I ran up to her and asked:
"Can I talk to you for a bit?"
"Eh?"
Sakurai made a surprised expression when I told her those words. She also looked confused. Right now, she must be wondering why I would call her out all of a sudden.
"Want to eat dinner in my house again? I'd like to talk to you about something while we eat."
"Umm, Inoue-san... are you asking me out on a date?" She said in a cold. And I felt those cold words pierced through my body.
"No no no, you're wrong. I just want to talk to you about something." I quickly refused her suspicions, but that wasn't enough, as a hint of suspicion was left behind her that can be seen by the face she was making.
My social skills are poor as always. I admit, I worded that horribly.
Still suspicious of why I would ask her that, I invited her to my house for dinner, which she accepted. I guess she was already sure that I won't be able to do anything bad to her as that would ruin my life in school.
We entered my house together for the third time now, and it's still as messy as before. Piles of books were scattered around and crumbled paper was spread out.
"How could your house be this dirty? This wasn't like this yesterday when we ate dinner together. And didn't I clean your house when I came here on Friday?"
"Well... I have no excuses. I'm a messy teenager who is just too lazy to clean up his own mess."
I couldn't make up any excuse that was convincing enough, so I just surrendered and confessed that I'm just too lazy.
"You say that, but you always keep your kitchen clean."
"Well, that's because if I don't clean it up, it'll smell really bad. I only clean up really important things. For example, if I spilled something on the floor, I'll spend minutes trying to clean it up. But when it's just clean paper and books, then I won't bother." I explained.
"Inoue-san... you're weird, you know?" she said.
"Yeah... I get that a lot."
After our bizarre conversation about me being a germaphobe, I told her to sit down on the couch and wait for dinner. I went to the kitchen and heard her talk to me.
"So why do I have to eat dinner with you?" she asked.
"I'm already taking up your time, so I might as well feed you, and I wouldn't want the prettiest girl in school to only eat ramen for an entire week. Do you not want to eat something other than ramen?"
"Well... I'd gladly eat dinner with you."
"Good, just wait for 15 minutes, I'll make something quick.'
After I said this, she nodded and opened her phone. It looked like she was chatting with her 'friends' from school. I then started cooking.
I decided to make omurice as it is relatively easy to make. I asked her if she likes her eggs runny and she said yes.
I decided to make it using a demiglace sauce instead of ketchup. I made the rice part by putting rice, demiglace, chicken and other things and fried it. And the egg part was pretty easy. The tricky part is forming its shape.
I already put the rice on a plate and shaped it. After cooking the egg, I put it above the rice and cooked the second one and put it onto the second plate.
I cut open the omelette and the runny egg spread out and covered the rice. I then put in some extra sauce on the top and called her to the table.
She sat down on the chair and looked at the omurice intensely. Out of nowhere, she took out her phone out and started to take pictures of the food.
"You post food pictures?"
"Nope, it just looked so good that I had to take a picture of it."
"Hehhh..."
After taking the pictures, she finally hid her phone again and got ready to eat.
We started eating, and I watched at Sakurai as she ate, expecting some sort of reaction from her. After taking a bite of the omurice she stayed quiet for a bit. I was kind of disappointed because she didn't react, until she suddenly smiled and said:
"Delicious." she said with a pure, innocent smile, proving that she really does deserve the title of 'the prettiest girl in our school'.
"Glad you like it."
These words just naturally came out from my mouth alongside a small grin. Realising that we were both smiling unconsciously, we immediately stopped looking at each other.
After a few seconds of awkwardness, I broke the ice and asked her the question I've been meaning to ask for a while now.
"If you want, I can cook lunch and dinner for you every day."
Hearing this, she was surprised. I also realized that this sounded like a confession. But it seems like Sakurai didn't notice this and just said:
"Really? If you don't mind, then I'd like to accept your proposal. But I feel like I keep pilling up favors from you...'
"Hmm, that's true... how about you teach me history for midterms?"
"Eh? Are your grades low, Inoue-san?" she asked
"Not really, but I want to make sure I get decent grades."
"I see..."
She accepted my offer. We decided that she will start teaching me history at the start of the third week this month.
"Oh yeah, can we register each other's contact?"
"Sure, here's mine"
After that we registered with each others contact. I started at my phone and saw her name alongside 3 other people. The only ones registered are my mom, dad, Kento, and now Sakurai.
We then started planning on how I'll give her lunchbox. Our plan is that she will come here everyday on weekdays at 7 am, 1 hour before school starts to get her lunch box and that she would come here at 6 for dinner. And for weekends she'll come here at 12 for lunch.
After deciding on our schedule, we continued to eat. After we finally finished eating, she left and went back home.
"Bye Sakurai."
"Yeah see you tomorrow."
After that, she finally left the house. I cleaned up the kitchen and went to my bed to read some novels. But something was stuck inside my mind.
It was Sakurai's face, smiling after taking a bite of my food.
I just brushed it off, thinking that it was probably just because I was glad that she liked my food.
But soon, I will realise that at that moment, something started between us. And that thing will forever change my life.