Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 2 - Chapter 4.3

To an outsider, this might be a heartwarming scene of a guy and a girl on a beach, but I saw it in a twisted light. It seemed more like a nightmare.

Putting together everything I’d just seen and heard...

From the very beginning, Shirakawa-san had already had a real boyfriend—this “Mao-kun.” However, she couldn’t see him much because of his work, so she’d filled in the void with other boyfriends...and thus she’d ended up dating me. It was the only way I could make sense of it.

And Yamana-san knew about it.

And yet...

“Can you promise me you’ll absolutely avoid doing anything to make Runa worried?”

She’d said such a thing to me...

But she was in on it. She knew everything and was teasing me.

It’s too much...

Does a gloomy guy like me really have no right to date Shirakawa-san after all...? Does she like handsome grown-ups instead...?

Up until now, I’d chased thoughts of Shirakawa-san’s boyfriends out of my head when something prompted me to imagine them. However, now that I was faced with such a cruel sight before me, I had no choice but to accept it as reality.

I really had forgotten my place. I’d thought a guy like me could become a real boyfriend for a girl like Shirakawa-san.

But I’d really loved Shirakawa-san... I still loved her even now.

Even in this moment, watching her flirt with another guy in front of my eyes.

It was hard to accept it as reality—unbearable, even.

With the midsummer sun mercilessly shining on me, I felt a splitting pain in my head and even felt like throwing up.

“I like that part of you.”

Those words, that smile—were they all lies?

Was she just playing with me all along...?

I was so shocked that I stood there, dumbfounded. And just when I felt like I’d hit the bottom of a pit...

“You know I can’t! See? I have a customer,” replied the man Shirakawa-san had called “Mao-kun” before suddenly looking my way. “Welcome! Are you about to head into the water?”

I froze up as he called out to me in a friendly way. At the same time, Shirakawa-san and Yamana-san looked my way too...

“Huh?!”

“What?!”

The girls went speechless, as though having seen something unbelievable.

“Ryuto...?!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san.

Seeing how we were acting, the look on “Mao-kun’s” face went from a confused one to an understanding one.

“Oh... Would you happen to be the boyfriend Runa mentioned?”

I didn’t know if he was asking this with a smile because he was Shirakawa-san’s real boyfriend, but I glared back at him without saying a word.

What a daring guy... I couldn’t believe he could boldly date Shirakawa-san while knowing she had other guys, unlike me...

“That makes sense, then!”

And on top of that—

“Did you come on a train? From somewhere far, right? This heat’s crazy...”

—he even had the presence of mind to make small talk with me while wearing a cheerful smile.

Wait, is he just playing around with Shirakawa-san?

He was her real boyfriend, but he didn’t think much of her... I couldn’t forgive him for it. What did Shirakawa-san see in a frivolous guy like this?

Sure, maybe he had the looks, and maybe also the financial stability and the broad-mindedness of a grown-up... Unlike me...

Damn it.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t find any areas where I had the upper hand compared to him. The more I looked at the guy in front of me, the more my mood sank.

This is it. Is my only option to back down, resigning myself to being Shirakawa-san’s second...? And if I don’t like it, I have to break up with her...?

Those are the only options left for me.

As I thought that, I started to feel like crying, but...

“We haven’t met before, so I should introduce myself,” said the man, drawing near me and taking something like a card case out of his pocket. “Will this business card do? Nice to meet you!”

When I looked at the card he’d given me, my eyes opened wide.

Travel Writer

Kurose Mao

Kurose?!

As I looked up in surprise, the man said, with the most handsome of smiles, “Runa’s uncle, at your service! Sounds like you’ve been taking care of my niece!”

Un... Uncle...?! But isn’t he kinda frivolous for that...?

However, according to the business card, it must’ve been the truth. Judging by his name and apparent age, perhaps he was Shirakawa-san’s mother’s younger brother.

He was completely different from my own uncles. They were the types to get utterly drunk during the New Year holidays and shoot off one dirty joke after another, shaking their beer bellies.

