Gimai Seikatsu - Days With My Step Sister

When I woke up, I was first bewildered by the color of the ceiling above me. It wasn't the same as the one I knew from back home, but rather faintly green which threw me off-guard, but I then remembered I was still on the field trip.

"It's breakfast time."

I heard Maru's voice so I turned around. Both he and Yoshida had already finished changing, which made me frightened for a moment. I checked my phone to make sure—6 am. Huh? Our planned departure today was 9 am, and breakfast starts at 7. Why are they all packed and ready?

"On days with morning practice, I'd be done eating breakfast around this time."

"Exactly."

…You goddamn muscle brains.

"Asamura, we're going adventuring. You join us."

"…I'll pass. You two have fun without me."

Maru and Yoshida set out for stage two of their adventure, and I took my time to change and finish my trip to the bath. I returned to the bedroom and took my phone off the charger, placing it into my pocket. In doing so, I spotted the shape of the outlet—realizing that it was a BF type with three holes. Weirdly enough, this was the final nail in the coffin that made me realize we were outside of Japan. That reminds me, this happened last night, but some of the boys happened to forget their adapter, which created a bit of short-lived panic. We had a few people like that in our class, too. That's when Maru came to the rescue and lent out some of the extra ones he had brought with him.

He was treated as a hero just for that. And I was yet again impressed by how well-prepared he was, even for the smallest of dilemmas. Or did he anticipate this and buy several in advance? There's no way, right? The place we ate breakfast was the same as last night's dinner, so I easily found my way. Once again, we had another buffet to freely choose from.

Though I decided to keep it light in the morning, so I built my meal around a good and reliable piece of toast. Especially since I mostly ate meat last night, I opted to go with a small salad for today. Maybe I'm thinking like this because I'm so used to the regular Ayase-san cuisine at home. I looked around with my tray in hand, and I spotted the tall-as-always Maru, with Yoshida next to him. Sitting across the table from us were the three girls from our group, so we said our good mornings. That's the most important thing, after all.

"Listen up, my friends."

While we were eating, Maru suddenly raised one hand and asked for our attention. Huh?

"What happened to you, Maru?" Yoshida gave him a dubious look.

Understandably so, since I don't think Maru had ever spoken in such a fashion before.

"Just listen to me, you guys."

"I mean… we are?"

The three girls were just as confused.

"For the second day, we'll be walking around various places as a group."

"Yep," Yoshida said and I nodded.

"We know that, but what about it, Maru-kun?" The leader of the girls' group asked Maru.

"Basically, it's possible that we might run into a different group that made similar plans to us. That's why I want to ask you all this."

"Well, there aren't many places we could choose from, after all."

"Exactly. It wouldn't be a surprise if we ran into someone else. And I said to Ryou-chan that we might end up meeting. I hope we do!"

The girl mentioned that a friend of hers in a different class happened to almost have the exact same plans as we do. Our schedule for today was to visit the zoo this afternoon, followed by the night safari later tonight, which was located right next to the zoo. They're both supposedly pretty popular spots.

"Indeed, they are popular. That's why it wouldn't be weird for us to run into another group, right?"

Everybody else nodded. Right, he's got a point there. But why would he bring up that with such a dramatic tone?

"You get that, Asamura?" Maru grinned at me.

"Yeah…?"

"Good, good."

Either way, after our group gathered at 9 am like planned, we took the shuttle bus and headed to the zoo located in the Mandai district. It was located north of the hotel, and it should take us around 20 minutes. In the meantime, we had a guide on the ride to tell us a bit about the area. More specifically, about the history of Singapore, its development, as well as social problems like water supply and whatnot—all of that in perfect Japanese. Just like on the first day, I wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing, since we technically came here to learn English. Well, I don't think I'd understand too much if the whole tour was just in English.

At first, he fed us some general information about Singapore. The total surface of Singapore was a bit bigger than the 23 districts of Tokyo. The hotel where we stayed was located to the south, and the Mandai area was to the north. They were about 20km apart, which was comparable to the distance between Shinagawa station and Akabane station. I don't know if he's just familiar with Japan itself or if he looked it up because he knew about us beforehand, but I was thankful for it.

And then eventually, we spotted our destination in the distance: The Singapore Zoo in Mandai. We got off at the parking lot and went directly to the entrance. Everything was growing green, making me feel like I had just waltzed inside a jungle. I could even hear birds chirping inside, too. And all this time, Maru seemed to be panicking about something. Muttering like it was about time and whatever.

