Chapter 29:

Odd obento giving

Having Trouble Coming up With a Decent Story


"Sad or touching... is this really what I should write about?" 

Koshiro, Scar, and Sawada were visiting the Suto household.

“Oh! If it isn’t Scar-chan! It’s been so long!” Suto-san greeted the black cat first.

“We literally came here last week…” indeed, Koshiro and Scar visited them every weekend.

The lady looked at Sawada and Koshiro, “Oh! Nobu-kun and Nyoko-chan are here too!” she then whispered to Koshiro: “Between both of us, I always was fonder of you that Kochiru boy.”

“Hehe…” Koshiro scratched his head, “That Kochiru is a fool, but Koshiro is fine, right?”

“Oh no!!” he gave a serious look to the boy, “He’s the worst of all!”

“Hahahahahaha!” Sawada couldn’t hold her laughter, “You’re such an idiot, Koshiro!”

After various attempts, Koshiro finally managed to convince Suto-san that Sawada and he weren’t Nobu and Nyoko, but the only thing she could reply was:

“Oh, Daichi-kun! You look so young that I didn’t recognize you!” she clapped her hands, “I must have confounded you because of that ‘great older brother’ aura you were exhaling!”

“Great… older brother...?” “Oh… that might be it, hehe.” Koshiro smiled awkwardly.

***

"I don't feel like it is..."

While Koshiro and Scar kept company to Suto-san, Sawada and Sumiye went shopping, “Good for them that they are in the honeymoon phase...” the boy thought while remembering the two leaving the house:

“Yaaay!” Sawada exclaimed while receiving a piggyback ride from Sumiye.

“I hope you’re ready! Because we’re going to have tons of fun today!” the woman uttered back.

“Yay! Hehehe!” Sawada couldn’t stop smiling. They left the Suto household at full speed.

Later that day, the boy started to hear muffled voices drawing closer, “Yeah, maybe it’s already over.” it was Sumiye and Sawada arriving from their trip:

“Aaaah! I wanted a piggyback ride back!” Sawada complained as she entered the house.

“Maybe I would do it again if I wasn’t so tired!” Sumiye’s eyebrow twitched as she stared at the sulking and pouting girl, “And you know whose fault is this, right?!”

“I don’t know!” Sawada threw her arms upwards, “You are the one without stamina!”

“I’ll give you a hint!” the woman glared at the girl, “It’s because of someone that made me walk the entire district just because of a ‘cute looking ice cream’...”

“It was really cute! Although not so good…"

“... and because the clothes weren’t ‘princess-like.’”

“I said ‘like the ones Hideko Nishikawa-chan uses’!”

“Aargh!” Sumiye smacked her head, “I don’t know why you care so much about that anime, but you clearly don’t know the price of those things!”

“Of course not! You are the adult here! I don’t know how to value money yet!”

“Hmm…” Sumiye pointed at Sawada’s face, “So I’ll teach you one thing: teachers don’t gain much!”

“Aaaah! You’re an idiot like Koshiro! Sumiye idiot!” Sawada kept complaining, “I don’t even know what you teach!”

“Of course not! You haven’t watched any of my classes!”

“I’m sure they are super boring! Just like you!” the girl showed Sumiye her tongue.

“You litt…”

“Wait Sumi-nee!” Koshiro chimed in, “She kind of has a point, what is that you teach? I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else before.”

“Please, Koshiro.” she gave the boy a fierce look, “Don’t come with that now.”

“...” Koshiro gulped, “Yes ma’am.” and then resumed his observation of the argument.

***

"Maybe it should be something that includes the others..."

The next days for Koshiro were a bit unusual. He kept going to school with Sawada and Kuma-chan (receiving all types of stares while doing so) and he was near his self-imposed deadline to start writing for the contest, something he wasn’t even sure he would be eligible to compete in since he had to be in good terms with Takayama to do so (or risk it all with the thorny plot armor). “Damn that Sumiye! She made me promise not to give up, but it isn’t so easy. Just to be able to compete I have to deal with Takayama…” “Huh?” he noticed something hanging in front of his eyes.

“Take this.” a female voice said while showing him an obento.

“Huh?” Koshiro started to look upward. He was eating his lunch with Sawada while sitting on the stairs behind the school building as usual.

