Childhood Friend Heroine V2 Extra Story

Extra Story

“Hey, Saito, want to go see the cherry blossoms?”

It was on the way home one day, not long after they had started high school. Lily spotted a poster for nighttime cherry blossom viewing at the station platform and casually invited him along.

“What’s this all of a sudden?” Saito’s head filled with question marks at the out-of-the-blue invitation, but he quickly noticed the poster she was looking at. “Oh, I get it now. Now that you mention it, we haven’t gone flower viewing yet this year, have we? Sure thing. Let’s go right now.”

“Ah, wait up!”

Getting fired up, Saito took off running toward the opposite platform, and Lily hurried after him in a fluster.

After a thirty-minute train ride, the two arrived deep in the mountains, far from civilization. Unlike the cherry blossoms blooming at school, these were late bloomers—a sea of cherry blossom pink stretched as far as the eye could see. When a gust of wind blew through, the petals danced into the air, putting on a magnificent floral display.

“Whoa—it’s so pretty!”

“Mmph, mmph.”

While Lily’s eyes were captivated by the fantastical scene, Saito, standing next to her, was chomping away at a meat skewer he had bought from a food stall.

“…Seriously. You’re such a ‘dango over flowers’ kind of guy, Saito.”

Despite being just as amazed by the cherry blossoms when they first arrived, Saito was now completely absorbed in his food. Lily let out an exasperated comment, but he showed no signs of shame and shamelessly retorted, “What’s wrong with that? Flower viewing’s all about good food, isn’t it? Of course I’m gonna eat.”

“Well, I guess you’re not wrong.” Still, she couldn’t help thinking that since they had come all this way, he could at least appreciate the atmosphere a little more.

“C’mon, don’t make that face,” Saito said, probably noticing her unconvinced expression. “You should try some too, Lily. This stuff’s crazy good.” He held out the skewer he had been eating right in front of her.

“…Mmph. You’re right, it’s really good!” After a moment of hesitation, Lily reluctantly bit into the meat skewer. A flavor beyond her imagination spread through her mouth, and she voiced her praise without thinking.

“Right? They had all kinds of other stuff too, so let’s do a taste comparison.”

“Yeah. What other kinds of meat did they have?”

“Let’s see… There was tongue, chicken, pork belly—seriously, all kinds of stuff.”

In the end, Lily became just as captivated by the meat skewers, and the two of them ended up enjoying a food tour, completely ignoring the cherry blossoms.

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