Gimai Seikatsu's

Chapter 6's

From early in the morning, Ayase-san avoids me, or at least that's what I think, even though I don't understand why. Before I even got to the dining table, Ayase-san had already left, without saying anything to me. I don't get it. Last night, the last thing I saw from him was that smile. At that time, I felt we were close like never before. The more I think about it, the more absurd it becomes.

If it was still raining, we could go to school together, which could be an opportunity to ask why, but naturally, the weather betrayed me, because the weather outside was sunny. While pedaling my bike, I looked up at the sky this June 12th. The worrying blue color. Indeed the weather is clear during the rainy season, it is not wrong anymore.

While pedaling, I tried to distract myself with the origin of the expression “bright weather during this rainy season”. Otherwise, the contents of my head will be filled with Ayase-san. I didn't even try to slow my way to school. I could still see traces of rain on the row of trees I passed. A drop of water on the tree branch fell just in time, and it hit my face. Thanks to the cold sensation, my tired face slowly woke up as well.

Maybe he's still angry because of the incident**** yesterday. Thinking of that possibility, I thought his personality would make him tell me right away if he was still angry. Unfortunately, it makes things even more confusing. Thinking about it, I got to school. I looked up at the sky again, but could not find a single cloud.

If not mistaken, there is a sports lesson in the second hour ... Of course, it's rehearsal for the sports festival again. Just like before, we will meet at the same location that is, a tennis court. That is, I will meet with Ayase-san again.

During the first lesson hours, I had a modern Japanese lesson, but as you might expect, I couldn't focus at all, and I didn't even remember what the teacher was talking about. Finally, the second period came, and after everyone had gathered, I directed my attention to the girls.

“Seryaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

As usual, Narasaka-san is in top form. Likewise with the ball he hit, flying right into the neighboring field.

“Maayaaaaaa!”

“Ohhhh, homerun!”

“Bego!”

I don't remember any homerun technique in tennis. But leaving that aside first, I was unable to find Ayase-san's figure in the group of girls practicing. Instead, he once again leaned against the wire fence at the corner of the tennis court, equipped with earphones. The only difference from before was that he did not look up at the sky, but instead struggled in his mind about something. With his face down, his eyes closed.

Come on, now I'm more curious. I thought of calling him at the end of the lesson, but Narasaka-san wanted something from me first.

“Hei, Onii-chan.”

Do you keep calling me that at school, too? I want to give you that answer.

“What happened to Saki?”

For a moment, I was at a loss for any possible words to answer. Basically, from her point of view, it was obvious that Ayase-san was acting differently than usual.

“No, I don't know anything.”

“So yes.” Crossing his arms, he walked towards the main building of the school.

The girls who were waiting for him gave me a quick glance, but this is not what you guys imagined it would be, okay?

“Hei, Asamura.”

“Hm? Ah, Maru. ”

Reversing my body, there stood my friend Maru Tomokazu.

“What's with that lifeless response?”

“I'm just tired from training.”

“You're not even out of breath yet, and your sports jersey is still chinclong so.”

“You really saw up close, yes.”

Oh yeah, looks like Maru did softball practice right today. I could see his dirty shirt and sweat all over his body.

“Why are you staring at me? You suddenly miss my body or something?”

“I just thought that washing such dirty shirts would be troublesome.”

“Hm, yes anyway. You know, if you pay me 10 thousand yen, I won't hesitate to think about it.”

Pay.. Uh, wait.

“Da-Where did the idea come from!?”

“I will do a tiring task. From a leak in the ceiling to making a puppy hut, I think that's an affordable price, right? ”

“Ah, so that's what you mean.”

“Asamura, what am I talking about?”

Do you really want to say it now?

“I hate to tell you, but since we live in a three-story apartment, there are no leaks to fix, and I also have no plans to adopt a puppy.”

“So yes, what a pity. I think it will make the initial payment.”

“It's not so different from what you said before?”

Didn't you yourself say it's important to know the community, and know the market for money?

“Kalem used to be okay, Asamura. I said cash 'Initial', you know. Birthday is near.”

“Whose year's date?”

Suddenly he became silent.

“So basically, you're trying to raise some money for someone's birthday gift?”

“If we are not in a hurry, we will not come in time for the next class.” He turned towards me, and walked forward.

I see, so Maru wants to buy someone a gift. That maru, I can't imagine it.

In the end, I didn't have a chance to talk to Ayase-san at school. Of course, I tried to contact him through LINE, but…

'You look sad, did something happen?'

