I Was Sleep-Deprived at a Matchmaking Meeting and Ended Up Engaged - Chapter 14

“So, I got an energy drink with a coupon. I gave it to Shirakami-san, and we went to the amusement park.”

During lunch break the next day, Ayato shared that story.

Midori said, “An amusement park on a weekday. What an exhausting thing to do. The power of love is amazing.”

And Yuya said, “So in the end, are you giving that energy drink to someone else? Are you satisfied just by receiving it?”

Ayato said to Midori, “No, but Midori, you went to that mixer too,” and to Yuya, “The fun part is the process of receiving it.”

Why is everyone saying different things to me at once… I thought.

“So? How was it?”

“Huh?”

“The amusement park at night.”

Today, Midori, with her hair in a night-style roll, leaned forward.

“Well, every time we got on a ride, Shirakami-san would ask me one question after another.”

“Like what your favorite things are? Or where you’d like to travel?”

“No, after we went into the haunted house, he asked me, ‘Which company’s stamp is this? How can you tell?'”

“Why after the haunted house…?” Yuya muttered.

“When I told him, ‘If you long-press the stamp, you’ll find out,’ he said, ‘What an amazing feature! My anguish vanished in an instant!'”

“What anguish?”

“Who knows?”

“Then after we rode the Viking ship, he asked, ‘By the way, what was your intention when you sent that stamp?'”

“…Why would he ask that with such a meaningful pause?”

Ayato tilted his head. “Well…”

“When I said, ‘I meant to send a smiling stamp,’ he told me, ‘Your stamps are hard to understand.’ I explained, ‘I don’t really know how to buy stamps properly, so I don’t buy any. I keep meaning to ask someone, but it’s too much trouble.’ Then he said, ‘Me too.’ We got all excited, like, ‘We’re the same~!’ But after we got back, we ended up in this psychological battle, sending each other those vaguely expressive stamps we got from some company, trying to read each other’s minds.”

“…Why don’t you just buy them? Normal stamps with clear expressions.”

Midori said that.

“Speaking of which, Midori, was there anyone nice at the mixer?”

“Ah, Yoji-san was pretty good~”

“Wow. That’s great. There was a nice guy.”

“…Wait, isn’t he your friend?”

“Huh? Were my other friends there too? Maybe they were from my hometown group.”

“It’s Iiguro Yoji-san.”

“Oh, Iiguro. So, his name’s Yoji~”

She said that, and then, “…Are you really friends?”

Passersby, didn’t you introduce him to me? —she looked suspicious.

No, no, no! I hurriedly made an excuse: “At our school, we mostly call each other by last names without honorifics!”

Laughing, Yuya said, “You went all the way to the amusement park at night and talked about nothing even remotely romantic~”

But there was something Ayato didn’t tell the two of them.

At a café under the sparkling Ferris wheel, the two of them had a light dinner and drank cream sodas.

The conversation turned to Hamako and the mysterious woman, and Ayato said, “You’re popular, huh.”

“Does being popular have any meaning?”

“Huh?”

Yoshinori looked straight at Ayato and said, “If one person comes to like me, that’s enough, right?”

He’s unexpectedly pure, Ayato thought. It might be prejudice, but she had assumed popular guys wouldn’t think that way.

“I don’t know what you think of me. But I quite like you. If I could turn back time now.”

Yoshinori placed his hand over Ayato’s, which was resting on the slightly wobbly white round table, and gazed at her as he said, “Now, I’m confident I’d propose a matchmaking meeting on my own, not because I was forced to.”

Wait, he’s not confessing or anything!?

“But, um… Even if you say that now, you’ll probably get tired of me or start disliking me soon enough…”

“Well, if we live together for a long time, that might happen. But with you, even if I get a little annoyed, I’d still want to be with you.”

Please don’t get even a little annoyed with me… she thought, but feeling embarrassed, she sipped her cream soda. She sipped even though it was already gone, making a slurping sound.

She glanced up at Yoshinori. Ah, did I make him a little annoyed? she wondered, but Yoshinori was looking at her with a gentle smile.