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About 30 minutes later, having finished my errand for my mom and returning to my room, a familiar scene was playing out.
“Aki, I’m sorry, I was wrong. I won’t tease you like that again, so please forgive me, okay, okay?”
“……!”
Aki, looking thoroughly miffed, with her cheeks puffed out, had her arms crossed and her body turned towards the wall. Kim Yoon-ah-ssam, who tutored Aki and I, was practically clinging to Aki, begging for forgiveness.
“……”
I didn’t know exactly what had happened while I was gone, but I could roughly guess what was going on.
Kim Yoon-ah-ssam probably teased Aki, and that’s why Aki was sulking.
Kim Yoon-ah-ssam had been tutoring us for almost four months now, and since we’d become close after dropping formalities, this kind of thing happened often enough that it was easy to figure out.
“Teacher, did you tease Aki again?”
I deliberately made my presence known as I sat down in my seat.
Instantly, both women turned to look at me.
Aki, one of them, pretended not to see me and huffed, while Kim Yoon-ah-ssam gestured at me, as if saying “perfect timing,” even though she was in trouble.
“Woo-ju! Perfect timing, come here and try to appease Aki…!”
“Appease her, what am I supposed to do?”
“You two are dating. Say you love her, or kiss her, or something, appease her, okay?”
“You caused the problem, but why do I have to clean it up… and, we’re not dating, you know…?”
I automatically replied with the words I had started using because I was asked about it so often.
“We’re just, like, super close childhood friends.”
-Glare-.
Aki turned her body slightly and started staring at me without a word.
For some reason, her gaze was a bit piercing.
“Yeah, childhood friends or girlfriends, whatever, you two are close, right? So, please do it for me, huh? Woo-ju, Joo Woo-ju~!”
“……Sigh.”
I was already feeling awkward from what happened earlier, and now they wanted me to appease Aki.
If I had my way, I would leave it to the teacher and stay far away, but if Aki continued to sulk like this, it was obvious that tutoring or anything else wouldn’t progress.
It’s not like the person who causes the problem is separate from the person who has to fix it. It was annoying to take the blame, but there was no other choice. I couldn’t let the day go to waste, so I had to do it if I was asked.
I deliberately cleared my throat to attract attention.
“Um, Aki…?”
“……Why?”
“I’ll buy you something tasty later, so can you please stop being mad?”
“Woo-ju~chan, I’m not a child, so just because of some food…”
“I’ll buy you whatever Aki wants, how is that?”
“……Then, can it be tanghulu too?”
“No, that’s too bad for your body, so no. But other than that, anything is fine.”
“Tch, then it’s not all okay, is it…? Woo-ju~chan is a liar.”
Although she was snapping at me with her words, she seemed to be slowly feeling better because of the mention of buying her sweets, and she stopped crossing her arms and turned her body towards me.
I looked at Kim Yoon-ah-ssam with the gaze of, ‘Is this good enough?’ and Kim Yoon-ah-ssam took the opportunity I made and approached Aki slightly.
“Aki, you’ll forgive me, right…?”
Aki sighed deeply, probably because Kim Yoon-ah-ssam, who was much older than us, was being so submissive.
“……Don’t ever joke like that again, Yoon-ah-ssam.”
“Oh, I understand! Thank you, Aki!”
“Don’t thank me, thank Woo-juchan. If it weren’t for Woo-juchan, I would still be angry…”
“Ah, that’s right. Woo-ju, thank you~”
“Yeah, whatever….”
“Okay, then, shall we start again from where we left off? Woo-ju, could you please read this passage out loud?”
“Um, when x plus y is 6 and xy is 7, then, the square root of x minus the square root of y divided by the square root of x plus the square root of y is……”
“Yeah, that’s good enough. Do you have any more questions?”
“No, I don’t. What about you, Aki?”
“I don’t have any either, Yoon-ah-ssam.”
“Really? Then, let’s end the tutoring session here for today.”
The time was 7 PM, and the tutoring session, which had been later than usual, had ended.
Kim Yoon-ah-ssam gathered the textbooks that she had used for the lesson and put them together. Then, she stood up from her seat. Aki and I also gathered our respective workbooks and followed Kim Yoon-ah-ssam out of the room.
“Mother, the tutoring is over~”
“Yoon-ah-ssam, Woo-ju~chan’s mother is not home right now.”
“Oh my, really? Where did she go?”
“Yeah, I got a text earlier, saying that she and Father went out to have fun and that they would be a little late. She told us to just prepare dinner ourselves.”
“……?”
What, I didn’t hear anything about that.
I was confused by the unfamiliar information, and Kim Yoon-ah-ssam nodded her head.
“Ah ha, then, shall we say our goodbyes and end it? Woo-ju, Aki. Good work today. Rest well, and let’s meet next Friday~”
“Goodbye, teacher.”
“Yoon-ah-ssam, please go safely!”
Clack, thump…
Kim Yoon-ah-ssam, who had left a brief goodbye, went out through the front door.
As the three people became two, the noisy house became quiet in an instant. Aki and I, who had finished seeing her off, looked at each other.
“Woo-ju~chan, what shall we do now?”
“Huh? What do you mean what shall we do?”
“What do you mean what? I meant dinner, of course. I told you earlier, right? That Woo-ju~chan’s parents were going to be late, so we have to eat dinner by ourselves.”
“Ah, right. That was what happened….”
I was so nervous because it was just Aki and me that I had unknowingly blanked out.
‘……I usually wouldn’t get nervous.’