'Nothing at all'

He didn't even add any stickers (although Ayase-san doesn't seem to be the type to add stickers), and just gave me a flat answer. After the study ended, I went back to work. I was always ridiculed by Yomiuri-senpai, but nothing important happened, and I returned home.

I opened the front door. The soft aroma of miso soup drifted towards me from the kitchen. So Ayase-san is already home.

“I'm home.” I voiced my regards, and walked down the hallway.

“Welcome back.. Dinner is ready.”

I felt the warmth in his voice slightly different.Maybe not? Maybe I thought too much about it.

“Today Sashimi?”

I looked at the dinner table, saw a blue plate with white trimmings on it, as well as a fish-red inner body, probably like a victorfish.

“Yes. Finely cut. ”

“Fresh material is indeed the best.”

Looks like we're having a Japanese dinner tonight. Miso soup consists of half-moon slices of potatoes with seaweed in them. I'm sure it'll warm my body. Perfect for this rainy season. The small bowl also contained a lot of cucumbers. While Ayase-san arranged the food on the dining table, I wiped the rest of the table, and prepared some warm tea.

“Thank you for the food!”

I started with miso soup. I gently stirred the surface with my chopsticks, and placed the end of the bowl into my mouth. When my nose smells, my lips feel it.

“Yes, your miso soup is delicious, Ayase-san.”

“...So yes.”

“How to say yes, I can taste soup broth. It was really well made.”

“Of course, after all this miso.” soup He spoke in a somewhat disturbed tone.

“Not exactly.” My reply.

It's not like I never cooked by myself. But, I have never been able to make such good miso soup before. I can't even hope to rival this one. I only found out the reason a little after I stopped trying to cook, when I happened to read a book. Once miso is mixed, boil it. That's how you create a scent. This aroma is mainly derived from fermented alcohol. Of course it will jump when it boils. It's just simple physics. If I had known about this before, I would probably still be interested in cooking as well…

“You overestimated it.”

“No, it really looks very good.”

I put a little ginger in the victorfish, and carried a piece of meat between my chopsticks, adding soy sauce to it. One piece of this then I put it in my mouth, and carefully chewed it. The meat was a little elastic, and the more I chewed, the more umami felt on my tongue.

“Lezat.”

Next, I added rice to the mix.

“It's delicious. Ayase-san, you really are a great chef. ”

“Listen, all I did was cut it. But, thank you. I bought it when there was a discount, so. ”.

“Ohh. So you tried hard to buy it from discount.”

“I want to save as much as possible.”

Oh yes, if I remember correctly, since Ayase-san is in charge of cooking, she received some money from my father. If he were to buy it from the discount, he could keep the remaining money to himself.

There, I remembered something I wanted to ask earlier. However, come to think of it, it seems to only act as a trigger for what will happen later.

“Why are you so adamant about saving?”

Hearing my question, Ayase-san's chopsticks stopped moving. They drifted over the fish, back and forth. Of course, I would not tell him that this was bad behavior, as he was clearly not at a loss as to what to choose, but rather thought about what he should say.

“It seems I've told you about this before, but in order to free myself from the views and expectations of others, I need the strength to live alone.”

“So money is the power in question?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No... I don't think it's wrong either.”

In fact, without money, you cannot live life freely. Even so, money is not everything. Even I know this is just a biased statement.

“However, I can't get enough money.” He sighed.

He leaned his body forward, which caused his long hair to fall in front of his uniform, on top of an apron. He put down his chopsticks, and fixed his hair.

“I was looking for a high-paying part-time job, but ..” I grumbled.

“It's okay, I don't expect you to find him straight away,” that's what he said, but in the end, I'm the only one who benefits from this, and I hate that.

“If there's anything I want to help you with, just let me know. Or, you can take a shortcut by cooking.”

“Iya.”

“30 minutes in the morning, and one hour in at night, you mean?” In front of my words, Ayase-san gave a dry laugh.

“So you realized it.”

“Of course.”

Whenever Ayase-san makes food, she always looks towards the clock. I doubt it was just related to cooking. There is also the fact that she wants information about high-paying but short part-time work solely for the purpose of having more time to study.

“ Anyway, even though I know the recipe, I don't plan on using more time than necessary. That's a lot of shortcuts. " He forcefully created an expression that might mean saying 'I am a bad person'.

“Not really.”

However, when I said those words, Ayase-san's facial expression turned into something akin to surprise.

“Why?”

“I mean, by constantly repeating things, you become more proficient, don't you? That is, you can do more work at the same time as before, and the quality you do can also improve. ”

“... Meaning?”

