The Nurse’s Office Angel Only Acts Sweet to Me Again Today ~ I Was Kind to a Beautiful Girl Who Goes to the Nurse’s Office and She Became Attached to Me ~

Chapter 19: The Angel and the Cat

After Yukino and I finished our prayers at Gotokuji Shrine, we passed through the torii gate to leave, and suddenly Yukino stopped in her tracks.

Yukino had a grumpy look on her face that seemed unusually serious.

Yukino, did something happen?

“What’s wrong, Yukino? Did you… get sleepy all of a sudden?”

“No… I’m not sleepy.”

“Then why do you have such a troubled look…”

“Actually…”

“Yeah?”

“I forgot to look for the kitty—”

It was totally unimportant…

Come to think of it, Yukino had said she wanted to see a cat before we went in…

At Gotokuji Shrine, people often spotted stray cats, and usually you could see them lounging in the sun in the grounds, but strangely there were none today.

“Kitty…”

Yukino murmured in a downcast way.

Did she like cats that much?

Well, she kind of acted like one herself…

“Oh, right. Yukino, want to take a quick detour just over there?”

“Detour?”

“Yeah. There’s something I want to show a cat lover like you.”

Before we headed toward Sendagi Station, we decided to make a little detour.

The one I suggested was.

“Here.”

The site of Soseki Natsume’s old residence near Gotokuji Shrine, also known as the cat house.

Even though it was just the site of a house, in a small corner of the residential neighborhood there was only a stone monument, but actually there was not just the monument, but…

“Wh-what’s this, a cat made of stone…!”

Yes, there were cat statues here.

The cat statues at Soseki Natsume’s old residence site were made very precisely, with two of them: one cat quietly standing at your feet, and another walking along the top of the fence.

“Why cats?”

“This is where Soseki Natsume wrote I Am a Cat. So they made cat monuments along with the stone monument.”

“Oh, there’s a cat on the fence behind the monument too… I want to take a picture.”

“Then I’ll take one of you and the cat together.”

“Really?”

“Two-person time is for the two of us, so it’s important to take pictures of each other and keep the memories.”

I pulled out my phone and pointed the lens at Yukino.

“Okay, say cheese.”

“Yeah!”

Yukino squatted down, touched the cat statue at her feet, and gave me an innocent smile.

Yukino… made a face like that when I pointed a camera at her…

“Got it?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Then send it on LINE? I want to show Mom…”

“Sure.”

I sent the photo to Yukino as she asked.

Mom would be happy…

“I didn’t know Soseki Natsume lived here.”

“This area is a literary haven. There’s a memorial hall for Mori Ogai too, besides Soseki Natsume.”

“Huh…”

“That one’s a proper memorial with documents and stuff, and there’s a café. Want to check it out?”

“Does Mori Ogai’s have cats?”

“Uh, yeah, probably not.”

“Hmm… then never mind.”

Never mind, that was kind of mean to Mori Ogai…!

Yukino was pretty cold without cats.

—

Chapter 20: The Reason Yukino Wants to Diet

We had taken a little detour, but once we got back to the main road, Yukino and I started walking toward Sendagi Station again.

“…Phew.”

Yukino wiped sweat from her forehead, but she kept walking with her small steps, trying her hardest.

“Yukino, we’ve walked quite a bit already— you okay?”

“I’m fine… this is for my diet too.”

Diet, huh…

It was hard to believe from the girl who had just begged me for sweets.

“Um, this might sound weird to say now, but…”

“What?”

“I carried you on my back once before, and you were super light, so even if you gained a little weight, you wouldn’t need to diet.”

“No way… if I let myself gain even a little, I won’t be able to go back.”

“Th-that sounds like something from someone who’s been through it.”

“…Yeah. Actually.”

Yukino made a difficult face and started talking quietly without a word.

“When Mom succeeded at work and we suddenly got rich… I got carried away, and she took me to fancy buffets in the city almost every day.”

“Buffets? N-no way, Yukino.”

“Yeah… I ate way more than I could imagine every day there, and for a while, I got all puffy.”

Y-Yukino got puffy!?

She had stick-thin arms and legs now, and she was super skinny!?

“I kinda want to see what Yukino looked like back then.”

“No way am I showing you.”

Yeah, I figured.

Yukino had eaten sweets one after another the other day until she should have felt stuffed, but she was fine, so I had thought she was a big eater despite being so skinny… but she had a secret like that.

“We were poor back then, so two meals a day was something to be thrilled about… the rebound from that made me eat a ton. That’s how I got puffy in elementary school…”

“Then how did you get back to your current build? Diet after all?”

“No. After I got puffy, I cut back on how much I ate, and I gradually slimmed down to my original body.”

“Then just do that this time too!”

“No. Back then, it was okay to lose weight slowly, but now I want to slim down fast.”

“H-huh?”

There was no fast or slow way to lose weight…

The teacher had said before that “Yukino is a picky eater,” but now I kind of got why she could eat so many matcha sweets without a problem.

Yukino was not a picky eater; she had just cut her portions way down to avoid gaining weight.

“Now… I need to lose weight right away. Because… I have a friend.”

“A friend? Y-you mean me?”

Yukino nodded like a bobblehead, her face red, then looked away from me.

“…I don’t want Nukumori to think I’ve gotten fat.”