The Most Beautiful Girl in School Has Become a Mother

It took a while for the three of us to stop crying. Among us, the one who cried the longest was, for some reason, Miori.

Shuri even asked, “Mom, how long are you going to cry? Does your stomach hurt?” It was kind of amusing.

Then, we brewed some tea and ate the macarons that Miori made together. Since Shuri still can’t drink tea, she had milk.

We made two types of macarons, raspberry and chocolate, and I felt that both were more delicious than the ones served at the store. When I said that, I was told it was an exaggeration, but I was being quite sincere.

Shuri seemed to prefer chocolate macarons with sweetness, but I preferred raspberry macarons with a subtle sweetness and a nice aroma. Perhaps this difference in taste is due to our age gap.

It seems she went out of her way to make these macarons after coming home yesterday. Seriously, her excessive doting on Shuri is a bit much.

“Shuri-chan, are the macarons delicious?”

“Delicious! I love Mom’s macarons!”

Since she keeps munching on the macarons, I remind her, “If you eat too many, you won’t be able to have dinner.”

“Something I can eat.”

“No, remember the last time you ate too many snacks and couldn’t have dinner?”

“I can eat it!”

There was a time when she ate snacks without me knowing, and she couldn’t even touch her dinner.

Children can’t adjust the amount of snacks they eat (adults can’t do it either), so I have to watch over her.

“Today, Mom is making dinner for us. Are you sure you don’t want to eat it?”

“No way!”

“Even if you say that…”

“Come on, you two. Don’t fight again.”

Did she sense that Shuri and I were about to heat up a bit? She stepped in between us.

“Since we have to eat dinner too, how about we just have this much for a snack? We can eat the rest after dinner?”

When told that by Miori, Shuri simply nodded and said, “Yeah.”

Hey, aren’t you being a bit too obedient to Miori, my sister?

Miori was wiping the macaron crumbs off Shuri’s mouth, and Shuri seemed to be tickled by it. It was a scene that looked unmistakably like a parent-child moment.

Miori has a gentle smile, and just looking at her makes me happy too.

──When she has kids in the future, I bet she’ll spoil them a lot.

I suddenly thought about something like that and regained my composure, wondering what I was thinking.

Right now, I was assuming that I would be by her side in that “future.” It’s too soon to think like that since we aren’t even dating yet.

──Ah, right. We haven’t even started dating yet.

Somehow, in this past month, the distance has been too close, and even that has become ambiguous.

It’s a feeling as if I’ve transcended even the idea of dating or not dating.

However, it is precisely because of the interactions at the national park the other day, the interactions at the aquarium today, and the earlier interaction with Shuri that I think this way.

I can’t just leave it at the ambiguous roles of “mom” and “dad.”

To me, Miori is no longer just a good classmate or the most beautiful girl in school. She is someone I want by my side forever, and someone I would be troubled without.

──Oh, by the way, didn’t she say at the aquarium that she would be in trouble if I wasn’t by her side?

When I think back on it, I get embarrassed. It’s almost like a half confession, isn’t it? And then we even held hands afterward.

──It’s pretty ambiguous, but it’s moving forward anyway.

She’s saying something that sounds quite like a confession, and we’re holding hands.

But we have never been in a relationship. In between, there was the concept of “dad” and “mom,” and the fact is that it made our relationship ambiguous.

──At this rate, it’s no good, right?

I was absentmindedly looking at Miori’s smile when I suddenly thought that.

“Oh, Isaki-kun.”

“Y-yes?!”

Just when I was thinking about her, someone suddenly called my name, and my voice cracked.

“What’s wrong?”

“N-no, it’s nothing. So, what is it?”

“Oh, yeah. Momo-chan contacted me, asking when would be a good time to go during Golden Week.”

“Ah… now that you mention it, I got a similar message from Shinya earlier.”

Due to the matter with Shuri, I completely neglected to reply.

Since I was supposed to go to school and talk today, they must have been troubled too.

“Hmm… then, shall we do it tomorrow?”

Miori will stay over tonight and will probably be here tomorrow as well.

In that case, tomorrow would be easier to arrange.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“I plan to be here tomorrow too,” said Miori. Just as expected.

“Then, should I send it to Shinya?”

“I’ll send it to Momo-chan, too.”

After that exchange, we each send messages to Shinya and Sumomo on our respective smartphones.

There was a group chat with four people, but somehow I felt embarrassed to contact them there. It would feel like we were just pretending to have talked together, wouldn’t it? Well, we have been together since morning, though.

“Hey, Shuri.”

“Hmm?”

“Tomorrow, Dad and Mom’s friends are coming over to hang out.”

“Mom and Dad’s friend…”

When I said that, Shuri looked a bit complicated.

Even if I suddenly said I was a friend of Miori’s, it must have been quite a hurdle for someone she didn’t know at all.

Shuri looks at Miori with a worried expression.

“Both of them are nice people, so I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with them, right?”

“…Yeah!”

When Miori said that gently, Shuri nodded with a broad smile.

Huh? When I said it, she looked anxious, but when Miori said it, she had a beaming smile? Is this a complete trust issue where I’ve already lost?

──What has been the struggle of these five years…