“Even if you only have the same hour, you can create something better — In this case, you have a chance to make the food even more delicious. In other words, the added value is growing. And, since I have a deal with you, I need to increase my added value. If not, it will be unbalanced.”

“It ..”

“Case, yes. Right now, I have nothing to give you, Ayase-san. Sooner or later, I won't be able to keep up. "

“If you say that, aren't all the families in this world the same? Day by day, its value grows like that.”

“Because they are the same, yes.”

It's not just cooking. There's laundry, cleaning, sewing. All these 'tasks' can make you more skilled when you do them often. That's why your salary will go up the longer you work for a company. It continues until your work becomes more careless and slower as it ages. Work in a family is exactly the same.

“My mom has been making food for me for years, but she doesn't even get 1 yen in return.”

“These values will not appear until there is an agreement. Until you outsource the values of family hard work, you don't realize it. Only when you go pay for it will you understand how much value it really has. That's a troublesome idea behind it.”

Since I only read books related to 'Labor' or 'Make money', these complex thoughts and equations kept coming out of my mouth. If I wasn't careful, I would probably start to assume that I've become smarter, even though this is just knowledge borrowed from books.

“You and I, Ayase-san, we made a deal to cook and find a high-paying part-time job, ‘kan? Now I realize that the value of your cooking has increased, which means I need to find a way to increase my grades as well.”

Ayase-san remained silent, seemingly thinking of something. I couldn't help it anymore, so I just said it. In my mind, I have a solution, but it doesn't feel good in my heart.

“... The food will be cold, so let's eat. I've prepared hot water for the bath.”

“O-OK.”

But before I could comment on that, I was asked to move my chopsticks instead. The entire time we ate, Ayase-san seemed to be deep in thought, not looking at me at all. I think he came up with that unfortunate solution.

I was allowed to take a shower first, and after finishing the bath, I let the hot water fresh. I changed my clothes and went back to my room. Suddenly, I decided to lie down on the bed, and read a book. Of course, I have some PR to work on, but there's no rush, because there's still Saturday and Sunday left. Right now, I prefer to focus on reading light novels with countless beautiful girls on the cover.

… I think this is just a short piece of writing, but it's quite interesting. Although, indeed the protagonist really needs to date all his classmates…

“Aduh!”

Daydreaming, I accidentally dropped the book, which fell right on my face. As a result, I let out a surprised voice. That surprised me.

“Yah... Maybe I should just go to sleep..”.

Apparently, my body is exhausted. I looked at the clock, and the wine wasn't too late. My dad usually comes home at this hour, but there's still no sign of him coming back. Because it's Friday, he's probably drinking with his co-workers. I just wish he could go home on the last train.

Click, the light in my room suddenly went off. With other similar sounds, the lights turn into night mode. I could see the light entering my room through a small crack of the door that opened for a moment. And then, silence struck. Someone came into my room. Well, it must be Ayase-san. I doubt there's a thief who can get into this apartment.

But, what does he want in my room? Even to the point of turning off all the lights. Maybe he went in the wrong room? I was about to get up from the bed to say 'This is my room, you know?', but I immediately swallowed those words.

“Asamura-kun, you are still awake, ‘kan?”

Ayase-san approached me with that question, as the fragrant aroma from the bath soap tickled my nose. However, that was not the only reason for my shock. Anyway, I've experienced it a few times. He'll take the last bath, and the last sleep. That's what he decided, but that doesn't mean he won't talk to me. There were also times when I wanted to drink a glass of water at midnight, and meet him, wearing his nightgown.

Of course, that alone was already stimulating enough for a High School guy like me, but Ayase-san who approached me now was not like that. I could hear the rustling of clothes, followed by the sound of clothes falling to the floor. He took off his clothes. Since the lights were off, I could barely see anything. Only the curves of Ayase-san's body are visible.

The more he approached me, the more clearly I saw his well-endowed chest, his slender waist, his long, slender arms reaching down from his bare shoulders. No more nightgowns to hide her beautiful body. For those who still do not understand, Ayase-san only wears a kancur and bra. My eyes were immediately fixed on his waist, which moved left and right at every step he took.

“Hey, Asamura-kun, there's something I want to talk about.”

A step away from the bed, Ayase-san stopped.

“Something to talk about ..” I let out a dumbfounded voice in the face of this situation.

Ayase-san took the last step, and placed her hand near my waist. He looked at my face, and his eyes were fixed on mine.

“Will you ... buy my body?” He told me at a close enough distance that I could feel his breath.

Thanks to the dim ceiling lights, I could clearly see Ayase-san's face.