CH 25

Previous Life and Napolitan

Even though it was the first date of my life (self-proclaimed), I was still hungry as I slept through the day without eating breakfast.

So, the first place I visited on my outing with Amane was Suzu-nee’s house, a coffee shop.

Personally, it’s the same place I’ve always been, but this is only the second time I’ve been there with Amane~.

“Oh, welcome, you two”

“Oh, both of you came!”

As I entered the restaurant, I was greeted with a smile by Suzu-nee, still wearing her apron and jeans, and an uncle who was working in the kitchen.

…… I can’t help but feel a slight air of teasing, but I’ll pretend I didn’t see that and go…

“Is there a seat available?”

“Hmm~ right… There are no more tables, and the counter also doesn’t have two seat available.”

In response to the question, Suzu-nee’s looked around the store with a tray in her hand.

It was certainly not a good time for us to sit together in a restaurant with that many customers on a Saturday.

That said, I didn’t feel comfortable asking the customers at the counter to be crowded…

As I was thinking about it, Suzu-nee’s suggested an alternative.

“Oh, right, come on up to the house. You guys won’t be a problem… Isn’t it fine, dad.”

“Oh, I don’t mind, go up. It’s been a while.”

Then, at the suggestion of Suzu-nee’s, who even gave me a thumbs-up, we went into the living room of Suzu-nee’s house, which was connected to the store at the back of the cafe.

That’s not how you treat your customers, but it makes us feel very nostalgic.

When we were kids, we would be taken home from the store like this, and Suzu-nee would bring us store-bought coffee milk that she said “she made herself”, and we would “play coffee shop”.

“It’s so nostalgic. Coming up from the store to Suzu-nee’s house.”

Amane seems to have been thinking about the same thing.

In the living room, which I hadn’t been to in several years, the arrangement of things had changed a little, but there were no major changes… It made me feel nostalgic.

“Ah! This pennant was still there.”

“I’ve never seen those strange ornaments over here before. Uncle, he is still buying weird stuff…”

Suzu-nee’s father, the manager of the coffee shop, had a bad habit of buying souvenirs from the stores during his trips. He had a bad habit of buying souvenirs that he thought “who would buy this?”, but… apparently it’s still alive.

Suzu-nee also let out a sigh.

“As you can see… We used to warn him about them, but now me and Mom have given up. Around the time the fifth raccoon of Shigaraki ware was added.”

“”Fifth!?””

We sat down on the cushions in the living room, surprised, and Suzu-nee placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of us. Coffee on the tea table… It’s a mismatch.

And it’s funny to know that this is not store-bought coffee milk, but coffee that was really made for me.

The things that change have changed, but this is about growth…

“Hmm… Amane-chan, do you have two bruises on your neck?”

While I was vaguely immersed in such memories, Suzu-nee said something like that while looking at Amane’s neck.

Bruise on the nape? Did that happen? When I looked back at Amane, she was holding her neck as quickly as she could.

…… I gave up on looking directly at it, as its placement was slightly too territorial for boy to look into, but apparently, there really are two bruises.

“Aa~ un… maybe on the stairs, there is a bit…”

Amane said that while giving me a slight wink.

Ah~, in other words, did she hit somewhere when she fell down the stairs the other day… or something like that?

At the time, I thought Amane wasn’t injured anywhere, but it seems I was wrong… What a blunder.

But Suzu-nee’s thought differently when Amane made eye contact with me, and her face turned slightly red.

Oi, wait a minute? Are you sure you’re not misunderstanding something??

I can’t confirm or deny it because it wasn’t pointed out to me in any way…

As soon as she recovered herself, Suzu-nee returned to her role as a coffee shop clerk.

“So, what’s your order? You haven’t had lunch yet, have you?”

“Ah~, maybe I should go light meal?”

“I haven’t even had breakfast, so I want to gobble it up along with lunch!”

Taking orders in the living room of an ordinary house is quite surreal, but when Suzu-nee heard my order, she gave a half-eyed, obviously dumbfounded sigh.

“You’ve been sleeping in the daytime? You are already a high school student, so you should get up properly even on holidays… Good grief…”

“I am ashamed of myself…”

I can’t argue with that… But I don’t feel any remorse!!

“Yareyare… Would you like Napolitan?”

“YES! Because the Napolitan here is exquisite! Large portions, please!!”

I gave her a thumbs up and she smiled and went back to the kitchen.

Then, from the other side of the room, I heard Suzu-nee’s voice saying, “Napolitan Tenkomori, lightly hot sandwiches afterward.”

Amane and I couldn’t help but laugh together at the sight of such a scene that looked just like the old days, but was slightly different.

After talking with Amane for a while, we couldn’t help but talk about our dreams, which is something we can’t help doing these days.

Our story gradually shifted from yesterday’s dream story to “Dream Book”.

“Does this mean that I’ve used the beginner’s section of the book on ‘lucid dreaming’, ‘premonition dream’, ‘past dream’, ‘future dream’, ‘shared dream’, and ‘nightmare’?”

“The definition of “nightmare” is a bit vague… If you’re talking about feeling bad, or having a bad aftertaste, I didn’t feel good about the “premonition dream” or the “future dream…”

It’s hard to call either of them a bad dream ‘nightmare’ when you look at the results…

While thinking about this, I casually opened the “Dream Book” that I had brought with me to this place… And I noticed.

“… Items in the book… is increasing?”

“Eh!? Really?”

I spread out the book and showed it to Amane, who leaned forward from the table.