"I don't think we're on such a tight schedule here, though…?" I muttered, wondering what he was talking about since the only thing that had set closing times was the shop.

"Oh! If it isn't Asamura-kun from the class next to ours! What a total coincidence!"

I heard a familiar voice, which caused my mouth to open wide like a fish waiting to be fed. Is that… Narasaka-san's group? I was thinking that the group near the entrance looked familiar, but I didn't think we'd run into them here. Ayase-san even turned around and gazed at me in disbelief.

Singapore Zoo. That's what is said on the sign, written with alphabet letters… or rather, that was what the letters placed on the front entrance said, but I didn't have time to think about that right now. Looking at Ayase-san, and how she stared at me, I'm assuming that she didn't expect us to run into each other here. And that's when I remembered that I never even asked about her group's plans over the course of this field trip. I guess I didn't see any reason to ask in the first place, since I didn't think we'd be able to spend time together. However, Maru—and probably Narasaka-san, too—knew about it.

"This feels like a set-up," I whispered to Maru.

"I didn't force anything here, so don't you worry," he responded by saying something that only made me worry more.

Maru then walked towards Narasaka-san's group with another step, speaking up.

"My, oh, my. If it isn't the famous Narasaka-san!"

"Oh! It's Maru Tomokazu-kun! What a coincidence!"

"That it is!"

They suck at acting, god help me. But even so, Maru turned around towards us, as Narasaka-san turned to face her own group.

"It seems that we happened to run into another group by sheer coincidence. I assume this must be fate, so we shouldn't fight it and instead, walk around the zoo together. How does that sound?"

"I don't mind. And that'll make it more lively, too!" Yoshida happily agreed.

The girls from our group nodded along, too.

"I'm okay with that. And I'm pretty sure there's gonna be other groups walking around anyway." She raised her hand above her face to block off the strong sunlight shining down on us as she looked around.

Just as she said, I could see several other students from Suisei High.

"I don't mind. Let's all walk around as a big group!"

"Ryou-chan! I'm glad we could meet up!" said one girl as she landed a high-five with one girl from Narasaka-san's group.

The docile-looking girl called Ryou-chan smiled, too, saying 'I'm really happy.' That means her friend's group turned out to be Ayase-san's group. Who could have imagined? Well, if a few groups from the same school choose the same location to visit, then it's not too odd for something like this to happen. I guess I can just write this off as a coincidence… No, it's too convenient.

"Maru, are you friends with Narasaka-san?"

"She's friends with everyone, remember?"

That… is a valid argument, but that's not what I meant. It just feels like we've been played. We lined up to buy tickets, and I continued to question Maru about this so-called coincidence, but he just explained himself along the lines of "We checked the places the other group wanted to visit, so we figured we might as well meet up here." Thinking back on it, he was oddly pushy when it came to the zoo. I didn't think too much about it since it was a pretty popular spot to visit. And since Ayase-san wouldn't be with us, I figured I might as well go with a more relaxed place to visit like the tourists we were.

"I'll go buy the tickets," Maru said and moved up to the ticket window.

He offered the money he received from us and bought tickets for six people. On the opposite side, Narasaka-san did the same for her group. They were acting like genuine group leaders, huh? Compared to myself and how much I'd struggle just getting all that together, I had to respect them once more. After that, we all received our tickets and entered the zoo. And with our large group of twelve people, we didn't have much time for idle talk, so we walked through the front gate.

The zoo located here in the Mandai district was quite large. According to the pamphlet we received, it covered a solid 28 hectares—which is a bit hard to grasp, but it's basically six times the size of the Tokyo Dome. The only zoo I remember visiting was the one in Ueno. And that's three times the size of the Tokyo Dome. In other words, this one here is double the size of the zoo I was used to… Man, what a behemoth. And inside all this space, there was a large area that was as naturally subtropic as possible, filled with animals living as they would in the wild, which we watched from afar.

They also set up fences and canals to keep the animals contained but they were mostly located in hidden areas so that they could be perceived as naturally as possible. It eliminated the feeling of being caged in for the animals, and they seemed to be living pretty leisurely lives here. Unrelated to that, despite our relatively large group size, we immediately got along pretty well. Probably thanks to Communication Queen Narasaka-san and Caretaker Overlord Maru. As for the meaning of caretaker… he was basically just looking out for others. And these two were doing the heavy lifting.

"Everyone! I'll make a group!"

