Chapter 2.4 (2/2)

“Sorry, sorry, it’s sweet and delicious! Don’t sulk, Takuya-kun,” Mamizu said, hastily holding my hands back as I tried to take the plate away from her.

In the end, saying this and that, Mamizu ate the whole portion that I’d given her.

“Delicious, wasn’t it?” I said with a triumphant look.

“Takuya-kun, you’re a cooking genius, aren’t you!” said Mamizu.

When she went that far, it actually sounded more like a lie.

“Come to think of it, what’s your cup size, Mamizu?” I asked suddenly.

Mamizu responded with a good punch. “What do you think you’re asking all of a sudden?”

“I just wanted to know.”

“That’s private information.”

“Then what about your body weight?”

“I don’t know.”

“Blood type?”

“It’s a secret.”

“No, your blood type should be fine, right?”

“… O.”

“Foot size?”

“24.”

“So huge.”

“That’s standard, isn’t it! It’s normal!”

Mamizu got angry, so I decided to leave it at that and go home.

I got home and decided to eat the remaining cake with my mother.

“Your father doesn’t like sweet things, does he. But to think that you’d make a cake. What is it?” My mother asked.

“It’s a strawberry tart cake,” I replied as I put the cake onto plates.

My mother brought forks and quickly put a piece of cake in her mouth. “What is this, didn’t you get the amount of sugar in the recipe wrong?” she complained with a sour look on her face.

There’s no way… I thought as I tried the cake myself.

“It’s sweet!” I thought my tongue was going to be torn off. “I’m surprised she could eat this…” I accidentally said aloud.

“She?”

“No… it’s nothing.”

Averting my eyes from my mother, I saw Kamenosuke in the water tank in the corner of the living room, yawning. So, turtles yawn, I thought.

“Say, Mom. Do you think Kamenosuke would eat cake?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t, would he?”

I had a feeling that he wouldn’t, but I decided to give him some to see. I split a piece of cake with my fork and tried putting it in Kamenosuke’s tank.

“Hey, don’t do that,” my mother said. “What will you do if he gets a stomach-ache?”

After we observed for a while, Kamenosuke finally showed interest in the cake.

Would he eat it?

Would he not eat it?

With a snap, Kamenosuke put the cake in his mouth.

And then he spat it out.

I was disappointed.

“It’s too sweet, after all,” my mother said as if sympathizing with Kamenosuke, and then she went to the kitchen to wash the dishes.

A short while later, when I went to Mamizu’s hospital room, she had applied pink manicure to her nails for some reason.

“Oh, what’s the occasion today? Is a guy you fancy coming to visit?” I asked, approaching her while keeping the thing I was holding hidden behind my back.

“That’s right, Benedict c.u.mberbatch is coming to visit after you, Takuya-kun,” she said.

“You like Benedict c.u.mberbatch…?” It was a taste that I couldn’t understand at all.

“Ah, the same hospital room and the same view every day, it’s so boring,” Mamizu complained.

“Even if you say that, it can’t be helped, can it?”

“Well, that’s true. Ah, that’s right. Hey, I feel sorry for Kamenosuke,” Mamizu said suddenly. “Spending his whole life in a water tank. He’s just like me. I want to show him the sea at least once,” she said, sounding somewhat emotional.

Even if you say that, I thought. Her words could have been considered to be denying the very concept of pets.

“Actually, Takuya-kun, you’ve been hiding something behind your back this whole time. What is it?” Mamizu asked.

“Now that you mention it, this was lying on the ground over there,” I said, handing her something. It was a bright-white s...o...b..x.

“That’s the worst way in the world of giving a present to someone if you’re trying to make them happy,” she said a little angrily, as if she was actually in a bad mood. She opened the box. “No way. How, how, how?”

Mamizu took out the contents of the box and gazed at them as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

She was holding a pair of red high heels.

They were the exact same product of the exact same brand that was in the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the magazine that she had been reading. I’d looked and found them in a department store.

“These are the ones that I really, really wanted.”

“Try them on,” I said.

“Can I?” Mamizu looked at me with slightly shy-looking, upturned eyes. Seeing her face like this was new to me.

With her heart obviously pounding, she slipped her foot into one of the high heels. Would they look good? Would they fit? Was it really alright for her to wear them? She looked as nervous as Cinderella.

“Wow, it fits perfectly. How? That’s amazing. Takuya-kun, can you read my mind?”

It wasn’t just the size; the shoe really matched Mamizu’s slender, white foot.

“I asked you your size the other day,” I said.

“Ah!” Making an expression as if she’d just remembered, Mamizu looked at me with surprised eyes. “Not bad at all, Takuya-kun.”

“I suppose.”

Mamizu put on both of the high heels and sat on the bed, swinging her legs up and down. “Ah, I want to take a purikura,” she said, gazing at the ceiling with an ecstatic expression on her face. “It’s nothing to do with the things I want to do before I die, I just want to take a purikura.” She jumped off the bed. “I was a middle-schooler when I was hospitalized. I went from a child to an adult in this hospital,” she said.

It was questionable as to whether someone in their first year of high school was an adult, but I kind of understood what she was trying to say, so I didn’t feel like interrupting her.

“I’m going to try walking around a little, okay?”

Mamizu extended her back and started walking around the hospital room with good posture. She disappeared for a moment beyond the entrance to the shared room, and when she came back, she had completely become a model in a fas.h.i.+on show. I couldn’t help but laugh. She put a hand on her hips and spread her legs apart a little, striking an impressive pose.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. What do you think?” she asked.

I applauded, laughing. Mamizu gave a slightly embarra.s.sed smile.

And then she returned to the side of the bed where I sat, and softly whispered into my ear. “I’m a D.”

Now it was my turn to be embarra.s.sed.

Not knowing how to respond… I applauded once more. Mamizu laughed.

When I returned home, I lay down in front of Meiko’s butsudan as usual and opened the leisure magazine that I’d brought back. I’d remembered that if Mamizu’s inspection results were good, we’d go somewhere together. I was flipping through the pages, looking for somewhere we could make a day trip to, when my phone vibrated.

> The inspection results came out. They weren’t good at all

It was a message from Mamizu.

I quietly put the magazine in the trash.

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