“Also, you don’t need to be so distant by acting like it’s just your problem. If this is a big deal for your friends, it’s a big deal for me too. After all, even though we haven’t really talked much and only went camping together the one time...I think of Ura-kun and Ibusuki-san as important friends of mine.”
“Orihara-san...” Her words touched my heart, but...
“...But I don’t know if they’d consider me a friend or not. They’d probably just cringe at having an old lady like me call them ‘friend’... Plus, acting like their friend when we’ve just gone camping once kind of feels too forwardly extroverted, so it kind of bothers me...”
...she kept talking and ruined it. Well, there goes the mood...she let her gloomy introvert side slip out. She just can’t help herself. Even though she’s bright, sociable, and very active in society, ultimately she’s an introvert at heart...
I do love this pain-in-the-butt side of her as well, though...
“A-Anyway, let’s go full speed ahead to save your friend!” After knocking herself down, she picked herself back up the same way. That part of her was mature.
“Traffic has started to thin out, so I’m going to speed up.”
“Please do. Oh...but, Orihara-san?”
“Hmm?”
“You were saying you didn’t really have any particularly big plans, but doesn’t that mean you did have some sort of plans?”
“Oh... No, it wasn’t anything special. A Let’s Player that I like is going to do a live stream, so I was just planning on watching them in real time...”
Oh, a video game Let’s Play, huh? Now that I think about it, she said that she’s gotten hooked on them lately after hating them for so long without giving them a chance.
“I’ll just watch it later, so it’s fine, but...I won’t be able to give them donations if it’s not a live stream, so I’m a little sad... Oh. I say ‘donations,’ but it’s not like I’m spending that much, okay?! They’re more like little tips!”
“...” It looks like she’s gotten pretty addicted without me realizing it...
When we first started dating, she wasn’t interested in Let’s Plays, and she was even biased against them. She hated them with a passion without even giving them a try, saying stuff like “I think games are most fun when you play them by yourself, after all. I mean, I don’t want to look down on anyone who likes those kinds of things, but they just aren’t for me. Yeah, I just can’t keep up with the culture of today’s youth. Why, when I was a kid...” Now here she was totally enjoying Let’s Plays and even giving donations.
Well...for better or worse, people do change. Our relationship will change, and so will Orihara-san’s interests.
Right. That’s why I think there’s nothing to fear from change. It’s wrong to dwell on the past and continue to fear change.
♡
When we arrived at Ura’s house, the sun had completely set.
“W-Wow... Ura-kun’s house is huge!” Orihara-san said in surprise after seeing the Urano residence for the first time.
Ura’s home was a huge two-story house reigning over a large expanse of rice fields and a mountain forest. The yard was quite large and covered with well-maintained grass. There were a few cars in the roofed parking area, including a luxury foreign car, a Japanese car for everyday use, a large family car... It wasn’t like they were a big family, but there were more cars there than members of the family. It was totally what you’d expect from a mansion in the boonies.
“The rice fields and the mountains in the back are all part of Ura’s property.”
“I-Is Ura-kun’s family rich?”
“Yes. Ura’s an only child, by the way.”
“Oh wow... I probably shouldn’t say this, but that makes a lot of sense...”
The single child of a rich household—that’s Urano Izumi in a nutshell.
As we talked about that, we got out of the car and walked to Ura’s house. We parked the car in a vacant lot a short distance away from the Urano family home. The lot was also owned by the Urano family, but they had no other use for it aside from being a parking lot for visitors.
It seems like rich people in the countryside have a lot of land that they have no particular use for... Parking there without permission probably isn’t good manners, but the situation being what it is, it’s unavoidable. We’ll get permission after the fact; they probably won’t say no. Probably.
“Do you come here a lot, Momota-kun?”
“Yeah. A long time ago, Kana and I used to come here to play a lot, and our parents would drive us.” Yep, needing to have your parents drive you to go play at your friend’s house that’s far away is one of those common things in the boonies. “Whenever we got together, we’d somehow end up at Ura’s house. After all, he had the most games and toys, and he was the type to invite his friends over to his house.”
Also, Kana and I had circumstances that made it hard to invite people over to our own houses. My father was reluctant to have people over since we ran the chiropractic clinic at home and I didn’t have a mother; he wasn’t able to look after us in case something happened. As for Kana...when he was in elementary school, his home was a mess. His parents got divorced and remarried, and apparently a lot had happened. He wasn’t in the type of situation where he could invite his friends over.