Under Narasaka-san's order, we all got together and joined the LINE group she made.

"All right, then check this out first," Maru continued, as he sent a picture of the zoo map to the group.

While looking at it, we checked where we were currently located.

"This map is in Japanese, too?" Yoshida pointed out, positively surprised.

Other than English, it also had text in Chinese and Japanese. I'm guessing they must get a lot of tourists from Japan here since they went through all this effort. And on that note, we could also use the wifi here. The range of the free wifi and digital progression here in Singapore was not half-baked, that's for sure. Maru continued to explain today's course of action and shared our schedule.

"I don't think it's enough for you to get lost, but this place here is pretty big. If you get separated from the others, make sure to let us know via LINE immediately."

"Okaaay."

Everybody responded in unison.

"Then let's check out the white tigers first!" Narasaka-san declared as she took the front spot.

The rest of us followed after her. Most of us had already forgotten about being in different classes as we engaged in conversations left and right. Since everyone seemed to be having fun, I guess this would be a job well done for Narasaka-san and Maru. Everyone's having fun, huh? Considering my own personality, this whole idea of forming a group to have some fun together feels so alien to me. I don't think I'd ever come up with that idea myself. I know how much of a self-centered person I am. But after we all went to the pool together last summer break, I realized how important it can be to interact with others.

Of course, I wouldn't be struggling this much if I could immediately put that realization into action. But this also led me to appreciate Maru and Narasaka-san more. They brought up whatever topic card they had on hand, allowing both our groups to immediately mix well. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what Ayase-san and I loved to do, namely act independently, which allowed us to just be swept along without sinking too much. However, there is one pitfall I can't fill in.

Whenever I ended up talking to Ayase-san, and whenever she happened to talk to me, one of us would then be blunt for a bit and cut off the conversation. I think it's really weird that we could talk for hours on end when we met on the daily, but as soon as we were thrown into this irregular situation, we immediately ended up making things awkward. But at the same time, we also felt that we might just not stop talking at all if we got the ball rolling once. And if that happened, we'd basically single-handedly ruin Maru and Narasaka-san's effort to ensure that everybody could talk with everybody in our large group of twelve people.

And yet… I want to talk to her. I want to hear her voice. These feelings were so strong that I might not be able to stop if it finally happened, and then it wouldn't take long for the others to find out just what kind of relationship we were in. For example, if we were talking about this or that and someone joined in by saying 'You two are pretty close, huh?', then I'd already be at a loss for words, making it pretty obvious. That's why I'm trying not to talk to Ayase-san too much, and she seemed to be doing the exact same thing. As a result, we've been doing just fine talking to our other classmates, but only when it came to a conversation between the two of us, things got awkward and cut off immediately.

"You two sure have gotten close!"

Ashida's voice caused my heart to skip a beat.

"Maru… When have you and Narasaka-san even spoken before this?"

Oh, it wasn't about us.

"I mean, we're group leaders."

"Yup! And as group leaders, we should get along with the other leaders, too!"

"…Is that how that works?"

"Yeah."

"Yup!"

"Well, if you guys say so," Yoshida was convinced fairly quickly.

To me, it was confusing more than anything. I don't know what led to them being on such friendly terms, but if it was all because they were group leaders, then Maru should have been in contact with the other groups, too. Now that I think about it, both Maru and Narasaka-san know that Ayase-san and I are stepsiblings. That's the connection they have. They know our secret. Though I highly doubt Maru knows about my romantic relationship with Ayase-san, and the same should be the case for Narasaka-san… Should, yeah. But even so, what if they were discussing us amongst themselves at one point? And then they set up this whole situation on purpose?

While pondering that, I looked at Maru and Narasaka-san again. Maru was looking down at his phone, checking the exact way we were going and sharing info in our LINE group. At the same time, Narasaka-san used all her conversation skills to bring all twelve group members together under a single topic—Maybe I'm reading too much into this?

Even if they were worried about us getting along as siblings, they don't seem the type of people to go out of their way to such an extent to make sure everything was proceeding smoothly. I don't think they'd force two people together to ensure they were doing all right. If they were, Maru probably wouldn't be able to carry the team with him, and Narasaka-san wouldn't be the Communication Queen that she is. In fact, it looks more like Narasaka-san views everyone equally, and Ayase-san and I are just members of the group. Even now, she threw a new topic at both of us.

"What animals do you two like?"

"Sloths."

"Tigers, I guess."

