After her only guardian passes away, a childish 20 year old woman named Momoko moves to Tokyo city to start learning how to live independently. While Momoko adapts to adult life in the city and struggles with living expenses, she dreams about start...
🤗"Oh, please! I'm treating you, so get whatever you like!"
"Yes ma'am! I'll take chocolate, then."
"Good! One chocolate and one strawberry please!"
•❤︎•
A moment later, the young butler Ichiro and I are sitting at a table outside, enjoying the fresh air and feeling the sun on our skin. It was a great way to relax. Tokyo surprisingly wasn't very busy around this part of town at this time of day, so it was mostly quiet.
I'm getting ready to take my first lick of my ice cream when Ichiro stands up and bows gratefully, chocolate ice cream and waffle cone smeared all over his face like a toddler. I'm so shocked that my jaw drops so far I thought it would detach and fall on the ground.
"Y-You're finished already?! But how?!"
"It was really delicious! I'm sorry, should I have eaten slower?!"
"No! It's fine, sit back down. As long as you enjoyed it."
Man. I'm worried about this kid..how has he not gotten a brain freeze!
"Mm! Strawberry is really good! Ice cream is really refreshing on warm days like this, huh?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Don't be so formal, Ichiro, you can relax. I'm not going to take a bite out of you."
"I-I wasn't afraid of something like that!"
"I'm sure you wouldn't taste very good, anyway."
Instead of laughing at my joke, the color drains from Ichiro's face and he looks like he'd just seen a ghost. His almond brown eyes get so huge that I thought they'd pop right out of their sockets.
😱"D-Don't scare me like that!"
Eh? Does he really think I'm going to bite him?
🤣"HAHA! Ichiro, you're so strange!"
"I'm not! I'm perfectly normal, Miss Momoko!"
"Are not! You're strangely very self controlled for a boy your age. Most teenagers would probably be begging me for food as we speak. They must have trained you well."
Ichiro's face softens and he resumes his robotic posture.
"My family has been in the serving business for generations. When my father became too sick to work, he began training me to become a butler. I was employed by Miss Sakura's family shortly after and have been working there for about 5 months now."
I nod, taking in his words. Poor guy. He was so young, and by his build, very athletic. He had to have been pursuing some kind of sport before he started working.
"How is your father? I mean....may I ask...?" I blush. Who was supposed to be the adult here?
"He's currently in the hospital."
"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that."
"Ah...I'm sorry to bore you--"
"Oh, no! I'm glad you told me. You seem a lot less weird to me now."
What a sweet kid. Working so hard to please everyone. Something tells me he hasn't been able to have time to himself to unwind for awhile now.
"E-Eh...?" Despite his confused response, Ichiro finally cracks a smile. His hand comes up to cover it, though, and I curiously tilt my head to the side.
"Is that a smile...?"
"You seem a lot weirder than you look...I mean! That was rude!"
"No, it's perfectly okay! I don't mind being called weird--"
SPLAT!
"Caw, caw!"
Something white falls from the sky and lands directly on top of my ice cream. I stare at it, blinking slowly and skeptically. When I look back up, a bird who seems very happy with himself perches on top of a tree that stretches above our table. I blink a few times, then start to piece everything together.
"NOOOOOO! My ice cream! You stupid bird!"
I grab the cone, aim, and fire. The ice cream successfully collides with the bird in the tree and he flies away with his own poop and strawberry ice cream all over his head. When I sit back down as if throwing ice cream cones at birds was perfectly normal, I heard a snigger and look up at the teenager across the table. I'm delighted to see that Ichiro is trying to hold back his laughter from behind his hand, but his voice manages to keep slipping through until he gives up and tilts his head back to have a nice, loud laugh.
Before long, I'm laughing with him.
"I take it back, you're just plain WEIRD!"
"Haha! Since you said that, I'm not buying you another ice cream!"
😂"That's probably for the best -- there are a lot of birds around here!"
😂"Oh, hush!"
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