Chapter 55

Chapter 55 – By Ourselves (1)

I thought I’d have to spend the day by myself, but I guess that won’t be the case anymore. I told them to enter the house.

Of course I notified my mom about them coming.

She replied, ‘Good luck’. I didn’t know what she meant by that and I refused to ask her.

“…Welcome… Well, come on in…”

“Mm… S-sorry to bother you.”

Asanagi was the only one who entered the house. Amami-san quickly left after she dropped her off here.

“Woah, it’s cold! Maehara, why aren’t you turning the heater on? Are you secretly a masochist?”

“What the hell are you on about? The heater’s broken, we’re getting it repaired. It won’t be fixed until tomorrow, so just bear with it.”

“Wouldn’t it be hard for you? The weather report said that it would get even colder.”

“Well, I’ll manage. I just need to put on more clothes. I’m a very patient person, you know? This much is nothing.”

“…Said the one who called me out of loneliness the other day.”

Bringing that up was unfair.

“Well, forget about the temperature for now. What do you want for dinner?”

“…Shrimp, crab and cream seafood set. Oh also, clam chowder.”

“Okay.”

She ordered a lot of food. I wasn’t sure why mom gave me an extra thousand yen this morning, but I guess I had to thank her. But, did she predict that this would happen? No way, right?

Anyway, I called another restaurant to order her food.

“Drink? Coffee like usual?”

“Yes… But I want more milk and sugar in it.”

“That would make it a lot sweeter than usual, are you sure?”

“Mhm. I’m in the mood for something sweet.”

“Got it. Guess everyone gets into that kind of mood once in a while”

I quickly prepared two cups for us. From my perspective, they seemed more like cafe au lait than coffee.

“Here it is.”

“Thank you… Woah, it’s sweet. Too sweet…”

“That’s what you wanted, I just followed your order.”

“Right. I imagined it would be this sweet. You’re amazing. Compliments to the barista.”

“You’re welcome.”

We sat down on the couch and drank our coffee- no, our cafe au lait, together.

I made it myself, but this drink was way too sweet. It wasn’t bad to drink this once in a while, but if I were to have this every day, my caloric intake would probably be through the roof. This thing was like Coke, you should only enjoy it once a week.

“…So, let me hear your story.”

“…There’s nothing much to talk about… We were about to go to the arcade, but Yuu said she wanted to go somewhere else…”

“And so she forced you to go with her.”

“…S-something like that…”

“Hmm…”

“W-what is it? I’m not lying, you know?”

If you weren’t lying, why were you looking so flustered? Well, whatever.

Being able to talk to her like this made me happy. I’m not going to sweat over small things like that.

“…Well, whatever. Wanna play a round?”

“Sure. I mean, even though I didn’t want to come, I’m already here. Might as well, right?”

I picked up the thrown away controller and sat down to play with her as usual.

“Ah, right, Asanagi.”

“What? Just so you know, I haven’t been slacking off. I’ll raise my win rate by ten percent today!”

“Isn’t it cold? Here, take this.”

I wrapped the blanket I’ve been using over her body.

She was wearing her scarf, but she was still wearing her school uniform, in other words, short skirt and thigh high socks. I could see her shivering a little.

“…Thank you… but, aren’t you cold?”

“I’m wearing a lot of clothes, so I’m fine. See? I’m wearing two pairs of socks.”

“Wow, that’s lame…”

“Oi.”

“Kidding. Then, I won’t hold myself back.”

She accepted the blanket and wrapped herself up in it.

Her appearance was so cute, I immediately laughed at her after seeing her like that.

“W-what is it? You’re the one who told me to wear this.”

“Haha, sorry, sorry. You look so great right now. Can I take a picture?”

“…What do you think?”

“…Sorry, I got carried away.”

Despite all that, she didn’t tear the blanket away. After that, we decided to start playing.

Of course it was the usual PvP mode.

“…Maehara, aren’t you getting better? I’ve been training in secret, and thought I had a chance…”

“Well, I’ve been playing against the world rankers until just now.”

This might sound unconvincing coming from the guy who rage quit after getting into a lose streak, but I felt that I played way better than before.

As expected, playing a game felt better when you enjoyed it.

I enjoyed beating her in the game while losing a few times against her for the sake of it. And seeing her expression throughout the game, I realized…

…Playing with her was so fun. Even though it was so cold, I failed to notice it because I was having such a great time with her.

“Ugh… Stop, stop! What the hell is this? Why do I keep losing? I’ll never play this game ever again, damn it!”

“Yes, yes. We’ll continue next week.”

“You… Next time I’ll make you cry… Prepare yourself…”

“…Ah…”

That was when both of us realized.

There wouldn’t be a next week. Rather, her being here today was a miracle in itself.

“M-Maehara… Sorry… T-that was…”

“R-Right… Me too, sorry… It completely slipped my mind…”

Thanks to Amami-san’s meddling, we almost forgot about our original goal.

We decided to not hang out for a while and we should’ve stuck with that decision.

At this moment, the intercom rang again. Apparently it was the delivery guy. Perfect timing.

“Let’s eat.”

“M-mhm. Sure…”

It had been a while since we last ate at the same dinner table. As usual, we quickly devoured our food.

“…”

“…”

As we both ate, we kept stealing glances at each other for some reason and occasionally, our gazes met.

“W-what?”

“N-no, nothing.”

Our gazes would meet, then we immediately turned away, then we tried to look at each other again before turning away again. We tried to talk about pointless things like usual, but our conversations would end abruptly everytime and in the end, we ate in silence.

Even though there was a lot that I wanted to talk about with her, why couldn’t I say anything?

“…Now that we’re full, why don’t we watch a movie?”

“S-sure…”

There were still a few hours before Asanagi had to return home, but how could we spend our time together after this?