Meal!

“Aka-kun, can you get the door,” I heard Aya’s voice loudly say.

Not too long after, I heard a creak in the door coming from him. While he closed his eyes with a smile, excited to see what I came with, that smile quickly vanished as he noticed how ragged I looked.

“I can carry the bags for you.”

“Thank you,” I told him as he took the bags off my hands.

As I walked toward the table, Aka gave his wife and daughter the ingredients, only to sit next to me, sitting tall with his arms crossed. Although by this point, I knew that’s just how he’d always sit. My expectations, however, were crushed as he relaxed his shoulders and sipped his tea, genuinely ready to start a conversation with me.

“Sorry about Aya-chan. She’s really overprotective of her.”

While taken aback by his sudden ability to socialize, I finally spoke when he finished taking his second sip.

“It’s only natural. Who wouldn’t want to protect someone so cute.”

Aka chuckled.

“You should be glad I trust you.”

“I am. I think you raised a wonderful person,” I said with a light smile.

“And I think you deserve to be with her.”

Aka put his teacup down. I could tell that he truly meant what he said, but I couldn’t take it in. I instead looked at another teacup, one directly placed on the seat I sat at earlier this morning. Ayane knew I’d sit here, and filled the cup with tea just for me. The more I thought about it, the closer I grew to grabbing it, but I instead didn’t, asking Aka a question.

“Do I really deserve her?”

“Yeah, you do.”

Aka put my teacup closer to me as he took another sip out of his.

“It’s just… I never would’ve thought of doing something like this for her.”

“So, now you know that’s an option for you.”

Having almost convinced myself, I grabbed the teacup, but couldn’t take a sip out of it, until Aka told me one last thing.

“You know, I used to worry about Ayane-chan a lot. She really struggled to come out of her shell. She wouldn’t talk to us much.”

Aka chugged the rest of his tea before finishing.

“But ever since she started dating you, it was like she grew as a person. Whatever you did to help her break out of that shell, I thank you for it.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I did everything only because I love her.”

“Take a damn compliment, asshole!” he yelled as he slammed the table.

Who knew that the only way to rile him up was when his daughter came into the picture.

Speaking of which, Aya and Ayane were here with the food.

“Here you go!” Aya told us all.

“Thank you for the meal!” I yelled back.

I took the deepest sniff I could out of the food in front of me. How could I not? It smelled so good that eating it would get wasteful. Wait no, I had to eat it because giving up what would undoubtedly be the new greatest meal of my life would be far too much for me not to dig into it. As I resisted the urge to drool over my food, I took a glance at Ayane, who was red in the face.

“You already like it that much?” she asked.

“Did my smile give it away?”

Ayane looked away from me.

“It’s just that you’re an open book with food. That’s all.”

“I am?”

“Don’t worry. I… I like that about you.”

Well, she at least tried to look at me during that. However, Ayane needed to block her eyes with her apron just to do that, a move that was as cute as it was pathetic. I, however, was so mesmerized by her amazing dish that I brushed her awkwardness aside completely in my response.

“I’m glad you do.”

At this point, I had put all of my senses aside just to eat what was in front of me, although I heard a voice loud enough to knock me out of it.

“It seems like you two had a long day,” Aya said.

“We did,” I said.

Not wanting to deal with the small talk, I forced a bite into my food. It went without saying at this point, but I smiled so much as I ate it.

I couldn’t indulge in this feeling, however, as Aya’s insistence on continuing the conversation prevented me from binging any further.

“What did you do?”

Looking straight into my meal, I didn’t want to bring up the situation with Satoshi, so I decided to shift to the other subject of note when I gave her my eye contact back.

“Well, Ayane-chan and I got into the school festival play.”

“She did?”

Aka and Aya, having said that in unison, leaned toward me. Taken aback, I paused a little, looking away as I toned down the volume of my voice.

“Uh… yeah.”

Aka and Aya stood stunned. They then looked at each other, trying to process the information I gave them. But finally, they smiled, before clapping both of their hands together and cheering. With their energy now through the roof, they carried Ayane’s light body and threw her almost to the roof. Well, by they, I meant Aka. Aya was too short to hurl her up. As Ayane made the face of a tsundere gremlin, I laughed at how ridiculous I found this family to be. As my laughter continued, too, Ayane wound up being placed gently on the floor as the focus turned back to me.

“What’s so funny?” Aka asked.

As I finally got my breath back, I responded to him.

“Nothing, really. It’s just that my parents never would’ve gotten that happy over something like that.”

“Really? Why wouldn’t we celebrate something like that? It’s a huge achievement.”

“But it’s also super embarrassing,” Ayane quietly said in her seat.

With her arms crossed, her posture leaned back, and her cheeks puffed up, she showed a level of defiance I never thought possible.

“Ooh, look at how cute she is when she’s mad,” Aya said.

With her elbows on the table and her hands on her cheeks, her smile communicated a level of mockery too strong to fathom. Granted, Aka and I pulled the same pose with sincerity, which might have pissed off Ayane even more.

“Shut it!”

Yep, it did. She looked away from us, hoping it would get her something.

It didn’t, though, as we all just ignored her, with Aya turning the conversation back to me.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get her in the play.”

“I just needed to remind her why she loves the drama club.”

While Aya would normally be the one to start a conversation, it was instead Aka who chipped in once he loosened the grip of his utensils.

“That’s all? She’d always refuse to even go to plays with us.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, we all silently ate at the table. Not even Aya had anything to say. Of course, I wasn’t complaining since the food was so good, but it was that same food that got me thinking of Ayane again. Being the one responsible for picking the conversation back up, I asked her a question.

“What got you into theatre, Ayane-chan?”

“Well… when I saw tapes of my parent’s high school acting, it inspired me to give it a try.”

I looked at Aya and Aka.

“I didn’t know you two were into acting.”

“Yeah, we are,” they said together.

The conversation flatlined again, again because I didn’t know how to continue it. I really didn’t want to pry into their past since that would make me a hypocrite. Plus, I wanted to respect their boundaries. Well, maybe I just didn’t want to talk at all.

If it didn’t go without saying, I ate away my worries, only to see that everyone else finished at the same time as me.

“I can do the dishes for you.”

I stood up as I said that, trying to avoid any conversation, although I ended up hearing a voice I didn’t expect.

“I’ll help you,” Ayane told me as she stood too.

“Okay. It looks like we’re having sex then.”

Aya stated it in a way so blunt that I almost didn’t believe it came from her mouth. While I stood baffled, though, Ayane yelled back.

“Learn some shame, assholes!”

“What’s so shameful about it? We’re all comfortable here.”

Instead of finding a response, Ayane instead went red in the face as she held onto her arm. Now looking at the floor, there was no way she could clap back. As Aya and Aka walked off to their room, I had to tap on her shoulder to get her back into reality.