← The Studious Boy and the Secret Account Girl
Volume 3
Chapter 33: Dinner Together
Chapter 33: Dinner Together
After showering, Tsutomu returned to the living room and found Matsurika staring out the window.
It was June, so the sun was setting later with each passing day. At this hour, it would normally still be bright outside. But today the sky was buried beneath thick black clouds—the kind of darkness that made his chest feel heavy just by looking at it.
Matsurika’s pale figure glowed faintly inside the room against the pitch-black window. The contrast was so dazzling it burned into Tsutomu’s eyes, and the words he had been about to speak died in his throat. He regretted not having his phone on him. If he’d had a camera, he would have photographed her shamelessly, without hesitation.
Matsurika, who had been watching the rain grow heavier and heavier, noticed Tsutomu’s reflection in the window and turned around with a delighted look.
“Boys really are quick in the bath, aren’t they?”
“Are they? I thought that was normal.”
“I’d say it’s quick. Well, not that I know anything about other boys.”
As she said it, she pattered over to the sofa, sat down, and began swinging her legs.
Those were the same white legs that usually extended from beneath a short skirt. Matsurika’s legs were full and long. Now they stretched out from the hem of a white dress shirt.
Yes—a dress shirt. From the clothes Tsutomu had set out, Matsurika had picked a white dress shirt. And she was wearing nothing else. A naked dress shirt.
There was no way this wasn’t deliberate.
Why isn’t she wearing anything on the bottom?!
He wanted to shout it, but he choked the words back down. It was certainly a feast for the eyes. Saying something unnecessary would be a waste. In the struggle between propriety and desire, desire held the upper hand.
That said, he had no intention of being swept along and trying anything with her. He wanted to keep the pretense that he was just helping a friend in need.
And it had never once occurred to him that she might not see him as a man at all.
“…Whose fault do you think this is?” he muttered.
“Huh? What? Did you say something?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Oh. Well, then, fine.”
When it came to baths, he usually soaked a little longer. Today, though, he had gotten out in a hurry because he couldn’t sit still. It was supposed to be his own familiar bathroom, yet traces of Matsurika kept surfacing everywhere.
Did Tachibana sit there? Did that mirror show Tachibana’s naked body? Each thought sent his imagination spiraling further.
Assailed from inside and out by the suffocating steam and the images in his head, relaxation had been completely impossible. He had spent more time subduing his uncooperative lower half than actually showering. And soaking in the tub had been out of the question. The thought of all the things that might have seeped from Matsurika into that water made it impossible to even touch it.
The girl, utterly oblivious to such masculine struggles, sat there with a knowing grin. When those jet-black eyes met his, he felt as though she could see straight through him, and he couldn’t settle.
“Nn… Anyway, are you hungry?”
He cleared his throat theatrically and checked the clock. It was just past six in the evening. The pitch darkness outside made it hard to tell, but surprisingly much time had passed.
They had walked from school to the station through the rain, turned back from there, stopped at a convenience store, and finally made it home. Once there, Tsutomu had waited for Matsurika to finish her bath before taking his own. On days without his part-time job, he would normally have already finished dinner by this hour.
“…I might be a little hungry, too.”
“Then I’ll make something. Any foods you can’t eat, Tachibana?”
“Not especially… wait, Kariya-kun is cooking? You can cook?”
Her eyes flew wide in disbelief. That was almost insulting.
“I’ve been living alone for over a year, you know. Anyone can cook if they just follow a recipe.”
“That’s true, but it’s so unexpected. I have no idea what kind of person Kariya-kun is anymore.”
“If you’re that surprised, does that mean you can’t cook, Tachibana?”
“I can cook! I’m actually good at it. If you want, I could make dinner for you right here.”
The light tease had earned him a fierce rebuttal. Being mistaken for someone who couldn’t cook was apparently a serious offense to her. Matsurika, who had been relatively quiet—quiet for her, anyway—since entering the room, was suddenly in a huff.
“No need. I’m cooking today.”
“Mmmh… fine. I’ll take you up on that.”
Matsurika, who had been squaring up to come at him, plopped back down onto the sofa. For just an instant, the hem of the dress shirt rode up, and his eyes were drawn to it despite himself.
Matsurika caught the instinctive movement and giggled.
“I’m expecting big things, Chef Kariya.”
★
It had been a long time since Tsutomu had cooked a meal for someone else.
He wished he could have made something more elaborate. But both he and Matsurika had used up their energy marching through the rain, so he hadn’t been able to spend much time in the kitchen. As a result, the table ended up with a fairly basic menu, rather unsatisfying for the host.
“…”
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like fried rice?”
“Oh, no, I can eat it. It’s just…”
“Just?”
