“WHYYY! Why are you rangers here?!”
“Hee-hee-hee, your cheerleading dance was really cute!”
“Don’t worry, we’re just gonna eat lunch, watch you a bit more, and then we’ll be off.”
Mia glared at Misaki as if to say she absolutely refused to be watched, even “a bit more”, but then froze in place, her mind catching on the magical word “lunch”. Lunch break had indeed just started. All around them, people were looking for a nice place to settle down and eat, and pulling out their lunchboxes. In fact, Subaru slowly revealed a five-tiered lunchbox of their own.
“This will be our lunch. Let’s dig in.”
“Wow… You brought food with you.”
Subaru nodded at the bewildered girl, and pulled out the multi-tiered food boxes one by one. There was a box stuffed full of sandwiches and onigiri; a box containing fried chicken and meat and veggies on skewers. A box with an assortment of small appetizers, like omelet rolls, asparagus wrapped in bacon, and meatballs and cheese balls stuck on toothpicks for easy grabbing. Finally there was a box where summer rolls lay side by side with small aluminum foil cups overflowing with spoonfuls of potato salad; and for desert, a container housing a lemon pie. Mia regarded the colorful small feast before her with gleaming eyes.
“Incredible! Everything looks so good… Did you make all of it by yourself, Subaru?”
“No, I cooked together with Aya.”
“I made the sandwiches and the onigiri, oh, and I baked the lemon pie too! Let’s save it for last,” Aya grinned, gesturing for Mia to take something from the onigiri box, to which she eagerly complied.
“Th-Thank you for the food,” Mia mumbled, tilting her head down in a small bow, and bit into her onigiri.
The saltiness was just right, and the seaweed sheet around the rice ball was perfect—not too mushy, but not too dry either. Inside was a piece of smoked salmon. Salmon was the undisputed number one in Mia’s onigiri preference for fillings, so this discovery put a broad smile on her face.
“Aww, the face you just made is so cute! It’s that good, huh?” Shou chuckled, and took an onigiri for himself.
Ren, who was sitting beside Mia, also took one. “You a fan of onigiri, Mia?”
“I guess you could say that. They’re cheap and filling, and tasty to boot—there’s nothing bad I can say about onigiri,” Mia answered Ren’s question, munching on her rice ball all the while.
Ren snorted, and then burst out laughing at that. Misaki rolled his eyes but laughed too, taking a sandwich out of the box. “I thought you sounded like an old housewife before, but now you sound like a pauper.”
“Well, I have to scrimp and save to make ends meet! It would be easier if I could get a part-time job, but I don’t have the time for it,” Mia muttered, reaching for the omelet rolls with her chopsticks.
As she put it in her mouth, the salty flavor of soy sauce tempered by the sweetness of mirin spread over her tongue. By Mia’s standards, this was how omelet rolls should taste—sometimes, people made them so sweet it made you wonder whether they put in too much sugar. She couldn’t stomach those; omelet rolls were a side dish, and as such, they had to go well with rice.
Fried chicken flavored with ginger, crispy and savory asparagus wrapped in bacon, summer rolls drizzled with chili sauce, potato salad with plenty of mayonnaise—Mia’s chopsticks flew from one appetizer to the next, the Crow Rangers’ chatter picking up around her. They had the lemon pie Aya baked for dessert. The crust was crunchy, crumbling easily under her teeth, and the filling mildly tangy and zesty, tasting that much more wonderful because Mia had been craving something sweet after exerting herself earlier.
Naturally, she still felt obliged to treat the Champions of Justice as her enemies; just the other day, she picked a fight with Shou and had a terrible time as a result. At the same time, though, she had grown used to spending time with the group of five like this, and although Mia felt the glaring paradox of this situation eating at her, she still learned to appreciate and even relish the fun times they had together little by little, like the one they were having now.
Lunch was over, and the afternoon part of the program was about to start. The first event was the scavenger hunt, in which Mia was also taking part. The Rangers said they would leave after watching. After asking, she found out that most of them were off duty, but Ren and Subaru went so far as to take paid leave to come. Theirs was an unfortunate occupation that always ran the risk that they could be called in should something happen and there wasn’t enough manpower to deal with it, so they preferred to go home earlier than stay until the end of the day.
If Mia was being honest with herself, she really appreciated the Rangers taking a day off and even going so far as to make and bring a boxed lunch for her sake. …This was where normal people would say “thank you”, but in Mia’s case, pride got in her way and her lips refused to form those words.
