The dining table fell silent as the father and daughter focused on the bread, ham, and bacon on their plates.
Cooking was not Minami Yuuki’s forte. This simple breakfast was already the peak of his culinary skills.
“Why do we have to eat bread every day!” Mayuri, having filled her stomach, started to complain.
It wasn’t that she disliked Western-style breakfasts.
On the contrary, she enjoyed the combination of bread and meat.
When Grandpa was home, he always made her eat those detestable vegetables.
“When your mom comes back, you’ll get to eat something different for breakfast.” Minami Yuuki deliberately mentioned Yuko to gauge Mayuri’s reaction.
As expected, his daughter was furious.
“I don’t want her to come back!” She jumped off her chair, stood straight, and clenched her fists.
Just hearing that name brought a wave of bitterness to her heart, which surged through her veins and flooded her mind. The boiling blood turned her feelings of grievance into intense anger.“I don’t want you either! Just leave my house!” She lashed out at Minami Yuuki, who had mentioned that name.
After saying that, she quickly ran back to her room. The sound of the sliding door hitting the wall was unusually dull.
The moment she uttered the second sentence, Mayuri regretted it.
The force that drove her to run away contained both resentment towards her parents and remorse for her words.
Lying on her bed, she was restless.
I was just saying… That man wouldn’t really leave the house, would he?
She stood up, moved quietly to the sliding door, tilted her head, and pressed her ear against the door, listening carefully for any sounds outside. She heard a car passing by and a cat meowing outside, but beyond that, there was nothing.
At this time, that man should be at the sink, washing dishes, with the sound of running water.
Growing increasingly uneasy, she paced around her room before pressing her ear against the door again. Hearing nothing, she slid the door open and, driven by her anxiety, headed to the dining room.
The familiar figure by the dining table made her relax, her worry dissipating and joy surfacing.
Crossing her arms, she mimicked the posture of a slave master from the TV and said to Minami Yuuki, who was playing on his phone, “Hey, get up and do the dishes! Or get out of my house!”
“Yes, yes.” Minami Yuuki put away his phone, picked up the plates from the table, and walked into the kitchen.
Mayuri felt triumphant.
Not only had she confirmed that the man hadn’t left, but she had also successfully suppressed the arrogance of the Yuko faction!
She returned to her room, her steps light and happy. What she didn’t know was that she wasn’t the only one doing the “confirming.”
Minami Yuuki was “confirming” her as well.
For this daughter he only saw once a week, with little time or energy for deep conversation, Minami Yuuki knew almost nothing about her.
These past few days, he had been observing her, analyzing her personality, and figuring out how to get along with her. By today, his analysis was nearly complete.
The conclusion… was quite surprising.
For the sake of accuracy, he needed to conduct one final test. He started washing the dishes, deliberately making a lot of noise to reassure the girl listening from her bedroom. Then, he checked the camera on the wine cabinet to ensure it covered both the living room and kitchen.
Once everything was ready, he began his plan. At exactly twelve o’clock, Mayuri, who was playing on her handheld console, saved her game, closed the immersive story-driven game, and opened a casual game. She played absentmindedly, her eyes and ears attentive to any sounds outside.
It was lunchtime. What takeout would the man bring back today? When he called her for lunch from outside, after how many calls should she respond? And after responding, how long should she wait before going out?
These details troubled the girl. Often, she couldn’t think of an answer, so she would just wait in standby mode until the call came.
But today, the call didn’t come for a long time. She glanced at the time on her handheld console—it was almost one o’clock. In the past few days, they had already finished lunch by this time. She opened the door a crack and peeked out. It was very quiet outside; there was no sign of the man.
Walking down the hallway and standing in the living room, she still couldn’t see the figure she had in mind.
Unease flitted across her heart like a bird suddenly soaring across the sky. She pushed open the sliding door to the dining room and walked into the narrow kitchen. By the stainless steel sink, two large plates were standing in the drying rack, their water already drained.
There was no sign of the man in the kitchen.
She quickly walked through the other hallway to the entryway. Standing on a low stool beside the entryway, she stood on tiptoes to check the surface of the cabinet. The car keys were gone. The man was probably not at home.
Had he gone out to buy lunch? Why hadn’t he returned yet? The unease in her heart grew stronger.
She sat by the entryway, and every car sound on the road made her heart flutter with expectation, like the tremor of a fishing float in summer.
But every time, she was disappointed.
Each car passed by without stopping. The sound of the wheels rolling over the road came from one direction and left in the other. The door didn’t open, and the man didn’t come in.
She climbed back onto the stool and carefully checked the cabinet again. The square stone pot held a delicate asparagus fern, its leaves stretching towards the door. The space beside the flowerpot was empty; there were no car keys.
She walked through the living room, down the hallway, to the man’s bedroom door, and pushed it open. The tatami bedroom was also empty.
The man was not in the bedroom either. Sitting on the living room sofa, she looked at the dining room ahead. It was already past one o’clock. She should have been sitting there eating lunch with the man an hour ago.
She thought about what she had said that morning.
“I don’t want you either! Just leave my house!”
“Hey, get up and do the dishes! Or get out of my house!”
Now, her father had really left.
The wetness in her eyes quickly turned to tears, rolling down her face. She lowered her head, about to open her mouth and cry out loud.
“Click—” The door close to the living room suddenly opened. It was the master bedroom, the room of Minami Haruna and Minami Ryota, which Mayuri hadn’t checked.
Minami Yuuki came out, yawning.
“I went in to get something and accidentally fell asleep. I’ll go buy lunch now,” he said apologetically. “Hmm? Why is Mayuri crying?”
“I stubbed my toe!” Mayuri wiped her tears, but the surge of sadness couldn’t be stopped, and two lines of tears turned into another kind of grievance. “Daddy, you big dummy!”
[Mayuri obviously loved bread and fried meat, yet she scolded you for always making such breakfasts.]
[You were suspicious and conducted a small test, discovering something that left you with mixed feelings.]
[Your daughter, Minami Mayuri, is a tsundere.]
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