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Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun Vol14 Preorder Links

Have you heard the news? Volume 14 releases in Japan on August 10, 2022! [Tsubaki’s tweets (1) (2) (3) || CashMoneyChiyo Translations (1) (2) (3)]

Bolded below are confirmed sites where you can purchase the volumes (with the bonus illustrations) via some sort of proxy. Bunkyodo, Yurindo, and WonderGoo are a bit more difficult as you need to physically pick it up in their stores.

WonderGoo: Wakamatsu & Chiyo postcard (vol 14 cover) (no link)

Gamers: Nozaki & Sakura bromide print

Bunkyodo: Wakamatsu & Seo illustration card

Toranoana: Mikoshiba illustration card

Yurindo: Sakura & Mayu postcard

eBook: Short comic about the previous Drama Club President (Leads to AmazonJP, unsure if kindle version includes the extra comic)

Animate: Hori & Kashima book cover

27.“Kiss me.”

“Ah! That’s cold!” Suki yelped, pulling back slightly, away from Sokka’s outstretched hand.

 “Sorry!” He cooed, “I didn’t realize!”

 “No, it’s fine!” she assured him, recovering her composure quickly, “I just wasn’t ready.”

 The smear of grey paint Sokka had left on one of her cheeks hid the blossom of blush underneath it well, but the other turned a rosy pink in response to her outburst.

 Sokka smiled warmly, thinking it a bit of a shame that he was about to cover up such a lovely shade with something so cloudy. “You ready now?”

 Suki nodded enthusiastically, leaning in. Then her eyes went wide. “No, wait!”

 She pulled away again, tipping her head back to shake the hair from her face, gathering it into a messy bun high on her head. “Okay!”

 “Okay” Sokka agreed, and set back to work, his brown knit slightly, trying not to let his hand shake too much as he did. He applied the cool paint to her face in careful, deliberate strokes. Its silky feel between his hand and her cheek obscured the usual softness of her skin, but Sokka had felt that enough times to know it by heart, and he could fill in the missing sensation in his own mind.

 Suki sat dutifully still while he worked. She was far more used to this than he, and it showed in her relaxed smile, and how her eyes drifted gently shut as he smoothed the black pigment over her lids and into sharp points. He could feel the pinch at the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on his task, in stark contrast to her softened features.

 He filled in the grey of her cheeks and forehead first, followed by the darker shade around her eyes. He had to clean his hands before taking up the white paint, which he smoothed over her sharp jaw and delicate chin more quickly than he had the others, but when it came time to finish his work, running his calloused thumb over the soft pink of her bottom lip, his touch lingered there. He could feel the smile that earned him. He knew he had nearly finished, that he could pull away – that he should pull away. But he found himself rooted to that spot, his thumb lingering just off center of her lower lip, tugging it down slightly.

“Suki?”

“Hmm?” She raised her brows slightly in response, but her eyes stayed resolutely closed.

“Kiss me.”

“Kiss you?” She hummed, her mouth breaking into a much wider grin now as her eyes cracked open just slightly.

“Hmm, kiss you, I don’t know…” She drew out her words as her face screwed up in feigned consideration. She ran the back of her hand over Sokka’s stubbly jaw, as if deciding whether it was worthy of her affection.

“You’re teasing me.”

“Yes,” she conceded warmly as she leaned in over his lap full of paint pots, “I am.”

Sokka’s hand left smudges of grey paint on Suki’s shoulder, and along her collar and neck and into her hair as she kissed him. And when he pulled back, he found he had smudged his careful work where they had made contact, and raised his hand to his face to find it smeared with grey.

Suki giggled, her breath soft against his chin.

“You look funny.”

“You think so, huh?” Sokka regarded her kind face, made sharp and dramatic by his war paint, and especially the smudges on her nose and chin and lips where they had brushed together all too briefly. “Well, I think you look perfect.”

Sokka would wager she was blushing again. She was certainly smiling, at least. Where her eyes crinkled at the corners left creases in the wet paint, revealing the ghosts of smile lines that would one day be much harder to erase. He felt warm in the knowledge that he might be the one to put them there.

And that, he thought, was the most beautiful thing he had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

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