Arrangements / 準備

Later that day, when I was in my bedroom waiting for the “Dinner is ready!” announcement, I got a call from Naoto while I was browsing the internet.

“Hello? Ueno, is that you?”

“Yes, it's me, the one and only Naoto Ueno.”

“Stop with the silly jokes.”

“Are you in a bad mood?”

“Not really. You just happened to interrupt my daily session of ‘Checking what's going on at 3chan today’.”

“Oh, so you still check those sketchy internet forums?”

“Well, to be honest, it's more to laugh at the stupidity of the users than anything else.”

“Ah, I see. So in the same way you look at the news on TV?"

“Kind of. No, the news usually is considerably more trustworthy, so it's not the same.”

“Alright. My apologies for calling you at this time of the day then.”

“Calm down, I wasn't being serious. I’m always down to joke around.”

“Sheesh, you never get tired of playing around with your best friend, do you?”

“Never. As long as you can withstand my stubbornness.”

“Likewise.”

“You can tell me now. What’s so important that propelled you to call me?”

“Well… honestly I should’ve called earlier, but… how do I put it…”

“Come on, don't leave me hanging!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I talked to our English teacher after cleaning duty and found out Natsuko was living with her, but here’s the catch: she needed a new home, as the teacher couldn't support her current family and a student with no place to go. So, I told her she could live with you. Assuming your parents allowed it, of course.”

“…”

“Yuki, you still there?”

I was flabbergasted. So that's why he called me. He truly was good at understating things. Although, I wasn't about to leave him hanging, so I continued the call.

“Yes.”

“You don't have any siblings, right?”

“Yeah, I'm an only child.”

“Alright! Please do communicate this to your parents. Bye!”

“W-Wait!”

He disconnected before noticing I still had more to say. I knew he didn’t do it on purpose, but that was still annoying.

“Everyone! Dinner is ready!”

“Yes, I’m coming!”

I wasn’t coming. At least not so soon. I was still frozen in place thinking about Naoto’s impeccable timing.

With all three of us now at the table eating, I interrupted it to pass on the information he gave me.

“Mom, dad, there’s something I need to tell you. Today, a transfer student joined our class.”

Akira Natsuko—a dispirited and solitary girl who borrowed my company today.

“However, she doesn’t have a stable place to live and has been in our English teacher’s custody for some time now. Unfortunately, it turns out she can’t stay there much longer as the teacher can’t support both her family and the transfer student financially.”

“That's really sad to hear. Were you wondering if there was anything we could do?”

“Let me finish first. Naoto talked with the teacher, and they decided our household should take her in for the rest of the school year. And… I wanted to know what your opinion is.”

“Son, what do you think of her?”

“I don’t know… she’s shy and seems to have gone through a lot. And… I want to help her get back on her feet.”

“Okay then. Ryūga, what do you think?”

“I trust my son, and if he says she needs help and we were chosen to give her said help, I cannot refuse. You know me full well.”

“It can’t be helped then. In regard to that, Yuki has always been really similar to you. I suppose he inherited those helping genes of yours.”

“Yeah. We’ll get the other bedroom ready in the meanwhile. What is the teacher’s name, Yuki?”

“It’s Miyazaki. Her family name at least.”

“Okay. Let’s finish our miso soups then! They won’t just evaporate!”

We resumed our final meal of the day.

“You always do this soup so well, mother! You’ve got to teach me your recipe already,” I remarked after gulping down most of the soup.

Around thirty minutes later, I was lending a hand to my mother on the one task that came after dinner—washing the dishes and cutlery. My father was over in the living room sitting on the couch, resting after a day of work.

Suddenly, the telephone rang.

“I'll pick it up, mother, don't worry!”

I was nearly one hundred percent certain of who was calling, and, indeed, my guess was proven correct.

“Hello? Am I talking to Ryūga or Rika from the Ishida household?”

“Umm, it's their son, Yuki.”

“Ah, I see. I'm your English teacher Miyazaki from this morning's class. You know why I'm calling, right?”

“Indeed. Naoto told me already.”

“Could you please hand over the phone to one of your parents then, please?”

“Sure.”

I told the man relaxing on the couch my English teacher wanted to discuss the topic of the new student on the phone.

“Father, it's the teacher I talked about earlier, she wants to talk to you about the new student.”

“Understood.”

I handed him the phone and went upstairs.

“In case you need me, just call out my name. I'm going to my bedroom to study a bit more before sleeping.”

Damn it. I was so used to stating that last part as a fact that I unintentionally verbalized it. In reality, I barely had any material to study with only two days of school so far. What I intended to do, now inside, was to hop onto my computer and browse the internet searching for good manga and light novel volumes to purchase. And, obviously, have a first look at that manga Yokoyama classified as an “amazing romcom”.

That was the last event worthy of note before I fell asleep.