Episode 1 – A princess from next door came over

“Can I have some?”

I am unable to sort out the phenomenon that is happening in front of me right now.
The person in front of me was smiling elegantly, as if she didn’t care about my concern.

–I was so happy to see a beautiful girl whom I had never met before in my room.

I remembered that my mother had called me before I came home and told me, quite happily, that an acquaintance was coming to greet me and that I should treat her politely.
No doubt, it was this person.

The person in front of me appeared just as I was changing into my casual clothes.

Her long, light-colored hair was glossy, and she had layers of angel rings that I had only seen in commercials.
Her well-defined face was intelligent and rational, yet had a mysterious charm that made me feel her charm.
She is also well styled and is probably one of the tallest girls.

If I had to describe her in one word, I would say that she is a princess.
She has no flaws.
That was my first impression.

“I think aunt contacted you today ……. It’s Ayado Saara, who just moved in next door.”

Indeed, it was the same name my mom had given me.
However, the only information I was given was the last name.
She definitely hid her name because she magined me being surprised…

“Sora kun, right?”
“Eh, ah, yes. Iida Sora is correct.”
“……, we’re the same age, it would be weird if we were so formal, right?”

I just found out that information too.
To be honest, as someone who rarely talks to girls at school, I can only be puzzled by the distance I’ve never experienced before.　

“I’m going to have to go up then, okay?”

I nodded my head blankly, completely caught up in the momentum of the moment and the unintelligibility of the situation.
She’s really aggressive, this princess.

Ayado san came up to the room and spread the baggage she brought on the four-person table.
Next to a circular cookie was a small jar of paste for dipping.

Finally, she brought out an amber-colored liquid in a bottle with a pattern resembling a tortoise’s shell.
……Hey, come on, are you serious?
If we’re the same age, we’re both sophomores in high school.

Ayado san, in ‘commemoration of our meeting,’ quickly poured the drink straight into a glass on the rocks using the kitchen stuff, and opened the seal of the cookie.
I wonder if she’s playing around with this one as much as I thought she would.

“You’re not eating?”
“No, ……, it’s just, you know, everything’s happening so fast.”
“Mou, come on, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Ayado san then takes a piece of cookie from her hand and puts it directly into the jar.
Inside, I wondered if it was avocado or some kind of cheese dip.
It looked fashionable in its whitish green color in the jar.

Her thin, white fingers picked it up and held it out in front of me.
I looked at her and saw her leaning forward from the table.
I-Is this ……?

“Open your mouth?”

I knew it, just as I thought, it was ‘ahhh’!
This girl is trying to feed me directly.
Even though no one was watching, this was embarrassing. I mean, what’s really going on with the sense of distance between us, this princess I’ m meeting for the first time?

Where in the world did my mother meet this girl?

“What’s wrong? It’s going to stick to your face if you keep it up. Did you prefer being a pie thrower in the face by any chance?”
“Of course not—Mmggg”
“There’s a gap.”

Ayado san suddenly said something strange, so I opened my mouth to argue with her.
She took perfect aim at that moment and shoved a cookie into my mouth at once.

Undeniably, I had to chew the thing in my mouth.
It was indeed the first time in my life, except for my mother in my childhood, to be fed by a girl with an ‘ahh’.

In my mouth, the rich taste of the avocado dip was —-.

“—- Wasabi pickles, here.”

Wasabi pickles.

It is one of the traditional Japanese foods based on wasabi and sakekasu.
It is a simple combination of wasabi root or stem and sakekasu, a kind of Japanese version of tartar sauce.

It comes in a very Western-style jar, but it’s completely Wasabi-zuke (pickled wasabi).
I didn’t notice it because it has more liquorice and is more green in color.
Although it has a strong habit, I used to like it and eat it from time to time ……, but now the container and the taste are so mismatched that my head is panicking.

The cookies underneath are not wheat crackers, but rice crackers.
I couldn’t tell because I took it out of a box of plain commercial biscuits, but it is a rice cracker product with the contents completely swapped out.

The thin white rice crackers went well with the wasabi pickles.
I guess they were prepared for this combination from the beginning.

“Which means that ……”

I slurp the drink from the glass in my hand with some caution.
The amber liquid, chilled on the rocks, does not burn my throat with its strong alcohol.

It’s barley tea.

It’s just barley tea in a square bottle of a major whiskey maker’s whiskey bottle.
Does that mean she went to the trouble of making an empty bottle, filled it with barley tea, and brought it with her?
It was such an elaborate prank that I was completely fooled.

All of the visual information on the food is Western, but the information that appeals to the sense of taste is perfectly Japanese.
To my surprise, only the taste is very good. It’s just that I’m panicking.
All I could do was tilt my head thoughtfully.

Did the princess in front of me prepare this on purpose?
What are you doing, shaking your shoulders like you’ve just pulled a prank?
Give me back my first impression of you as a tomboy princess.

— Suddenly, a childhood memory appears in my mind.

It was not a sudden recollection of the past ……, but rather the memory suddenly appeared as if it was associated with the smile in front of me, ‘Oh, I remember that.’

I know this smile.

“Are you ………… possibly an ayato?”
“I’m not Ayato, I’m Ayado.”

I had heard this same line ten years ago.