We continued with the date, and to be honest, I couldn't have been better. Even if the aquarium was closed due to some remodelations, we ended up going to a beautiful park which had a lot of different statues and water fountains.

After that, we ended up going to another store and bought the biggest ice cream I’ve ever seen! I mean, did you know that you could buy ice cream with multiple balls?! We ended up having cones with three balls on them, each one of a different flavor, and since we shared them, we ended up tasting six different flavors in total!

On the way home, we managed to sit next to each other on the bus. However, we didn't talk much, in fact, as far as I can remember, right in the moment when we took our seats, we ended up falling asleep.

Well, that's something that could be expected, we went walking and running around the city during the whole day. Not taking into account that we woke up early in order to be able to carry out this trip.

Anyway, right now I’m right at the front gate of my house, doubting what I should do next. Of course, the next logical step is to walk in, however, I’m not ready to be assaulted by the insane amount of questions mom has been preparing during the whole day. Maybe I should stay here, waiting for her to go to sleep?

While I was muttering a whole lot of different plans and options that I had at my hands, the final boss that I was aiming to avoid, walked right to me.

“Ara, Eriko! What are you doing here, you're gonna catch a cold! Come in, come in.”

“Uh… Okay…”

“I’ll need to prepare you something warm.”

“R-Right…”

This is weird. I was actually waiting for her to instantly start her interrogation as soon as she saw me, however, right now, she is acting as a normal and responsible mother.

We walked in and she went right to the kitchen. On the other hand, I went right to the sofa that was in front of the TV. I didn't even bother to look for something interesting to watch, I simply just laid there hearing the news as white noise.

“Days are turning kinda cold, so you shouldn't stay out so late, Eriko.”

“I know, mom. It was…”

“If you do that, you’ll catch a cold.”

“I know…”

“And then, Sotoka will catch a cold too!”

“Uh…”

“And then, her mom will come here and she’ll start to scold me! So you'd better stay healthy, okay?”

That's some weird line of thoughts she is having there. I mean, even if I’m going out with Sotoka, it's not certain that I’ll give her my cold if I had one.

However, if I somehow manage to get her sick, it is almost certain that her mother will come here and complain about her healthy and joyful child getting sick out of nowhere.

But… Shouldn't she be worried about her daughter instead of what will happen with Sotoka and her mom? Well, if that's what worries her, that's the line of thoughts I’ll follow here.

“Oh, but you know? There's this saying that goes about idiots don't getting sick, right?”

“That's true. However, you do, in fact, get sick, Eriko.”

“W-Wha… Did you just call me idiot?!”

“Hahaha~ Here's your tea.”

“Mhmmp.”

Holy cows! My own mother is calling me an idiot, this is so…

Mom sat right by my side, and in order to not spill the tea I had to change and also sat on the sofa instead of just laying there. However, now that she is sitting right next to me, I could feel something like an ominous aura coming out of her.

“So?”

“So…?”

“How it was?”

“It's a good tea…?”

I couldn't help but doubtful answer that weird and unstructured question that came at me without any context. However, since she let out an exasperated sigh, it was obvious that she wasn't asking about the tea I had just sipped.

“What are you talking about, Eriko? I'm asking about your date!”

“D-Da-Date?!”

“Did you kiss her?!”

“Phuffff!”

It couldn't have been a worse timing to ask something like that, than right in the moment when I was taking another sip of the hot tea she had just prepared. To make it short, there was nothing more than some drops left on the cup.

“Argh… cof, cof…”

“So?”

“W-What are you talking about, mom?!”

“Did you kiss her or not?!”

“W-Waaaa! Mom, stop shaking me, please!”

She had some weirdly sparkling eyes that I’ve never seen on her as she shaked me from my shoulders. She was actually really curious about what happened during our date.