As I stood dumbfounded at the anticlimax...

“Hey. You,” called out Yamana-san, giving me a hot-blooded glare. “I don’t know who told you, but how dare you show your face here?”

“Don’t, Nicole,” said Shirakawa-san, confronting her. “Maybe things are different.”

“Different? Different how? He obviously cheated on you.”

“Maybe you’d be right if it was someone else... But since it’s Ryuto, maybe it really wasn’t what we thought it was,” Shirakawa-san said, as though giving the matter deep thought. She then looked at me before turning her eyes away again. “I kept worrying about it a lot since then...and I’m finally able to think that way now.”

Shirakawa-san...

“Come on, Mr. Boyfriend. I’m sure you’re tired after coming this far in such heat. Have some cola or something and take a rest!” Mao-san cheerfully said upon seeing us like that.

“Ah... Call me Kashima,” I hurriedly said, realizing I’d forgotten to give him my name.

Mao-san flashed an amicable smile back at me. “Gotcha! Kashima Ryuto-kun, then.”

His smile certainly did resemble that of Shirakawa-san a fair bit.

***

After I was shown into Mao-san’s beach hut, Shirakawa-san and I sat at a table in a raised area that was closer to the sea, facing each other in silence. There were two bottles of cola on the table, which Mao-san had said were on the house.

Yamana-san had left earlier, saying she had work starting at six.

“I’m sorry I never told you that Kurose-san was the one who rejected me in my first year of middle school,” I began.

Shirakawa-san gave a small nod to that.

“I didn’t know you were related to her, and I thought I might make you worry if I mentioned it, so at first, I thought there was no need to bring up something that was already in the past... But when I found out you were twins, I felt it was too late to say anything.”

Shirakawa-san nodded again. With that as my only saving grace, I continued.

“The day you and I came back from the beach together, Kurose-san confessed to me.”

Shirakawa-san had been looking down, but now she looked at me with surprise. “Were you on good terms with Maria?”

“No.” I shook my head. “She asked for my LINE, but we haven’t talked much. It sounds like she fell for me when I talked to her about how she spread rumors about you. Said she thought I was kind to her.”

It felt awkward to say this myself, so I kept things brief.

“I wanted to reject her over the phone, but she said she wouldn’t be able to give up that way, so we met in a park... And then she cried and asked me to let her stay like that for a bit. I think that’s when that photo was taken.”

I summarized only the facts, doing my best to avoid making any of it sound like an excuse.

“Still, you didn’t know about that, so I think you were surprised...and hurt. I’m really sorry.”

Shirakawa-san immediately shook her head. “I’m the one who should be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong, right?” With that, she showed me just a bit of a smile. “It’s not like Maria was in the wrong either... It was just bad timing, right?”

“Maybe... But it’s a fact that I hurt you,” I said. “If I’d really thought about you, I shouldn’t have gone to see Kurose-san at all, no matter what she said. I’ve been regretting it all along.”

Whenever I woke up in the morning, during my summer classes, whenever I took a train home, before going to bed... I didn’t know how many times I’d wished I could turn back time over the past two weeks.

“No, you’re not in the wrong,” Shirakawa-san said calmly. “You’re kind, so I’m sure that’s why you did what you did. The fact that you were kind to Maria, just like you’re kind to me... It makes me happy. As her sister.” Shirakawa-san looked at me and smiled. “Thank you, Ryuto.”

“Shirakawa-san...”

The load was lifted off my chest, and I felt warm.

Though, at the same time...

“B-But Shirakawa-san, weren’t you angry with me? You ignored me on LINE...”

“Ah, it’s not like that! Sorry!” she said in a hurry, looking surprised. “Remember how I dropped my phone in the hallway that time? The screen cracked really badly and I couldn’t use my phone at all anymore. I took it to a shop to get it fixed, but they said it might be broken on the inside too since the screen was so cracked. They suggested I buy a new one instead, but that costs a ton, though, right? I’ve only had this phone for a year. I’d have to talk to my dad about it. I couldn’t decide quick enough, and when I came here, it turned out there weren’t any phone stores around, so I couldn’t do anything.”

