They all have special skills

There are horizontal scale lines on it, drawn with crayons.

Ever since Yana saw Kyoko was little, she had always been shorter than Shimizukawa, but she had always hoped that one day she would grow taller than him.

So I often pulled him here to stand against the wall to record his height.

The red lines are hers, and the yellow lines are Qingshuichuan's.

As time passed, the height gap between them became wider and wider.

She gradually faced the reality and stopped insisting on comparing heights with him.

"Pfft...hehe..."

Qingshuichuan suddenly laughed.

"what happened?"

Yana asked in confusion as she placed the slippers in front of him.

"Sorry, it suddenly reminded me of our childhood."

"Eh? What's going on?"

"I think it's better not to say it. It's too rude."

"If you didn't want me to know, then don't show it in the first place. Now that I've discovered it... no matter what, tell me now!"

"Okay, but you have to promise me first that you won't retaliate after I say it."

"How could I be like that? Do you think I'm still a child?"

Now that he had received the guarantee, Qingshuichuan no longer kept the secret.

“Remember these tick marks?”

"Remember, I was comparing heights with you at that time, and I would pull you over to record it every once in a while.

Later I realized the gap between us was getting bigger and bigger, so I didn’t want to bother comparing myself with you anymore.”

"And not long after that, you compared other parts of your body with mine, claiming you were better than me. You even insisted I admit it, and even let me touch them. Do you remember?"

Speaking of this, Qingshuichuan couldn't help laughing again.

Seeing Xingna looking at him like this, Yana slowly reacted and cupped her hands over her breasts which were well developed for her age.

"That was all when I was little! You shouldn't remember it so clearly! I was completely ignorant back then, wasn't I?"

She tried to calm herself down by lecturing, but with little success.

Qingshuichuan was happy all the way from the entrance to her room on the second floor.

Yana saw that Xingna's face also turned red for a while before slowly returning to normal.

Logically speaking, they were so close at that time.

Why has it become like this now?

Humph... You already have me, but you ignored such a cute childhood sweetheart and insisted on running off to Tokyo. I don't know why you were mesmerized by those two thieving cats...

Yanami Anna's room is very girly, with soft pink sheets and quilt covers, a large dolphin doll against the head of the bed, and a furry carpet on the floor.

Qingshuichuan was quite familiar with everything in this room. After all, many of them were gifts he gave to the other party.

"Then let's not delay. I'll start my homework first. I'll ask you later if I encounter anything I don't understand. If you're not sure now..."

Just do something to kill time."

"Yeah, I understand."

Xingcai's father just went out.

Xingcai's mother also seems to often come home late because of her part-time job outside of work.

Knowing that there was no one else at Yanami's house.

Shimizukawa was quite relaxed, and as usual, he just lay down on Xingcai's bed, propped up her pillow under his chin, and started browsing his phone.

Seeing Kyoko looking at him like this, Yana took a deep breath and patted her face, banishing the horrible thought of herself pressing on him from behind from her mind, and began to concentrate on her homework.

There was nothing particularly difficult about the homework; she could figure it out if she thought about it more.

But in order to avoid exposing her previous excuse of inviting Qingshuichuan into her home, she deliberately left a math problem for Qingshuichuan to come and solve for her.

The boy's explanation posture next to her made her heart beat faster.

She could clearly feel that her childhood friend had become much stronger after returning this time.

She didn't like boys with strong muscles, but after this happened to Qingshuichuan, she felt that it seemed pretty good.

"...Finally, just plug in the formula here and you'll get the answer... Do you understand?"

"……Understood."

Yana saw that Xingcai nodded without saying anything in return.

Qing Shuichuan's action of putting down the pen and leaving made her floating girlish heart fall back to the ground, and the dreamy feeling was gone.

"That's about it. If you don't have any questions for me, I'll just..."

"Wait a minute, I haven't thanked you for today yet!"

"No, I'm just teaching you a math problem."

