(Side) Chapter 42.5

~Yuriko's first friend report~

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It was halfway through the afternoon, and Yuriko had just returned home after her brother, Nanami Hayato, had come to pick her up at school. After she hurriedly took of her outdoor shoes, she immediately began running inside the house, searching for her mother

"Mama! Mama!"

"Uwah! Y-Yu-chan! D-don't scare me like that"

Yuriko hugged her mother's waist with a big smile on her face, while Nanami Kagayaki, or how everyone (just the family members) called her Kaga, had at first a stiff expression from her surprise, but quickly changed to a small smile when she looked at her daughter, then she went back on retrieving the dried clothes as she asked Yuriko about her day

"So, Yu-chan? How was your day?"

"I made two friends!"

"Eh?! R-Really?! Ah! W-we need to commemorate it!"

"We will?!"

"Yes!"

"Erm… Mom, do we really need to commemorate Yu-chan making friends?"

Hayato asked his mother if they really need to commemorate that since it brought the embarrassing memories of when Kagayaki commemorated his achievement of making friends for the first time. So if possible he wanted to avoid having to re-experience that again

"Of course, we need to! It's not always that we make friends!"

"No, no! Making friends is super easy all you need to do is- Ah!"

Hayato who was about to argue against his mother's reasoning stopped before he could say any more since Kagayaki was now starting to tear up as she made a depressed face. The reason for it was simple, Hayato accidentally hit right where it hurled the most in Kagayaki, and that was the fact that to this day she had trouble speaking to people, to the point that she even had some trouble speaking with her own husband from time to time. So for her, the fact that her children had friends when she herself barely talked to other people, was something to be commemorated

"I-I-I understand… T-There's no w-way that a-anyone w-would like t-to c-c-c-commemorate s-something with me…"

"… … … Y-Yay… Yu-chan made two friends today…"

" "…" "

With a heavy feeling of guilt, Hayato raised one of his hands in a fist and said so in a monotone voice, making Yuriko and Kagayaki look at him in silence. That only made Hayato slowly feel embarrassed for doing that, but his action did pay off right after that, as the mother and daughter duo quickly formed big smiles on their faces, which only made Hayato make a sour face from feeling things he didn't want to feel a second time

-

Some time later

-

The sound of the front door opening and then closing could be heard, and the image of a very manly and handsome-looking man in a business suit could be seen

"Hm?" *Sniff sniff*

The man took off his shoes, and walked further inside his house until he could see the dining table filled with food, that it could be called a banquet. Which did make the man's face show a quite surprised expression

"Hm? Ah! M-M-Minato-san?! Eh. Ah! W-Welcome, home. D-D-D-De-de-de-dear"

"… Yes, I'm home. So… What are you commemorating?"

"Ah! T-That's right! Yu-chan made two friends today!"

"O-Oh! OH! I see I see"

Nanami Minato, Yuriko and Hayato's father and Kagayaki's husband, walked closer to the dining table, and once he was close enough to his son, he patted one of his son's shoulder

Both father and son had the same desire of never wanting to experience this scene again, while both mother and daughter were both happily smiling together, which only made it harder for the two men to leave since they would feel a lot of guilt from refusing to participate in that banquet

.

.

.

"…"

"? What's wrong, Yuriko?"

"… Nothing, I just remembered something from when I was a kid"

Yuriko had a trembling smile as she blushed from having remembered a pretty embarrassing memory

-

~Takeru's childhood~

When Takeru was 7 years old

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"Muahahahaha! You're never going to defeat me, crimson witch of the golden order!

"That's what we're going to see!… … … Erm… (What was it again?)"

"*Whisper* It's The Warrior of the forbidden ice eye"

"(Ah! Right!) Ahem… That's what we're going to see! Warrior of the ice eye… I mean, forbidden ice eye!"

"Kuahahahaha! That's what we shall see!"

"…"

Takeru was watching his older brother and sister shouting nonsense at each other, and his face showed the expression of someone already fed up with their stupidity. So not wanting to be associated with his two chunni siblings, Takeru turned and began walking away towards the playground, just as his brother, Tanaka Hideo, pulled out a secret weapon

"Prepare yourself, witch! Against my new weapon, the Disk of destruction!"

And then Hideo threw a Frisbee towards his sister, Tanaka Akari, but unexpectedly for the two, the frisbee made a wide turn to the right and was now going directly towards… Takeru

"Guah!"

" "Ah!" "

And it hit him on the back of his head at full force, which caused Takeru to lose his balance and fall head down on the ground. While the two siblings could only make surprised faces similar to a particular game franchise mascot

" "…" "

The two stood still as they looked at Takeru slowly getting himself back up, then right after getting up, he turned to look at his siblings with a very angry face while there were tears in his eyes. Seeing him like that, only made Hideo and Akari prepared themselves to run, since they knew that Takeru's fuze was really short

" " "…" " "

For a moment the three stayed silent, but the silence was quickly broken, when…

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

" "Uwaaaaaaaahhh!! Run! Ruuuuun! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!" "

Takeru began chasing after his older brother and sister, while the two began running away from him. The initial distance between Takeru and his two siblings slowly shortened, since he was the fastest of the three, but…

"Arf arf huff huff…"

Takeru also had the worst stamina, while his siblings had a lot of stamina, meaning that the distance between him and the two started to increase again as Takeru began to lose gas. Which was then followed by it shortening again as Takeru forced himself to run more through sheer rage toward his brother and sister

"Aaaaaaaaahhhh! He's getting closer! He's getting closer! Do something Hideo!"