“Oh...”

Her phone, huh. I didn’t even think about that. After all...

“Doesn’t LINE work on computers too?” I asked.

“What? Really? Can you log in with the same account as on your phone?”

“Yeah, probably...”

“Huh...” said Shirakawa-san, sounding impressed, then turned to look at the sea.

The sun was already starting to sink behind the mountains, so the beach was getting a bit dark and it was starting to feel like evening. Watching the surfers in the distance ride waves and disappear out of the corner of my eye, I looked at Shirakawa-san’s face from the side.

Then, she shifted her gaze from the water to down in front of her.

“To tell you the truth, I was scared to check. So maybe I was glad my phone was broken.” Saying that and looking at me again, Shirakawa-san lowered her eyes once more. “I wanted to trust you... I meant to trust you, but before I realized I should ask because maybe you had your reasons, I instead ended up thinking that I didn’t want to get hurt. After all, nothing in this world is fully certain, right? I thought there was a ninety-nine percent chance you wouldn’t cheat...but what if that remaining one percent was at play this time? When I thought that you might’ve cheated on me with Maria, who turned out to be your first love...I didn’t think I could come to grips with something like that.”

After saying all that with a sunken expression, she smiled gently. “Ever since we started dating, I’ve been so happy. You’re earnest, and you said you didn’t have any previous girlfriends or girls you hung out with often... That was a first for me... And I was able to believe you, from the bottom of my heart.”

While I was happy to hear that, I myself felt conflicted when I thought about her exes.

“So I never thought about the possibility of getting betrayed...and when I thought how my heart, which I’d laid bare, might get hurt, I was afraid to find out the truth,” she quietly added. Then, she lifted her face. “But I realized I couldn’t go on like that. No matter what you’ve done, I still want to keep dating you. So I thought I had to face reality...which is why I asked Mao-kun yesterday to take my phone to a repair shop in a nearby town.”

“I see...”

It appeared that while I’d spent the past two weeks agonizing over my inability to contact Shirakawa-san, she’d thought about a lot of things herself and had a change of heart. That must’ve been why she’d been so quick to accept my apology.

“Sorry I caused you trouble,” she said.

I shook my head. “It’s fine. We got to see each other like this now.”

“How did you know I was here? Did someone in my family tell you?”

“No, it looks like my friend happened to be at this beach by pure chance. He told me he saw you.”

“Huh? Seriously?!” she asked. “Your friend...? Could it be that large guy you’re always with? Ichiji-kun, was it?”

“Ah, yeah. Ijichi-kun.”

So Shirakawa-san knows Icchi? I guess it’s no surprise. Icchi and Nisshi were the only people I could call my friends... Whenever Shirakawa-san came to me while I was talking to Icchi in class, he would immediately say “Don’t mind me!” and distance himself in a hurry, so I’d yet to be able to introduce him.

“Wait, is he still here?” asked Shirakawa-san.

“Nah, he’s already left. Said his sunburn hurt.”

“Oh, that’s pretty bad. I got way too much sun too.” Shirakawa-san brought her hand to a shoulder strap of her bikini. “See what it’s like?”

Sure enough, the skin beneath the strap she’d moved out of the way was a little lighter than its surroundings. Her entire body still looked light, though, so she must’ve been really fair-skinned before.

“You’re not that tanned,” I said, looking away. I could feel my heart pounding.

“Ehh, really?” asked Shirakawa-san, letting go of her shoulder strap. “That’s good, then! I’m aiming to be a shiro gyaru, so I apply a lotta sunscreen, but I still get a tan because I’m here every day.”

“You’ve been here all this time?”

Come to think of it, I’d yet to ask her what she was doing here. Though I did understand that her uncle Mao-kun managed this beach hut.

