My childhood sweetheart is Nishimiya Glass

Chapter 236 Sunrise (Part 2)

"Shall we go take a look first?"

"Let's go, Takagi-chan, let's go take a look."

As soon as she finished speaking, Shoko and Ayumi Ajitani met eyes, and both understood the meaning in each other's eyes.

At the same time, they reached out and took Takagi Sana's arms, supporting her as they walked towards the fortune-telling stall in front of them.

"I didn't say I wasn't going..." Takagi Sana glanced at the pedestrians, helplessly protesting verbally, but finding it ineffective, she could only give in to them.

As the three approached, they briefly considered turning away. A table covered with a black cloth depicting starry skies, upon which sat a deck of tarot cards and a glowing crystal ball—that was it.

If I had to name a price, there was a fortune-telling price tag on the table: '100 yen per fortune-telling session'.

(100 yen ≈ 5 yuan)

"Hehe...Are the three of you here for fortune telling?" The girl sitting behind the table, wearing a black lace veil, smiled at the three of them.
"Don't worry, it's absolutely accurate and effective. If it's not right, you can come back here tomorrow and get your money back."

The girl seemed to see through the three men's concerns and patted her bare chest repeatedly to reassure them.

"..."

Shoko and the two people next to her exchanged a glance, hesitated for a moment, and then took out a 100-yen coin from their wallets and handed it to the girl in front of them.

"Could you please tell me my fortune for next year?" Shoko asked before the girl could speak.

"Mmm." The girl picked up the tarot cards on the table and began to shuffle them, then spread them out on the table: "Draw three cards randomly first, then draw one card from each side."

Under the curious gazes of Sana Takagi and Ayumi Ajitani, Shoko drew five cards and placed them on the table as instructed, then quietly waited for them to explain their meaning.

"W-what's wrong?" After waiting for a long time without receiving an explanation, she couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

"Huh? Oh, oh, oh..." The girl seemed to snap out of her daze because of Shoko's words, and her gaze quickly swept over the five tarot cards on the table.

"Ahem..." The girl coughed lightly, feigning mystery as she said:
"This is simple. Just have a family member or someone you like kiss your cheek before sunrise tomorrow, and your luck will double. You'll have a smooth year ahead."

"..." For a moment, not knowing what to say, Shoko could only politely thank her and retreat to the two of them.

"Haha..." Ayumi Ajitani chuckled, waving her hand and whispering, "Shoko-chan, this doesn't seem very reliable. Shall we go?"

"..." Shoko didn't speak, she just blinked and looked at her.

In the end, Ayumi obediently handed over 100 yen to the girl and soon returned to the two of them. Just as she was about to do what Shoko had done before, Sana Takagi interrupted her in advance.

"No..." Takagi Sana raised her hand to cover her eyes, "I understand what you mean, I'll go."

The solutions the two fortune tellers came up with to double their luck were all increasingly outrageous, and they even found Shoko's to be much more normal.

Takagi Sana is supposed to maintain normal conversations with a boy who secretly exercises for a month, which seems normal at first glance.

The problem is that she's sick, which is why she goes around to other boys. Is she secretly exercising? And she only interacts with a few boys in her class.

Ayumi Ajitani is a bit more normal; when she helps a traumatized teenager overcome his trauma, she immediately puts the matter out of her mind.

Anyway, divination is just for psychological comfort. The fortune teller also said that even if they don't follow her advice, the three of them will have good fortune next year.

"Could he have gotten stupid from the accident...?"

Tsuna, nestled in his warm bed, watched Shoko, who occasionally grinned foolishly, and muttered something under his breath.

Shoko snapped out of her daze at his words and angrily grabbed a cushion from the chair and threw it at him.

"Get up, Tsuna, the sun's almost up!" She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and urged him.

"Hey hey hey." He could only helplessly crawl out of bed, walk to the wardrobe, and take out the clothes he was going to wear out today.

Based on his experience of jogging in the dead of winter, the sunrise is usually around 6:50 a.m., and it's only a little past 5:30 now...

"Shoko-san, could you please get out of bed first?" Tsuna watched her crawl into his blankets speechlessly.

He even suspected that she came so early specifically to snatch this spot.

Shoko playfully stuck out her little tongue at him: "You change yours, I'm not watching you. Besides, it's not like I didn't watch it when I was a kid."

