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Sakura was in her Room with too much time on her hands and nothing to do.

Due to fall’s middle school athletics competition drawing near, plus her being a member of the “going home club”, classes had ended early for her. On that note, there was a similar event for high school students.

Normally, she’d be playing games with Kanata or walk around town with him, but the boy in question wasn’t present since he “made a promise to come to the research institute right after school ended.” Furthermore, her older sister and her future brother-in-law – the others with whom she’d normally spend time – had gone off somewhere to flirt and make out. It wasn’t her place to get in their way.

“…I’m bored.”

Back when she had been practically blind, she used to go to bed early, but now that felt like a huge waste, so she instead pulled out her smartphone. But she immediately recalled that she didn’t have anything of interest on it, so she put it away again and flopped down on her bed.

“I guess I could go to Kanata’s room…”

With that sudden thought, she opened her own window right away and the one opposite leading to her boyfriend’s room, which she knew usually wasn’t locked.

“…Hang on, what am I doing? Even if he’s my boyfriend, doing that when he’s not there is just rude.”

At that realization, she was about to head back to her room, when something caught her attention.

She looked around the room. At a glance, it seemed rather plain. The only decorations were a few photographs of the boy and her, and some of him with his family. Well, that obviously wasn’t everything, but apart from the usual things you’d expect to find in the room of someone with a case of eight grader’s syndrome – like an intricately drawn magic circle of unknown origin – the place was quite modest.

“I thought he stopped acting so much like a chuunibyou lately, but I guess he’s still the same. Thinking back, he started obsessing about eye patches and bandages pretty much from the moment he had a grasp of the world around himself. He’ll probably stay that way even as an adult.”

Sakura thought back fondly on the past, which caused her to recall an event.

“Kanata…”

It was from her early childhood. When the research institute had cast its eye on the boy.

“…I guess all I did was cause him trouble.”

The boy was a child prodigy. At one year of age, he had learned enough words to hold normal conversations, and at two, he was already able to read the newspaper and simple novels. At three, he had amassed a wealth of knowledge unthinkable of an infant. He was even able to speak English.

But from that point, he stopped acting in a way that made him stand out “in public”. He entered the same normal preschool as Sakura, followed by the same grade school, before finally taking the entry exam and enrolling with her at the middle school part of a combined school and university that was said to be one of the best in Japan. At that time, Sakura had to frantically study for the entry exam of said school.

Back then, Sakura, who was practically blind unless she wore special glasses and considered herself inferior to her peers in all aspects save her intellect, used to think that the boy was merely humoring her. With his talents and knowledge, he could’ve attended a university in Europe or the US when he was eight years old.

But he ended up neglecting his studies. He even started half-assing their exams at school (though he still did enough to get a passing mark). That was what he limited himself to in public.

Still, Sakura had vague knowledge about him already developing new technologies behind the scenes at the research institute and making some marvelous achievements.

“…Just why did he put up with me? Was it to watch over me, after all? Or… or maybe because he loved me all that time? Eh-heh-heh.”

Sakura felt bashfully happy at that thought. Though from an outside perspective, it likely looked rather suspicious. She suddenly glanced at Kanata’s bed. Both the pillow and futon were clean and neatly folded.

“I’m… I’m sure he won’t mind… if it’s just a bit, right? We’re dating, so he probably won’t complain… right?”

She dove onto her boyfriend’s bed. Then, she buried her face in his pillow.

“Kanata… I love you! I love you so much…!” she exclaimed, muffling her voice enough so she wouldn’t be overheard.

After getting her fill of the boy’s warmth, she got off the bed and, after putting it back in order, started thinking again.

“Acting like this makes me no better than Sis back then… He won’t find out and hate me for it, will he?”

She suddenly got a bad feeling. At that moment, the door to the room opened.

“Cleaning, cleaning… time for- Oh, Sakura!”
“A-Aunty!”

It was Ayumu’s and Kanata’s mother, who’d usually be at work at that time. By coincidence, she had finished early at her job and was now about to clean the house.

Sakura was in an awful fluster… but at the same time, she was relieved that it hadn’t happened when she was lying on the boy’s bed.

“Have you come to play, Sakura?”
“Eh, uhm, y-yes. Erm… Kanata isn’t home and Big Sis and Ayu-nii are doing something by the two of them… so I didn’t have anything to do… I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, we already see you like our own daughter. Don’t you agree?”
“E-Eh-heh-heh, I guess so.”

Sakura felt awkward at her actions getting official approval.

Her future mother-in-law put down the cleaning implements and spoke up again.

“Why don’t you come relax downstairs? Or did you just come to find things about Kanata to nitpick?”
“Ah… u-uhm.”

The older woman gave a slightly suspicious grin as she watched the flustered girl.

“If you don’t have anything to do, there’s a video I’ve been wanting to show you. About Kanata. I thought about showing you since the two of you started dating, but there was never a good opportunity.”

Sakura’s eyes went wide when she heard about such a video’s existence. Before she knew it, she found herself nodding.

“Alright, then it’s settled. Come on down.”
“Y-Yes!”

The two of them went to the living room.

TL notes:
We start volume 20 with a three-parter of Sakura reminiscing and learning more about Kanata.

A short time ago, I complained about a character in a different story acting almost insultingly stupidly. A reply I got was that it’s genuinely hard to write a truly brilliant character and it’s much easier to make other characters stupid to make someone seem brilliant.

Here, we hear a lot about Kanata’s supposed brilliance, but while he seemed somewhat insightful in the Yggdrasil arc, it was hardly the kind of genius he’s apparently meant to exhibit. A true genius might have found flaws in Anazumu’s system to exploit and/or solved the whole Surtr situation in a completely different way that no one could’ve predicted. Maybe that’s just me expecting too much, but it certainly feels like another instance of “tell don’t show”.

Anyway, with 41 chapters, volume 20 will be shorter than volume 19 (though that’s mainly due to the absence of side stories) and seems to focus on the identity of the Guide and Shuu’s Judo competition.

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