I’m Back in the First Grade of Elementary School, so I’m Going to Live Well

Chapter 32

Sho's Room

“Come in.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m sorry to bother you.”

After the first meeting between Mom and Mizui-san, I show her to my room based on her request “I want to see Sho-kun room.”

She hesitantly steps into my room with a slightly nervous tone in her voice.

Even for a first grader, entering a boy’s room must be a hurdle to overcome.

I was also a little nervous because it was my first time letting a friend into my room.

And it’s a girl.

I couldn’t have imagined having the opposite sex in my room for the first time in my life.

I feel like I’ve moved up one rank as a man.

Soaking in such a trivial sense of superiority, I followed Mizui-san into my room.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing interesting here.”

There was a study desk, a bed, a set of daily necessities, and a bookshelf with a few teaching materials and notebooks.

The toy box and other things that belonged to the 28-year-old me before my memory took over are currently lying in a storage room downstairs.

It’s not that I’m a minimalist.

I simply don’t have anything to put in my room.

In my previous life, I had a few hobbies, but now, as you can see on the wall of my room, I have no hobbies to devote myself to, as I am striving to achieve my goal of “living a steady life.”

Hobbies are reflected in a person’s room.

If you have no hobbies, your room will be quite plain.

It’s a very uninteresting room.

“No, it’s not. I’ve never been in a boy’s room before, so I don’t know, but I think it’s really nice and neat.”

After scurrying around the room, Mizui-san expressed her impressions.

“I-I see.”

I scratched my cheek to hide my embarrassment, not fully satisfied with the praise.

For the first time in my life, I’m glad I cleaned my room.

“Umm… please sit somewhere nice. I’ll get you some tea.”

“Mmm, thank you.”

I left the room and headed for the kitchen.

I felt that bringing only tea would not be enough to entertain the guests, and I should bring some tea cakes as well.

“Mom, do you have any sweets?”

“Sweets? ――Oh, in that case, you can take the cookies from the cupboard.”

“Okay.”

I use the chair at the table as a stepladder and take a cookie from the cupboard, which is in a fancy tin.

It’s a little bit expensive and is usually only served to guests.

“How are things with you and Mizui-chan?”

“What do you mean by that?”

My mom asks me this while I’m opening the refrigerator to serve tea after putting the chairs back in their original places.

She seemed to be very interested in Mizui-san.

She’s the first friend to come to my house, so I guess it’s natural.

“It’s obvious. That one, that one.”

I don’t know what that is.

That’s the only information I have.

But still, I had a rough idea of what Mom was trying to say.

“Do you like Mizui-chan?”

It’s related to my love life.

I can understand why she would be concerned about her son’s love life, but I don’t want my mother to intervene in that matter.

And first of all.

“It’s not like that. Mizui-san is just a friend.”

It’s true that I think well of her, but not as a woman, but as a human being.

First of all, I can’t have romantic feelings for an elementary school student.

I can’t say it strongly enough because of what happened during the preparatory exercises, but I’m sure of it.

“It’s a private conversation, so be honest. She’s such a pretty girl, you know?”

“There’s a limit to how much you can fall in love with someone just because they’re cute.”

If that’s not the case, I don’t know how many times I would fall in love with the actresses on the other side of the TV.

“I don’t have more feelings for them than I do for my friends.”

I assure you.

“You say that, but you really like her, don’t you? You’re so shy, aren’t you~?”

“Huh…… Yes, yes, that’s right.”

It doesn’t matter if I affirm or deny it, mom will always be convinced that I like her.

I gave up and just nodded my head to pass it off.

“A nice girl like that would be popular with other boys, so you’d better hurry or they’ll take her.”

“Hee, is that so?”

I took the tray with the cookies, tea, and two cups and left the kitchen.

I wasn’t aiming to be taken or anything.

I exhaled a sigh at my persistent mother and went back to my room.

✩

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No, it’s okay.”

When I opened the door with one hand, I found Mizui-san sitting on the ground in the room waiting for me.

