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Author’s note:
This is a normie story. Those who think “Go explode, normies!” may be better off staying away from it.

It was on a certain day…
For some reason, I woke up 3 hours earlier than usual… at 4:30 am.

I wonder why?

My adorable sweetheart was quietly breathing in his sleep. Suddenly, when I checked the Tozumaho’s screen, I realized it was February 14th, Valentine’s Day.

I see, it’s Valentine’s Day…
That must be the reason, I woke up early, right? Does my body still remember it?

Back on earth, I always woke up early on Valentine’s Day. I’d melt down chocolate, pour it into a heart shape, cool it down, and then write letters on it… Come to think of it, the very first time I made chocolate, was when I was 6 years old, I believe.

I remember making homemade chocolate together with my mom. Of course, the one I’d give it to was Ayumu. Afterwards, I also gave some to Ayumu’s younger brother, Kanata. I wanted to give some to my dad, too.

From the age of 6… until around 9, I wrote “I love you¹” onto Ayumu’s chocolate, before giving it to him, but when I was 10 years old, that suddenly became embarrassing… On the last Valentine’s Day, I gave him chocolate that had just hardened and merely had a pattern drawn on it.

Of course, when I was between 6 and 9 years old, I was planning to give him chocolate out of genuine sentiment… When I gave it to him, I said, “Yes, it’s chocolate for a friend”, but… In my heart, it was genuine, you know?
Oh… love, too… I planned to put plenty of that in it, too…

Nevertheless… for some reason, each year Ayumu got chocolate from other girls, too. That amount especially increased from the first year of middle school on, and last year… it must’ve been at least 8. That was without including me.

Certainly, Ayumu was popular. Even though he was only interested in video games. Since he had a needlessly good-looking face… Even though it was what was inside, that made him really cool.

Then, every single time, he ate all of them properly and gave return gifts on White Day.²　

Ayumu baked the cookies himself. I remember that he always gave a larger amount to me, than to the other girls. Why would I know this? Obviously, because I went into his house and snatched them up³.

At that time, I didn’t understand, why I was the only one who got more, but thinking about it now, I… I wonder if it was… because he liked me… or something? Ah-ha-ha~.

Come to think of it, each time I was together with Ayumu on Valentine’s Day, his self-proclaimed best friend Shuu⁴ would appear out of nowhere and exclaim “I’ll be the matchmaker at your wedding!”.
What was with that guy?

Regardless of that, the following left the biggest impression on a Valentine’s Day. By coincidence, I saw a girl from another class give chocolate to Ayumu⁵ in an inconspicuous place behind our school, and tell him “I like you”, but he refused with a “Sorry, there’s someone else I like”.

At that time, I was surprised that “Ayumu has someone he likes!?” and I don’t know why, but I started crying and ran away, so he wouldn’t notice that I was eavesdropping, scratched my knee while I was trying to get away, and couldn’t talk to him for several days, so it turned out to be a horrible Valentine’s Day…

At that time, rather than being shocked, I was worried that I was bothering him by following him around, even though he had someone he liked. I think that was what I was feeling.

Huh, at which Valentine’s Day did that happen again? …Oh, it was the previous one. So, in the end, the person he liked… could it have been me? Was it me, after all?
I’m not conceited… am I?

Well, when I met him in this world, I told him that I had always loved him…

Hmm… T-that’s right!
It’s Valentine’s Day! I-I need to make something!

I’d like to make chocolate, but even though there’s cocoa in this world, they don’t have chocolate for some reason. If I were to ask Alim, he could probably make some with his skill, but I can’t tell him “Make me some chocolate, so I can give it to you”, can I?

…I can’t be helped, maybe I should make cocoa-flavored cookies or a cake. At any rate, there’s cocoa and flour in the kitchen, so cookies should be fine, right?
If… if they’re filled with… l-love… he probably won’t mind, even if it’s not chocolate!

Therefore, I made cocoa cookies. It was a little embarrassing to make them heart-shaped… Though me being somewhat reluctant to make heart-shaped things happened roughly every year.

That’s right, when I gave them to Ayumu, he’d always, always eat them right where I’d given them to him and say, “This year, they’re also delicious”, you know. That was incredibly embarrassing… Well, I was happy to hear him say that they were delicious.

And, it looks like I got done baking them, while I was thinking.

I better taste test one, to make sure I didn’t make an absurd mistake like mistaking sugar for salt…
Yeah, they’re fine!