Intermediate ①Previous Life Dream ②Dream Pillow ③Out-of-body experience

“”Uwaa………””

Rather than the appearance of a new page, an intermediate level of dream manipulation, both Amane and I couldn’t help but shout out at the content of the words that appeared.

“Somehow… Is it just me, or does other than ① look rather disturbing to you?”

“What a coincidence… I think so too.”

To be clear, I know ② and ③ without having to Google them.

If you’ve heard stories of ghosts and youkai, you’ve probably heard them once.

The dream pillow is that thing where the dead person talks to the sleeping person.

Some episodes are heartwarming, such as omens and wills to family members, while others are unpleasant, with unrequited love and resentment being spoken in broken sentences.

I think the out-of-body experience is where you fly only your astral body out of your body and become like a pseudo ghost.

But even in this case, I have an image that if I get carried away, I won’t be able to return to my body or I’ll really die.

U~mu… Both of these words sound scary just by themselves.

“Let’s put ② and ③ on hold for now… I feel”

“That’s right. It’s kind of scary…”

After concluding that, we decided to focus on ① for now.

Previous Life Dream

How to dream of a previous life. It is possible to trace some of the knowledge and experiences of the previous life.

“This is also a bit occult, but maybe I am interested?”

“Your previous life was~ that words was popular for a while, right~, like fortune-telling?”

Amane agrees with me, feeling a bit excited.

“Previous life… what would I have been? I wonder if this is the time for me to do what I couldn’t do in my previous life. What would you like to do, Yumeji-kun?”

“I? Mmm… a standard Sengoku warrior or something?”

The question was vague, and I could only come up with a vague answer on the spur of the moment.

Amane, however, clapped her hands in admiration.

“Oh, that’s a boy! Are you aiming for the ruling whole country? Or Ikki Tousen and Let’s Party?” (TLN: I think the words are usually said before a battle in Basara, the meaning is like ‘Let’s go out with a bang’)

“You read too many manga, or maybe you play too many games…. What about Amane? What it was your previous life?”

When I replied, Amane frowned, crossed her arms, and began to groan.

“Hmm, right… a princess… seemed going to have a tough time fighting the court, a decent rich man… No, the noblemen seem to be busy running their lands, and the common people seem to be struggling with their lives in both the East and West…… “

Amane groaned for a while, but then she suddenly clapped her hands.

“Right! Because there are no taxes and no money… I’ll be a pirate… Ouch!?”

“Leave it there…”

I couldn’t help but give Amane a light chop.

She might have thought she was being calm, but the idea that led her there was pretty much too nasty to be true…

As we were talking like this, the current sliding door suddenly opened and Suzu-nee appeared with a large plate of Napolitan.

However, the Napolitan with a lot of ketchup on it smelled so good that it was very appetizing but… the amount of Napolitan piled up like a mountain was considerably moderate.

“Uwa!? That’s a lot… I can’t eat it all, Suzu-nee…”

Isn’t that too much service? I thought and said, but Suzu-nee laughed and put a pile of Napolitan on the tea table and sat down.

“Ah~, don’t worry, this is also my lunch.”

While saying that, she gives me and Amane our plates and forks.

Ah, I see… You mean this is also Suzu-nee’s lunch and lunch break, so you are serving yourself in addition…

When I was convinced, Suzu-nee boldly broke up the pile of Napolitan and put it on her plate….

Mu… This is bad! I thought it would be a lot, but if we had to divide it among the three of us, this would turn into a battle.

“I don’t mean to interrupt you, but sometimes let your onee-chan join too. …… Brother.”

“Particularly… it’s okay…”

“Hey, Suzu-nee… Don’t you think you’re taking a little too much!?”

A large pile of pasta was being broken down as if we were fighting to be the first to eat it.

In the end, the three of us, who are fairly old, end up eating pasta with ketchup all over our mouths… It was a far from elegant lunch.

“Hmm… Previous life, huh, did you guys like that kind of thing?”

“No, I don’t really like it or anything…”

“What about Suzu-nee? If I had a previous life~ thing, Have you ever thought about that?”

Naturally, put the plate down, while eating a Neapolitan, as if lunch was more important, Suzu-nee, who looked uninterested, was asked by Amane while eating a hot sandwich that Uncle brought for her later.

…… I think you’re eating too much.

Suzu-nee’s sniffed at Amane’s simple question.

“Hmm… I don’t know… It’s not that I don’t have thoughts about my life right now… I guess it doesn’t ring a bell when you ask what my life was like before.”

“Why don’t you take a moment to think about it? You see, like a Sengoku warlords…”

When Amane glanced at me and said that, Suzu-nee seemed to realize that the statement had come from me and grinned.

“What, you want to be a warlord in your former life? It’s so cliché~ a boy!”

“Shut up~… I’m sorry I only have cliché ideas.”

“It’s good, Sengoku warlord! Let’s party !!”

“Don’t drag me in! Not that I want to be a warrior in particular!”

For a while after that, I had to be teased by both of them about my previous life as a warlord.

I shouldn’t have said anything…

But Suzu-nee, who had been laughing for a while, muttered to herself as she cleared away the empty plates.

“Anyway, I don’t like fighting for a living. This is how I help out at the store, deal with the customers, and occasionally talk nonsense with my younger friends… That’s what I’m most comfortable with, so about the previous life… I can’t even imagine it.”

I was about to say something back, but when I saw Suzu-nee’s profile, I swallowed the words that were about to come out.

I don’t know why, but for a moment Suzu-nee’s face looked sad…

So… I didn’t notice it at all.

”Dream Book” that below my hand, page 19, had a suspicious light on it…