A few seconds have passed since the four were standing outside the family restaurant. Now, they are seen walking in the family restaurant — Inari was leading the way while humming to herself.
She leads them to the corner of the family restaurant where a table for four was waiting for their presence.
Inari spins on her toe to face them, before gesturing to the table with both her hands — with an energetic and playful tone, she announces with a smile on her face, "We'll be sitting here!"
As the group catches up, Inari slides on over to the seat nearest to the window before stretching out all her limbs. One-by-one, the group settles down on their seats as a wave of comfort washes over them.
The way the group sat was as follows: Inari and Erisa were sat by the window, while Kane and Ayumi were sat by the open side of the table — their reasons varied, however.
"Gehehe~, first come, first served! I'm glad I got ahead of Kanecchi, I won't have to stand up to refill any drinks at the drink fountain now!" Inari thinks to herself now that her gremlin-esque plan was a success.
"Refilling… refilling Fujikawa-sama's drinks… ureshii~![1]" Ayumi thinks with a straight face as she sips on the service water brought to them, but deep down, she could explode due to the unbridled excitement this brings her.
"This is bad. I'll be forced to refill everyone's drinks now that Inari-chan got ahead of me," Kane surmises while reading the menu that just came with the service water, "Maybe if I sat down earlier…"
"For a family restaurant, this place is really fancy looking, huh?" Erisa ponders with a curious look on her face as she scans the premises, her eyes glazing over all of the points of interest.
A wave of silence then washes over them as if snow had blanketed the area. While everyone was minding their own business, Kane peeks over the menu he has been holding up to his face and looks at the three girls accompanying him.
His brows furrow as he places more focus on the girls rather than the menu. Soon, he then realizes the situation he was in as he thinks to himself, "Couldn't this just be a harem event?"
As he sinks his brows deeper, all the gears in his head begin to turn. After a few quick seconds, a soft ding is heard in his head as he gives his final verdict, "Yep, definitely a harem event."
Lowering the menu down and staring at it, he notices how the menu is pretty diverse — considering the fact this was a family restaurant, this was already impressive.
Kane flips over the menu and stares at the back page. As he keeps his gaze stuck to the menu, he also says something after a quick sigh, "Have you guys taken a look at the menu yet? There are some dishes here that are pretty interesting…"
Inari suddenly leans in closer to his face while looking at the menu. "Doko, doko~?[2]" She says. Kane's focus immediately shatters as he pulls his head back with an annoyed expression.
Kane tries his best to push Inari's head away with his hand, before clicking his tongue and complaining, "You have a menu right there — just use that instead!"
"Tsk… how rude of you, Kanecchi," Inari mutters under her breath as she returns to her section of the table with a dissatisfied look in her eyes. She hesitantly takes the menu in front of her off the table and begins scanning it.
The two girls on the opposite side of the table are also reading their menus — well, one of them, at least. Currently, Erisa's glasses are opaque and the menu she is holding looks visibly worn out from the way she held it.
With a soft and friendly expression, Ayumi turns to her extremely frustrated friend before asking her, "Fujikawa-sama, what will you be ordering? I've already decided on what I want."
Erisa's body jolts out of surprise. In order to cover this up, she leans in closer to her menu before responding, "W-well… well you see, I think… uhh… I think I'll have the uhh..."
She then points her finger at a food item without a single thought placed behind it. "This one! I'll have this one!" she announces with a high-pitched voice, which she soon realizes was a mistake.
The food item she pointed at was none other than the super spicy ramen: the soup had a hellish red hue to it as a singular, whole red chili laid on the noodles — additionally, it even had flames surrounding the meal and the face of an Oni hovering over the noodles breathing fire as design.
[?]: In Japanese folklore, an oni is a type of yōkai, often described as a demon, ogre, or troll. They are typically depicted with horns, sharp claws, tusks, and sometimes with multiple eyes and fingers.
Erisa quickly realizes her mistake as her eyes widen — even worse, she begins to feel a skeletal figure holding a scythe hover over her. "W-wait, I didn't—"
"Really?! You have great taste, Fujikawa-sama!" Ayumi commends Erisa's supposed bravery. "I'll have the same thing as you, then!"
Now at a loss for words, Erisa can't decide whether or not to change her order at the cost of Ayumi's commendation, or stay put with her accidental order of super spicy ramen.
"Mmm… mhm… y-yeah, I heard this is really popular and tasty, so I obviously had to try and see what all the fuss was about!" Erisa effortlessly lies with a straight face as she looks at her white-haired friend.
Ayumi nods in agreement while rubbing her chin. "If you say that it's tasty, then I'll trust you!" she says with a warm smile directed towards her friend — unknowing of the trickery that has befallen her.
Erisa returns her focus to the menu, a wry smile tugging at her lips as she begins to think, "Sorry in advance, Ayumi-san…"
Returning back to the two on the opposite side, they have also decided on what they will be ordering. Starting with Kane — the food he ordered was: "Melonpan with a side of gravy and a bowl of salad… doesn't that sound good?"
"I think I'm sticking with my parfait, strawberry milkshake, and banana flavored sundae, Kanecchi… This sounds more consumable than… that abomination," Inari says as she sets her menu down.
