Mandarin Orange, Kotatsu, And A Found Cat

Chapter 52 The Cat And Gift

That evening, in addition to my request for an omelet rice, we had salad and soup, and it was very delicious.
I regretted that I took the chance to have an omelet, but I was very satisfied with the delicious food.

I don’t particularly like omelet rice, but it brought back memories of my childhood when I ate only egg dishes, and I missed my parents’ house just a little bit.

“Gochisosama. Thank you, Mashiro.”
“No, it’s mutual.”

Mashiro’s cooking was amazing. She looked like a high school girl, but she had a strange taste of my mother’s cooking.
I was surprised to find that Mashiro’s well-balanced, good-looking, lightly seasoned, and truly experienced dishes were served every day.

According to Mashiro, she had a mentor who taught her about cooking and housework.
Judging from the speed and efficiency of her daily chores, Mashiro’s housewifery skills are probably due to the teachings of her mentor.

“By the way, I found some unfamiliar snacks in the refrigerator.”
“Ah, it’s a gift I got from work. Feel free to eat it.”

I don’t remember where it came from, but one of my colleagues gave it to me the other day as a thank you for the other day’s incident.
It was a younger woman with whom I hadn’t had much conversation, but last week or so, she had been very busy with her work and I had had to help her out a bit.
I guess she meant to return the favor. What can I say, she seemed to be a very disciplined person.

When Mashiro asked me about the gift, I told her about it, and for some reason, she gave me a subtle look.

“What’s wrong, Mashiro?”
“No, nothing. If it’s okay with you, let’s have some for dessert after dinner.”
“Y-Yeah. I’ll do that.”

I wondered if I had stepped on a landmine, but she quickly got up and went to get the gift.
I quickly followed her and went back to my drawer to get a small plate and fork. Mashiro carefully peeled off the wrapping and placed the contents on each plate.

The souvenir, by the way, was a rice cake about the size of an egg with a lot of red bean paste around it.
I had eaten something similar in the past, but Mashiro looked at it with great interest.

“Is this your first time eating this kind of pastry?”
“It’s an unusual look. It looks delicious.”
“It’s a little hard to eat, but it’s sweet and delicious.”

Mashiro stared at the sweets for a while and didn’t move, so I decided to take a bite first.
I threw the sweet bean paste into my mouth along with the rice cake inside, and the sweetness and texture of the refined bean paste filled my mouth with happiness.
After seeing me, Mashiro also started to eat it with some trepidation.

“Hmm…!”

As soon as Mashiro took a bite of the sweets, her eyes showed surprise and she held her mouth.
As Mashiro slowly chewed, her expression softened and her cheeks relaxed in happiness.

“…Cute.”

I looked at Mashiro and naturally felt this emotion.
It was a bit different to say that she was cute in terms of her appearance, but I found her happy face as she put food in her mouth to be very cute.
I think I felt the same way when she ate the first piece of salmon sashimi I bought her.

“…”

But the only problem was that I had unintentionally expressed this feeling out loud.
The distance between us, just across the desk, was too close for my words not to reach Mashiro, and she remained silent as she finished chewing.
…This may have been a real land mine.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you, but it wasn’t something I would have said lightly…I apologize.”

With all the walking and shopping, I might have somehow lost track of the distance between us.
It was not that I don’t like it, but it was just that I don’t know how to react to the opposite sex.
I thought I had warned her about this before, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

Mashiro’s expression didn’t seem to have changed much, but she still didn’t say anything back.

“Mashiro…?”
“I-I’ll go take a shower first.”
“Eh. Y-Yeah.”

Leaving the sweets on her plate, she quickly went to the bath. Normally, she killed a little more time before she went in…
I was the one who caused the problem, so I could only give her a quick reply and watched her go.

When Mashiro got out of the bath and the door to the changing room opened, a cat with pure white fur all over its body came out of it.

“Eh, Mashiro?”
“…Meow”

Normally, whenever she’s using the bathroom, she’s in the form of a cat, but this was the first time seeing it happen.
Seeing my bewilderment on the sofa, Mashiro trotted up to me.
Then she jumped on my lap.

“Ah, E—Eh?”

The repeated and unpredictable behavior finally left me speechless.
On my lap, Mashiro rested her head on my thigh and squealed “nyaa” in a beautiful, well-cleared voice.

…I don’t know if she’s ever been this sweet to me before.
I’ve had a similar situation before, but that time I asked her to come over to me and she did.
It was probably the first time she had chosen come to me and stayed so close.

As usual, I couldn’t understand her cat language, but I could tell that she was definitely paying attention to me.
However, I was the only one who could not keep up with the situation, and I could not move without becoming stiff.

However, I felt that it would be wrong for me to do nothing after what Mashiro had done to me, so I gathered up my courage and touched her body with my hand.
Her body was as fluffy and smooth as ever. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact that she had just finished taking a bath, but I could feel the smoothness of her body as if it was absorbing my hand.

“Meooow.”

Mashiro squealed in a sweet voice and then throttled me, narrowing her eyes.
I didn’t know how I ended up in this situation, but I was honestly happy to be able to interact with Mashiro in her cat form.