The Villainous Uncle in the Adult Game Gets Unusually High Praise from the Heroines - Chapter 16

“So, my friend is coming over to visit this Saturday. Would that be alright?”

“That’s… quite sudden.”

“…Yes, my friend said the same thing.”

“Well, I don’t mind. You can do whatever you want with your friend, Sakurako-chan… By the way, who is this friend? Perhaps the neighbor?”

“No, it’s a first-year student named Yozuki Kongo.”

“…Hmm.”

What, seriously? Why was one of the heroines suddenly coming to visit the house? And since when did Sakurako-chan know Yozuki Kongo? 

Though I had countless questions, all I could say was, “Alright then.”

I figured I should prepare some suitable snacks and tea. Since Yozuki Kongo came from a wealthy family, I doubted any snacks would satisfy her refined palate. The notion that rich people craved common folk’s food was just a fantasy.

In the end, I decided to make cookies again, producing various types like ginger cookies, chocolate chip cookies loaded with chocolate, and moist cookies. 

Making sweets was enjoyable, despite everything. I still had to close my eyes when adding sugar, though. That amount always made me wonder if it was really necessary.

Consuming that much daily would surely lead to diabetes. Moderation in sweets was important. Now that I was older, I wondered if that was why school trip snacks were limited to 500 yen.

Anyway.

“Hello.”

“Welcome!”

A girl with light brown long hair tied in a side ponytail on the right, and obsidian-colored eyes. Kongo Yozuki. And greeting her was Hinomoto Tomoe. Why was she here? Well, since Tomoe-chan always visited whenever she had free time, her presence wasn’t particularly strange.

“…Why are you here, Hinomoto-senpai?”

Yozuki-chan, unaware of the circumstances, looked at Tomoe-chan with half-closed eyes.

“Oh, I just came because I had business here as usual.”

“Ah, Yozuki-san, you can ignore this. Please take a seat.”

“What do you mean by ‘this’?”

Sakurako-chan treated Tomoe-chan rather casually as she invited Yozuki-chan in. Though she seemed curious about various things, Yozuki-chan apparently decided to set them aside for now and sat down on the living room sofa as instructed. 

That was when I appeared with drinks and snacks.

“Welcome. You must be Yozuki-chan.”

“…And you are?”

“Ah. I’m Sakurako-chan’s uncle and technically the owner of this house.”

“…I see.”

Was she being cautious? Well, that was to be expected. Even normally, Yozuki-chan was quite wary, and moreover, she didn’t have a particularly good impression of adults. It would probably be quite challenging to lower Yozuki-chan’s guard.

“So…”

“Hm?”

“What do you need, Tendo-senpai?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you have some reason for calling me here? I rearranged various appointments thinking that.”

“There’s nothing particularly important.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Wait, wait. Please hear me out?”

“…I was joking, so please don’t take it seriously.”

So it was a joke. Yozuki-chan could make jokes too, it seemed. Well, it wasn’t exactly an easily recognizable joke.

“Today, Yozuki-chan, I just wanted to talk with you properly.”

“Huh. Talk?”

“Yes. You seemed to have some pent-up frustration lately. So I thought it might be good if you could release that by talking with us here.”

“There’s no need to help me relieve stress—”

“You don’t need to hold back! Sakurako-san made this suggestion because she wanted to, so it might be better to just charge ahead and let it all out!”

“…Sigh.”

Yozuki-chan sighed deeply as if thoroughly annoyed, then closed her eyes. When she opened them, she told the two with resignation.

“Well then, please hear me out for a bit.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Though it’s just trivial talk.”

“Ah, wait a moment?”

At that point, Sakurako-chan looked in my direction.

Hm? What was it?

“Since this is going to be girl talk, could you please leave us, Take-san?”

“Ah, yes. I understand.”

Apparently, I was in the way.

***

“Then, I’ll be taking my leave.”

After talking for about an hour, Yozuki-chan promptly got up and left.

“I wonder if I was too forward. She seemed troubled about something, so I thought we could have a chat to help her let off some steam…”

“If you did it out of consideration for her, there’s no need to regret it, right?”

“That’s— hm?”

At that moment, Sakurako-chan looked at the glass table in the living room. There was a small notebook there. What could it be? It looked quite high-quality.

“This is Yozuki-chan’s. She forgot it.”

“Ah, I see. Then I’ll go deliver it to her.”

“Eh, but…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ll be back soon.”

Saying this one-sidedly, I prepared to go out on my own. I couldn’t miss this timing. If I missed this chance to talk with her, who knew when I’d meet her next.