The young man bent down and chuckled softly. "Really?"
"That's wonderful."
"Yaya, you did great."
The child smiled even more happily.
The woman didn't quite understand why the child was so happy that she'd returned to the classroom and hadn't been scolded by the teacher...
What was there to make her so happy?
It was already time for school to let out... wasn't it?
Was the teacher...
Usually the kind of teacher who reprimanded students at the slightest thing?
Noticing the woman's gaze, the teacher paused.
She seemed to sense what the woman was thinking.
She explained, "I asked Yaya to wait in the classroom for her parents to come pick her up."
"I had to step away for a while."
"Maybe Yaya got bored and went out to play with her friends."
"She happened to run into me on her way back."
"Yaya probably felt guilty because she hadn't listened to me and stayed in the classroom..."
Oh.
So that was it.
The woman nodded.
She looked at the child in surprise.
Actually, this child was quite good at sitting still.
And she listened to her teacher, too.
She hadn't expected...
That this child would sneak out to play.
The woman looked at the two children peeking over from not far away.
A smile appeared in her eyes.
Was it because she had friends with her?
"Did your friends stay with you on purpose?"
The woman bent down and asked the child.
Normally, the students would have left school long before this.
The child nodded.
Mm-hm.
The short-haired girl and the girl with the ponytail had stayed with her while she waited for her parents.
"They're such good friends."
The woman smiled and patted the child's head.
"Yaya, make sure you