CH 75

Since I started dating Sakuramiya-sensei, two and a half years have passed without me even realizing it. The most obvious change was that I had already passed High-school and I am a university student now.

It was strange to continue calling Sakuramiya-sensei as ‘Sensei’ since I was no longer a high school student. Although I had always thought so, calling her by her first name, Yumi, made me feel uneasy. Even calling her Yumi-san felt slightly odd.

Anyway, I usually called her Yumi naturally, and sometimes even addressed her without honorifics, but… I would prefer to continue referring to her as Sakuramiya-sensei in my monologue.

“I’m home!”

Things had changed over the course of two and a half years. Obviously, it wasn’t just because I had switched jobs to become a university student.

Just a few minutes after I came home, Sakuramiya-sensei came as well, but she sneakily came behind and hugged me tightly.

“Welcome back—whoa!”

“Minato-kun! Minato-kun! Minato-kun! Minato-kun! Minato-kun! Minato-kun!”

“Don’t suddenly hug me so forcefully.”

“But I haven’t seen Minato-kun for half a day. I need to replenish my Minato-kun energy to keep living.”

“You’ve become quite demanding, haven’t you?”

“Take responsibility, okay?”

“I refuse.”

“Mmph, you always say something mean like that.”

Sakuramiya-sensei was tweaking my cheeks with her fingers. She hugged me from behind and wouldn’t let go.

You’ve probably guessed it by now, but over the past two and a half years, Sakuramiya-sensei and I had started living together.

When I consulted her about the poor transportation options to get to university, she immediately took action without giving me a chance to refuse, saying “I’ll lend you my room” and we ended up renting a place.

As it was too spacious for her to live in alone, and she had never really moved out of her childhood room, it was a smooth decision to live together.

“Please move away… I’m still in the middle of cooking.”

“Okay.”

Sakuramiya-sensei moved away from me, took off her jacket, and began to unpack her bag.

Watching her, I stopped cooking and approached her.

I silently approached her from behind and hugged her.

“Caught you!”

“Hyaa!”

“This is payback.”

“I was surprised, but this isn’t really payback.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I’m just happy that Minato-kun is nearby.”

Sakuramiya-sensei touched my arm.

She clung to me, not wanting to let go.

We spent some time just hugging each other.

Then, I suddenly noticed something unfamiliar in Sakuramiya-sensei’s bag.

“What’s that envelope?”

“Oh, this?”

Stopping the hug, Sakuramiya-sensei took out an envelope from her bag and showed it off.

“It’s a letter that will be delivered a year from now.”

“A letter to be delivered a year from now?”

“Yeah. I was taught about it by Ninomiya-sensei recently.”

“Ninomiya-sensei? Oh, the one who recently transferred here.”

“That’s right. If you put this envelope in the postbox, it will be delivered to your home in a year.”

She talked excitedly about the details of the envelope, with a cheerful smile, and handed one of the two envelopes to me.

“I thought it would be nice if we could write it together with Minato-kun. What do you think?”

“That sounds interesting. Shall we write it later?”

I accepted the envelope, and we decided to write a letter for delivery in one year.

After finishing dinner, we immediately began writing the letters. We sat facing each other at the table, holding pens.

“Since we’re doing this, should we write letters to each other?”

“Sure, let’s do that.”

There were no objections, so we decided to write letters to each other. But a letter… I couldn’t even remember the last time I wrote one properly, so I couldn’t think of a way to start.

As I struggled to think, I remembered that there was something in my pocket.

“By the way…”

“Hmm?”

“While I was cleaning earlier, I found this.”

“Oh, that…”

I took out a piece of paper from my pocket and spread it out on the table. I had completely forgotten about it because of the letter.

“Yumi-san made me write this by threatening me.”

“That sounds so bad! I didn’t threaten you. I just appealed to your emotions a little.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes… well, probably.”

What I put on the table was a marriage certificate. I had to pretend to be Sakuramiya-sensei’s fiancé and introduce ourselves to her family. We wrote it to prove our strong intention to get married. In the end, it didn’t come in handy.

“Did you keep it instead of throwing it away?”

“Well, I can’t just throw it away. Plus, you know I’m bad at throwing things away.”

“Oh, I see… Is this marriage certificate still valid?”

“Huh? I’m not sure. The date section isn’t filled out, but as long as there are witnesses and everything written correctly, it should be fine. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

I put my chin on my hand and decided what to write in the letter. I will write about my health condition, the state of our relationship, and mix in some slightly s*xual content, while also creating a future-oriented article for Sakuramiya-sensei, who will receive the letter in a year.

Finally, I decided to add a sentence.

“If we’re not married by the time this letter arrives, please submit this marriage certificate to the city office.”

“…..”

“…..”

…This sentence sounds a bit forceful. Is there a softer way to say it? I hate my lack of writing skills.

Since I started living with Sakuramiya-sensei, I have been seriously considering marriage. It’s a process of aligning our different values, compensating for each other’s weaknesses, and living together.

Helping each other, sometimes depending on each other, every day is filled with new things, and living with Sakuramiya-sensei is enjoyable… that’s why marriage often crosses my mind.

I may not have the power to bear a part of someone’s life yet, but I sincerely want to marry Sakuramiya-sensei.

However, it’s hard to say it directly in words… that’s why time keeps passing by.

But I think it’s time to take action. Considering Sakuramiya-sensei’s age, there are also issues such as having children…

And now, there’s this letter a year later.

I thought this was a good opportunity. I will enclose the marriage certificate in the letter and declare my determination.

As for someone like me who keeps procrastinating, setting a deadline like this will put me in a different mood.

“Did you finish writing?”

“Well, not yet… and don’t look, please.”

“Well, now I’m curious.”

“How about you? Did you finish writing?”

“Yeah, I did. Oh, I’ll go make coffee for us.”

“Thank you.”