Mia psyched herself up—she would take first place in the scavenger hunt and impress the Rangers. With the Red Team’s cries of support in the background, Mia took her place at the starting line. POP! The shot crackled through the air, and she sprinted straight for the place where the long desks were lined up to secure a piece of paper indicating the item she would have to find.
This was where it all stood or fell. If she picked something weird, she would be in trouble. The scavenger race was an event where victory largely depended on one’s luck after all. She unfurled her paper scrap, took a quick look at it, and froze. Panicking, she gave the paper another glance, but the letters spelling out “hunk” didn’t change.
Hunk?! Uh, I’m almost sure this is meant figuratively, and not in the sense of a large piece of food. A shame. …So, a good-looking man, was it? But I don’t know any good-looking men! I have no idea what makes a man attractive in the first place!
Mia was completely stumped. She looked around her and saw there were some other participants shuffling their feet, unsure of what to do. However, there were others who darted around the field, looking for their designated item. She had better start searching for hers too, but…
What in the world is a “hunk”?! Mia racked her brain desperately. Suddenly, a certain man’s face flashed in her mind, and she took off on an impulse. Shoving the onlookers aside to make way, she entered the section reserved for parents, and stopped right in front of the Crow Rangers who were watching the race.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Ren! Come!”
Mia grabbed a startled Ren’s hand and ran, pulling him along. Just like the sprint, she ended up in second place. She would’ve preferred first place, of course, but with an item like that, second place was a godsend. While she was panting at the finish line, a number of her classmates rushed over to her.
“Great job, Mia!”
“Hey, hey, what was your item? Who is this guy?”
“Argh! Th-This is… Um… It was!” Mia sputtered, trying to hide her piece of paper behind her back, but it was torn right out of her hand by someone standing behind her. That someone was a sports day student on staff.
She briefly checked the paper, looked Ren up and down, and then nodded approvingly, “He’s a bit scary looking, but he’s a hunk all right. Approved!”
Apparently, she was in charge of appraising the items—if someone brought something completely unrelated to what was on their paper, their entry would be deemed void.
Ren’s face tightened at the mention of his scary looks, which he was very self-conscious about, but then one of the other female students peeked at the paper in the hands of the committee member.
“Hm? What was her item again? Huh, a hunk?! Wow, that must’ve been a nightmare to look for!”
“Lucky you, huh, Mia, having a hunk among your acquaintances!”
“So, who’s the guy? Wait, could he be your—”
“Gaah! Quit using that word, ‘hunk’! No! Uh, I just happened to think of him, there’s no deeper meaning to this!”
“Hunk?” Ren tilted his head curiously, staring at Mia’s flustered expression.
He then borrowed the paper from the girl who had it, examined it briefly, and made a wry face. “Huh? So you think I’m a hunk?”
“N-No! It is a misunderstanding! You were just the first person that came to mind! I was not thinking straight!”
Mia’s head started spinning from working herself up over this, her cheeks burning red. The other female students gazed at Mia with wide eyes for a brief moment, puzzled over her strange behavior, and then cracked up.
“Hehe, Mia, you’re blushing… So cute! This is the first time I’ve seen this side of you!”
“I am not blushing! This is a complete misunderstanding!”
“Hey, mister, are you Mia’s boyfriend?” one of Mia’s classmates asked, causing all the girls around to squeal.
Mia was flapping her arms around, desperately trying to insist they got it all wrong. Ren, on the other hand, just observed the screaming girls and hysterical Mia for a while. In the end, he flashed a devilish smirk and pulled Mia close, casually dropping, “Mm, yeah, something like that.”
“Ren?! What in the world are you saying, you numbskull?!”
“See ya around,” Ren sang, adding a mischievous smile at the end, stuffed his hands in his pockets and went back to the bleachers, leaving a gobsmacked Mia behind. He was clearly messing with her. He only said that in front of her classmates to watch her squirm from the sudden attention of her peers.
“Da-Damnation! I will get you for this!”
“Wow, Mia, so you have an older boyfriend?”
“Did he take a day off to come watch you?”
Predictably, Mia had to endure a barrage of questions from her classmates before she ran out of patience and hightailed it to the Red Team seating area.
“Seriously! I solemnly swear that I shall uncover what his weakness is, and then I shall utterly destroy him!” Mia sniffled as she ran.
The next day, the school was abuzz with rumors about Mia and her older boyfriend.