I really don't want to be reborn.

Kyosuke Kosaka, who considered himself quite tall, smiled as he looked at the girl throwing a tantrum in the shop: "Honoka, you're being picky again. How many times has this happened? Are green peppers really that bad?"

The fourteen-year-old girl is named Honoka Kousaka. This energetic girl is round in every way, no wonder she's called Honoka.

They weren't related, after all, the surname "Kousaka" is quite common, but thanks to the shared surname, he always got a discount when buying wagashi (Japanese sweets).

"Ugh... It's absolutely awful! I'd rather have a mouthful of almonds than eat green peppers."

"So what do you like? Girls usually like candy and cakes, right? After all, they like sweet things."

"Hehe!"

The fourteen-year-old girl laughed quite frankly: "I don't really like candy, I really like barbecue."

He squinted and said, "When should I take you to eat? At that barbecue restaurant across the street."

"Really?"

Honoka is a very energetic and lively girl. Under her mother's reproachful gaze, she ran behind him and gestured to compare their heights by touching the back of his head.

"Kyosuke, how tall are you?"

"Me? I'm as tall as a tree that's 1.69 meters tall."

"How tall is that... um, 1.69 meters?"

After asking about her height in a silly manner, the girl stretched her body. She had also pretended to have practiced kendo, and her balance and flexibility were very strong. At this moment, she lifted her back foot, like a ballet dancer gracefully tiptoeing—this description is not very good.

"Yeah, like a puppy peeing next to a fire hydrant."

That's a great description!

"Wow! That's nonsense! Guoguo doesn't look like that at all!"

The girl puffed out her cheeks and made a face at Kyosuke, but he wasn't angry. Instead, his smile deepened: "Kaka is so cute! Even cuter than my little sister was when she was little."

Anyway, these kinds of words don't cost anything, so saying them is always good.

After saying that, Honoka blushed and reluctantly went inside to eat. After all, the two were only a year or two apart, and the girl felt a strong sense of shame when the boy saw her acting childish.

Kyosuke felt that Kako really resembled a Kako, but he wondered which lucky man she would end up with.

When he talks about his time with the Kousaka sisters, he thinks of his younger sister, the one named Kirino.

how to say.

As the saying goes, "Comparison is the thief of joy," and compared to Honoka, Kirino seems rather willful, especially since she doesn't even act cute towards him anymore.

unhappy.

…………

Lunch was served in Central Park.

This is a place you can find on any tourist map here: a spacious park with fountains, benches, ponds, bridges, and a rose garden. The rose garden looks like something out of a Category III film…

The beautiful Western-style building that serves as the library around the park is quite spectacular and can be considered a landmark in the area. Elderly people often take walks along the tree-lined paths that surround the library's foundation.

In spring, the cherry blossoms bloom all at once, making it an excellent spot for flower viewing.

Now, the cherry blossoms have fallen to the ground.

The wildflowers by the roadside are still surviving tenaciously, their vibrant colors making them look like a group of kindergarten children, shouting loudly in their high-pitched, crisp voices.

How about hot green tea?

"good."

On a park bench, two people who looked like high school students were eating lunch. Kousaka Kyosuke ate half of the bento he bought from the supermarket, and then looked at Kasumigaoka Utaha with the look a pet would give its owner.

The girl put down her green tea and gave him most of the meat from her bento box. Her movements were very practiced, clearly not the first time she had done this.

"I'll ask you one more time, did you really make this bento?"

"What do you mean?"

Kyosuke frowned: "It's nothing special, but the taste is very good, extremely good."

Shiyu said expressionlessly, "So this shouldn't be something I made? Even if my cooking is terrible, it's still better than the bento boxes you buy at the supermarket."

It's not necessarily true.

"The Suguta bento is very good."

"What is that? Why haven't I heard of it before? Migu Goro? The Seven Stars Name Suguta Bento?"