“Ah, oh yeah...” began Shirakawa-san, as though saying she’d forgotten to explain. “Ever since my parents got divorced, I visit my great-grandma’s house every summer break. She’s my mom’s grandma and lives near here. Thinking about my dad, I feel awkward seeing my mom, but I figure it’s fine to see my great-grandma. It’s pretty fun—my mom and Mao-kun show up sometimes too.”

“So you’ll be here all summer?”

“Nah. There’ll be fireworks and a festival in the middle of August, so I come here for a week or two for those. When I heard Mao-kun was running a beach hut here this year, I figured I’d come help a bit, but obviously it’s draining to help all summer, so we’d agreed that maybe I’d help starting in August...”

At that point, she looked down.

“After stuff happened between us, things kinda got hard to deal with... Nicole has work, so she can’t be with me all the time... So, I came here on a whim the same day of the end-of-term ceremony. I got here at night, still in my school uniform.”

That explains things. So that’s why she never went home that day, no matter how long I waited.

“Were you at school until then?” I asked. “The day of the ceremony.”

“Hm?” Shirakawa-san lifted her face at that. “Yeah. Nicole was comforting me in the chemistry classroom. She offered to skip work to be with me too, but I figured I couldn’t depend on her that much.”

As I thought that Yamana-san probably would have gone that far for her, Shirakawa-san gave me a serious look.

“Nicole dreams of becoming a nail technician.”

“A nail technician...? Like, someone who does manicures for people?”

“It’s all about gel nails these days. Nicole and I both prefer them. It’s gel nails or nothing!”

“I-Is that so?”

I didn’t really get it, but Shirakawa-san was happily looking at her manicure. The design matched her bikini. Her natural nails had grown quite a bit since the last time I’d seen them.

“Nicole plans to go to a nail tech school and get qualified as a nail technician once she graduates. But her mom’s on her own, so she doesn’t want to rely on her to pay her tuition. That’s why she works so many part-time jobs—to save up as much as possible for the enrollment fee and tuition while she’s still in high school.”

So that’s why... Guess she’s working hard, despite how she may seem...

“What about you, Ryuto? What did you do for the past two weeks?”

“Huh? Oh, my summer courses...”

“Oh yeah, you did mention those.”

My last class should’ve been ending right about now. After hearing about Yamana-san, I felt guilty—my parents had paid for those classes, and I had skipped almost an entire session.

“Everyone’s giving their future serious thought, huh...” uttered Shirakawa-san, putting her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her palm. She looked off into the distance at the ocean, and as I watched her from the side, she looked somehow uneasy.

“What do you plan to do after you graduate?” I asked.

She’d said she wanted to become a YouTuber the last time it had come up, but that must’ve been a joke.

“Mm? Well...” Removing her chin from her hand, Shirakawa-san looked at me. “I’m a bit of an empty shell right now.”

“Huh?”

As I wondered what she meant, Shirakawa-san smiled. “I’ve already reached my high school goal.”

“What goal is that?”

In response to my question, Shirakawa-san started to look bashful.

“To fall in love with somebody who loves me back, and who I can see myself being together forever with.”

A sea breeze blew by us, making Shirakawa-san’s long hair flutter gently in the wind. She smiled, narrowing her eyes as though to shield them from the sun, and the sea behind her gradually darkened into an indigo blue. At this moment, she looked even more beautiful than she usually did.

“It was painful, these past two weeks,” she said, lowering her eyes. “But I figured that if we can get through this, I’ll be able to trust you even more, and love you even more.” As a smile appeared on her face, Shirakawa-san looked at me again. “When you explained things to me earlier, I quickly believed you from the start. Like, ‘Oh, sure, of course it was like that.’ Even I’m surprised how easy it made sense to me. I didn’t feel like doubting anything, and I think that’s because you really told me only the truth.”

She bit her lip as though digesting a bit of bitterness.

“I’ve fought with boyfriends plenty of times, but this was a first for me. And when I realized that, it felt like I could suddenly see our future, even after the second or third month...”