“I’d assumed you’d just microwave something ready-made, so I was surprised.”
Fried rice, vegetable stir-fry, potato salad he had made in advance, egg drop soup, and store-bought zha cai. The freshly cooked dishes were steaming.
Then—
Grrrrr…
Her stomach had growled.
Tsutomu glanced at Matsurika. She was bright red all the way to her ears.
Better not to say anything.
Girls get embarrassed when their stomachs growl. His little stepsister had been the same when he still lived at home. Since pointing it out would clearly turn her embarrassment into anger, the right call was to keep his mouth shut. Pretending he hadn’t heard anything, he took out the barley tea from the fridge and poured himself a glass.
“Come on, eat while it’s still warm.”
“…Okay. Thank you for the meal.”
With her head lowered, Matsurika sat down at the table, picked up the spoon, and scooped up some fried rice. She brought it to her mouth hesitantly, slowly—
“Hot!”
“Are you sensitive to hot food?”
“Hafu… no, it’s not that… mm, but it’s good. It’s good, Kariya-kun.”
Matsurika, puffing and chewing as she ate, was adorable. But he couldn’t just keep staring at her. Girls don’t like being watched while they eat. Remembering how his stepsister had scolded him plenty of times for being “insensitive,” he quietly looked away.
Fortunately, Matsurika was focused on her meal and didn’t notice. She must have been really…(the rest is omitted).
“I’m glad, then.”
At any rate, he felt relieved to be praised. Tsutomu took a bite of fried rice himself.
“Mm. It came out decent.”
“Not just decent—you’re good. This soup is good too. The egg is nice and fluffy.”
“Ah, I learned that at my part-time job.”
“Part-time job? Now that you mention it, where do you work, Kariya-kun?”
“Hm? Didn’t I tell you?”
“You never told me.”
“Is that so?”
He had mentioned having a part-time job to Matsurika before—as an excuse to turn down a proposal she’d made. Even then, he hadn’t gone into detail about where he worked or what he did. He wasn’t trying to make a big deal of it, but it wasn’t something worth hiding either.
“At a restaurant. A Chinese place.”
“Chinese? Why a Chinese place?”
“You ask why… When I was looking for a job, I went into a restaurant to eat, and the food was great. There was a help-wanted sign up, so… it just kind of went from there.”
“…Kariya-kun, isn’t your way of living a little too haphazard?”
“Is it really that bad?!”
“Well, I don’t think it’s bad. But there is a very strong ‘make it up as you go along’ vibe about you.”
“…”
“It was the same with your notebook the other day, too.”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“Mmh.”
Matsurika slurped her soup, then looked as though she’d just thought of something.
“Oh, I get it now. There’s a woman in a cheongsam at that restaurant, isn’t there?”
“There isn’t. Everyone who works there is a man. What do you take me for?”
“A big ball of perversion.”
The answer came so fast that Tsutomu’s mouth simply closed. He tried to think of a retort, but nothing came to mind. After all, the very reason his relationship with Matsurika had grown closer was rooted in perversion from the start.
“I’ve been cooking since a long time ago, that’s all. I thought I could put that experience to use.”
In reality, the job turned out to be cleaning, washing dishes, waiting tables, and working the register. There was no way they’d let an ordinary high schooler cook food for paying customers. The egg drop soup was something he’d been taught during a lull in the shift.
Matsurika made an interested “hm, hm” sound, but then she suddenly furrowed her brow, tilted her head, and spoke.
“…Since a long time ago?”
“That’s right. Why?”
“I was watching you the whole time. Your technique was good, so it doesn’t seem like a lie. But…”
“But?”
“When you say ‘since a long time ago,’ how long ago are we talking?”
“How long ago… Elementary school… what grade was I in? Sorry, I don’t remember.”
“From back then?”
“Yeah.”
When he answered honestly, Matsurika started muttering to herself right in front of him. She kept glancing at him from time to time. She looked like she was struggling to say something.
“That stuff doesn’t matter anyway. Eat before it gets cold.”
“Ah, sorry. It would be a waste after you went to all that trouble.”
“If you’re on a diet, you don’t have to force yourself to eat.”
“No, I’ll eat it. Warm food is delicious, isn’t it?”
Matsurika’s smile wasn’t a put-on one. It was so beautiful that Tsutomu forgot to ask what she had been doubting a moment before.
Well, that’s fine.
Right now, her smile was enough.
Having someone praise the food he had made was surprisingly gratifying. Neither the cooking he had kept up since childhood nor the part-time job he’d started after entering high school had been a waste. Satisfied with that conclusion, Tsutomu felt a quiet pleasure as he sat around a warm dinner table for the first time in ages.