"That's unexpected. You seem like a devoted person to me, Asamura-kun. I figure you'd readily help make food if the need arose. Don't you agree, Saki?"

"…I think he's like a sloth," Ayase-san mumbled.

"Oh?! Really now?! Asamura-kun, how's it feel to be compared to a sloth?"

"I don't really know what you want me to say to that."

"I'm not calling you lazy or anything," Ayase-san said to me.

"I know that."

"Okay, good."

We said to each other, only to gasp and go silent again. With that, another conversation died off. Meanwhile, Maru and Narasaka-san sighed at the same time.

"I… really like crocodiles! Graaah!"

"I don't think crocodiles growl like that."

"Well, I understand why you like tigers, Ayase."

"Right? She's so cool!"

"Y-You think so?"

She seemed to not expect that compliment, and her reaction was rather flustered. Narasaka-san's comment made everyone laugh, too. And it's thanks to these follow-ups that Ayase-san and I won't ruin the mood the group has. We walked around a lot inside the zoo until evening arrived when we moved to the night safari next to it.

The night safari opened at 7:15. Since this was also the time that the sun would set during this season, the sky outside had begun to turn orange. The far sky to the east had even turned dark. This night safari existed so that visitors could observe the animals in their natural habitat at night. And because it starts pretty late, it closes at midnight. Needless to say, we students won't be staying that long.

"We'll be eating dinner here, but lights out is at 10, so we don't have too much time," Maru said.

And with that, we headed to the 'Creatures of the Night' show, which was a popular live show at the night safari. The idea was basically to introduce the animals that the visitors will be able to see during the safari. We could even hear the growls and sounds of animals from all sides. I couldn't tell if they were wild beasts or just birds. But the sounds surrounding me made me realize that even the wilderness at night could be fairly noisy. The show ended after around thirty minutes, and since we'd all gotten hungry, we decided to eat something at the restaurant.

It was designed like a regular buffet store, as we could enjoy a bit of relaxing music from the stage in the back. In the corner of my view, I saw a woman playing the guitar and singing. However, I wasn't too bothered by that since I was busy grabbing food. I took my tray to our table where everybody else was already busy eating.

"What a beautiful voice," Maru muttered.

"Hm?"

"Must be local music."

I followed Maru's gaze, looking at the woman playing on stage. And then I realized it. Her appearance and voice felt familiar to me.

"Isn't that the lady from yesterday?"

Only our group reacted to Maru's words, as Narasaka and her group were asking what was going on. I believe they were at the museum yesterday, too, but they must have missed her.

"She was singing yesterday in front of the museum," I said, but right as I did, the woman finished her act, and another person took her place.

She then moved towards the counter and spoke to the bartender. Immediately after, she received a cocktail glass filled with an amber-colored fluid. She then sat down on the chair and looked around… only for her to get up and walk towards us. Huh? It took me a second to realize that she was standing in front of us already, speaking perfect English. Narasaka-san listened and then nodded.

"What did she say?" Maru asked Narasaka-san.

"No clue."

"Hey…"

"Um… Lady, you want something?" She said with broken, Japanese-sounding English, as she flapped her arms up and about.

Or rather, it was pretty much just Japanese.

"Narasaka, you might want to try English pronunciation, but that's not enough if you only rely on body language. Weren't you good at English?" Maru asked, but Narasaka-san just awkwardly laughed.

"On paper, yeah. And didn't you have a higher grade than me?"

"Because I hate losing. But we both can't speak it in the end."

"Learning it and applying it are two different things, after all."

"How frustrating… She came out of her way to talk to us, so we should at least—"

"Hold on, Maru. She's pointing at us while saying something," Yoshida commented.

She pointed at us and kept talking in English. Since we weren't able to respond, she must have realized that we came from overseas. If so…

"Maybe she's saying stuff like 'Who are you?' or 'Where are you from?' and so on?" I said, when I heard someone speaking English from our side.

In response, the woman's face shot toward the source of that voice. She continued speaking English at a rapid speed. I was already struggling to keep up, but if she speeds up faster than that… I grew worried, but there was someone in our group speaking English at break-neck speed, too. The moment I realized who this familiar voice belonged to, Narasaka-san was already cheering while saying 'You're amazing, Saki!' …Wait, that was Ayase-san after all? I turned around and saw Ayase-san speaking with the woman in very decent English.

…She didn't speak this fast when we practiced before, right? Maybe she was just holding back for my sake? I don't think she improved her English that much in a single day, at least. All members of both groups stared at her talking with the woman.