Shirakawa-san...

“I’ve always been looking for a place to settle down,” she added all of a sudden in a quiet voice. “My current life isn’t bad either, but I liked living with everyone—with my mom, my dad, and Maria. But then, when my mom and dad split up and my family was torn apart, I realized something—it was my mom and dad who made the Shirakawa family. And that broke because they didn’t want to be together anymore. So I figured I needed to find someone important to me, myself, and make my own family.”

“Family...” I said, repeating that grand word that had appeared all of a sudden.

Shirakawa-san looked at me, flustered. “Wait, was that clingy? It totally was, right...?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Judging by her reaction... By “family,” did she, perhaps, mean that sort of thing? That is...she’s even thinking of her future with me...?

The thought of it suddenly made my face heat up, and it put me in high spirits.

“I-I...!” I began in an unintentionally forceful tone, prompting a puzzled gaze from Shirakawa-san. “I...want to...be with you forever too... Been thinking that all along...”

As I squeaked that out in a high-pitched tone, Shirakawa-san blushed too.

“Ryuto...” But suddenly, she looked as if something had just occurred to her. “Ah! Of course, I’m not planning to have you provide for me right after high school, okay?! I’ll either work or go to college.”

“Y-Yeah, I know.”

What is going on? Is this reality?

Dreams felt much more real than this.

Shirakawa-san let out a sigh, and I grabbed my cold bottle of cola and drank some. The back of my throat felt way too hot.

“I’ll have to study for college exams...” she said, looking at the backpack I’d left off to the side.

Even our school had several students who would manage to get into high-level universities every year. I’d planned to simply get into some decent university through an admissions process, but now, I wanted to study so I could hope to get into somewhere better through regular entrance exams.

I felt like I could put in any amount of effort if there was a future with Shirakawa-san waiting for me on the other side.

“You’re smart, so you can probably get into a real good university.” Shirakawa-san’s comment caused me to get flustered.

“Ehh? Nah, definitely not the way I am now... I need to study more.”

“Ah, then I guess I should go to college too. At this rate, the gap between us’ll widen, and some smart girl from your school might take you from me,” she said with a cute, grumpy look.

“That won’t happen.”

“Huh? Then why are you smiling, Ryuto?”

“I was just happy that you got jealous over me...”

Shirakawa-san blushed at my words. “Come on! I was seriously thinking about what to do after graduating!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

Then, as we smiled at each other...

“Hey, you two!” Mao-san was calling to us from the kitchen. “I’m closing up soon!”

I realized that the sea had now completely lost its daytime shine. It was still five, so the sun hadn’t completely set yet, but there were only a few people left on the beach.

“Ah, wait! I’m gonna go take a shower,” said Shirakawa-san, hurrying to her feet.

“Huh? Isn’t it simpler to just change at home?” asked Mao-san.

“But I have to see Ryuto off to the station...”

“Wait, he’s leaving? If he doesn’t have stuff to do, why not just have him stay at Grandma’s place?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea! Hey Ryuto, wanna come say hi to Granny Sayo?” she asked.

“What?!”

“You don’t wanna?”

But when she gazed at me with those sparkling eyes, my only remaining option was to go.

“Okay, if I won’t be a bother...”

“Yay!”

What a day. First, I hear that Shirakawa-san’s cheating on me after I hadn’t talked to her in forever, so I come running here. Then, I see her flirt with a good-looking guy right in front of me and fall into despair...but that guy turns out to be her uncle. After Shirakawa-san and I reunite, she even starts thinking about her distant future with me...and now she’s inviting me to her great-grandma’s place.

This day’s like a roller coaster, I thought, looking at Shirakawa-san. She was happy, in high spirits, and still in her bikini.

***

After that, I got into Mao-san’s minivan together with Shirakawa-san. After a shaky, five-minute-long ride toward the mountains, we arrived at the house belonging to Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother.

