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Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.
“Um, should I scatter salt, or place
salt by my entrance way or something?”\n\n“Huh? No, I think
it would be pointless doing something like that. Besides, if there
was something here now, and you piled salt by your entrance way,
instead of it being unable to come and go, it would result in it
being enclosed in your home. We shouldn’t do anything
careless.”\n\n“Huh, ah, is that so?”\n\nHe was
surprised by his unexpectedly thorough reply. Since he had the image
of someone who didn’t believe in the paranormal, he was a little
shocked. \n\n“Um, thank you for today. I’ll make some tea, so
please have a seat.”\n\n“Ah……right.”\n\nTatsumi
frantically headed to the kitchen. He put the kettle full of water on
the stove, and let out an almost inaudible sigh. There
was no one hiding in his home like had worried about, nor did
anything appear to be stolen. He was relieved by that. However, that
meant the possibility that the discomfort he felt, the presence of
something he sensed, the locations of his cookware changing, were all
his imagination was high. He locked the door today as well, so in
other words, it was just his own carelessness, which made him want to
crawl into a hole. \n\n—……even though I thought I was
used to living alone, why am I starting to feel lonely
now?\n\nActually, up until
he started talking to Kusamakura, he had forgotten about the emotion
of loneliness. Could it be he unconsciously made an excuse to invite
Kusamakura to his home? Perhaps he wanted to have a more defined
friendship outside of just acquaintances who exchanged words during
their lunch breaks. \n\n—I don’t know what I’d do if he thought
this was just an excuse to invite him over……\n\nRealizing he
wasn’t able to clearly state it was just a misunderstanding, Tatsumi
became more and more flustered. \n\nThat wasn’t it,
that couldn’t be it, he repeated
over and over again in his mind as he pulled out the tea pot from the
cupboard and placed it next to the mug he took out earlier. He did so
with such excessive force, they clashed. CLINK,
it made a loud sound as expected. \n\n“Are you all
right?”\n\nKusamakura called out to him.\n\n“I-I’m all
right. Just a little……clumsy.”\n\nAs he tried to laugh it
off, he put in an adequate amount of tea from the cherry bark tea
caddy into the tea pot. Even though it was only something he did all
the time, his hands were shaking, so the moment he dropped in the tea
leaves, the teaspoon dropped into the sink. \n\n—Aah,
jeez……normally I wouldn’t make these sort of mistakes.\n\nThe
kettle let out a sound to let him know the water was boiling as he
panicked on the inside. He turned off the stove, and moved the hot
water. Perhaps overly worked up by trying to make sure not to mess up
this time, the hot water hit his left hand directly when he tried to
check if there was enough water. \n\n“Hot……!”