Oh! It’s already 7 o’clock in the morning. I need to make breakfast before Alim wakes up.
What should I make today? We haven’t had thick slices of bread with lots of butter, boiled egg and soup, so would that work?

About the cookies… Let’s give them to him at 2:14 in the afternoon.

“Good morning, Mika~.”
“Good morning, Alim!”

My Alim had woken up. As usual, his hair looked beautiful and smooth, without much of a bedhead.

He sat down at the table.

“Thanks for the food~~.”
“Yes, please enjoy.”

After we finished eating breakfast, there was nothing in particular to do, so Alim went to work. At any rate, he would likely be back within an hour, give or take a few minutes.

I haven’t worked as an adventurer at all, lately, and I also still haven’t completed even 20 requests. Even if we have enough money to live idly for the rest of our lives, I should work occasionally, shouldn’t I? Wait, even if we don’t just idle around… we’ll need money in case we have kids…⁶

I-I feel it’s a little early for children, you know, since we’re still kids ourselves! Besides, we didn’t do anything but kissing lightly, taking baths together, sleeping together in the same bed, and hugging each other for several hours. We still haven’t even put our tongues in each other’s mouth… Talking about children is still far off!

Right as my face was all red from entertaining these ridiculous fantasies, Alim came home.

Is it already 1pm…? I need to cook lunch. I wonder if pasta is fine today?

“Thanks for the food!”
“Enjoy! What kind of work did you do, Alim?”
“Hm? Oh, the subjugating of a B-Rank monster called a Burning Bull⁷, you see.”
“I see, thanks for your hard work.”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly hard, it only took a single strike, as usual.”

While we chatted like that, we finished eating our lunch.

Finally, it was 2:14 pm.
I called Alim to the kitchen via message.

“What’s wrong?” he abruptly turned up.
“Never mind that, please come here.”
“Alright?” he closed in on me, in small steps.
“A-Alim… No, Ayumu. This… is how I feel,” I said, took out the cookies from a pocket and gave them to him.
“Wow! What’s this for?” he asked, as he took them.

Wait, did he just turn back into Ayumu, since his shoulder are getting wider?

“Since today… is February 14th… it’s this instead of chocolate… It’s from the heart, you know! To tell you the truth, all the chocolate I gave you back in Japan came from the heart, but this years’ even more than before!”
“Oh… It’s Valentine’s Day… thank you. Right… they all came from your heart,” he said, while opening the wrapping paper and eating a cookie.
“Yep, as usual. They’re super tasty,” he commented with a sweet smile.
“Great!”
“Thank you very much. I’ll make it up to you on White Day! Definitely!”
“I’m looking forward to it.”

That’s right, now would probably a good time to confirm it.

“Say, Ayumu.”
“What is it, Mika?
“Last year, back on earth, I coincidentally heard that a girl from another class confessed to you, Ayumu… But you told her ‘There’s someone else I like’, didn’t you? Who was that someone?”

I fixedly gazed at his face.

“Oh, that. Come to think of it, after that day I felt lonely, since you acted strangely distant, Mika…”

Right after saying that, he suddenly embraced me strongly.

“You’re the one I like, right? Who else could there be… Don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing~…”

“Yeah, I knew it… Thank you,” I said, hugging him back.

TL notes:
This chapter uses the two expressions 本命チョコ (“chocolate given to a man on Valentine’s Day out of genuine sentiment”) and 友チョコ (“chocolate given to a friend on Valentine’s Day”). Here, 本命 alone is also used to describe that the gift (cookies in this case) comes genuinely from the heart. It’s somewhat hard to localize, so these parts probably sound rather weird in my translation.

1. The original is 大好き, which can also mean “I like you a lot”.
2. White day happens on March 14th, one month after Valentine’s Day. On this day, people give reciprocal gifts to those who gave them something on February 14th. It originated in Japan but is apparently popular in most of East-Asia.
3. I assume she just got them directly after he made them, so she saw how much the other girls would get.
4. The original is 翔. Since no furigana are given, this could be several different names. Thankfully, future chapters reveal the reading as “Shuu”.
5. It says “Alim” here in the original.
6. This may be completely wrong. The original sentence was pretty fragmented and there were also several negatives stacked on top of each other, so I genuinely have no idea what is correct.
7. The original is 焼暴牛. “Baking Bull” would have been closer to the original, but that sounds a bit lame.