Was it because of what happened earlier, I’m not acting like myself right now…
“Woo-ju~chan, is there any leftover rice at home?”
“I’m not sure. Why? Were you perhaps going to cook something?”
“Yeah, I’m good at cooking now. I learned it from my Mama!”
“Ooh, really? That’s amazing….”
I, on the other hand, only know how to make ramen and kimchi fried rice.
So, I was genuinely impressed and looked at her as if I was seeing her in a new light, and Aki, as if feeling proud, puffed out her chest and smiled.
“I don’t usually do this for just anyone, but I’ll make it for you especially since Woo-ju~chan is special!”
“Yeah, thank you! But what kind of dish are you going to make?”
“Hmm, first, I think I should check the fridge. Woo-ju~chan, is it okay if I open the fridge?”
“Of course, it’s okay. Feel free to open it, Aki.”
We moved from the living room to the kitchen.
Clunk-.
Aki opened the fridge with quite practiced movements, then looked around and made a ‘Hmm…?’ sound, and tilted her head.
“Woo-ju~chan, there’s not much inside the fridge?”
“Oh, really? Did Mom perhaps not go grocery shopping…?”
“This is a problem… Is there any rice?”
“Wait a minute, I’ll check.”
I approached the place where the rice cooker with a large brand logo was placed.
I pressed the button and opened the inside. Then, I could see that the inside of the rice cooker was empty.
“Aki, there’s no rice either?”
“Oh, there’s no rice either? Woo-ju~chan, is your rice cooker a pressure rice cooker?”
“Huh? What kind of rice cooker?”
“……Come out for a second, Woo-ju~chan.”
Aki looked at our rice cooker from here and there, then touched her chin cutely and let out a ‘Hmm….’ sound.
“It’s a warming rice cooker. Hmm, then it would take at least one hour to make rice… Woo-ju~chan, are you very hungry?”
“A little. How about you, Aki?”
“Um, I’m not really…”
Grumble.
Someone’s stomach clock rang out loudly.
Of course, it wasn’t my stomach, it was the sound that came from Aki’s stomach in front of me.
“……”
Whoosh
Aki’s cheeks turned bright red.
To be considerate of Aki, I acted as if I hadn’t heard anything, and naturally turned my body and started fidgeting with the magnet on the fridge.
“……Shall we just order dinner?”
“Y, yeah…. That seems like a good idea…”
Aki’s mumbled voice came from behind me.
Her voice was almost inaudible, so she must have been very embarrassed.
‘……If I said she was cute, she’d get mad, right?’
I thought to myself that my childhood friend was very cute, and then I took out the cell phone that was in my pocket and opened the delivery app where I could order food.
I used to go out and have fun with Mom and Dad when I was young, but after I turned ten, they would say things like, “Woo-ju, you’re all grown up now, so you can stay home by yourself, right? No, it’s not like you’re alone, you’re with Aki.” And then they would go out and have fun together.
That meant that it wasn’t uncommon for Aki and I to be left alone like this. So, ordering food through a delivery app had become quite familiar.
“Aki, what do you want to eat?”
I asked without looking at her on purpose.
Aki hesitated for a long time, and then she mumbled quietly in a tone that anyone could tell was awkward.
“W, whatever…?”
“Whatever…. then should I just order pizza?”
“Yeah, okay…”
“Okay, the order button is… ah, it’s done. I ordered it. It’ll take about 40 minutes.”
“……W, Woo-ju~chan.”
“Yeah, why?”
I turned around casually because she had said my name, so I thought that she had stopped being embarrassed.
Our gazes met naturally, and Aki’s cheeks were still red.
“About what I said earlier…”
“Earlier?”
“……Ha, at school. I didn’t know that Woo-ju~chan would say those things in front of friends. I was really surprised, you know?”
Aki, with a gesture that seemed to hide her embarrassment, hesitated and took a step closer.
“You know. That was, it was probably because Woo-ju~chan likes Watashi(me) that much, right…?”
“……Huh?”
“D, don’t play dumb. I heard everything. You shouting out loudly that you were going to marry me…!”
“Oh….”
It wasn’t wrong, but why was she bringing up that story in this context?
I pondered for a moment about the time when my dark history had suddenly come up.
‘……Ah, could it be’
I suspected that she was trying to change the subject by force because she was embarrassed about the sound that came from her stomach.
“Woo-juchan, tell me honestly. Woo-juchan, you like Watashi, don’t you…………?!”
Seeing Aki’s actions, whose tension had suddenly increased, my suspicion turned into a conviction.
“Looking at how you’re not saying anything, that’s right, isn’t it? Right, huh, huh~?”
Usually, I would have been flustered and stammered, but since I could see Aki’s intentions clearly, I wasn’t embarrassed at all. On the contrary, I only thought that Aki was cute.
So, I decided to play along with Aki’s desperate attempt to seize the initiative a little.
“Ah… really, you’re talking about that again? I told you to stop…”
“Hmph, I’m not going to stop?”
“I told you I said it without thinking, so how long are you going to keep doing this?”
“Hmm, until Woo-ju~chan dies?”
“Are you saying that you’re going to stick by my side until I die?”
“Of course, because Woo-ju~chan belongs to Aki!”
Aki was saying things that I didn’t know if it was to tease me, or if it was true.
The adventure continues! If you loved this chapter, I thought it was a Backroom, but it was a Yuri Room is a must-read. Click here to start!
Read : I thought it was a Backroom, but it was a Yuri Room