"Ayase-san, you can speak English?" One of the boys from their group asked.

"I used relatively simple vocabulary. Asamura-kun's assumption was fairly spot-on, too. She's asking where we came from."

"Weee aaare earthliings." Narasaka-san held one hand on her throat and tapped it while speaking, creating a legendary otaku joke in real time.

…Which was funny and all, but I'm pretty sure she's from earth, too.

"Narasaka, don't go causing problems that will have intergalactic consequences down the line."

I highly doubt this will escalate that far, either way. And everybody here is from earth, no?

"Maru-kun! I was just trying to ease everybody into the conversation using a bit of humor!"

"There's a time and place for everything, and here we've got neither condition cleared. More importantly, what did you tell her, Ayase?" Maru asked, to which Ayase-san gave Narasaka-san a dull smile.

"That we're from Japan and currently on a field trip. Don't worry."

"Boooring!"

"Maaya, I swear… What if she gets the wrong idea? And on that note, her name is Melissa Woo-san."

Hearing Ayase-san's comment, Maru grinned to himself, saying "I guess I was right!" He was probably referring to the name he read yesterday.

"Merry-san?"

"No, Maaya. Melissa. Melissa Woo-san. She was curious how we young visitors felt about her singing and wanted to hear our impressions."

Someone from our group sighed in admiration. The woman called Melissa, who seemed to be a bit older than twenty, continued to smile as she sat down at an open seat at our table.

"She's really curious about our impressions now."

"Could you translate it for us, Ayase?" Maru asked and Ayase-san nodded.

"I don't mind. I'll do as best as I can."

"Hm. Well, life works in mysterious ways, and this is a chance to experience a bit of intercultural exchange. How about it, everyone? Do you have anything to say to Melissa-san?"

"It was bootiful and wandaful!" Yoshida said.

Hearing that, Melissa-san grinned. I guess she managed to understand that.

"It worked!"

"Can you really call that a success?" Maru made a wry smile as he looked at me.

"What about you, Asamura?"

"Um… Well. I heard her sing yesterday. I think that was folk music. I thought that her singing voice was a treat to listen to. Does that work, Ayase-san?"

"Let me try."

I tried to keep it short and simple to allow for easy translation, but was that good enough? But my worries seemed unnecessary, as Ayase-san swiftly translated my statement into English. Melissa listened to Ayase-san to the very end and then showed a radiating smile. She then looked at me and fired off a barrage of quick-fire English. I'm guessing she was happy, at least. After that, the other group members voiced their impressions, which were translated into English by Ayase-san. Granted, she couldn't pull off any complicated expressions or phrases, but she tried her best while glancing up at the ceiling once or twice while forming the English text in her head. Even so, Melissa happily listened to every word Ayase-san said.

"Done!" Narasaka-san suddenly shouted.

Wondering what had happened, I looked over at her. She was holding her phone out towards Melissa-san, tapping on the screen. When she did so, a robotic female voice spoke English. It was a pretty long English text in comparison to what we said, but Melissa just happily smiled.

"Was that a machine translation, Narasaka?"

"Yup! I just wrote everything I thought in there and it read the English translation."

"I didn't even think about trying that."

What a convenient day and age we live in.

"I guess we should have just asked Maaya from the start," Ayase-san said.

"That's not true at all, Saki! This bad boy might seem convenient, but all nuance is lost in the process. Communication doesn't only rely on words, but also intonation and expression, right?"

Bad boy… Is she referring to her phone? Or more accurately, the app she used? But that does make sense. Whenever Ayase-san told Melissa about our impressions, she not only conveyed the words, but her expressions also changed accordingly. When she said how impressive Melissa's voice was, she spoke with an exaggerated tone, and when she mentioned my folk music comment, she had a somewhat distant gaze. If there's no "avatar" to convey emotions alongside those words, then machine translation like this is heavily limited.

"You think so?"

"Exactly! And she seems thankful, too."

Melissa stood up and walked up to Ayase-san's seat, putting her hands on her shoulders as she whispered something to her. She did seem happy as she slapped Ayase-san on the shoulder. It seemed to hurt a bit, and Ayase-san flashed a wry smile. And then, Melissa raised her head as a tall man called her name. Her face lit up further as she clung to him. Immediately after, all of us gasped in shock, as the girls cheered and we boys were at a loss for words. Melissa and the man, presumably her lover, shared a passionate kiss without a warning.

"In a public space like this…!"

