The orphanage’s dining area was large and composed of several square tables with comfy chairs, and some of those chairs were specially made for toddlers. Around the room, there were some of the kids’ drawings and paintings on the walls, giving the room a wholesome aesthetic.
With an open view to the dining room, there was the kitchen, which was a mix of professional and homely.
In there, the three cooks were doing some cleaning. All three were women, with two being in their thirties and one in her forties. One of the ones in their thirties was a bit overweight, and they all wore casual clothing, aprons and hairnets.
Although, only two were mentioned, Asahi understood that the third one was probably a recurring volunteer.
Umi gestured towards them. “Kinoshita-san, this is Masuda-san, Fujita-san and Murakami-san.”
The skinnier one in her thirties, to whom Umi referred to as Murakami-san, wiggled her fingers at him. “Hi, nice to meet you.”
Meanwhile the other two simply gave him a slight bow, but all three were smiling with a light blush.
Asahi replied with a slight bow of his own. “Nice to meet you too.”
Umi then gestured towards the counter that was near one of the two sinks. “That toolbox will hopefully have everything you need. In the bag beside it, are all the parts that will be replacing the drainage under those two sinks.”
Asahi nodded. “It won’t take long.”
Umi smiled, speaking before she left. “Great. If you need anything come find me, I’ll be outside working and guiding the rest of the volunteers.”
Asahi immediately got to work.
Even before getting a System, it wouldn’t have been that difficult for him, since one of his part-time jobs aside from dish-washing was being a plumber’s assistant. That, and the internet existed, where you could find a tutorial to most things imaginable.
While he worked under the sink, the three cooks chatted merrily about mundane topics.
‘This place is unbelievable, but like Fumiko said, it’s one of the good ones, plural. It’s a bitter-sweet pill to swallow, but there are other orphanages out there that actually care for the children. And Reina-chan, she reminds me so much of myself back then, altered entropic field aside. The smart introvert that got in trouble due to their bluntness.’
He sighed.
‘It took a lot not to cry when she hugged me. It felt like five-year-old me was trying to tell me that everything will be okay.’
He then smiled.
‘Yeah, everything will be okay eventually.’
He kept working while making slight adjustments to his plans for that week.
Less than twenty minutes later, he tested the second sink after he finished changing the parts, and everything was fine.
He looked at the three cooks. “I’m done, both sinks are free for you to use.”
Murakami smiled. “That was really fast, thank you so much.”
He gave her a slight bow. “You’re welcome.”
Saying that, he picked up the bag that now had the old parts in it and left the kitchen to talk to Umi.
Outside, at a distance, he saw the four people he came with, using paint rollers with long sticks to paint the second floor, with another person alongside them.
She was a little shorter than 1.7m-tall, had shoulder-length hair tied in a small pony tail, and a gentle face with soft features. Her body was slender but in great shape, clearly the body of an athlete.
Asahi didn’t need the System to know that the extremely cute fifteen-year-old girl was Keisuke’s crush.
There were already over a dozen other volunteers spread around helping paint the walls and with other minor things.
Asahi didn’t have to ask for information, since he knew where everyone was by simple sensing their presence.
He went directly to the vegetable garden.
Umi was there talking to a woman in her forties, who was wearing gardening gear.
He simply waited outside the garden for her to finish the conversation, which only took a couple minutes.
Exiting the garden, Umi noticed Asahi. “Kinoshita-san, do you need something?”
Asahi raised the bag with the old pipes. “I finished what you asked of me. Do I take the old parts to the storage room?”
Her eyes widened. “Already? Is everything working correctly?”
Asahi nodded. “Yup.”
“Then you can take that to the storage room. There is a guy named Masayoshi there, he’ll help you out.”
“Alright.” When he was about to leave, he spoke again. “Before I go, can I ask you something about Reina-chan?”
“Sure.”
“It’s clear to me that the children here are far from being neglected, but Reina-chan brightened up with just a plushie. Doesn’t she have her own toys?”
Umi sighed, displaying an expression filled with worry. “Although we try our best to provide for the children here, we also try not to force things. Reina came here a little over six months ago, and it took over a week for her to finally say a word. From what I understand, nothing physical happened to her, but she was yelled at a lot in her previous orphanage. We’re slowly and safely trying to get through to her.”
Asahi displayed a contemplative expression, as if he just understood something. “I see…”
She smiled. “She really made an impression on you, huh? Sorry, but you need to be at least twenty-five to adopt a child, aside from extenuating circumstances. Also, I think that the magic trick helped a lot.”
He chuckled. “I wasn’t even thinking about that. She just reminds me of parts of myself as a child. I just wanted to make her smile, that’s all. I’m gonna go put these away and start to help painting the walls, unless there is something else you need me to do.”
“No, the plumbing was it, thank you.”
After giving her a slight bow, he left to the storage building.
The main storage room in the building had a couple dozen shelves filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
There was a guy in his early twenties mixing paint on top of a table. He wore old casual clothes and was five or so centimeters shorter than Asahi, with average looks.
