When My Younger Brother Stole My Girlfriend, I Began Living Together with My Beautiful Childhood Friend Almost As If We Were Married - Chapter 4

Episode 4: Let’s Go Buy Home Appliances

After roughly organizing my belongings and having a simple cup noodle lunch, we decided to head to a nearby electronics retailer to purchase furniture and appliances for my new life.

Although it is called an electronics retail store, Reina’s house is really blessed in terms of location because there is a store nearby that is like a general living store with a good selection of furniture and household goods.

After leaving the house and walking for about ten minutes, we could already see the building.

We passed through the automatic doors, sanitized our hands, and were about to head straight to the sales floor. However, something troublesome crossed their minds.

“Hey, Reina… Are there any ATMs nearby?”

“Huh?”

“I completely forgot about withdrawing money…”

That’s right, I didn’t have any cash on hand. Since we were mainly buying furniture and household appliances for my room and shared spaces, and considering Reina was taking on most of the living expenses due to our living arrangement, it wouldn’t make sense for me not to contribute financially.

However, not having any cash on hand was a significant problem. While I did have a credit card, the limit was only a hundred thousand, and I had already used it for various subscriptions and expenses. Although changing to revolving payments was easy and I often received reminders from the company, I absolutely didn’t want to resort to that.

So, as me were pondering where to find an ATM, Reina laughed and reached into her bag, pulling out a thick envelope.

“Ta-da! There’s three million yen here!”

“Huh, why!?”

Unconsciously, I checked the contents of the envelope, and sure enough, there were three bundles of bills with bands attached. I had never seen such a large sum of money before, so naturally, I was taken aback…

“It’s from a reliable sponsor! So, don’t worry about money!”

“What kind of sponsor would casually hand out three million yen…?”
“It’s my big sister. Of course, with conditions.”

According to Reina, she had informed her sister about our decision to live together while I was organizing my belongings, and her sister had rushed over immediately and left this bundle of bills. I vaguely remembered the commotion at the entrance for a while, but now it made sense.

So, the condition attached to the three million was that her sister would also move in, and we would prepare the room together.

Her sister seemed to be a somewhat eccentric type of sis-con, who loved seeing Reina’s happy face more than anything else.

Reina seemed to have agreed to living together and her sister wanted to see her happy face every day. Her sister wanted to move in around the time of the renewal of the contract for the condominium she was currently living in.

With her ability to casually offer three million yen and her residence in a luxury condominium, her sister seemed quite high-spec. As for why she was so wealthy, it seemed she had made a fortune through investments and such.

She assured her that she would cover living expenses and wouldn’t interfere with our lives at all, and Reina told me that she had agreed to living together.

“So, that’s the story behind the three million yen.”

“It seems like a lot of money even after getting everything we need…”

“If there’s any left, she wants us to show her photos of us enjoying ourselves on a trip or eating something delicious.”

“Let’s go together then.”

Why is she the one enjoying photos? It’s her money, so they should go together.

Well, with our money worries taken care of, we finally headed into the store.

We decided to start by looking at the appliances needed for my room.

Since we already had lighting fixtures and a music player, we thought it would be good to get an air conditioner, a fan, and a humidifier, which were displayed in a corner.

But Reina was adding more items to our basket with a momentum suggesting she were buying everything in sight, including a TV, a small refrigerator, a game console, and so on.

“Isn’t this too extravagant?”

“It’s normal! I want Hayato to have the best environment possible.”

“It’s too good, it’s almost unsettling.”

It was starting to feel like a hotel room. In fact, it might already be more luxurious than a cheap hotel.

Next, I persuaded Reina to look at appliances needed for her sister’s room.

In addition to an air conditioner, there were TVs and various other appliances to be installed in her sister’s room, making it seem like a second hotel room.

“If it’s for Reina’s room, I can contribute a little with my credit card, so let’s make it luxurious.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary.”

“It’s fine. I want Reina to be comfortable too.”

“Hayato…”

We put similar appliances in a separate cart for individual rooms.

Since the appliances for individual rooms were sufficient, we moved on to consider shared appliances.

“Aren’t the ones we’re using now fine?”

“The washing machine and refrigerator seem a bit small.”

“Well, when you suddenly go from living alone to two people, you need more things.”

With more groceries and laundry, we needed more appliances.

If we weren’t using them much, it might seem wasteful, but this store refunded the assessed value if you traded in appliances, so it wasn’t much of a financial issue.

The air conditioner was fine, but we needed to buy many other items for the living room, such as the TV, heated carpet, vacuum cleaner, fan, and the washing machine in the bathroom, the refrigerator, microwave, toaster, and more. I thought we might not need to replace the microwave or toaster, though.

“This should be almost everything.”
“Huh, still not done?”

“Huh?”

“We still need things for our room, right?”

“Our room?”

“Yeah, since we’re living together, we’ll have our own individual rooms, but we’ll also have a room for the two of us, right?”

That sounds like a married couple’s bedroom…

My cheeks felt incredibly hot when I imagined it. Now that she mentioned it, that’s something we would have.

A room where me and Reina would spend time together, with a big bed…

“Hayato, are you okay? Your body temperature seems really high…”

I came back to myself, and Reina was putting her hand on my forehead as she looked worriedly into my face.

“Ah, yeah! I’m fine!”

“Really? If you’re tired, let me know, okay? We’ll go home right away.”

After reassuring me if I was okay, we continued shopping.

Basically, we added more appliances for individual rooms, but in addition to that, we bought an automatic vacuum cleaner, a futon cleaner, a music player that emits alpha waves to improve sleep quality, and even a massage machine that you would expect to find in any electronics store. I hadn’t thought we would actually buy a large massage machine…

“Is there a room big enough for all this? Will there be a bed too?”

“There’s a big unused room on the third floor, so there’s plenty of space there, and it’ll fit.”

Reina’s house was indeed spacious…

As we imagined the appliances and furniture we were purchasing, we proceeded to the checkout.

The store staff seemed surprised as he processed the items, and he understood my feelings. I was surprised too.

We also arranged for a home delivery service and paid the money. Checking the envelope, there was still almost half left.

I expressed my gratitude for the three million yen and her sister’s greatness and moved on to the next floor to look for furniture.