"Marin-chan, can you please get the utensils ready at the table?"
"Sure thing, Gramps!"
Kaoru Gojo, having just arrived back from his daughter's place, ran into Wakana Gojo and Marin Kitagawa, who were in the middle of cooking lunch.
"So, Marin-chan, you're Wakana's classmate, right?" Kaoru smiled kindly. "How did you become friends?"
While setting up the table, Kitagawa looked up. "If I had to pick a situation... it would be when he stood up for me at the train, just like a knight in shining armor!"
"Eh? Knight in shining armor?" Kaoru gave his grandson beside him a glance.
"It's not that exaggerated," Wakana, currently cooking, commented without looking back. "Some older boys wouldn't stop bothering her, so I had to intervene."
"Get out of here and stop bothering her," Marin Kitagawa's voice deepened as she mimicked Wakana's words back then. "I said, leave! Or are you both deaf?"
She laughed, leaned her arms on the table, and cupped her chin with both hands, staring at Gojo's back. "He was so cool."
A little embarrassed by her words, Wakana Gojo complained. "Eurgh... Did I really sound like that..?"
"Hahaha... yeah! You were like a character from a manga..!"
"It shouldn't be that exaggerated..."
"It definitely was!"
Looking at the two people happily bickering, Kaoru gave a slight smile.
'Looks like you're doing well, Wakana.'
...
"Wow, this tastes so good, Gojo-kun!" Marin continued to stuff her mouth with food, making her cheeks look like a chipmunk's.
"Slow down, Kitagawa..! You might choke at that rate!" Wakana looked at the girl worriedly, with black lines appearing on his forehead.
"You're so good at cooking, this is killer!!" She cheered. "Mmmm~!! God-like!!"
Wakana Gojo clasped his hands together, picked up his chopsticks, and, although unhurried, his eating speed was quite quick too.
For someone like him, carefully savoring every part of the food's taste didn't matter too much; eating was just to replenish energy.
"I did tell in class that cooking was one of the things I liked to do..." Wakana sighed. "My parents passed away long ago, so I'm the one doing the cooking mostly."
"For reals?! I'm the same!"
"Eh?"
Wakana looked up in surprise.
"My mom died of an illness back when I was a kid, so it's just me and my dad," while picking up a piece of Katsudon, she explained. "Although due to his increasingly busy job, he had to go away often without coming home for several days, or even weeks."
"It sounds like he's about to get promoted soon, so I might be stuck living alone by the time I reach high school!" Without much care, she stuffed the piece of meat into her mouth and cheered once more. "The katsudon tastes so good~! So delicious~!"
"That's terrible..." Kaoru Gojo looked at the young girl worriedly. "Are you eating properly?"
"I mostly go with convenience store food. When I have some free time, I make something myself."
Taking her phone from inside her pocket, she extended her hand and showed the grandfather, grandson duo a photo.
"Like this!"
"!!!!"
"W-what is that..?"
Looking at the mixture of different kinds of food, Wakana and Kaoru asked with a shocked expression on their faces.
Marin Kitagawa happily explained, "There's natto, fried rice with a refrigerated karaage, and some wieners. For a good while, I was eating nothing but that~"
The old man looked at her worriedly, "Aren't you feeling ill?"
"Not at all, I feel fit as a fiddle!"
She raised a V-sign and winked at both of them, "I drink milk and eat yogurt every day. I'm fine!!"
"Well, Marin-chan... How about you eat at our place when your father isn't at home with you from now on..." Kaoru looked at his grandson. "That's alright with you, right, Wakana?"
"Yup..."
"Is that really alright?! Yay~~!!"
...
At the train station, Marin smiled brightly towards the boy in front of her.
"Thanks for escorting me back, Gojo-kun."
"No, I'm sorry we've kept you here till it became so late..."
Marin Kitagawa waved her hand, "It's totally fine, the food you made was really tasty, and it was fun talking with your gramps."
Putting both her hands behind her back, she suddenly turned her gaze away from his, as her face reddened slightly.
"Gojo— I mean... Wakana-kun..."
Surprised, Wakana answered, "Yes?"
"See you tomorrow... Okay? Wakana-kun."
A happy smile appeared on Wakana Gojo's face.
"Of course, Marin."
...
On the train.
With a reddened face, Marin Kitagawa stared blankly outside the train's windows.
'Why was I so nervous?'
'It's not like it was a strange conversation.'
Thinking of Wakana Gojo's face and everything else that had happened today, her face turned crimson even more.
'Gojo-kun... I can't believe he'd go so far for me...'
Despite it being a misunderstanding, Marin Kitagawa still felt guilty for making Wakana suffer the whole week.
During that time, she didn't even bother asking if anything was wrong or making sure he was fine.
Even then, she doubted him, thinking that he might've been distancing himself from her, after all the effort he had put in to help her.
It wasn't until today that she understood he tried to avoid talking too much or looking directly at her to hide his weathered look, afraid that she might stop him completely if she found out how hard it actually was.
Thinking of his tired look, Marin bit her lips and felt as if her heart had shattered.
Remembering the way Kensei Morita and Shiki Kashiwagi looked at her yesterday, perhaps they knew what Wakana had been doing recently, right?
Perhaps Wakana had forbidden them to say anything to her, which was why they had said nothing despite that.
However, despite all that, a surge of warmth, completely separate from her guilt, started to spread through her chest.
She remembered his face when she confessed the misunderstanding: he hadn't been angry or annoyed, only relieved that he hadn't missed the deadline, and he had even the energy to laugh, despite being overworked.
She pictured him cooking, so focused, yet still taking the time to gently chat with his grandfather, and how he had looked at her with such earnest concern when she showed him the picture of her terrible convenience store meals.
He didn't judge her; he worried about her health.
His kindness, his sincerity, and the gentleness he showed, even when running low on energy, made her feel a strange emotion.
She pressed her palms to her burning cheeks.
Her mind was recently an open, excited highway of her future cosplaying plans, but now it kept looping back to him.
The strange, frantic heat that rushed to her ears wasn't just excitement for a character she liked in a manga or anime, like it usually was; it was directed entirely at him now.
Wakana Gojo.
It was a feeling she had never experienced for a boy before, an emotion that made her want to run back and take care of him, wrap him in a blanket, and feed him until he smiled.
This feeling was so intense, so focused.
It was something new and utterly confusing.
'What is this feeling?' she wondered, covering her eyes.
It was too strong, too beautiful, and too terrifying to be just appreciation.
It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff, excited, terrified, and desperate to leap.
Marin Kitagawa turned her attention back to the night scenery outside the window.
"Gojo-kun..."
Pressing her forehead against the glass, she muttered quietly to herself.
"Am I... starting to like him..?"
(Photo)