“I’m saying that you can have it!” Hayami Takayama was glaring at him, “It’s for both of you.” she glanced at Sawada.

“What…?” Koshiro looked at the obento. “Did you make this..” he analyzed the thing, “It’s surprisingly girly for Takayama.” “For me?”

“Yes.” she crossed her arms, “But don’t get any weird thoughts! It’s just that you seem poor and I made too much food!” and then yelled at Koshiro.

“Oh!” “She kind of contradicted herself there...” Koshiro smiled and accepted the obento while Sawada sniffed it. “Thanks, Takayama-san! Maybe you really are an honor student!”

“Just shut up and eat!” she turned around and left.

“Wow... what do we have here?” Sumiye murmured and smiled. She was standing unnoticed a few meters from the situation, “Seems like I didn’t have to wake up extra early to do this.” she looked at the obento she had prepared for Umiko and Koshiro in her hands, “I’ll let him enjoy his romantic comedy.” 

***

"What can include all of those things?"

“Thank you for the obento.” Koshiro said to Takayama when the other three club members went to the back of the room again, “Sawada thanked as well.”

“Aaah?” Takayama glared at him, “Didn’t I say to you that I just made too much?!”

“Either way, both of us liked it a lot! I didn’t know you could do something like that.” Koshiro smiled, “Maybe you are a girl after all!”

“WHAT?” Takayama growled and flushed, “Does this mean I’m only a girl because I can cook?!”

“Oh, that’s not what I meant.” the boy waved his hands, “It’s just that before you looked more like a devil. it’s my bad, I should’ve said ‘maybe you are a human after all!’”

“You’re not improving your situation.” Takayama clenched her fists and teeth.

“Hmm… let me just say that I appreciate your kindness!” Koshiro stood up, “Thank you very much!” he bowed.

“Oh!” Takayama’s hostility disappeared, “Just lift your head scum, it wasn’t a big deal.” she crossed her arms and looked away.

“Okay.” Koshiro did as she said, “Wow, I know that I need her help for the contest but… I’m not sure if my words were all just because of that… after all, she gave that delicious food to us...”

***

"Is it something I already know?"

And the girl kept making too much food, because she always appeared to give Sawada and Koshiro an obento to eat. Some days she would even stay there for a moment and eat a little bit.

“Takayama-san, how can you escape the mob?” Sawada asked the girl.

“I have my methods.” Takayama responded quickly while picking an octopus sausage (that had a face) with her chopsticks.

“Hmm.” Sawada pouted (she didn’t like when others picked her food), but she couldn’t complain (Takayama was the one to give them food at the end of the day).

“Oh my god.” Koshiro started to think, “I’ve just realized her obento is always different than ours! Does this mean we’re in that situation where she comes up with an excuse to feed the guy she likes??! That can’t be possible! It’s happening so suddenly… am I finally becoming the classic rom-com dense protagonist?! Oh no!”

“Hey, stop spacing out and put the anime!” Sawada complained. They now watched something to give Koshiro inspiration every day, “I know you were thinking of perverted stuff with Takayama-san just because she gives us food!”

“I MOST DEFINITELY WASN’T!” Koshiro shouted back.

“Okay, okay!” Sawada looked at Koshiro, “Just don’t do anything weird, or else we'll lose our lunch!”

“She’s right...” Koshiro started to put on the anime, “Takayama is definitely not interested in me in that way… it’d be more likely that she knows about Sawada…” he looked at the girl staring at the TV, “But how would she know about that…?”

***

"Could... could 'love' be the answer?"

Things stayed more or less the same until Sumiye appeared out of nowhere on Friday:

“My mother really liked having her there in the last weekends that you visited us.” she told Koshiro, “So I’ll take her home with me today, okay?”

“Well… do you really have to take Nyoko today?” Koshiro asked.

“Nyoko?”

“Aahn…” Koshiro scratched his head, “Don’t you know which day is tomorrow?”

“No…” Sumiye tilted her head, “Something important is happening tomorrow?”

“If you consider your birthday important…” “Not really! The timelines are finally going to merge…” “For now, at least…”

“Oh, if it is just that then it’s fine.” she smiled.