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It was cool inside the store because of both the AC and the cold air from the frozen food section. The heat had been a pain right up until I went inside. Mainly because Umi had been sticking to me. But thanks to the cold air, that uncomfortable feeling had gone away.

“What should we get for lunch, Maki? I have an idea for dinner, but not for lunch… Since it’s summer, how about some somen?” (T/N: Somen, if you don’t know, is a variant of noodle. It’s like ramen, but it’s thinner than your normal ramen. You could serve the broth hot or cold depending on your taste with somen.)

“That sounds nice, but I’m craving cold ramen more. We still have somen at home, my grandparents sent them earlier this month. I don’t have anything against somen, but I’m getting a little tired of it now.”

“Really? Same! Grandma sent us some as well and we had been eating nothing but that for a while now. I don’t hate it, but I’m getting tired of eating it too. I missed the lunch you made…”

She was talking about the lunch I made for everyone during summer school. Rather than me, it was more like everyone made it together though. Half of the lunch boxes were filled with side dishes that we made together. The other half was just rice and some variations of frozen food. I took extra care of what kind of frozen food I placed in there because I didn’t want everyone to get sick of eating the same thing.

I only did that because I was cooking for everyone. If it was for myself, I wouldn’t even bother thinking about variation. Ever since I started living together with mom and did the chores by myself, I realized that it was pretty troublesome to come up with different meals everyday.

After a little discussion, we decided to go with cold ramen for lunch. So, we bought some cucumbers, ham and other ingredients that we missed. As for the noodles and broth, we bought the cold ramen soup packs, so we didn’t need to make everything from scratch.

We passed the items inside our basket to the cash register then went to the sweets section. We normally don’t visit this section, so seeing the various cakes lined up felt fresh to me.

“Maki, they said they’d do the birthday decorations for free. I’ll ask them to write something on the cake for you.”

“Ugh… I feel embarrassed… But if that’s what you want, sure…”

Umi was paying for the cake, so I had no say in this.

I felt a tingle in my body when I saw the words ‘Happy Birthday, Maki!’ written in the center of the cake. Thinking back, this was probably the first time I’ve had someone do something like this for me since I was in grade school. Back then, my parents were still living together.

While Umi was paying for the cake, I was waiting a little distance away from the cashier.

From where I stood, I could hear Umi and the cashier (a lady in her 40s) talking.

‘Is this for your boyfriend’s birthday?’

‘Hehe, yes… It’s our first time celebrating together since we started dating, so I want to make this day special for him…’

‘Oh my, is he your first boyfriend?’

‘U-Um… Yes…’

‘My~ We gotta go all out then. Everyone~ Listen–’

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it seemed like there were a lot of people coming out from behind the cash register. A few of them were looking at me for some reason.

Why were you guys looking at me? Focus on your job, please.

Since it seemed like Umi would take a while, I decided to look around the store.

The store was close to our school, so other than housewives, there were also students shopping here. Some of them bought things like barley tea or sports drinks. They probably came here after practice or something. There were also people who bought snacks to eat at their friends’ house. This spectacle really nailed that summer vacation vibe.

“Huh? That person, could it be?”

When I was casually looking at a group of five boys in their uniform, I noticed the face of the person walking at the very back of the group.

It was Ooyama-kun. I guess the other four boys were his friends. Since I didn’t recognize their faces and they weren’t our classmates either, they were probably his friends from middle school.

“—”

“—”

They were a distance away from me, so I didn’t know what they were talking about. It wasn’t like I was dying to know about it in the first place.

But still, there was something about that group that caught my attention.

“Thank you for waiting, Maki!”

“…Ah, yeah. Welcome back, Umi. Is something wrong with the cake?”

“Nothing wrong, don’t worry about it. The person at the cash register earlier was the store’s manager. When I told her that it was my first boyfriend’s birthday, she gave me twice as many strawberries as I requested.”

“She gave you double? It wasn’t two or three more, but double?”

“Mhm! The cake is small, so the surface is almost completely filled with them.”

I wasn’t complaining, but really? Was this much service okay, Manager-san? I felt bad about it. I should give her something the next time I come here.

“By the way, what were you staring at? Something on your mind?”

“Not really. I just thought there were a lot of people from our school here.”

“True… The club members aside, some classes had started to practice cheerleading today. From tomorrow onwards, this place will be filled with more students as they start their practice. Also, the backboard teams are going to start their work tomorrow.”

“I see. Poor Amami-san.”

The backboard quality would depend a lot on how well the team worked together. Amami-san might have some trouble, but if it was her, she would be able to make something spicy for the backboard. Last year’s mosaic art won us the festival, so she should be able to pull it off again.

Naturally, I would help her if she asked. This time, it was on a whole different scale than the mosaic art after all. It would be too much if we were to let Amami-san do everything by herself. Of course, she could always ask Ooyama-kun for help since he was her partner this time. Other than that, she could also ask for Nitta-san’s help since our class was near hers.

“Anyway, the cake is done, so let’s go home already, I’m hungry… And also… You know…”

Umi leaned toward me and gently whispered in my ear.

‘…So, um…’

‘Hm?’

‘Um… M-Mom gave me permission to stay over at your house tonight…’

‘I-I see…’

She would be spending the night at my place, huh?

‘…W-We’ll be together longer than usual then.’

At my words, Umi’s body stiffened as she nodded.

We were going to celebrate my birthday today, but in the end it was just an excuse to do it on my birthday.

Sora-san must have known what was up, that was why she gave permission to Umi. It would be awkward to talk to her the next time we met, but at the same time, I was thankful to her. Of course, I wouldn’t waste the chance she gave me. A man’s gotta do what he has to do, after all.

I texted my mom about this and took Umi’s hand.

It was probably my imagination, but we arrived at my house faster than usual.