So Utaha's mom and dad came to Tokyo. What the heck, and here I thought it was something huge.
It's just Utaha's parents coming to Tokyo to check on her.
It's just that she accidentally got tricked into revealing she's dating.
It's just that during dinner, she had to guard against her dad finding out the secret while enduring her mom's passive-aggressive stares and endless trap-laying.
It's not a big deal. If she knows, she knows... right?
Utaha's mom knows about him, and knows he's successfully gotten together with Utaha?
For a moment,
Miyahito suddenly felt a wave of panic, a guilty conscience as if he had just robbed a bank.
It seems, maybe, probably, likely.
His guilty conscience wasn't entirely unfounded... After all, in the eyes of Utaha's parents, he was most likely... no, definitely, seen as a smelly pig that had just escaped the pen and rooted up their family's prized cabbage!
Perhaps some wouldn't understand the severity of this.
Let's put it in perspective.
If you meticulously nurtured and cared for your crisp, juicy cabbage until it grew up.
And then, a pig of unknown origin came and rooted it up, eating it leaf by fresh, crispy leaf right in front of your face... If it were you, could you resist the urge to grab a knife and slaughter that pig?
"Then, since Auntie knows." Although Miyahito's worried gaze was somewhat evasive, he turned to Utaha, who was hugging his arm and sitting sideways on her knees beside him with a depressed expression, and asked with very little confidence.
"Should I buy something to apologize to Auntie? What do you think of Cartier jewelry? Or something else? Oh right, you said Auntie is a doctor. How about this? I'll give Kiyama a call. I know his mother is the director of Nippon Medical School Hospital. I'll have him transfer Auntie over? Yeah, she can head the newly established cutting-edge clinical technology department. That department is lacking a lead director."
"..." Utaha looked at her boyfriend, who was inexplicably planning how to curry favor with her mother, with completely calm eyes, feeling a mix of shame and anger in her heart.
Hmph! I'm your girlfriend! How can you plan and discuss currying favor with that woman right in front of me?
That woman was passive-aggressive to me the entire night! And as my boyfriend, your head is entirely filled with how to please her?
No! Unacceptable! I won't allow it!
Besides, what are you even thinking... Why do you need to apologize to my mom just for being with me?
Do you think my choosing to be with you is a mistake in my parents' eyes?
"Eh? Utaha?" Staring blankly as his girlfriend inexplicably got angry and pulled at his clothes in annoyance, Miyahito, who hadn't processed it yet, asked with some confusion, a bit of fear, and caution.
"Did I say something wrong? Or would Auntie not like this arrangement?"
However, it wasn't hard to imagine why Utaha's mom would dislike it.
After all, from the classic stories Utaha usually told him about her parents' personalities, Miyahito had gradually built up a solid image of her family in his mind.
So, as a mother and a pillar doctor at her hospital, Utaha's mom would definitely despise and dislike such a blatantly arranged plan.
However, the increasingly strange look Utaha gave him didn't seem to convey that.
"Sigh..."
"!?"
W-what does this mean now?
"Forget it." Looking speechlessly at Miyahito, who looked completely stunned, Utaha shifted from crossing her arms to half-hugging him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She rubbed her face against his collarbone tiredly and muttered softly.
"Mom isn't the problem. She doesn't oppose me being with you."
Eh~ eh!
Catching Miyahito's gradually widening grin out of the corner of her eye, Utaha huffed and interrupted his excitement.
"The problem is my dad."
"Uncle... huh?" Hearing Utaha mention her father, Miyahito then remembered the things she had told him about her dad.
"Yeah." Seeing Miyahito fall into deep thought again, Utaha raised her right index finger and lightly poked his cheek. "You've basically cleared the Mom stage. She already told me to prepare and bring you home to meet her."
Speaking of this, Utaha also remembered something.
That is, she not only needed to mentally prepare to bring her boyfriend home, but also prepare to visit her boyfriend's house to meet his parents.
And she didn't have much time to prepare.
After all, for Miyahito, who had long been honest about their relationship with his parents, Utaha was the only one whose mother knew about it until now. What she did was somewhat unfair to her boyfriend.
Thinking about it, seeing Miyahito racking his brains but failing to come up with a good plan to face her father, Utaha thought for a moment and spoke.
"How about I try to persuade Dad first? Then, Miyahito, you can come home with me?"
"Mm..." Casually agreeing, Miyahito shook his head the next second and explained, "Leave the persuading to me."
"Once you're ready, just mention the visit to your uncle. That's enough."
"....Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Alright then."
Utaha lowered her head slightly, still looking a bit gloomy.
Seeing this, Miyahito turned around to face her. Reaching out, he gently cupped her face and lifted her lowered head, asking curiously.
"Why do you still look so unhappy?"
".....Nothing." Utaha 'stubbornly' averted her gaze from her boyfriend, her voice lacking confidence but feigning a tough attitude.
"You're still saying nothing." Miyahito chuckled and lightly scraped the tip of her nose with his finger, coaxing her with a doting smile. "You've practically written 'I'm unhappy! Coax me!' all over your face."
Flustered and angered, Utaha swatted away his mischievous hand on her face. Putting on a cold, aloof expression, she said coolly.
"I did not!"
"You did."
"I did not!"
"You did!"
"I said I didn't!"
"I said you did!"
"I didn't, didn't, didn't, didn't..."
"You did, did, did, did..."
Clearly, neither Miyahito nor Utaha were idiots in the eyes of others.
But right now, the two of them, who had inexplicably started bickering, looked incredibly childish no matter how you looked at it.
"I so didn't!"
"Mmph mmph mmph"
"If you can't speak, I'll take it as an admission! So, I! DID! NOT!"
"Mmph mmph mmph~"
"Pwah! Utaha, you're cheating! Who blocks the other person's mouth with a kiss during an argument?!"
"Hmph, now you've experienced it!"