Chapter 409: The Annoying Point
When Sakurai Saki and Miku walked out of the small park, a long time had passed.
Miku put her coat back on.
The two then went to a vending machine to buy another can of cold drinks.
After that, they headed to the cheap snack shop they used to visit, only to find that the shop had somehow been replaced by a fried chicken store.
"It was definitely still open last year…" Miku hadn't been to this area in a long time. To preserve the feeling of anticipation, she hadn't checked ahead either.
"The chain is expanding really fast." Sakurai Saki took a sip of iced coffee. The bitterness reminded him of the sweetness he had just tasted from Miku.
The expansion of the fast-food industry was like cockroaches multiplying in the dark—appearing everywhere without anyone knowing since when.
"Probably because the old lady who owned the store wasn't in good health, so she closed it."
"Kids don't really eat cheap candy anymore." Sakurai Saki said nostalgically.
He quite liked cheap candy, especially Umaibo sticks and yuzu candy… though Umaibo was still pretty popular; supermarkets everywhere sold them.
"Your voice sounds like some middle-aged man reminiscing about his youth." Miku covered her mouth, giggling.
She glanced at the cup of coffee in Sakurai Saki's hand.
"What? Want to try?" Sakurai Saki remembered she wasn't good with coffee.
Especially this black coffee.
If it were the super-sweet MAX Coffee, basically soda in disguise, she might manage it.
"Umu."
Miku accepted the cup he offered.
Because they had just done things far more direct, she didn't care about something as trivial as an indirect kiss.
A few seconds later, her beautiful brows knitted together, and her voice carried a bitter note: "Not tasty."
"Clearly matcha is also very bitter, but you can't accept coffee?"
"Even if it's not tasty, I can still finish it, Saki-kun don't underestimate me!" Miku seemed unwilling to admit defeat, took another big sip, and the bitterness on her face grew even stronger.
This action looked incredibly cute in Sakurai Saki's eyes.
He teased, "Then do you want to try finishing it?"
"…Umm, I don't want anymore." Miku handed the coffee back, then took a small sip of matcha soda.
A smile spread across her face, as if saying "matcha really is the best."
"I was actually thinking of buying some ice cream to try."
Hearing that, Miku looked at him with a strange expression.
She thought back to six years ago, when Sakurai Saki always liked to feed her ice cream. Back then, she didn't know why—only after growing up did she understand.
"…Eh? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Saki-kun, the way you looked at me eating ice cream before was very improper."
"Was it?" Sakurai Saki wanted to change the subject.
"Miku, do you know the Matthew effect? The more something there is, the more it increases; the less something there is, the more it decreases—like wealth, it always flows toward those with more capital…"
"Every time Saki-kun talks about a topic he doesn't want to continue, he uses some weird theme to steer the conversation away." Miku pouted, cutting him off in a flat tone.
"This trick works very well on Chika and Ai-chan, why doesn't it work on you?"
"Chika-chan is easily distracted by curiosity. Hayasaka-san, because she's your girlfriend, won't make things difficult for you, right? But I've always been observing you, so I know these things." Nakano Miku said this with great pride.
Sakurai Saki didn't know how to respond.
Thank you for observing me so carefully?
Thinking about the photo album at Miku's home filled with pictures of him, Sakurai Saki felt it was best not to dig deeper into the subject.
...
Next, the two arrived at the general store where they had once made a promise, only to find that it had apparently changed ownership long ago and had become a cat café.
"Times change, and old things fade away."
Sakurai Saki sighed.
The overlap of memories and reality created a strangely marvelous feeling.
"Is that from Li Qingzhao's poetry?"
"Your terrible Classical Literature score last year still managed to remember things like this?" Sakurai Saki smiled at her.
"My grades are great now."
"I never said you were stupid, I was just feeling emotional. In a bit over a year, everything has changed."
Sakurai Saki suddenly felt like an ordinary person.
A year—long if you say it's long, not so short if you say it's short.
What kind of extraordinary being would think deeply about such things? For example, Shinobu—sleeping for a year was quite normal…
[You're making things up! Idiot! Liar! Ungrateful fool!] Shinobu's furious voice rang in his head.
Alright then.
Vampires don't sleep that long, but wasn't that scolding a bit too much? It's not like he was some M-type man who liked being insulted by girls.
"That's right. Everything has changed." Miku shot him a glance and added, "Your relationship with my sisters has gotten better too."
Although this had something to do with her not daring to move forward, how did Nino progress so fast!?
Something must have happened that she didn't know about. Otherwise, with Nino's annoying personality, how could she have successfully climbed into his bed?
With a personality like Nino's, she'd be a failure character in any manga or drama.
"That lock, do you still have it?"
"Here." Sakurai Saki seemingly conjured from thin air a heart-shaped lock from his pocket.
"I can't believe you actually kept it. Saki-kun, you didn't throw it away?"
"It's only been half a year. Throwing it away would be weird."
"Saying things like that at a moment like this—men who don't know how to please girls won't attract anyone."
Just like when kissing, if you ask "Can I kiss you?", ninety-nine percent of girls will lose the mood instantly.
"Then what should I say?"
"Because I like you, so I kept it…?" Miku's bright eyes looked straight at him, filled with expectation.
She wanted to hear that answer.
"I don't want to lie to you."
"That's exactly why, Saki-kun, this kind of attitude from you is so annoying!"
...
Three days later, he traveled all over Kyoto with Miku. The other three sisters—except for Nino—found it very strange. The sudden improvement in the relationship between Sakurai Saki and Miku was something Itsuki and Yotsuba couldn't understand at all, especially Yotsuba.
She absolutely couldn't understand why Miku dared to make such a strange request, and even more, she couldn't believe that Sakurai Saki actually agreed!
Very soon, the day they had agreed to go to Hokkaido arrived.
Before departure, Nino—who would be accompanying Sakurai Saki—looked at Miku with the eyes of a victor, though nobody knew what she was trying to show off.
Itsuki said that she only found out too late; otherwise, she would have gone to Hokkaido with Sakurai Saki to escape the heat. She kept complaining every day that Kyoto in summer was too hot, that the recent temperature felt like you'd die if you didn't turn on the air conditioner.
Sakurai Saki felt she exaggerated a bit, but it was indeed hot lately.
He heard that Kaguya had taken Chika to a vacation villa to cool off. If it was already this hot at the end of July, wouldn't going to the beach in August be like roasting alive?
But no matter how hot it was, it didn't matter.
After all, once they got to Hokkaido, the temperature definitely wouldn't be that high.
The destination of this trip was Sapporo, and the filming location was also nearby.
...