Located on a gently sloped mountain road, her home was a detached house that somehow felt nostalgic. The building had two floors, a tiled roof, and a spacious garden with thick undergrowth. Even with Mao-san’s car parked here, there was still enough space to play tag.

“Granny Sayo, I’m home!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san, stepping inside the house without waiting for a response. She was now wearing a fairly large T-shirt over her bikini.

I stood at the entrance, thinking I couldn’t just go in without the permission of the owner of the house, but...

“It’s okay, go on in,” said Mao-san. He placed an arm over my shoulder and pushed me forward.

I was then led into what appeared to be a Japanese-style sitting room.

“Oh my.” There was a small old woman sitting on a legless chair with surprise and confusion on her face.

She seemed to have heard about me from Shirakawa-san in advance, and there was no end to her “oh mys.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Shirakawa...Runa-san has been kind enough to date me. My name is Kashima Ryuto.”

“My...”

Since she was Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother, she naturally looked old—probably in her eighties or nineties. Her face had many deep wrinkles and there was no trace of makeup on it. Her gray hair was tied back and she wore simple clothing. Seeing her flustered state made me feel even more sorry for barging in on her all of a sudden.

“Oh my, so you’re taking care of Ruu-chan... There’s nothing here, but would you care for some tea?” Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother asked me, half-rising to her feet and reaching for the tray on the table.

On it was a small teapot, a tea caddy, and a mysterious cylinder with a hole. At that point, it occurred to me that the reason Shirakawa-san had skillfully used the tea set at that inn to make tea must’ve been that she’d learned to use it here.

“Oh, it’s okay! I’ll get the barley tea from the fridge,” said Shirakawa-san. She nimbly moved to her destination and opened the fridge in the kitchen.

“Ah, you’re right. Young’uns prefer cold drinks...”

“Wait, Granny, did you turn off the AC again?” asked Mao-san, fanning his neck and picking up the remote on the table. “This year is hot like always, so don’t go kicking the bucket from heatstroke, okay?”

“It’s okay, I have an electric fan. Though we can turn on the AC if all of us here feel hot...”

Looking over, I noticed a worn-looking electric fan in a corner of the room, blowing just enough air to give some ventilation. There was also an uchiwa fan lying on the table with a phone number printed on it. It appeared Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother had used it to stave off the heat.

Mao-san turned on the AC and a slightly cool air blew into the hot, humid room. As the temperature in the room began to fall, Shirakawa-san brought a tray with four glasses of barley tea.

“Here. You should drink too, Granny Sayo. It’s good to stay hydrated,” said Shirakawa-san.

“It’s okay, I was drinking tea all this time,” replied her great-grandmother. Even so, she reached for a glass, probably because her great-granddaughter had gone to the trouble of preparing it.

“Do you have any sweets to go with tea, Granny Sayo?” asked Mao-san.

“Yes, there are peanuts next to the fridge.”

“Hah hah, that’s so Chiba!”

“Well, people give them to me.”

“It’s fine, I like peanuts,” said Shirakawa-san with a smile. She brought a wooden container of them into the room. “C’mon, Ryuto, sit down, sit down.”

“Oh, okay, thanks...”

Thus, Shirakawa-san, her great-grandmother, Mao-san, and I chatted for a while as four.

Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother, Watanabe Sayo, lived alone here at the age of ninety. Thanks in part to her neighbors’ assistance, she was apparently in good health and didn’t really have any inconveniences in her life.

However, her daughter—meaning Shirakawa-san’s maternal grandmother—had gotten worried upon seeing the yearly statistics of the elderly perishing from heatstroke. As a result, she had apparently talked to others and it had been decided that Mao-san would live here as well for the duration of this summer while managing a beach hut.

Mao-san was thirty-eight and single. He claimed that his primary occupation was being a travel writer and that he normally traveled around the world and published his books. He said he’d originally wanted to become a photographer, so travel writing was perfect for utilizing his photography skills. According to Mao-san, he hadn’t had any fixed “home” for a long time now, but he did keep this house on his resident record.

