He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not against the idea, but I just don't know if it's something that I'll really enjoy."
"We all think he should be a high school teacher," Akane explained to me.
"Ah but don't feel pressured!" Mina said. "If, um, you don't want to, then it's fine. We're just trying to help with suggestions."
Tarou chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I know Mina. I'm thinking about it."
"Uh," Yuuta glanced around wildly. "I, uh, don't know yet."
I smiled. "It's fine. You have plenty of time. Your turn, Ryota."
He shrugged, frowning in thought. "Engineering, maybe. But I suck at math." He sighed. "So maybe not. What about you, Rika?"
"Taking over the family business," I said. "So I guess I'll have to study business and other stuff. If..." I trailed off. If Mitsukuni and I were really over, then I might just go study abroad. "If you guys come to Tokyo, that'd be awesome."
"Yeah," they said quietly.
We chatted some more. I told them that we'd ran into Mina's little sister before and it had been quite an interesting experience. Mari had changed a lot. My image of her had been her child model days, with round cheeks and a bright grin. She'd been a snobby kid though and difficult to interact with.
Once we'd polished off all our ice cream, we stood and began walking back towards the clubroom.
"Oh!" Akane smacked a fist into her open palm when Ryota had opened the clubroom door. "You came at a perfect time, Rika!"
"What?" I said. She rushed to the table and grabbed the cardboard box sitting on it. She seemed to rummage through it for a moment.
"Wait, right now?" Ryota said quietly, heading to her side. The others shoved past me to surround the box.
"What's going on?" I asked, curiosity growing each second. Akane hoisted the box up into her arms and everyone turned to me.
"One," Akane said.
"One," Akane said.
"Two," Mina said.
"Three," Mikiya said with an anxiously looking grin. "Happy birthday!" they all yelled in unison.
I jumped in surprise. "What?" I grinned.
"Here." Akane handed me the box. Inside, I could see neatly wrapped gifts and cards. "From all of us. We were planning on shipping it later to Honey's house and having him give it to you, but since you're here, you can just take it."
"Oh wow." I gaped at the gifts then up at my friends who were all beaming. "Thank you guys so much!" "Open the gifts!" Mina said excitedly.
"Sure." I set the box back down. "But my birthday isn't until Thursday."
"Well, it's close enough," Ryota replied.
Part 53
Start from the beginning