Once again, the two girls on the opposite side of the table notice a build-up of tension between the two. With some quick thinking, Erisa intervenes and presses the button to call a waiter. "I think we should order now!"
"Agreed," Kane also realizes this fact and goes along with Erisa.
After a short wait, the waiter arrives. The group says their orders and the waiter writes it down on a notepad — soon after that, the waiter walks away after informing them they will have to wait 20 minutes.
With a lot of time now on their plates, Inari takes this opportunity and uses it to get to know the two girls in front of her. "I think we haven't introduced ourselves to one another, right?"
Erisa nods and answers, "Even though we met a week ago, we really didn't say our names to one another." She then bows her head out of respect, "Hajimemashite[3], my name is Erisa Fujikawa."
Raising her head, she gestures to Ayumi while keeping a warm gaze directed at Inari. "And this is my friend, Ayumi Okawa." Silently, Ayumi bows her head while being introduced.
Inari could only smile, before gesturing to Ayumi to stop. "There's no need to be so formal, Fujikawa-chan. I'm not a monster, see?" She then holds up two peace signs up to her head before sticking out her tongue and winking.
She then lets out a sigh and straightens her posture, before putting a hand up to her chest and announcing, "My name is Inari Kuroki, but you can call me Inari-chan! Tomodachi ni narimashō yo![4]"
After a quick laugh and finally introducing themselves, they begin to converse about girl stuff — Kane, on the other hand, now has a small smile on his face. "Good. These three are making good progress," he thinks to himself, now feeling like a proud father.
'Although… I feel really out of place here all of a sudden…" Kane begins to dwell on the fact that he was indeed the only guy — despite being sat beside Inari, he feels like he was 20 tables away from them.
He takes a sip of the service water to clear up his mind and throat. "I wish Ryūzaki-san and Kazuo-san were here…" He thinks, however, he doesn't really have to look far for those two.
If you are to look closely, there are two boys sitting a fair distance across from them — the both of them are wearing a trench coat, face mask, sunglasses, and a cap while holding the menu up to their face.
Underneath that trench coat however is the school uniform, and underneath those face covering accessories were two stalkers keeping a close eye on the black-haired boy drinking water.
One of the boys takes off their sunglasses and underneath that was another pair of glasses — with black eyes sharply gazing at the boy beside him, he begins whispering, "Oi, Ryūzaki-kun, do you really think this is a good idea?"
Satoshi discreetly stares at Kazuo and whispers back, "Why are you having second thoughts? Didn't you agree with me already? We have to watch over Koyasu-kun just in case something bad happens!"
Kazuo squints his eyes out of hesitation. "...This is about your childhood friend, Inari-chan, right?" He whispers with a hint of suspicion in his voice.
Now casting a menacing side glare, Satoshi sat in silence as he continued holding the menu up to his face. In response to this, Kazuo slowly looks back at the four while muttering to himself, "I guess I got my answer."
Returning back to the four, Kane rubs his nape as he begins to feel something ominous behind him. With fear now rampaging his brain, he thinks, "W-why do I feel like somebody wants to kill me?"
He shakes his head in an attempt to put his mind somewhere else. "No… no… there's no need to be paranoid — it's not like somebody is holding a grudge against me… right?" Kane thinks as he looks back to the girls.
He locks eyes with Erisa, before averting his gaze somewhere else out of shyness. She doesn't mind however — instead, she also brings him into the conversation. "You've been pretty quiet, Koyasu-san."
Kane slowly turns back to her with a wry smile and a twitchy eyebrow. Hesitantly, he answers, "Yeaah… sorry about that. It's because you guys are talking about stuff I don't relate to."
Inari jolts forward with wide, sparkly eyes. "I know something we can talk about~!" She declares while holding up two fists up to her chest, "How did you and Fujikawa-chan get to know each other?!"
With hesitation on his face, he looks at Erisa to see whether or not she will validate her request, which she does. With a nod, he looks back at Inari and explains, "I guess you could say me and Fujikawa-san are childhood friends."
Narrowing her eyes, Inari rests her chin on her hand and asks, "Why are you guys still on a last name basis though? Look at me and Sa-kun, I call him by a nickname and he calls me by my first name!"
"It's because me and Koyasu-san aren't that close," Erisa cuts into their conversation, causing Kane and Inari to turn to her. With a quick laugh, she closes her eyes and scratches her cheek. "We got really busy with our own stuff, so we never built that deeper connection."
Inari begins bobbing her head and down out of agreement, while Kane is staring at Erisa with widened eyes — he quickly looks away and takes a sip out of his cup.
Closing his eyes, Kane begins to wonder to himself, "..."
"How can you lie so easily like that?"
[1] [?]: “Ureshii” (嬉しい) is an adjective mainly used to represent happiness.
[2] [?]: “Doko, doko~?” (どこ、どこ〜？) translates to “Where, where~?”
[3] [?]: “Hajimemashite” (初めまして) translates to “Nice to meet you”.
[4] [?]: “Tomodachi ni narimashō yo!” (友達になりましょうよ!) translates to “Let’s be good friends!”