"Hoh, so this is the fabled girlfriend we've been hearing of?"

After Takei reunited with his grandparents, Akari's turn to be introduced was up next.

With a formal greeting that was filled to the brim with warmth and kindness, Akari introduced herself to the elderly couple.

"Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka. My name is Akari Akazawa and I have the pleasure of dating your grandson."

Hearing Akari's greeting, a wide smile stretched across Ayame's face.

"Hm, what a good girl you are. Takei, my dear, you've grabbed a good one!"

Giggling to herself, Ayame Tanaka teased her grandchild mercilessly.

"I have no complaints, just make sure that we get front row seats for the wedding!"

Similar to his wife's reaction, Akihiko was welcoming Akari with open arms.

"Umm, t-thank you..."

As a result, Akari was a bit lost for words on how to reply to the couple's overflowing amount of kindness towards her.

She turned towards Takei and shot a questioning look at him.

Her look seemed to say something along the lines of "they're just like your parents," to which he could only wryly smile and nod.

It's pretty nice to see your girlfriend be able to interact amiably with your family, he thought.

The scene in front of him where Akihiko was cracking dad jokes, Ayame scolding him for it, and Akari laughing at the exchange, warmed Takei's heart like no other.

It reminded him of an ideal family-meets-spouse situation that he saw on TV often.

Soon after Akari had introduced herself, Ayame and Akihiko followed suit and introduced themselves as well.

Once everyone knew each other's names, Akihiko decided to move forward with him and Ayame's hidden agenda.

"Hey, Takei. Go unpack the luggage, we need to talk to the young miss."

"Talk to?"

Takei was confused as to why he was being excluded from the conversation, but Ayame was there to explain it to him.

"We need to tell her stories from your childhood!"

"..."

Exasperated, he left the room although he didn't want Akari to hear about the mishaps and accidents that had happened during his childhood.

The reason being that Akari would've begged him nonstop if he had tried to stop the storytelling session.

As he recalled the location of his room from memory, Takei stopped in front of an old door with a small sign with his name on it.

Seeing the colorful crayon drawing of him with his family on the sign brought so many memories back to him.

I believe I drew this in second grade in my art class... It's surprising how much I struggled to color inside the lines at that point.

Looking closer at the drawing, he realized that most of the coloring went outside the lines and was a bit disappointed as a result of his mediocre coloring.

"C'mon younger me, this looks like it was made by a second grader."

Although, it was.

Opening the door to his room, a clean and sweet scent entered Takei's nostrils which made him realize that the room had recently been cleaned.

Everything in the room was just how he left it, minus the dust due to the fact that someone had clearly been maintaining the room.

He wanted to put his bets on Ayame being the one maintaining it, since Akihiko was often at work.

The toys, crayons, drawings, and many other things that he played with as a child was just where he had left it.

Even his bed was the same with the familiar memory foam mattress that he slept on every night.

Deciding to see how it felt after a couple years, Takei laid down on his old bed and spread his body out wide.

"Comfy..."

A satisfied murmur escaped Takei's mouth as he relished the soft feeling of laying on top of a cloud.

Since they're busy talking, taking a nap for a bit couldn't hurt right?

Using that logic, Takei fell into a deep slumber with all of his stress being wiped away by the soft cloud that was acting as his mattress.

***

"Here's some tea, dear. You must be feeling tired after hearing all of these stories."

"Quite the opposite! Takei sounds like he was a mischievous little kid."

"Indeed he was. There was one time where he fell off a tree trying to save a kitten, which scared us and his parents to death."

Ayame Tanaka was currently having a fun time discussing Takei's mischievous past endeavors with her future granddaughter-in-law.

Akihiko had gone to the kitchen to whip up some food for dinner while the two women were busy conversing amongst themselves.

"Ah, speaking of which, where's Airi?"

For some reason, Airi wasn't with them even though she had been invited to come over.

Ayame loved both of her grandchildren equally, so it was obvious that she missed Airi as well.

"She had to finish some stuff up for school, but she promised to visit near the end of her break once she was done with everything."

Before she had left, Airi had asked Akari to apologise on her behalf for not being able to make it.

"It is what it is then... School must come first," Ayame sighed.

Even though she was saying some responsible things, her underlying tone was implying something else.

With that topic done with, Ayame decided to ask Akari what she had been itching to know the entire time.

"So, how did you and Takei meet?"

"Ah, w-well..."

Akari then began to explain the circumstances of her destined meeting with Takei, albeit with a flushed expression on her face.

It was apparent that the goddess was easily shy when it came to telling people of her fateful meeting with her soulmate.

After Akari finished recapping their meeting and eventual journey to being lovers, Ayame looked at her with sparkling eyes.

"Hmmmm, so that's how you fell in love with my beautiful Takei. Is that right?"

"Yes...?"

Akari was confused as to where Ayame was bringing this conversation towards, but she didn't have to wait long to find out.

"It must be fate then, because me and Akihiko met in a very similar manner."

"!"

Dropping a big information bomb, Ayame revealed to Akari that they were very similar.

As evident by her questioning eyes, Akari wanted to know more about Ayame's love life.

"What happened between you two?"

Seeing Akari's great interest in her love life made Ayane feel quite happy and excited to tell her the story that was oh so similar to Takei and Akari's love story.

"So, what happened was..."

—

No meter since there was no flirting this chapter, sadly.

Next chapter will be a .5 chapter retelling how Ayame and Akihiko met.