She was the only one in the room, so it didn’t matter at all if her legs were crumpled.

I could sense her discipline in such a small detail.

――But what is it? There is something strange……

It’s not Mizui-san, but the entire room that feels strange.

I looked around suspiciously.

The closet was half-open, the bookshelves were arranged differently, and the futon mattresses that I had neatly folded were slightly disarrayed.

It wasn’t as if the room had been ransacked, but there were signs that it had been rummaged through.

Mizui-san is the only one in the room while I went to get tea.

So that means――

No, I don’t think so.

There is no way Mizui-san, who is so polite, would violate her manners in a way that even I could understand.

It’s probably just my imagination.

I’m not a person who remembers things very well.

No matter how much I move things around, I can’t remember the exact location of every single thing in the room, which changes every day.

Maybe I’m misremembering. Maybe so.

I came to my own conclusion about the nature of my discomfort and was convinced.

It may be bad manners, but I put the tray with the tea cakes on the ground.

I don’t have a table, so I have no choice.

So, as if to face her sitting on the ground, I somehow sit down in seiza.

“……”

A moment of silence passed.

………… Awkward.

It’s as awkward as the blind date your parents forced you to go on.

What should I do to play with my friends who come to visit me, or rather my girl friend?

Most of the girls are chatting and laughing when I’m in class, but is it standard to chat when I play with my male counterparts as well?

I’m not proud of it at all, but I’m not confident that I can keep up with the conversations of girls.

If I had the guts to say something in a space where words were flying around like bullets in a war zone, I wouldn’t be a loner.

If it’s Mizui-san, I might be able to keep up with her, but I don’t have the confidence to handle all the topics and stuff on my own.

I wondered if there was anything else we could play together besides chatting.

I’m sure there’s a deck of cards somewhere in the house.

As I’m at a loss for what to do to break the awkward atmosphere, Mizui-san starts rummaging around in her backpack, trying to get something out of it.

Then she takes out a book.

“Hey, Sho-kun. Would you like to read it with me?”

What Mizui-san is holding is a picture book.

The cover of the book was different from the one she brought out of her house when we met in the library, but it was also a picture book about a romance between a princess and a prince.

From the barcode-like mark on the cover, I guessed that it was borrowed from either a library or a general library.

“Yes, I’ll read it.”

It was the perfect suggestion for me, as I had nothing better to do.

I’m not that interested in reading picture books, but it’s a much more meaningful way to spend my time than spending it in an awkward way.

With my approval, she stood up, trotted over to my side, and sat down again.

It was difficult to read face to face, so I could understand why she wanted to read next to me.

――But isn’t this too close?

Normally, when you sit next to each other, you sit at least half the distance, if not more, than one person.

But right now, the distance between me and her is zero.

Not zero, not almost zero, but completely zero. We are in close contact.

Mizui-san’s right arm is perfectly attached to my left arm as if it were glued together, and since she is wearing a one-piece dress with no sleeves and I am wearing short-sleeved loungewear, I can feel Mizui-san’s soft skin not through her clothes but through her skin.

Her feet are close together as well, and her head, tilted slightly to the right, is almost on my shoulder due to the difference in seating height.

There’s no such thing as personal space.

It’s like we’re lovers… no, no, no! I just say that I have no romantic feelings to my mother!

Feeling that she was too close for any reason, I moved a little to the right while sitting down.

Then she moves to the right without saying a word.

And then we’re back in close contact.

………….

This time, I get down on my knees and take two steps to the right, and she takes three steps to the right, bringing us even closer than we should have been.

…………………….

“Is this…… too close?”

“Not close enough♡”

It’s an instant denial.

She says so, but it can’t be so. Our bodies are already in contact.

What the hell is she up to?

“Let’s read it.”

“Uh-huh.”

I agreed as I was led to believe.

After that, we proceeded to read the picture book, but the content of the book did not enter my mind at all.

There was no way I could concentrate on the book under such circumstances.

Mizui-san’s face seemed to be satisfied while I was going through various conflicts.