I Was Unreasonably Dumped By My Girlfriend And Had My Heart Broken. When I Rescued A Beautiful Girl Who Was My Former Classmate And Idol In My Class From A Group Of Yarisa, My Gray College Life Started To Shine - Chapter 41
Episode 41: Snack Party After School
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And so, Hikari Aoba truly kept her word.
She was only bedridden for two days.
By Wednesday, she had completely recovered from her cold.
“I’m really sorry for all the trouble!”
During lunch break, in the lounge on the first floor of the main school building.
Hikari sat across from me and Imazato-san, bowed deeply with her hands on the table.
Seeing this, Imazato-san took out her smartphone and started taking continuous shots of Hikari.
“Hikari-san, how do you plan to apply the lessons learned from this incident? Please give us a specific answer.”
“…Seriously, is this a press conference or something?”
She’s completely unreadable.
I’m about to interject, but the skit doesn’t end there.
Hikari, in her own way, clears her throat deliberately and says.
“Um, I’ll make sure to change into warm clothes immediately if I fall into the river.”
She goes along with this flow.
“Is it not possible to devise measures to avoid falling into the river in the first place?”
“I will do my best…!”
“Please give us a specific answer.”
“I will do my best…!”
It was such a pointless farce.
After it went on for a while, I put a stop to it.
“So? Why are we gathered here?”
“Oh, right.”
Hikari finally seemed to remember the main point. She then put a significantly swollen bag on the table and unzipped it.
Inside were heaps of snacks.
“I really owe you two a lot this time. I brought various things from home. So, let’s have a snack party!”
There was truly everything.
From chocolate to cookies, potato chips, and even traditional Japanese sweets like yokan, the variety was extensive.
Seriously, did she have all of this at home…?
As I grimace slightly, Imazato-san glances at the watch on her left wrist.
“Oh, maybe you don’t have time anymore?”
“Yes, well. That’s it for today.”
With that, she closes her eyes and makes a gesture like spinning a pottery wheel.
It’s pretty obvious this time.
“Um… making sweets?”
Hikari gives a slightly off answer.
“Tea ceremony, maybe?”
I confidently give the correct answer, believing I’m right. But she shakes her head.
“No, I have plans to attend a party at my father’s company today. We need to leave soon.”
“How does that relate to your current actions?”
“It means to ‘gather sesame seeds.'”
It was an incomprehensible quiz.
Moreover, before anything else, there’s a feeling of wanting to point out how she was in a hurry but ended up staging a pseudo-press conference.
But at this point, there were too many elements, and my will to say anything had faded away.
“…Could I take some of these snacks home with me?”
“Yeah! Take as much as you want. I was thinking I bought too many anyway.”
“Thank you then.”
Despite claiming to be in a hurry, Imazato-san carefully chose the sweets.
Just as tastes in food change, so do preferences in sweets.
She meticulously selected only cheap snacks like those for children and packed them into her bag.
“Well then, I’ll join next time.”
With that, she hurriedly left.
“The young lady seems to be quite busy.”
“…The other day when I went to Aoba’s house, she went to a flower arrangement class at night.”
“Kadou…? Is it singing? Opera, perhaps?”
“No, it’s a flower arrangement.”
As I said that, I picked a chestnut bun from among the various sweets and put it in my mouth.
Once my mouth was empty, I asked.
“So, what do you want to do? Shall we continue just the two of us, or head home?”
As I asked, Aoba shook her head.
“I actually planned to do it after the snack party…”
Then what she took out from the bottom of the bag filled with sweets was a magazine with big pink letters saying “Ikebukuro,” a travel information magazine, so to speak.
“Ta-da! I bought this! Let’s decide our plans for Saturday!”
Aoba held it up next to her face and showed it to me.
“That might be a bit embarrassing to bring to the university. It screams ‘tourist’.”
“It’s fine. I am a tourist, after all. I still don’t know much about Tokyo. Besides, it’s kind of exciting just looking at this, don’t you think?”
“Well, that’s true…”
It’s pointless to worry about what others think.
I reconsidered.
…Or perhaps it’s just a late realization. At the point where there are plenty of sweets spread out on the table, they’re already drawing some attention, and Aoba’s beauty naturally attracts eyes.
“And you know, there’s a place I’m curious about—”
“Is it perhaps a dagashi bar (traditional Japanese sweets shop)?”
“Huh? How did you know!? I was just about to suggest having dinner there!”
“No, anyone would think of that seeing this scene. Besides, stop talking while eating sweets.”
Might as well enjoy the moment now.