"No! Thank you for catching so many dolls today and giving them all to me!"

"... Xingcai, that was using your money."

"Thank you for that, too. Anyway... if I had done it alone, there would have been no way I could have caught so many dolls!"

This is true.

"Wait here for a moment, I'll get you a cup of tea."

After saying this, Yana saw Xingcai running out of the room without saying anything.

Coming to the living room, she took out some cookies from the cupboard.

As she made tea, she sighed wistfully.

They were not like this before.

In the past, if she wanted him to stay, she would just say it directly.

Now that I have grown up and become more sensible, many things have disappeared without me noticing.

When she returned to the room with biscuits and tea, she saw Qingshuichuan sitting beside her bed, looking at her old photo albums.

Fortunately... at least the relationship and distance between them did not change because of this.

"Looking at old photos, I just remembered that you used to be chubby and cute, Xingcai."

"Hmph~ I'm always cute~"

----

The time came to ten o'clock in the evening.

“…I went back.”

Qingshuichuan glanced at his phone.

I just got together with Xingcai to look at childhood photos and forgot how time passed.

But now, it's too late and I really have to go back.

"Um……"

Yana saw that Kyoko also knew that she couldn't keep him any longer.

However, this did not prevent her from setting up an opportunity to meet again later.

Shimizukawa stood up, and Yana saw Kyouna put the photo album back into the bookshelf on the desk.

With her back to him, she spoke,

"Well, if you have time, I'll treat you to something to eat at the snack street near the school after school tomorrow."

Shimizukawa originally wanted to refuse, but when he saw Xingna's back, the words he said meant the exact opposite.

"it is good."

He agreed very straightforwardly.

"Same as usual tomorrow, I'll pick you up from school."

"A word is settled!"

Looking at the girl's smiling face, Qingshuichuan stretched out his hand and gently clapped his hands with hers in the air.

"Well, it's a deal."

----

Shimizugawa leaves the Yanami family.

After leaving the gate, he turned around and looked up.

As expected, he smiled and waved to Xingcai who was standing by the window.

"See you tomorrow!"

She again looked forward to the confirmation.

"Well, let's go to bed early."

After saying goodbye, Qingshuichuan turned around and returned home.

The light in the living room was still on, so he walked over.

I saw my mother sitting on the sofa, watching TV and chatting on the phone with someone I didn't know.

After coughing slightly to make her notice that he was back, he went straight back to his room.

There are many prompt messages on the notification bar of the mobile phone.

He clicked them one by one.

Senpai and Eriri each had several unread messages.

Both of them asked when they would be back at around nine o'clock.

The senior student's most recent message was sent at around 9:40, saying that she would come to see him a little later today and that she had something to discuss.

Is there anything you have to talk about at night?

Qingshuichuan didn't know the answer, but he still replied to her and said he knew.

It will show as read soon.

Eriri also replied to the message, but it always showed as unread.

I don’t know if he has other things on hand or if he has fallen asleep.

After that, he clicked on a series of more than 20 messages from Takeya Iizuka.

This guy visited several high schools in Tokyo today and sent me some photos and provided some of his suggestions.

He had not known before that Qingshuichuan's grandfather wanted his grandson to return to his hometown to study.

But now that Grandpa Qingshui no longer insists, it doesn’t matter whether he knows this or not, and it doesn’t affect anything.

Come to think of it, now I can really consider which school to choose to attend next.

Good brother, this is a great help.

Qingshuichuan simply replied with a thank you and said he would treat him to a meal when he got back.

After he finished taking a shower, it was already ten forty.

After drying his hair with a hair dryer, his phone screen lit up again.

It was a message from Yanami Kyouna.

[Sorry, sorry, I suddenly remembered that I promised my friend to help out at her club after school these few days, so I'm sorry about the previous agreement...!]

A GIF of him sliding on his knees to apologize was also attached.

Qingshuichuan replied with a smile.