Arisu wore a strange expression. "Amamiya-kun, are you staying the night?"
"Yeah. After all, there's still a lot of preparation to do."
That wasn't what Arisu was concerned about.
She asked, "Was it Shirou who suggested staying the night? Or—"
"I'm the one who asked Shirou to stay here," Aoko replied indifferently.
"...Oh, is that so?"
Arisu Kyōnoji pressed her lovely lips tightly together.
So Shirou is going to stay in the mansion.
If I asked him... he definitely wouldn't refuse, right?
But...
Arisu was truly envious—envious that Aoko could say something like that so casually.
Of course she'll take him away from me.
Shirou had prepared dinner that day.
This wasn't actually his first time cooking at the Kuonji residence.
Arisu had already tasted Shirou's cooking several times, and even the ingredients used that evening were leftovers from two days earlier.
"Wow... It's delicious! I didn't know you could cook too, Shirou-kun!"
Aoko kept stuffing food into her mouth while lavishly praising the boy's Cooking Skills.
"It's just a personal hobby."
"That's amazing. When I lived here, dinner was either bread or takeout every day... If only you had been there back then, Shirou."
"I was only four years old back then. What did you expect a four-year-old to do for you?"
"Prepare three meals a day."
"I refuse!"
Aoko giggled and began reminiscing about the past.
Back then, dinner at the Kuonji residence had been handled in the most slapdash way imaginable.
There had been no fixed rule about who had to cook. They cooked when they felt like it and didn't when they didn't.
On top of that, the two of them had been very short on living expenses. There had even been times when they went an entire week without a proper dinner.
"I