When Shirakawa-san was little, he had apparently been a freeloader at her house at one point when he had worked in Tokyo, which seemed to have made her adore him like an older brother. I had been thinking they got along too well for an uncle and a niece, so that explained things.

“...And so when I woke up in the morning, someone had taken my wallet, my camera, and my laptop—like, I was totally screwed. You could say my only consolation was that I’d slept with my passport fastened to my chest,” said Mao-san.

“It sure is scary abroad...” replied Shirakawa-san.

After we’d all introduced ourselves, Mao-san had started talking about his experiences in other countries. Shirakawa-san was making practiced interjections in the process—perhaps she’d heard this story several times before.

“Oh, Mao-kun, Mao-kun, tell that story! The one where you confronted a swindler at a casino in Macao! It seemed so cool!” said Shirakawa-san. She was excited—her interest in his stories knew no bounds.

As for me, I’d been minding the clock on top of the lintel in the room for a while now.

“Huh? That one’s long. Let’s see... It happened eight years ago...” began Mao-san.

I had to interrupt him. “U-Um, excuse me.”

It was almost half past six. My parents thought I was still at cram school, and considering the time it would take for me to get home, I had to take my leave at once.

“I have to go soon...” I said.

“Ah...” uttered Shirakawa-san, looking at the clock. “I see. So it’s that late already...”

She didn’t hide her dejection on her face, and I was reluctant to part too.

Mao-san noticed our expressions. “I’ll take you to the station if you’re leaving,” he suggested with a bit of reserve.

“Oh, yes, please... Thank you,” I replied.

I looked at Shirakawa-san and was about to get up when...

“Since you’re here, you can stay the night, you know,” suggested her great-grandmother—or Sayo-san, rather—looking right at us. “If you leave now, it will be late by the time you get back to Tokyo, right? Why not stay the night and go home tomorrow when it’s bright outside?”

“Huh...?”

As I stood there, confused by the unexpected suggestion, Shirakawa-san’s face began to shine.

“Hey, that’s a good idea! What do you say?” she asked me.

“This house does have plenty of rooms... In fact, why not ask to stay until Runa leaves?” jokingly added Mao-san.

At that, Shirakawa-san only looked happier. “Oh, that’s even better! That’s right—you should come to the summer festival too, Ryuto! We even have fireworks!”

“Whaaat?!” I replied.

Staying for a night is one thing, but spending several at the house of a person you’ve only just met?!

“Wh-When’s that summer festival, anyway?” I added.

“It’s the Bon Festival in August... Um, when’s it again?”

“In about two weeks,” said Mao-san.

I was taken aback even more. “Two weeks?!”

This time of the year was hard to bear even at a real “grandma’s house.” And besides...

“But wait, if I stayed that long, I’d feel sorry for eating your food and stuff.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. This house is full of things I get from people,” replied Sayo-san.

“Granny here is such a good person that people cover almost all of her food expenses,” Mao-san said teasingly.

Sayo-san waved her hand and denied it. “It’s just because this is the countryside. Everyone has more than they can eat themselves, so they give it to me.”

Now that she mentioned it, I had noticed a cardboard box full of turnips at the entrance.

“Of course, I’m not forcing you... I’m sure you have your circumstances,” said Sayo-san. “I was just thinking Ruu-chan would be happier that way. It looks like Nico-chan can’t come very often.”

Nico-chan...? She must’ve meant Yamana-san. I guessed Sayo-san had even met her too.

“Um... Ummm...” I said, thinking it over.

“No good?” asked Shirakawa-san, teary-eyed.

If I got to spend two weeks under the same roof with Shirakawa-san...

Of course, even I would be...

Happy...

“I need to call my parents,” I said, taking out my phone.

“Yay!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san. She looked so happy, like things had already been decided.

What a day, seriously.

And that was how I ended up staying for about two weeks at Shirakawa-san’s great-grandmother’s house.