Chapter 242: You’re... Getting Married?
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: vb24
"Miss Landlord, I’d like to redecorate the living room of my apartment and change it to a tatami-style room. Do you have any advice?" Seiji asked.
"Redecorate? If you want, you can do it yourself, or hire a renovation company," Nozomi replied. "Of course, it’ll save you money to do it yourself, but it’ll be more difficult, and it’s the reverse if you hire a renovation company."
"Oh..." Seiji thought about it.
Since he had plenty of money on hand right now, he decided not to make the effort, and have the professionals help him.
"I’d like to hire a renovation company. Miss Landlord, do you have any good ones that you would recommend?"
"If you want, I can introduce one to you, but... is that really alright?"
Seiji knew what she was worried about when he saw her expression, and he smiled in reassurance.
"No problem, Miss Landlord. I recently... helped someone who was rather wealthy and received a generous payment, so money’s not a problem and you don’t need to be worried."
"Oh... that’s fine, then." Nozomi also smiled.
She then gave Seiji the phone number of a renovation company with an excellent reputation.
Seiji thanked Nozomi and returned to his apartment with Shika.
After he returned home, the first thing he did was call Mika and tell her about what her mom had just said. He lectured her and told her to pay more attention to her surroundings when having fun with Mashiro-chan so that she wouldn’t scare her mother.
Mika was rendered speechless. Seiji could almost feel her helplessness from her across the phone. She obediently promised that she would pay more attention in the future.
After that, Seiji contacted the renovation company.
After a short discussion, the renovation company said that they would send a person over and that they would arrive in approximately fifteen minutes.
Seiji decided to read some light novels to pass the time. About twenty minutes later, he heard a knock on his door.
The renovation company employee was a tall and thin man, who introduced himself with his family name, Takagi. Takagi was polite and got to work inspecting the living room immediately, making various measurements, and asking specific questions like what style they wanted or what specific tatamis they desired.
Seiji answered the questions as he watched Takagi doing the measurements.
After Takagi finished measuring, and with Seiji’s responses, he gave Seiji an approximate price quote, which Seiji felt was acceptable.
Takagi told Seiji that he would return to his company, prepare the contract, and bring it over tomorrow for Seiji and the landlord to sign together. After making the deposit, work could begin as soon as the day after tomorrow.
After this Takagi-san left, Seiji explained the situation to Shika-chan.
"We’re going to sign the contract tomorrow, and the work will begin on the day after tomorrow. He said that the work can be finished in the same day. That means that we’ll be able to enjoy watching TV while sitting on tatamis as soon as two days from now."
Shika smiled in delight upon hearing this. Their home was improving day by day.
Nighttime.
Seiji went out together with Mika to participate in the party for their class to celebrate the successful conclusion of the school festival.
Originally, the party was scheduled for the same night as the school festival’s conclusion, but many students preferred it to be held on the next night, so Year 1 Class 5’s representative Koji Hoshihara agreed and moved the party to the following night.
The party was to take place at the Divine Taste confectionery store that Seiji worked at.
This was sort of like a mutual exchange of favors. After all, the Divine Taste confectionery store owner Rika Amami was the sponsor who provided everything necessary for the students to run their temporary school festival store, so having the party at her store and spending some money there was only normal.
When Seiji and Mika arrived, many students were already gathered at the store.
"Harano-san, this is your home turf. Why don’t you introduce some delicious desserts for everyone!" Class Rep Koji smiled and greeted Seiji.
Seiji accepted this task and began describing each dessert on the menu to his fellow classmates.
At this time, Chiaki arrived. "If Seigo’s providing service for everyone... then he really should put on his store uniform~"
The tomboy’s sentence instantly caused all of Seiji’s female classmates to look at the handsome Seiji hopefully with sparkling eyes.
Seiji had no choice but to change into his uniform. After he changed, it was only to be expected that many students took pictures of him with their cell phones.
All of Seiji’s classmates finally arrived.
Koji gave a speech befitting that of a class representative, and all of them responded with good-natured cheers.
Afterwards, everyone ate desserts while looking over pictures from the school festival.
The pictures were taken during the operation of the temporary store and the preparation time. There were plenty of pictures.
The pictures were of students hard at work, accidentally making mistakes, intentionally acting funny, helping each other out, and setting up the store right before they opened up. There were also ones of them cosplaying and baking in the kitchen. A few were snapped when there were many customers, or when the students were relaxing, busy, resting, or closing the store and cleaning up...
All these pictures contained hard work, joy, cuteness... and other such wonderfully moving scenes.
As the students reminisced over these pictures, they had the so-called sensation of youth.
No, not only this. Year 1 Class 5’s students showed each other the pictures and appreciated them while having happy discussions about the pictures... this fiery scene was also youth itself.
Seiji had a much stronger feeling about this than anyone else, as a reincarnated person.
‘This is... an amazing feeling.’
After they finished looking at the pictures, each student wrote down which pictures they wanted and paid an appropriate fee to the class rep, so that he could print extra pictures for everyone.
After that, they simply enjoyed the desserts. All of the students were having fun; some chatted as they ate, while others played some small games.
Afterwards, there were even some small prizes for the minigames they played, and, on this note, the celebration party ended.
Seiji left the party together with Mika and Chiaki. The three walked down the street, enjoying the cool night air.
"I don’t want to go home just like this. Let's go have fun somewhere else. How about going to the game center?" Chiaki still wanted to enjoy the evening.
Seiji and Mika exchanged glances before both looking at her.
"...What’s with the look in your eyes?" The tomboy felt that something was abnormal.
"We have something important to tell you, Chiaki," Seiji said in a serious tone.
Chiaki blinked, her eyes darting back and forth between him and Mika.
"You’re... getting married to each other?"
*Pfft...* Seiji almost choked.
Mika was rendered speechless.
"That’s not it! Don’t just make stuff up like that!" Seiji waved his hand.
"I wasn’t making stuff up at all—both of you had such serious expressions on your faces; it seemed just like you were about to declare your upcoming marriage."
"We haven’t even gone out with each other yet!"
"You don’t need to go out with each other to get married, as long as there’s been a physical relationship..."
"There hasn’t been a physical relationship either!"
"Then, marriage can also be decided by your parents."
"That’s enough!"
Seiji didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The serious atmosphere from a few seconds ago had completely vanished, so he didn’t know how to continue.
Chiaki kept giggling.
Mika sighed. "It’s not marriage... it’s that Seiji and I now have a child together."
*Pfft!* Seiji choked once again, even stronger than last time.
Chiaki’s smile froze over. "C-child..." she stammered.
"Yes, she’s called Mashiro... Seiji came up with her name." Mika averted her gaze and her face reddened as if she was embarrassed.
‘Damn! Mika’s acting skills...’ Seiji was stunned. 'Just where did she learn such acting skills from!? You’re making it seem too real!‘
‘Did you actually secretly practice acting? I was just making it up when I said you wanted to join drama club; it wasn’t real, was it!?’
Chiaki was also stunned.
She was unable to take in what Mika just said, but Mika’s words and actions... truly astounded her!
She felt as if she was seeing a completely new side to her good friend.
This was the second time in a short while since yesterday.
‘Mika... just what did you experience!?’