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Yuri walked toward the station with Itsuki.
Along the way, she slowed her pace just a little, her gaze fixed on Itsuki’s back.
She recalled a moment from a year ago... when Itsuki had rejected a confession from a female student.
Itsuki had likely forgotten all about it by now, but in truth, they’d had a conversation back then that went like this:
“Hey. Why did you turn her down?”
“You know my family situation, right? I didn’t want to drag her into it.”
He was a man who considered others’ feelings to a fault.
Itsuki lived in poverty as it was. There was no way he could have scraped together money for dating expenses on top of that. He simply hadn’t wanted to embarrass the girl.
“Well then, what if the girl who confessed said she’d support you?” Yuri had asked out of pure curiosity.
Itsuki had chuckled before replying, “If someone told me that, I’d have no reason to refuse.”
To Itsuki, it had surely been nothing more than a joke.
But Yuri had taken those words to heart.
Before she knew it, that comment had become one of the reasons she’d worked so hard to hone her cooking skills.
Sigh... I wouldn’t have minded taking care of you.
But now he’d gone and grown up on her...
Having declared that he wanted to do everything he could on his own, Itsuki would likely never be content with the status of a man who was simply provided for.
His back looked much broader now than it used to.
Seeing it made her feel a little lonely, but it also filled her with pride.