"Calm down, Yoshida. It's a kiss. It's a greeting," Maru tried to relax him.

"But…"

"You boys! Stop staring!" Narasaka-san immediately reprimanded the other boys.

"I'm shocked you can stay this calm, Asamura-kun."

"I'm surprised myself, really."

Yeah, that really happened out of nowhere. I was wondering how they could do that in front of others without feeling embarrassed. But at the same time, I realized that this scene felt oddly familiar. Familiar because there is a certain newlywed couple openly flirting around in front of their adolescent daughter and son. No doubt, they're a couple completely head over heels for each other. Granted, they weren't hugging or kissing in public like the couple in front of me. Remembering our parents, this kind of scene right now wasn't anything unbearable, either.

Granted, that didn't just magically erase the embarrassment. However, Melissa's kiss felt even more… natural. Like it was part of the daily life of the animals we watched all day. Once Melissa and her boyfriend separated, she turned towards us one more time and said something. According to Ayase-san, she asked where we were staying. We mentioned the name of the nearest bus stop, to which she mentioned that the place she stayed was fairly close. And as a result, we even took the same bus home. As for the man she kissed, he didn't come with us. They apparently lived in different directions. And until we reached the bus stop in question, we were on the same ride.

During that entire time, Ayase-san and Melissa were discussing something in English. Reaching the hotel we split up with Narasaka-san's group and the other girls in the lobby, but all the way back to our room, Yoshida would keep going on and on about how crazy that kiss was. I'm honestly worried that all his experiences and impressions today were just overwritten by that final scene. Then again, some of the girls were blushing even all the way back to the hotel.

Personally, rather than feeling flustered from witnessing the scene, I actually realized something self-explanatory. This is what it means to be lovers. And with that thought in mind, I was reminded that our visit to Sentosa Island tomorrow was mostly free time. And I think that Ayase-san's group was also going there. And I remembered having fun spending a bit of fun with her group today. Right as I snuggled into my bed, my phone vibrated. When I saw the message that popped up on my screen, I felt my heart jump. It was from Ayase-san.

'I'd like to walk around Sentosa Island tomorrow with just the two of us. Do you think that's possible?'

That question caused me to gasp. Immediately after that came another message, saying that it should be fine since we don't have to walk around as a group and that it's mostly free time anyway. So they had similar plans to our group? I remembered what Maru said during the last homeroom a few days ago.

'On the third day, as long as we don't stray from Sentosa Island, we'll probably be given a lot of freedom. We can buy souvenirs and just enjoy the scenery.'

And the other group members appreciated the relaxed schedule, too. I just assumed I'd be walking around with Maru. How could I have known that Ayase-san's group was similar in that way? Maybe Maru and Narasaka-san set this up so that people could spend time with others from different groups. No, I'm reading too much into it again. I read through Ayase-san's question and pondered it.

I do want to see her, but if I wanted to slip out from the group, I should at least let Maru know. I don't think I need to give him the exact reason, but there's a good chance he'll ask me to buy souvenirs and whatnot. Then again, he knows that Ayase-san and I are siblings, so if I said I wanted to walk around with her for a bit, he probably won't mind. When I looked over to my side, both he and Yoshida were sound asleep. I then proceeded to type up a response.

'Got it. I'll tell the people in my group, so I'll let you know if we can meet up and everything else tomorrow.'

Immediately after I sent that message, I got a read notification and a simple 'OK' came back. I decided to tell Maru once he was awake. And then I'll tell Ayase-san where we can meet up before we get to Sentosa Island. For some reason, I felt relieved, and sleepiness assaulted me. Even so, I felt like I had forgotten something and couldn't quite drift off into sleep. After a bit of thinking, I realized the difference between my message and Ayase-san's.

She told me her genuine feelings. That she wanted to walk around with me. And yet all I cared about was the schedule and everything around it. I didn't tell her how I actually felt. I glared at the time reflected on my phone… 10:30 pm. Maybe she was asleep already. And I might wake her up with my response. But even so…

'I also want to walk around with you, Ayase-san.'

I took a deep breath to prepare myself and pressed the 'Send' button. I quickly got a read mark to my message, as well as an emote of a sneaky cat grinning at me. Honestly, I felt like this was the first time she had ever used an emote. But at the same time, I was relieved and finally succumbed to my sleepiness.

That night, I had a dream. I was looking at the same kiss scene I had witnessed a few hours prior. But the faces of the two people kissing had turned into mine and Ayase-san's instead.