"And what I'm going to do? Takkun is going to beat my ass if he gets me!"

"And he'll do the same to me if he gets me! Aaaaaaahhhhh!"

"Aaaaaaaahhhhh! *Gasp* Climb that tree Akari! Quick!"

Then out of desperation, Hideo and Akari both began to climb a pretty big tree, and they both stopped at two different branches that were safely out of reach from Takeru's hands, and for a moment Hideo's plans appeared to have worked, as Takeru stopped chasing after them as just stared at them from below

"… Do you think he's going to climb the tree?"

"I hope he doesn't… Hm?… … … *Makes a surprised despairing face*"

Then just as Hideo feared, Takeru began to climb the tree with the intention of reaching him, since he was on a lower branch

"Akari! Prepare yourself! On three!"

"G-Got it!"

" "…" "

As they both waited for Hideo's order, the two looked at Takeru slowly getting closer to them, and when Takeru finally put a hand on the branch that Hideo was using and began to climb it. Hideo opened his mouth…

"Three!"

And he and Akari both jumped down from the tree, and safely landed on the ground, and then they both started running away from the tree, leaving Takeru there

"…"

When Taker looked at the two running away again, he decided to go after them again, but this time there was one problem… He was now stuck on the tree, and when he looked at the distance that he was from the ground, he began to feel fear of getting down by himself

"Haa… Haa… Haa… … … Huh? Where's Takkun?"

"Hm? Isn't he behind us?"

"No"

" "… … …" "

"Wait, don't tell me that he's…"

"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

When Hideo and Akari heard a very familiar voice shouting in a very teary tone, they both felt their bodies turning cold. Because for them, a crying Takeru was their biggest fear since it would always mean that… Their mother would get angry at them for either letting Takeru get into a dangerous situation or getting Takeru to cry because they accidentally got him into a situation that caused him to feel pain or scared

So the two rushed back to the tree, and saw Takeru stuck on the branch as he cried, and seeing that situation, Hideo and Akari could only do one thing… Panic a lot

"W-w-w-w-what do we do?! We need to get him out of there before mom comes!"

"H-How about one of us climb there, and try to pick him?!"

"He's going to start trying to hit us for getting him up there the moment we get close to him!"

"Kuh! You're right! Aaaaaaaaahhhh!! I don't know what to do!"

"Me neither! Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!"

"OI! What the hell did you two do?!"

" "Ah!" "

And then the last person they wanted to see appeared, the mother of the three siblings, Emily Tanaka, or in this case Tanaka Emily. At first, she only had noticed the two screaming, but with her appearance, Hideo and Akari turned silent, leaving only Takeru to loudly cry, which caused her to notice it

"Huh? ?! Why is Takkun on a tree?!"

"Erm… Hmm… W-We were just playing around…"

"A-And then we… ended up Takkun get angry us… And we tried climbing the tree to escape from him…"

"And he ended up climbing after us…"

"So you two both got and let him get into that situation"

" "… Noooo… Yes…" "

"… After I get him down, you two will be in deep trouble"

"D-D-Don't worry, mom! That branch is totally safe!"

*Crack*

Right after Hideo said that the sound of something breaking could be heard, and when they looked at the source, all they could do was watch the branch breaking and falling with Takeru

*Crack* *Thud*

"…" (x4)

"… UWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!"

"TAKERU?!"

Because of the pain caused by his fall, Takeru began to cry even more while Emily rushed towards him to aid him and see if he had gotten any serious injury. As for Hideo and Akari, the two could only stand still as rivers of tears began to fall from their eyes, since they knew what would be coming for them later because Takeru's short fuze was inherited from their mother

.

.

.

When Takeru was 9 years old

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*Phone ringing*

A phone on top of a desk could be heard, and just a moment after it started ringing, a hand picked it up and connected to the call

"Hello, this is Tanaka Emily… What?… Takkun got into a fight?!"

-

Some hours later

-

Emily was running down the school's corridor until she found Takeru in front of the teacher's office, alongside a teacher and three other parents with their children behind them

"Takkun! Takkun!"

Emily went directly to Takeru and then crouched down, and with a worried face she asked

"Did you win or lose?"

"Win"

"Nice!"

"Hey! Your son punched my kid in the face"

One of the other parents got angry at Emily for praising Takeru, so he tried to stop her

"You shut up. If Takkun punched your son, he definitely deserved it"

"Wha?! My son did nothing wrong! It's yours who started a fight for no reason, isn't that right, sensei?"

"Eh? Me? Well, all I know is that Takeru-kun managed to beat three kids singlehandedly"

"That answers nothing, Takkun. Tell me why you beat their asses"

"They made fun of my face and then they tried to forcibly cut my hair!"

The parents of the three kids, the teacher, and Emily, all looked at the three kids, and the three all looked away, due to the pressure targeted at them, though it was mostly from Emily's intimidating glare. Which pretty much confirmed, that it was exactly as Takeru had said

"You three better start giving your kids a better education at home, because the next time I hear that those brats picked da fight with Takkun, I swear that I'll beat you three to the point that you all will wish to have never met me. Now, let's go home Takkun!"

Emily took Takeru's hands and walked away from there with him, leaving everyone else there trembling in fear