A Story About a Blonde Gal Angel Who Excessively Praises My Cooking. After Asking Me to Teach Her How to Cook, Feelings of Mutual Love Began to Grow - Chapter 61

“Please do it the usual way.”

“Certainly.”

A visit to the hair salon that I go to once a month. How many years has it been since I started coming here, originally just accompanying my mom?

“What’s wrong, Miu-chan? You look a bit down.”

“Well, yes…”

Minamo Yoshimura, the owner and hairstylist of this small, privately-owned salon. She’s one of the people I’ve known for a long time. I’ve known her even longer than Miaki-chan.

“That face says it’s about love, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes…”

“Wow! Finally, a love story from Miu-chan! I’m getting excited!”

“Haha…”

Although Minamo-san is in her late twenties, she feels like an older sister to me. She’s also the reason I dyed my hair blonde.

“So, you’ve got someone you like?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

With an excited expression, Minamo-san started to ruffle my hair. Then she turned the chair around and leaned me back to wash my hair. The citrus-scented shampoo felt soothing.

“So, what’s going on with the person you like?”

“Well… they get along well with someone else.”

This is my first time being in love. Everything about it is frustrating, and my heart stumbles, causing me to feel short of breath. It’s hard to find the words to explain how difficult it is to talk about my feelings.

“I often learn cooking from this person.”

“Huh? Are we talking about the person you like or the person they get along with?”

“Ah, that was about the person I like…”

“Got it.”

If it were any other topic, I could speak more smoothly, but for some reason, this one is frustratingly difficult.

“This person I like is really good at cooking, so we visit each other’s homes, but there’s always this distance between us.”

“I totally get that.”

“…Really?”

“I went through the same thing with my husband.”

I had never heard Minamo-san talk about anything like that before. She’s always so cheerful and friendly with everyone.

There’s something unclear and hazy inside me, and I can’t express myself well. So, I decided to ask her more about her experience.

“I want to hear more about that.”

“I’m not sure if it’ll be helpful, but sure.”

“Even so, I’d like to hear it!”

Minamo-san often says that I remind her of her younger self. Maybe I can learn something from her story that might help me now.

“My husband and I were in the same class in high school. When I was working part-time at a convenience store, I got harassed by a drunk customer, and my husband was the one who saved me.”

“That sounds a bit romantic.”

“Yeah, I fell for him after he helped me. I thought, ‘Am I that easy to win over?’ and confessed my feelings.”

“And then?”

“He rejected me, saying that blond-haired girls were scary.”

…Blonde hair. Could it be that Motobu-kun thinks I’m scary too?

“Well, there were some things that happened with blonde hair when he was younger, but I didn’t know that at the time. But I still liked him, so I dyed my hair black and confessed again.”

“You’ve got a strong spirit.”

“He still resisted, but I begged him to at least give it a try, and I eventually wore him down.”

“…Love takes guts, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it was my first love too, so maybe I had that ‘first love buff.’”

“‘First love buff?’”

I’m not entirely sure what she meant by that, but maybe it was just the momentum? I don’t think I could do the same.

“My husband didn’t like girls, so there was a lot of distance at first. But little by little, I got closer.”

Minamo-san’s scissors moved gently and rhythmically as she reminisced about the past. It felt reassuring to hear her love story now that everything had turned out well.

“But even after we started dating, I couldn’t tell how he felt about me. He didn’t like girls, was stubborn, but still kind. That’s why I was always worried that he was only being kind to me out of politeness.”

“The person I like is also kind.”

“Kindness can be confusing, right? It’d be easier if they were only kind to you, but when they’re kind to everyone, it’s hard to tell.”

I completely understand that feeling. Motobu-kun is kind to everyone. Or rather, it’s more like he’s just being polite. He uses formal language with everyone, and there’s always a certain distance.

“I kept feeling anxious, but I still wanted to be with him. Then, one day, we were sitting on a bench in a park, and I gathered the courage to call him by his first name.”

“You mean, you’d been calling him by his last name until then?”

I also call him “Motobu-kun” right now. Even if we started dating, I wonder if I’d be able to call him by his first name so easily.

“Yeah. Taking that step was really scary. But after we got used to calling each other by our first names, he finally told me that he liked me.”

“That makes my heart skip a beat.”

“I was so happy I cried. Even though we’d been close enough to sit shoulder to shoulder, I was never sure if he really liked me.”

Even if you start dating as a trial, you can’t always tell if the emotional distance between you is closing. Even now, I’m not sure how close I’ve gotten to Motobu-kun.

I want to be by Motobu-kun’s side, which is why I’m still learning to cook from him. Maybe he’s just teaching me out of kindness.

To him, it might be nothing more than that.