Chapter 145 – Tanaka Tomfoolery

A quiet yet peaceful morning was what most people liked to wake up to in the very early hours of the sun rising.

It was mostly a universal thing where no one would enjoy waking up to a ruckus.

Especially when you're having your beauty sleep interrupted.

"Takeiii, wake upppp."

"Grandma loves children who sleep a lot~"

"Ah, he's going to get mad when he wakes up."

A group of voices could be heard while Takei was stirring awake from his slumber.

Since he wasn't fully awake yet, Takei wasn't entirely sure about who the voices belonged to, but he could make an educated guess.

Judging by the tone and words chosen, he believed that the voices belonged to Akari, Ayame, and Akihiko.

He still kept his eyelids closed since the realm of dreams was still calling to him, but he could feel his cheeks getting pinched.

"Wakey, wakey~"

Akari's gentle and playful voice tickled his ears as she played around with his surprisingly quite elastic cheeks.

Having enough of her antics, Takei suddenly opened his eyes and attacked Akari head-on with a bear hug.

"Kyaaa~" Akari joyfully yelled.

With Akari in his grasp, Takei began to squeeze her hard, as if siphoning off the warmth from her.

Akari seemed to enjoy the hug as well, as evident by her happy expression and her arms wrapping around Takei's back.

While these two were affectionately hugging early in the morning, they forgot to notice that there were also two other people in the room as well.

"Were we like this when we were younger?" Ayame asked.

"Most likely. I see the spitting image of our younger selves in them," Akihiko affirmed.

After that, both couples did a large amount of flirting before continuing on with their respective days.

***

Takei had noticed that Akari and Ayame were beginning to get very close with each other.

They had spent a large chunk of the day bonding recently and had grown extremely close in that small amount of time.

At the current moment, they were busy working on lunch together in the kitchen.

Takei was excluded from that because they were planning to make the lunch a collaborative effort between grandmother and granddaughter.

In the meantime, Takei was studying up for the next school year.

He had all the utensils spread out on his desk to ensure that he wouldn't be missing anything.

With everything ready, he began to study for all the core classes that he wanted to improve his grades on.

Takei already had pretty good grades, but his ambition to be better and stand next to Akari helped his motivation immensely.

After about 30 minutes of studying, someone knocked on the doorframe of his room.

"Can I come in?" Akihiko asked, holding a tray of oranges and some refreshing ice cold tea. "I brought refreshments for the hard-working grandson of mine, courtesy of the chef of course."

Takei smiled at how kind and respectful his family was being towards his studies. "Of course you can come in, just make sure to remind me to thank our two chefs out there later."

"Yep, I'll definitely let you remember later," Akihiko nodded. "They seemed ecstatic about cooking with each other, so I wouldn't really recommend bothering them right now."

Akihiko placed down the tray on Takei's desk and poured two cups of iced tea for them to drink.

"Thank you," Takei said, as he grabbed the cup from Akihiko.

Bringing the drink to his mouth, Takei took a sip and was instantly relieved by any mental stress that he was feeling from studying.

"It's high quality tea that helps with stress and anxiety," Akihiko explained. "Quite good for studying, am I right?"

"Mm, it's sure helping me," Takei confirmed.

Takei took an orange slice and plopped it into his mouth, which resulted in an explosion of delicious juice after he chewed on it.

While he was eating, Akihiko decided to bring up a question that shocked Takei. "So, when are you two lovebirds getting married? I want to reserve front-row tickets if it's alright with you."

"Pfft!" At such an odd statement, Takei nearly choked on the orange slice he was eating.

He then grabbed a napkin nearby and wiped his mouth before nervously replying. "M-married?! Where did you get such an idea from?!"

Takei was shocked to hear Akihiko bring up such an idea, since him and Akari were still pretty young and early into their relationship.

"It's just that... I can't see you two as anything other than a married couple. With all the flirting and lovey-dovey stuff you do, I'm surprised that you're not married yet." Akihiko sighed as he rubbed the back of his head. "You two are for sure married in spirit, just not legally on paper. If you love each other that much, then there's no problem with marrying early."

Akihiko was making some pretty good points about Takei and Akari's relationship, so Takei couldn't just blatantly deny everything without fully listening to him and giving it serious thought.

It was true that him and Akari would act like a married couple pretty often due to their mutual knowledge of each other's boundless love for each other.

However, the only thing holding him back was their young age and their short amount of time in a relationship so far.

They were still in high school and their romantic relationship had only started a couple months ago, so Takei believed it was still too early to get married.

Seeing Takei seriously mull over his words, Akihiko smiled and ruffled Takei's hair. "I'm not being serious about marrying this early. I was just joking around and trying to give you an idea of what to look forward to in the future, in terms of your relationship. That's why you should just keep the thought in the back of your head and make sure that she's happy."

Takei now understood that Akihiko only wanted him to prepare himself for an inevitable future by thinking seriously about what he wanted.

Akihiko stood up from Takei's bed after giving his two cents on the situation and began to leave.

On the way out, he managed to hear some words that were whispered by Takei.

"You'll definitely be in the front row with Mom and Dad..."

Hearing his grandson say such a sweet thing made a natural lazy smile appear on Akihiko's face.

I'm so blessed to have a good grandson.

—

New Idiot Couple Meter: 66 -> 72%

Wedding arc incoming?!

Serious-san: When is it going to be?!

Sugar-chan: I'm just waiting for the after-story~

A/N: Hero vs Demon Lord won last poll

Next chapter will be a .5 chapter that has a small cameo from someone that hasn't made their appearance in this series yet, if that makes any sense. Bonus points if anyone can guess it correctly.