He raised an eyebrow: "They sell them at the bookstalls in the train station. The cover has a cartoon pig on it, and I prefer the fried pork cutlet inside."

After saying that, he stared unsatisfiedly at the fried pork cutlet in Shiyu's box.

"...Here you go."

"Thank you very much. These are the wagashi (Japanese sweets) I bought. They're quite a good deal."

Kasumigaoka Utaha took the wagashi and watched his less-than-elegant eating manners. Her smile became slightly disordered, like ripples spreading across a calm lake, fleeting and ephemeral.

Just like in the department office, it was still the same two people today.

Love, like flattery, cannot tolerate the indifference of a third party.

Although their relationship remained ambiguous, sometimes close and sometimes even closer, they never actually came into contact.

She actually prefers this sense of distance.

Kasumigaoka Utaha enjoys occasional solitude; her heart is never fully open to anyone, though he can enter and even occupy the most important place within it.

But she needs her own corner.

This applies to friends, lovers, and even spouses.

The two finished their meal in silence. A spring breeze swept over them, mingling their breaths together in a warm and intoxicating way.

Kasumigaoka Utaha looked at him as if she were looking at cherry blossoms.

Noticing her gaze, Kyosuke looked up and raised an eyebrow at her questioningly: "What are you swooning over now?"

It was discovered!

The girl suppressed the urge to run home and hide under the covers, met his eyes and smiled, a smile that could reveal her dimples: "I see you look pale and thin, have you been having a hard time lately?"

Kyosuke Kosaka sighed softly, "It's a long story."

"It's okay, there's still plenty of time."

We can stay together for a long time.

--------

Look, this is a new copy.

Just like when a couple gets married or moves to a new house, is it customary to give a gift?

Where is your gift money?

That rose garden... cough, it seems to be quite obscure.

Chapter Two: This brother and sister are always so baffling.

Women are all fools.

She's exactly the kind of naive woman men hope for, no more, no less.

Kasumigaoka Utaha probably doesn't belong to that type. She doesn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out what men are thinking because she has her own things to do, her own hobbies, her own career, and her own field.

In terms of personality alone, this personality is actually quite suitable for Kousaka Kyosuke; that subtle sense of detachment symbolizes two intersecting but not overlapping circles.

The intersecting parts include not only the lightness of love, but also the heaviness of life.

That was heavier than the setting sun.

From the moment he was reborn, he only wanted light love and didn't want to carry heavy burdens, because Kyosuke Kousaka was tired.

I want to indulge myself a little.

"No marriage."

"I have no children."

"There's no other nonsense."

"I know that when the time comes, we'll go back to how we were before, just like Sisyphus paused for a moment to masturbate to the clouds in the sky. It's not a big deal, is it?"

"Anyway... it will all be reset in the end."

He escorted the girl home, and then walked back along the road as the sun set.

Let's ride the waves to the very end.

Hey, do you dare?

Kyosuke Kosaka seemed like a young man taking his girlfriend home. The smile on his face, which he used to hide his feelings, became vivid and slightly shy. Over the years, he had very little experience in dating.

Once a sensitive boy develops feelings of affection, it can become uncontrollable, like the irreversible blooming of cherry blossoms.

I hope that when I call you, you happen to be thinking of me.

I hope that when I say good morning, you'll be awake too.

I hope to write books that tell stories you will appreciate.

Pure emotion made his steps gradually lighter, and the anger that had been building up at home was released into the setting sun.

Kyosuke calculated the money he had left and the recent price fluctuations, and braced himself to quicken his pace, but was stopped at an intersection by a sudden ringing bell.

"Hey?"

"Hello……"

The voice on the other end was a woman's, with a hint of laughter—or rather, she was trying her best to sound like she was laughing: "Excuse me, how's your manuscript coming along?"

"..."

Kyosuke fell silent for a moment.

The other person continued, "It's about the short story I reminded you about last week, the one published in the magazine's issue. I think I should have told you that the submission date is... the day after tomorrow."

Ok?