Vol 1 Chapter 9 – Let’s Make Sweets Together【Volume 1: The Road to Romance】

That was fast.

Sandai hadn’t expected a reply in under a minute. He swallowed, aware that his forehead had gone slightly damp.

“O-okay, she replied, so I need to send something back…”

He was still fumbling for words when another message arrived.

— Thanks for keeping your promise~

— I was all nervous, wondering when it would arrive!

She wasn’t waiting for him to respond before sending the next one. This felt less like exchanging letters and more like someone talking at him in real time.

(She just keeps sending them without waiting for me to reply. Is that… how this works?)

Sandai had no real grasp of how conversations on these apps were supposed to flow, and it showed.

The downside of having spent his entire life without friends — of either gender.

Still, not knowing how it worked didn’t mean he could leave it on read. The app showed read receipts, so she’d know he’d seen it. Silence after that would look like a deliberate choice to ignore her, and that wasn’t the impression he wanted to give.

The sensible move was probably to reply as quickly as possible — but deciding what to say was its own problem.

I can’t pull off anything clever right now. May as well just tell her I’m not used to this.

The logic came from a lifetime of being a loner.

Being misread had been a recurring feature of his life, and when he’d traced it back, the cause was almost always the same: he hadn’t explained himself, and people had filled in the blanks incorrectly. He’d learned — slowly, and with some pain — that if something wasn’t clear, it was better just to say so.

“…’ Sorry, I’ve always been on my own, so this is new to me. My replies might be slow, and my timing might be off — hope that’s okay.'”

He typed it out and sent it. The reply came right back.

— got it!

“…’ Got it.’ What does that even mean, ‘got it.'”

Some kind of slang, probably — but he had no reference for it whatsoever. He turned it over in his head, got nowhere, and just asked her directly what it meant.

‘It’s short for “got it,” silly~.’

☆

The conversation ran for about an hour.

Shino had slowed her pace a little once she understood where he was coming from, and Sandai found himself with enough breathing room actually to keep up.

They’d settled into something approaching a rhythm — and that was when Shino mentioned, out of nowhere, that she wanted to come over on Sunday.

— Can I come to your place this Sunday?

— I practice making sweets for my café job sometimes. Let’s make some together.

Coming over was fine. But he’d never made sweets in his life and genuinely didn’t know if he’d be any use to her.

No point pretending otherwise. He told her as much, plainly.

She said it would be fine.

If she said it would be fine, it was probably fine. He sent back an okay and called it settled.

Then — a beat after hitting send — it occurred to him.

Coming over meant being alone together. Not the way the typhoon had forced them into the same space, with no other option. This would be deliberate. Both of them had agreed to it ahead of time.

☆

The days took on a pattern: no talking at school, but back home each evening, quiet back-and-forth messages with Shino about nothing in particular.

Sandai spent most of it vaguely unsettled.

Every time Sunday crossed his mind, Nakaoaka’s voice came with it — all that business about going after Shino, making something of it, aiming for something more.

He couldn’t quite shake it.

Not that he had long to dwell on it. Time moved without caring about his feelings on the matter, and Sunday arrived before he’d made peace with it.

He changed into clothes fit to be seen in, walked to the station with his unease in tow, and sat on a bench to wait, watching the board.

The train came.

Shino stepped off.

Sandai raised a hand, trying to look normal about it. She spotted him immediately and came over at a light jog.

It was her day off, so she was in casual clothes — denim shorts, a simple shirt, and sandals with a small floral print. She was carrying a large wicker basket, stuffed with something.

Taken purely as an outfit, it was the kind of thing anyone might wear.

And yet somehow she still looked remarkable. That was just what happened when good bone structure met what people around school had taken to calling an SSS-tier face.

“Did you wait long?”

“N-no. Not really.”

“Good. …Hey, so, I’m sorry about this, it’s kind of sudden, but—”

They’d barely finished greeting each other when the easy look on Shino’s face slipped into something apologetic.

What happened?

Before he could ask, a small figure peeked out from behind her.

“…She decided she was coming right as we were leaving. I mentioned having a younger sister before, I think — she just kind of… showed up at the last second. I knew I should’ve told you in advance, but it was so sudden I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

She had mentioned a sister. At some point, in passing. And apparently, that sister had come along for the visit.

So — not just the two of them after all.