Asahi looked at the shelves as he walked. “Hi, Murata-san told me to leave these old drainage parts here.”
Masayoshi looked at him. “Oh, hello. You can just leave it on the floor near the table.”
“Okay. I also need two paint rollers with those big sticks, and paint, would you please get me those if you can?”
Masayoshi nodded. “Sure.”
He quickly grabbed two paint rollers with retractable sticks, a bucket of already mixed paint and a tray to put the paint on the rollers, handing them to Asahi.
Asahi picked them up, speaking before he left. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Outside, Asahi when to a wall to the side of the main building, where no one was painting.
He put everything down, then pulled out his phone, then started to watch a tutorial on how to paint with a paint roller at three times speed.
Nodding, he closed the video.
After applying the paint to the paint rollers, he started to paint the second floor.
Quickly, his movements became fluid, accelerating the process.
In a little over an hour, although it was the smaller one, that entire side of the building was done.
As he tidied everything up, and prepared to take the rollers back to the storage building, Umi was staring at him and the wall, with a flabbergasted expression.
Asahi approached her. “Is it okay if I take this back for now? I wanna go play with Reina-chan for a bit, since I promised her.”
Umi nodded, still looking at him with a quizzical expression. “That’s fine. Did you work as a painter before?”
He shook his head as he left. “Nah, just watched a video on how to do it.”
She looked at his back as he left, then back at the wall. ‘First that unbelievable magic trick, now this. He didn’t even have a single drop of paint on his body. Interesting…’
Obviously, nothing that Asahi was doing was to show off. He just wanted some time alone to think, and doing things in an optimized manner was a habit of his.
The storage building’s main room had no one in it, so Asahi put the painting equipment on a corner on top of some old cardboard in order to not make a mess, then left.
From there, he went directly to the main building, where he could sense Reina by herself in the living room. She was still watching TV, but unlike before, she was hugging Haruka, her new friend, with a smile on her face.
Once in a while, Reina rubbed her cheek on Haruka, tightening the hug.
Asahi smiled as he was about to enter the living room. ‘I forgot how kids can be really easy to please sometimes. Well, not that easy in this case, since I might be more relatable to her than the other adults here, in a sense at least. And as Murata-san stated, the magic trick probably helped.’
As he entered the living room, Reina saw him, and started waving at him with a bright smile on her face.
He sat down on the couch with her. “Did you and Haruka have fun?”
Reina nodded. “Yeah. I told her some stories, then we started watching anime, since she never watched one before.”
Asahi chuckled. “That’s nice. You like stories?”
She nodded once more. “Yeah, but I already read all the books here.”
He looked at her quizzically. “Do the grownups here know that you like books?”
She looked down and caressed Haruka’s back. “No, I read them by myself.”
Asahi patted her head. “I’m good at telling stories, do you wanna hear one?”
Feeling comforted by the head pat, and curious about the potential story, she looked at him. “Yeah.”
He smiled. “The story is about a little girl, in a land filled with magic…”
Her interest was immediately caught, and her eyes started to sparkle as he told the story.
Asahi told her a story tailored specially to her, about a little girl that was all alone, but with the help of magic she found a place where she could belong.
The story was filled with allegories and metaphors, but simplified enough so he was fairly sure that she would understand them.
Reina laughed, got anxious, teared up and cheered, going through a whole spectrum of emotions, all the while being totally enthralled by the story.
Like that, a couple hours passed in a flash.
When Asahi finally said “The end.”, Reina clapped with a bright smile on her face.
Reina grabbed Haruka’s front paws and moved them, making it look like she was also clapping. “Yay, Haruka liked it too!”
Asahi patted her head. “I’m glad you both liked it.”
She giggled as she hugged Haruka.
As Asahi patted Haruka’s head with his finger, Umi spoke from the living room’s entrance. “Lunch is ready. Kinoshita-san, lunch for the volunteers will be served outside, because we don’t have enough tables for everyone.”
Reina’s giggling stopped as she tightened her arms around Haruka.
Noticing that, Asahi looked at Umi. “Can I just talk to Reina-chan for a few minutes before we go? I promise it won’t take long.”
Umi nodded. “No problem.”
He looked at Reina, then back at Umi. “Murata-san, would it be okay if the three of us had lunch here on this coffee table together?”
Understanding his intentions, Umi smiled. “That’s a great Idea, I’ll go to the kitchen and bring us some bento boxes.”
As Umi left, Asahi turned to Reina. “Reina-chan, are you afraid that the grownups here are gonna yell at you too?”
Reina silently nodded.
He gently patted her head. “It’s okay, it must have been really scary.”
Reina nodded once more. “It was. Every time I tried to help or say that something was wrong, the grownups started yelling at me. I’m scared that I’ll say something wrong again.”
He smiled. “Reina-chan, since you came here, did any of the grownups yell at you?”
Reina shook her head. “No…”
He patted her head again. “The grownups here are good people, and I doubt that they’ll yell at you, especially Murata-san.” He then scratched Haruka’s head with his finger. “And if by some reason you get scared, remember that Haruka will protect you. She’s a magical giraffe after all.”
