CH 4.3

V1: OCTOBER 27–OCTOBER 30 CHOOSING A PRESENT IS HARD, ISN’T IT? – PART 3

After leaving the station, Sandai stopped at a random convenience store to buy a sweet bread and a juice for lunch and filled his stomach.

The current world was a good time to be in, as a few hundred yen would be able to fill up one’s stomach. Shino would likely scold him that it was bad for his health if she were to find out, though.

While walking at leisure, Sandai casually began to browse through part-time job websites on his phone.

The reason why he became quicker at starting to take action after thinking of giving it a shot might be because a part of him was unknowingly becoming similar to Shino. It is often said that lovers influence each other and are little by little becoming more like one another, and Sandai was apparently no exception to that.

“This sure is no go… Looks like I can do this one… Nah, hard to tell, huh…”

He groaned as he searched, but couldn’t easily find one, and it was turning into the evening the next thing he knew.

Setting aside that he felt the time was moving faster lately, Shino’s shift on Sunday would finish earlier than on weekdays, so it would be almost time to pick her up.

Though, he knew it wouldn’t be good to arrive too early, so he went to take his time; he arrived at the cafe about 10 minutes before the end of Shino’s work.

“Welco—oooh, Shino-chan’s BF-kun.”

“Hello.”

“Since you’re here, does that mean Shino-chan’s shift almost ends? Err… then there’s an empty seat over there.”

“Okay.”

When he sat on his given seat, he was immediately served the confection and tea of the boyfriend privilege. He excitedly brought them into his mouth.

Jazz music was playing in the cafe illuminated by not-too-bright, calm-colored lighting. It really seemed out of place for Sandai to be at this place

Though, over the course of a few visits, Sandai was growing tolerant of this atmosphere. Humans are creatures of the environment, and will get used to it and adapt.

“Thank you very much!”

Having confirmed Shino’s presence in the middle of working, She looks lively today as well, Sandai smiled; then the waitress who had shown him his seat whispered something to Shino.

Shino went to look around, and then smiled when she spotted Sandai. That waitress seemed to have told Shino he had come to pick her up.

Before long, Shino went into the back and came out in plain clothes.

“Did you wait?”

“Not that long.”

After exchanging such canned words, they held hands and headed home. Sunday allowed a slightly greater amount of time for the two of them than on weekdays, so naturally their pace got slower.

When walking at a slow pace, signs of stores usually not paid attention to were well noticeable; perhaps because of that, Shino noticed a small piece of paper posted under a certain sign and stopped in her tracks, seemingly interested.

‘We are selling taiyaki that might become all the rage one of these days! We only have one flavor for now, but do come to our store!’

Written with ‘one of these days,’ ‘for now’ and such, it was a paper label with a questionable willingness to do selling, but Shino seemed to just get the hankering to try it, so she stealthily slipped into the store and then came out after buying one.

“People normally wouldn’t get suckered into buying something by a dodgy sign like this.”

“C’mon, it’s fine, isn’t it? That aside, lookie here. It’s funny, hahahaha,” while laughing, Shino showed him the taiyaki that got an unusual shape; it was a sea bream with its mouth wide open, and cocoa brown ice cream was placed on top of that mouth. “So cute!”

“It sure got a funny shape. Say, you don’t take pictures and upload it or stuff for something like this? Like to an SNS.”

“SNS? No, I don’t do SNS. I was doing it for a bit before, but I was getting so many creepy DMs saying like they wanted to meet that it got scary, so I immediately quit.”

From within Shino’s casual reminiscences, Sandai suddenly felt like he had caught a glimpse of one of the reasons for Shino’s dislike of men.

When confronted with a large amount of affection from the opposite sex that you are not interested in, it is not surprising even to tend to distance them, hate, or take on a harsh attitude.

Speaking of which, Nakaoka had also mentioned overcoming Shino’s awareness of not being good with men previously. She had told Sandai to take on that role through their youth, but he had never really been aware of it until now, in fact.