As soon as she finished speaking, she covered her head with the blanket and refused to look at him again.

"..."

Tsuna stared speechlessly at Shoko, who was wriggling around in bed. At first glance, she looked a bit like a maggot. In the end, he could only ignore her and turned around to change his clothes silently.

Because of the angle of view, he didn't notice the small gap in the blankets and the pair of eyes staring straight at him.

"Let's go." Tsuna, having changed his clothes, patted Shoko off the blanket. "We can still make it to the shrine halfway up the mountain at a leisurely pace."

"Okay, okay, Tsuna, you can go wash up now." Her muffled voice came from under the covers.

"Okay." Upon hearing this, Tsuna didn't say anything more, turned around and went downstairs to wash up.

"Click..."

Just like before, Shoko, still in bed, lifted the covers a small gap to make sure he was really down before lifting them completely.

She no longer felt the winter chill; in fact, she felt a bit hot and quickly raised her hand to fan her face.

She never imagined that Tsuna really wouldn't hide anything from her...

----------

The snowdrifts on both sides were swept into crooked mounds, revealing the mottled stone tablets with scriptures underneath.
The bronze lanterns on the stone steps halfway up the mountain had long since burned out, and the gold paint on the lampshades, which had been inscribed with "offering," had peeled off into scales, yet they still reflected the pale light of dawn.

Snow suddenly slid off the fir branches, revealing a stone fox statue hidden among the leaves. Its eyes, blackened by centuries of incense smoke, were now reflecting the first rays of crimson on the eastern horizon.

"We almost missed it..." The boy held the girl's hand, gazing at the rising salted egg yolk in the distance, and sighed.

"How dare you say that?" The girl slapped the boy's arm in dissatisfaction. "Who told you to sleep so late last night and be impossible to wake up?"

"Shouldn't we blame someone for dawdling on the second floor and refusing to come down?" the boy quipped.

But the girl responded with an angry slap.

Neither of them spoke afterward, but silently watched the sun rise in the distance.

In the end, the boy kissed the girl's profile as she gazed at him intently, and the girl's gaze met his as she followed the kiss.

"Cough cough cough..."

The two, who were about to kiss, suddenly separated by a cough that came from behind them.

"You're going to scare people to death like that, okay?" Tsuna turned around and looked at the woman in the palace maid's uniform, letting out a sigh of relief while not forgetting to complain.

Meanwhile, Shoko was patting her barren chest.

"Then I'd like to apologize to you? I didn't mean to bother you." The woman looked at the two of them with a smile in her eyes.

"No need, thank you..." Tsuna was speechless. The pleasant atmosphere was completely ruined, leaving only the awkwardness of being seen by others. "Happy New Year, Miyaji-neechan." Shoko, having recovered, saw that it was an acquaintance and gave her a slight bow.

"Happy New Year." She nodded to the two of them, then took out two amulets from behind her back and handed them to them.

"Happy New Year," Tsuna added, thanking Shoko and accepting the gift.

After a brief chat with her, Shoko was driven down the mountain.

"You've finished watching the sunrise, so hurry back and rest. The shrine is closed today, and I'd like to go back to sleep."

No sooner had he finished speaking than he added, "Be careful when you go down; the snow is slippery."

He turned around, waved, and left.

She had been on guard all night and was preparing to go to sleep at sunrise, but she didn't expect to see the two of them going up the mountain on the surveillance camera, which added to her workload for no reason.

Watching her walk away, Tsuna looked away and asked, "Shall we go?"

"Hmm..." Shoko hesitated, but the previous feeling of things falling into place had vanished, which was a bit of a shame...

The urge to forcefully kiss Tsuna was torn between the rationality of waiting for another opportunity, but in the end she chose the latter.

"Let's go, Auntie should be up and have made breakfast by now."

"Uh-huh."

On the contrary, Tsuna didn't feel any regret or pity. There would be plenty of opportunities in the future, and anyway, Shoko was his.

The important thing is, he's not a 'lolicon'! He just got a 'feeling' and almost couldn't stop himself.

The two held hands again and chatted and laughed as they climbed down the mountain, neither of them mentioning the previous incident.

The first rays of the new year's dawn pierced through the thin mist of Senso-ji Temple, and the streets awoke in the chilly air.

