Me and Ai

Chapter 53: I'm Not Japanese

"Wow, you're all quite scattered."

"Yeah. I lived with my younger bro in our house; it was just the two of us but our parents always send us money and we chat with them. We still took part time jobs to earn some extra money for our needs and wants plus we get bored at home at times."

"You've worked really hard, Ori-chan."

"I guess so." I smiled.

I opened the box of desserts.

"Feel free to take any of these. They're from my family's cafe."

"Oh! Then I'm sure they taste good!" Natsuki said.

Mikaze-senpai took one of the desserts and looked at it carefully.

"Kaori, you're actually not Japanese; am I correct?"

Natsuki and Syo were surprised my Mikaze-senpai's words.

"That's right. My family and I aren't actually Japanese. How did you figure it out?"

"The desserts were unfamiliar. I was thinking that these desserts are probably from your home country."

"You're right on the spot Mikaze-senpai, they're desserts from our home country; we make and sell them at our café."

"Kaori, you're a foreigner?" Syo asked in surprise.

"Yup."

"T-then what about your name?! It's Japanese!" Syo couldn't believe that I wasn't actually Japanese.

"It's actually something like a second name I guess. If you would go back to the academy and ask for the class register of S class of our batch, "Yamashita Kaori" doesn't appear because my real name would be there in the register. I only use the name "Yamashita Kaori" to make things easier for everyone plus I don't like it when people don't pronounce my name properly; it's like my Japanese alias or something like that."

Natsuki looks at me carefully. "It's quite surprising to know you're foreign because you look like and dress up like a typical Japanese person."

"When you speak in Japanese, you sound like a native person. Even your actions are so Japanese." Syo says while he was chewing a spoonful of his dessert.

"Well, we migrated to Japan before I entered junior high school due to my father's work. Ever since he started working for the company he's working for now, he was assigned here. So he decided that we all should be together with him but then, by the time I entered junior high, he was assigned to another branch of the company abroad. I guess I've been in Japan for so long that I've absorbed the culture and all."

"It's too bad that your father was reassigned abroad." Natsuki said.

"It's okay. We're used to it plus we chat from time to time; papa also calls us sometimes so it's fine. Mama on the other hand is always messaging haha. Oh, by the way, our family cafe is in Kyoto so mama is staying in Kyoto. That's where we first lived when we moved here to Japan."

"That's kind of cute, Ori-chan."

"Hm? What's cute?"

"It's kind of cute that you call your parents "papa" and "mama"."

I turned a bit red on the face.

"Haha, that's quite true." Syo said.

"People of your age usually call their parents "mom and dad" or "father and mother"." Mikaze-senpai said.

"Well I like to call them that way because for me it's more endearing, okay!"

I pouted a bit in embarrassment.