After working on edits for half an hour, Utaha stretched and rolled her neck before glancing at Ichin, who was seated in his office chair.

"Hey, Ichin, I just remembered... I think we're out of groceries at home. What are we doing for dinner?"

"Hm? Dinner?"

Ichin paused from reviewing the program and thought for a moment before replying, "How about we eat out tonight? Didn't Auntie mention yesterday that they were planning to wait for Uncle after work and have dinner out together?"

"Oh, right, so we can't go freeload off them," Utaha nodded. She minimized her document window and opened a browser. "Then I'll look for something tasty nearby. Maybe there's a couple's set menu or something."

"Those aren't always good, though."

"It's fine, I'll just take a look."

The idea of going out for dinner had Utaha visibly excited—she was already in the mood to find a nice, cozy restaurant.

After about ten minutes of browsing, she did find something.

"There's one! Ichin, there's a newly opened western-style restaurant in Ginza. Let's go try it! It looks super fancy!"

"Oh yeah?"

Ichin got up and walked over to Utaha's side, looking at the restaurant's webpage and reviews.

"Looks decent. Alright, let's give it a try."

Whether the place was expensive or not didn't really matter to either of them anymore—taste was all that counted. And in a place like Ginza, even the cheap options weren't really "cheap."

With dinner plans settled, Ichin called the restaurant and was lucky enough to snag a reservation.

As their workday neared its end, the two left early. Since they were heading to a high-end western restaurant, they needed to stop home and change. Showing up in school uniforms just wouldn't cut it.

Noticing the couple leaving with their cat, Aoba asked curiously, "Ichin and Utaha left early today—do they have something going on?"

Yagami Kō yawned and glanced over. "No idea. They don't usually have much on their plate lately. The Todai interview stuff is all done, so they should be pretty free."

Stretching, she turned to Rin Toyama on her left.

"Rin, what are we eating tonight? I'm hungry."

Rin was finishing up the last of her work for the day and replied without even looking up, "Didn't we still have some beef at home? There's also some leftover veggies. I'll stew the beef and stir-fry a couple dishes. If you want soup, I can make tomato-egg soup—we've still got a few tomatoes lying around."

"Oooh beef~ But what if I want braised pork instead?"

"Then go buy it at the supermarket," Rin said, finally looking up at her. She never really refused Kō's food cravings. "We're running low on snacks anyway. Might as well restock while you're at it."

"Yay! I'll go tell Umiko. She can head home first—we'll go shopping!"

With that, Kō dashed off to the programming team, all pumped up.

By evening, everyone had wrapped up work and gone home for dinner.

Eriri, who hadn't come to the office today, was also sitting down for dinner—together with her mom, Sayuri Sawamura. As for her dad, unfortunately he had to work overtime again today. He still had two meetings to get through and wouldn't be back until around eight.

Just as Eriri was chatting with her mom about what had happened at school during the day, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out and saw that Utaha had sent a message to the group chat.

"Tch, that Utaha… isn't this just plain showing off? She's seriously getting more and more infuriating!"

Hearing her daughter grumbling, Sayuri Sawamura scooted over curiously and glanced at the phone screen.

The photo showed a luxurious Western-style dinner. With Sayuri's experience, she could immediately tell that the restaurant wasn't cheap.

Smiling, she said, "Oh? Looks like Ichin and Utaha are having a romantic candlelit dinner?"

"Pretty much," Eriri nodded, scrolling through the increasing number of messages in the chat. "They said they had no food at home, so they just went to try that new Western place in Ginza. That area's crazy expensive."

Eriri clearly remembered going to Ginza with her parents once for barbecue—ridiculously overpriced and not even that tasty.

Sayuri gently patted her daughter's head. "What, getting a little jealous?"

"Not really. I'm just annoyed she had to post it and flaunt it like that."

"Well, if you don't want to be outdone, why not go get yourself a boyfriend too? Then when you two go out for dinner, you can take photos and show them off to everyone."

"Ugh, no thanks."

Eriri shook her head without hesitation. "I'm not interested in finding a boyfriend. I'd rather spend that time honing my art skills. My current goal is to graduate high school, get into a good university, and prove myself at the company! Once the studio expands, I want to be the lead of the art team!"

Sayuri was genuinely pleased to see her daughter setting clear goals for herself.

Still, the fact that Eriri had no interest at all in dating left her a little conflicted. Sure, at seventeen it wasn't a big deal, but what if she stayed this way even in college?

After all, Sayuri had already been dating Eriri's father back in her university days. Why hadn't her daughter inherited any of that romantic instinct?

Looking at Eriri's bright, hopeful expression as she talked about the future, Sayuri simply shook her head and continued eating her dinner.

Soon, it was November.

Temperatures in Tokyo began to cool, and Ichin and the others had switched from their summer uniforms to autumn ones.

After afternoon classes, as they stepped out of the school building, a chilly wind blew past, making Utaha instinctively shrink her neck and cling tightly to Ichin's arm.

"I checked the weather this morning, but I still feel like I didn't wear enough."

"Let's just get to the car quickly. Once we're inside, it won't be cold."

As he spoke, Ichin looked up at the sky—it was overcast and gloomy.

"Looks like it's going to rain soon. The news this morning said the chance of rain in Tokyo today was pretty high."

Speaking of the afternoon, Utaha suddenly remembered and quickly pulled out her phone. "Eriri and Yukino are still at the clubroom. I should check if they brought umbrellas."

Good thing she did—one call later, it turned out neither of them had brought one.

They waited five minutes at the school entrance, and Eriri and Yukino came down, deciding to skip club activities and go to the company with Ichin and Utaha instead.

As they left the school and got in the car, the rain began to fall—accompanied by intermittent thunder.

"Yup, it's raining after all," Eriri said, watching the weather through the car window. "Glad we left. Otherwise, getting home would've been a pain."

"Uh, you're going to the company, not going home. What difference does it make if it's later?"

"It does make a difference. What if the rain stops later?" Eriri argued back.

Then, evening came—6 PM.

Outside, the rain was coming down harder than ever.

***

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