A girl in a furisode kimono walks towards the shrine in wooden clogs, while shops set up food stalls one after another, the aroma of amazake mingling with the fragrance of sandalwood.

As the crowds converged into a winding procession, the tolling of the Hūmikaze bells swayed from the eaves, and the snow-covered bare branches filtered the sunlight into fine, golden flakes that drifted down into the devoutly clasped palms of everyone.

"I'm back!"

"I am back."

"You two are really something, sleeping so late and still getting up so early to watch the sunrise." Miyamura Yu's voice came from the living room.

"Good morning, Grandma." Tsuna, having changed into his slippers, entered the living room first and, as expected, saw Yuu Miyamura watching TV early in the morning: "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Finally, she peeked out to make sure no one was in the kitchen, and was about to ask a question when Miyamura Yuu interrupted her:

"Nobita and Shizuka were 'busy' quite late last night and are still sleeping. I've already made breakfast, go and eat."

Shoko walked up, politely thanked him, and then turned to go to the kitchen to eat with Tsuna, who nodded to her.

No one found it strange that Shoko was having breakfast there; they were all used to it, since they were all family.

"Ding dong..."

Shoko swallowed the food in her mouth and looked at the person next to her with a puzzled expression. Could it be that Nishikata sent her New Year's greetings so early in the morning?

Moreover, everyone had already sent it to each other in the group at midnight today...

"Who is it, Tsuna?"

"I don't know, it's probably some kind of spam text message." He put down his chopsticks and took his phone out of his pocket.

After skillfully entering the password to unlock, I saw a message from 'LINE'.

Under Shoko's questioning gaze, he clicked on LINE and saw that it was a New Year's greeting from the girl who had added him yesterday.

He paused, suddenly realizing that Shoko didn't seem to know about this yet. He turned his head and, sure enough, met her curious gaze.

"Who is this 'Inoue Nishiki' from Tsuna? When did you add him as a friend?"

He then explained the whole story of his friend to his classmate, Shoko.

"Oh." Shoko nodded and continued eating her breakfast. "So it was just about schoolwork. I thought it was something else."

"Uh-huh."

He made a few minor changes to the explanation before Shoko felt there was nothing wrong with it.

"Aren't you going to reply? It's been over 10 minutes since it showed as read," Shoko reminded him.

He made a decision that went against his ancestors' wishes, nonchalantly handing his phone to his classmate, Shoko: "You reply for me, I'm going to continue eating breakfast."

This decision even made the chewing glass pause. She instantly came to her senses, took the phone he handed her, and quickly typed a sentence on the keypad and sent it.

"Happy New Year!"

"Did Miyamura-senpai wake up so early?"

Seeing that the other party replied instantly, Shoko continued to imitate Tsuna's tone and expression when replying.

She became increasingly skilled in this area, especially after the first girl successfully added 'his' contact information.

After that, more and more girls, even many of his classmates, came to add him as a friend, and he politely accepted their requests.

Sure enough, they gave the other party her contact information for her alternate account, and because it wasn't her main account, no one has noticed the problem so far.

Apart from Shoko's two best friends who noticed the problem, Nishikata remained oblivious, and sometimes even envied Tsuna for receiving so many girls asking for his contact information.

They also admired Shoko's magnanimity; she wasn't angry at all. After all, in the eyes of their small group, Tsuna and Shoko were a couple, just not together yet.

After a month or two of impersonation by Shoko, Tsuna gained the reputation of being cold in real life but warm-hearted online.

When asked about his studies via phone, he would reply to each question, but when asked in person, he would either push her away or give her a perfunctory refusal.

"Have some milk." Gang poured her a glass of milk and pushed it in front of her. He didn't interfere as he saw her chatting animatedly with the girl.

They were all questions about his studies or everyday matters, and he had absolutely no interest in any of them.

"Why don't you add me on my main account? This is my alt account; I didn't notice and let you add me."

"Uh-huh"

Just as she was about to enter her alternate account's contact information, Tsuna stopped her, saying, "This is different. We can't do it like we do at school."

He was still a little worried that Shoko and the other person might have some problems during their conversation, such as sparks flying, so it was better to keep an eye on them.

Under her questioning gaze, I explained it to her in a simpler way before she gave up on the idea.

But since 'he' had already sent it, he had no choice but to send Tsuna's alternate account so that the other party could add him, but they still chatted on his main account.

(End of this chapter)