But, even if Sandai remembered that, there was a limit to what he could do now. A mind and emotions trapped in the negative rather than positive are not something that can be easily corrected, and must be seen through in the long-term and little by little.

“Even if I blocked and blocked and blocked, I’d still get DMs every day from different people one after another.”

“…That sure was awful.”

“Right? That’s why, to heal that old emotional-scar of mine, do the ‘aahn’ and feed me this taiyaki!”

Although it was a sudden begging, to fulfill such a thing would also be the role of a boyfriend. Sandai took the taiyaki and placed it on Shino’s mouth.

“Here.”

“Wai, too close, too close. I want space to open my mouth…”

“I got too close, huh. My bad. …Alright how’s this?”

“Nn, now this is just right.”

Shino was acting all haughty like she had become some kind of queen and started eating the taiyaki—omnomnom.

“…Nn?

Sure just like a kid—as Sandai was gazing at Shino, he spotted some ice cream sticking to the tip of her nose.

It seemed to have stuck there when he had gotten too close. However, the person in question didn’t seem to notice it, so he decided to wipe it off with his finger.

“Wha, whawhawha, what…?”

“You’ve got ice cream on you,” Sandai said and stared at the droplets of melted ice cream resting on his fingertip.

He could just wipe it off to clean it, but it was somewhat wasteful, so he licked it off and tried tasting it.

A faint, not too strong sweetness and the mellow aroma of cocoa spread in his mouth.

Although they seemed to place all of the focus on its amusing look, the contents of it seemed to be surprisingly well made as well.

“I-I’ll give you a bite if you just say it, though?”

“Ah nah, it’s not that I wanted to eat it. I just thought it was wasteful.”

“…How should I put it, you sure do things beyond my imaginations so suddenly, huh, Sandai.”

“Is that so?”

“You do. You know, like that kissing spree the other day.”

“Should I just stop?”

“I don’t hate it, so you don’t have to stop, though…”

“Looks like there’s no problem then.”

“You sure are sly, Sandai—”

Then at that moment.

‘—Christmast will come before you know it! Start the festivities preparation now!’

Such an advertisement was being played on a huge screen on the wall of a commercial building. They both looked at it together spontaneously.

“By the way… that reminds me.”

“…What’s up?”

“So in December… in exchange for taking a shift on the 25th, I got the 24th off. If I don’t book it now, there might be more girls who have a boyfriend and want to take a day off if it’s the last minute, so it’ll just become a competition when that happens.” As Shino turned her head downward and gave the puppy eyes, she squeezed Sandai’s hand tightly. “It’s because I want to be with you all day long on Christmas Eve… I can, right?”

With her eyes, Shino appealed, ‘You’re my boyfriend, so you’re gonna make sure you’re free on that day, right?’

As Sandai had already prepared a present for Christmas, there was no way he would have anything to do on that day. Even if Shino got a shift, he would nervously wait all day so that he could pick her up right away.

“Fine with me.”

“I see… Fufuh, right, of course you’re not gonna have anything to do. You’ve got no friends after all.”

Although one misstep would have led to a deep and hard jab, it was clear to see from Shino’s happy expression that it was not a snide remark.

The true meaning behind those words could certainly be said to be the expression of her sense of relief over the fact that there was little chance for the shadow of another woman to flicker. She was merely putting that into words.

While scratching his cheek, Sandai said, “…Well, that’s how it is. By the way, I’ve got a Christmas present for you, so look forward to it.”

“Eh? What are you giving me?” Shino reacted to the words ‘present.’ Her ears were twitching like a cat.

“…Well it’s for Christmas.”

“I’m looking forward to it! Actually, I was thinking of giving you something for Christmas, too, so look forward to it too, Sandai!”

Shino seemed to be coming up with something as well.

Sandai also got curious about what she would give, but that would go for the both of them until the appointed day.