It’s not just him understanding them, he’s also pushing to make part of himself clearer to them.’ With a frown he looked into the distance. ‘Definitely a romantic line of development. This means… Rick won that bet. Fluky bastard. Oh well! Now that we know one way or the other, pushing things forward will be that much easier.’
- Mikami demands to know how this is supposed to help her control her anger at Yokoshima’s perversion. Jim performs a simple demonstration.
- Next part of the training!
- Jim leaves them for the day, promising to complete the training the next day. The three have time to think about it now.
- Time for the rematch.
- Something else
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