The Case of My Unknown Childhood Friend Who Became My Girlfriend Without Me Even Knowing It - Chapter 10 - The Curry Simmers

Chapter 10 – The Curry Simmers

I don’t know anything about the woman working part-time in this bookshop.

I don’t even know her name.

I don’t know her age or whether she is really a university student.

I don’t even want to know.

I didn’t have that kind of feeling.

I have a slight admiration for older women.

After greeting each other, we start to have a conversation.

But even such people eventually will have boyfriends…

I’ll stare at her from afar and experience heartbreak for the first time.

I just longed a little for that kind of adolescent thing.

But even that doesn’t seem to be allowed for me.

“What…do you mean?”

“Look, you’re in a rush, I knew you were looking for that person.”

“T-That’s not important, what do you mean that the shopkeeper is gone?”

“I’m not going to tell you, Kanata-kun. You’re a liar. It’s your punishment for lying, okay?”

“……”

Is it true what she says?

I looked around to make sure, but she was definitely not here.

And I feel something strange about that.

…What’s this? What’s this weird feeling?

“Come on, let’s go home, Kanata-kun. My legs are tired.”

“Ah, yeah.”

In the end, I never found out what the strange feeling I had in the bookshop was.

And the whereabouts of the missing shopkeeper remains in the dark.

Finally, it’s getting hard to tell what’s going on.

“Hey, hey, do you want to buy some coffee? You spilled it all over this morning.”

When we arrived at the convenience store in front of our apartment, Sakatoki stood on the parking lot, smiling.

There are still a few coffee stains by the dustbin from this morning’s spill.

“Sure. But I don’t think too much caffeine is good.”

“Right. Let’s have juice then. I’ll buy you a drink, okay?”

With a thump, she jumped over the roadblock towards the entrance.

She went straight into the shop.

Normally, I would have been able to go home first, alone.

But her room is next to mine. And she has a duplicate key, so there’s no point in me leaving first.

Now that the house is not functioning as a safety zone at all, there is no other way but to comply.

With my shoulders drooped, I went inside the shop too…

“Look, look, there’s a raffle.”

“Do you want it?”

“If you see something like this, don’t you want to pull it off?”

“…Well, I don’t know.”

I don’t know.

But no, I’m not talking about those feelings, but rather about Sakatoki.

She’s a girl with pretty normal sensibilities.

She’s not all that crazy. It’s just that the crazy parts are so far off.

That’s why it’s hard to grasp.

I have no idea what she’s thinking.

There’s no way you can understand how a stalker feels, huh?

“Hey, I’ll buy this one too, let’s pull one.”

“I think it’s a waste of money.”

“It’s okay. These things, the memory of doing them together is important.”

“Memory, huh?”

Says the self-proclaimed girlfriend who I have no memories of at all.

Well, that’s why we know that memories are so important.

“This one, please.”

Eventually, she wanted to draw a raffle, so she left her money at the cashier and asked to be allowed to draw the raffle.

The first prize this time was a trip to a hot spring.

However, unlike the usual convenience store raffles of anime goods, I noticed that the prizes were extravagant.

Matsuzaka beef, crabs. And even road bikes.

It’s 1,000 yen a raffle. That’s a pretty bold thing to do here.

“…Ah, you’ve got it.”

“Oh, that’s great. What grade?”

“Ehehe, first class.”

“…What?”

“A trip to the hot springs. And this is a pair ticket.”

“……”

I thought it was a lie, but on the paper it said ‘First prize’ in large letters.

The shopkeeper saw this and in a great hurry brought something like a ticket from the back.

Apparently, it’s a hot-spring travel voucher.

“Wow, amazing. Hey, for the holidays, do you want to stop by the hot spring first and then go back to your parents’ house?”

“Well, that’s…”

“Hey, hey, you want to go to the hot spring, don’t you?”

“…That’s really… Um…”

“Let’s go to the hot springs, Kanata-kun.”

“……”

I knew it was going to happen.

But I’m wondering why things keep turning out so well for her, and I’m scratching my head at her good luck.

It’s the same with our classmates. Too many people are too understanding, too many people are too accommodating to her.

Is this all a result of her obsession with me?

If so, then the Law of Attraction is a terrible thing.

It’s like magic that what you wish for in your heart is exactly what you get… No, it’s bogus.

“This is great, don’t you think, Kanata-kun?”

“…Well, I think it’s great that you won.”

“Hot springs, we’re going to the hot springs. I’m looking forward to it.”

“……”

The two of us left the store and I looked at Sakatoki who was having fun while walking over the roadblock again.

I am getting anxious about whether we are really going to go to the hot spring.

And the stain from the morning coffee was still there.

◇

“Today, I’m going to make curry with the ingredients I bought yesterday.”

My resistance to her coming to my room had already diminished considerably.

I’m tired of resisting, or rather I’ve realized that there’s no way to resist.

We’ll just have dinner quickly and have her go back to her room.

It’s the only way I can think of right now.

“Hey, this hot spring trip is for one room.”

“How can high school students do such an inappropriate thing?”

“It’s okay, as long as we have our parents’ permission.”

“…What kind of people are your parents?”

I asked a few in-depth questions.

There’s a saying about wanting to see your partner’s parents’ faces, and that’s exactly how I feel.

If I ever meet her parents, I will do my best to complain to them about how they raised her to grow up to be such a psycho.

“Eh, they’re normal, you know? My dad is sweet to me, but my mum is pretty strict with my dad.”

“I see. And they didn’t say anything about living alone?”

“What’s the matter? Maybe you want to come and say hello?”

“It’s not that. I was just, what can I say, curious.”

Yes, I’m curious.

It’s not like I’m conscious of it, but I’m concerned.

It’s hard not to be concerned, because she looks like a sensible, pretty high-school girl, but she’s in fact an extraordinary psychopath on the inside.

“Hmm. You’re really thinking about me.”

“…It’s impossible not to think about it when you’ve been following me around so much.”

“Mmm-hmm. That’s a good way of thinking.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this. But more importantly, can you see how the curry tastes?”

Those words made my heart thump again.

Taste.

In other words…

Mouth-to-mouth.

I had already started to link the two together on my own, and I imagined that she would turn around again after having a mouthful of curry.

“Yes, here you go.”

She offered me a scoop of curry from a ladle.

“……”

“Oh, what’s wrong? Maybe you would have preferred a mouth-to-mouth?”

“Ah, no. You’re wrong… Itadakimasu.”

All the way down, I took a mouthful of the curry.

It was normal. And it also tasted nostalgic.

…This curry, perhaps, this one too?

“Hey, did you cook this at my–”

“Kanata-kun smells so good… Itadakimasu.”

“!?”

This time…

I’m the one with the curry in my mouth and she’s tasting it through me.

She kissed me.

She repeatedly flicked her tongue at me, as if to check the taste of the curry still in my mouth…

Naturally, I responded by twirling my tongue around her, dropping the ladle on the floor.

“Fufu, you can’t taste it when it’s mouth-to-mouth.”

“Ah…”

“What’s wrong with you? We did it yesterday, and we did it this morning too.”

“Y-Yeah…”

“It’s almost ready, can you wait in the other room?”

“Ah, yeah…”

I wonder why…

For a moment, I was made to anticipate it, and then after being knocked down once, I was terribly choked up by the surprise.

I don’t even remember what the curry tasted like anymore.

Instead, only her slightly sweet scent lingered on my senses.

It’s sizzling.

The sound of curry simmering echoed in the quiet room.