Reina raised her little right hand, extending her pinky finger. “Promise?”
Asahi raised his hand, intertwining his little finger with hers. “I promise.”
Reina giggled and kissed Haruka. “I love her. Thank you for giving her to me.”
“You’re welcome. Are you still scared?”
Reina nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll try my best to be brave.”
She then looked like she wanted to ask something, but stopped herself and looked at the floor.
He smiled and lightly pinched her cheek. “Reina-chan, you don’t need to hold back with me, you can ask me anything you want.”
She smiled shyly, then looked at him. “Can I call you Asa-nii? I’m sorry that I did it earlier without asking first.”
Asahi felt a warm tug within him, making him have to actively control his feelings.
He patted her head again. “Of course, I’d like that very much.”
She smiled brightly, then looked at him curiously. “Can I ask you something?”
He nodded. “Yeah, like I said, no need to hold back.”
She tightened her hug on Haruka. “Is your home close?”
“No. I live in Tokyo, another city far from here.”
Her bright smile quickly disappeared. “Oh… You’re not gonna come back here then.”
“That depends, do you want me to come back?”
She looked at him, nodding with a pleading expression. “Yeah, you’re my first friend.”
That hit him like a truck, making him take a deep breath.
He smiled, as he leaned down, giving her forehead a kiss. “Then I’ll come back to play with you. It’s not hard for me to do so, and I’d like very much to visit you again.”
With a hesitant smile, she stood up on the couch. “Really?”
Asahi could clearly see the uncertainty in her eyes, a look that was quite familiar to him. The eyes of a child that was used to not expect anything good to happen.
Not only he saw those eyes in many children before, but they were very similar to the eyes that he used to see in the mirror every day.
Despite everything that had already happened, there was a part of Reina that still thought that it was all too good to be true, that him going away was the natural course of things.
Asahi opened his arms, displaying a gentle smile. “Come here.”
Reina started to tear up, slowly approaching him.
Although she hugged him before, it was different. That was just emulated behavior on her part, from what she had seen before.
Asahi wanting to hug her however, was the first time she would have genuinely accepted a hug.
As she hugged him, feeling his arms around her, his warmth, she started to silently cry.
He caressed her back, letting her cry to her heart’s content.
At first glance it would seem strange that she opened up to him so easily, but children are often able to pick up on certain things that adults usually have a hard time to.
In that instance, was the scars left by the loneliness and sadness inside Asahi, which none of the other adults around her carried. That, on a subconscious level, made him feel like a kindred spirit to her.
After a while, when Reina finally stopped crying, she slowly let go of the hug, realizing that Umi had already put the bento boxes and beverages on the coffee table.
Reina immediately sat on the couch, hugging Haruka, with an apprehensive expression.
Asahi patted Reina’s head. “It’s okay, like I said before, Murata-san won’t yell at you.”
Reina nodded, gaining a bit of confidence, then got off the couch.
Slowly, she walked towards Umi, stopping half a meter away from her.
Mustering all her courage, Reina spoke. “I’m sorry, I was scared. I thought you were gonna end up yelling at me too.”
With a gentle smile, Umi kneeled in front of Reina, patting her head. “Reina-chan, you have nothing to apologize for. Sometimes bad things happen, and they make it hard for us to trust people, but I promise you, you can always trust me to be on your side.”
Reina felt Asahi’s words becoming reality.
Sniffling, Reina put Haruka on the coffee table, and gave Umi a hug. “Thank you.”
Umi hugged Reina, starting to tear up. It had been six months that she was trying her best to bond with the little girl.
Unfortunately, as experienced as she was with children, Umi herself didn’t go through traumatizing experiences growing up, neither did the other caretakers. Although she had the knowledge on how to deal with children and their issues, she didn’t have what it took for her to appear relatable to Reina on a primal level.
However, Asahi had that in spades and then some.
As they let go of the hug, Umi dried her tears with her shirt, then lightly pinched Reina’s cheek. “How about the three of us eat some yummy food?”
Reina nodded. “I’m hungry.”
Umi chuckled. “Then let’s eat.”
The three of them sat around the coffee table and ate the delicious lunch that the three cooks prepared.
Reina was already all smiles, like everything was right with the world.
As they ate, they made small talk, with Asahi being the first one to speak.
“Reina-chan, what kind of books do you like to read?”
Reina swallowed her food and took a sip of juice. “I like fantasy, but I like grownup books too.”
Umi looked at Reina concerned. “What kind of grownup books?”
Reina looked at Umi, before taking another bite. “Math and stuff, but some of the ones here are too high up, so I can’t reach them.”
Umi blinked. “What do you mean by Math?”
Reina shrugged. “Just algebra and stuff like that.”
Asahi and Umi looked at each other, then back at Reina, with their mouths slightly agape.
I seriously don't think I can keep waiting for the next chapter to be released
Damn onions...
Thank you for the chapter.