Chapter 114

Ȓėａđ ​өη Ḱａｔ​Яеαⅾί​ո​ɡ​Ċаｆε

**Cyber Girl Natsu. (5)**

Anyway, time passed and the day of the collab with Inari—
…wasn’t today. It was actually the day _before_.

Call it a pre-visit, I guess. I thought it might be less awkward if I met Inari’s parents in advance and got familiar with them, so I went to their house.

Inari said it was fine, and her parents were okay with it too, so the visit went smoothly.

As for the phone call with the Straight CEO… that could wait.
I still hadn’t fully sorted out what I wanted to say.

“This is my house!”

“Oooh…”

“…That’s a pretty underwhelming reaction.”

“I’m just nervous.”

Maybe not for others, but visiting a friend’s house takes a surprising amount of courage.

Especially when you’re meeting that friend’s _parents_.

The old me might’ve reacted with more excitement, but considering who I was about to meet, I felt heavy inside from the start.

Ugh… what if I totally clam up during the stream?

As I held my thudding heart and tried to calm myself, Inari let out a quiet giggle beside me.

“Seriously, I know I said this before, but my parents are _really_ nice people, okay? And just like me, they absolutely love cute things~ So I bet they’ll be like, ‘Nacchan, welcome~!’ with open arms!”

“…Really?”

“Really! My parents usually _hate_ having guests over, but the moment I showed them your picture, they said okay right away.”

If their reaction was _that_ positive, maybe I could relax ju—
Nope. Not happening.

If anything, it made me _more_ nervous!

I mean, if they already have a good impression, I’d want to avoid disappointing them, right? Which makes me overly cautious, which makes me say less…

Ugh, the pressure from expectations just makes it worse…

“Mom! I’m home!”

“This girl, always yelling— Oh my.”

The moment we stepped inside, I came face to face with a familiar-looking person.

A face I’d seen before.

If you aged current Inari about ten years, she’d look _exactly_ like this person standing at the entrance.

…There’s no way I wouldn’t recognize her.

Anyone could tell she was Inari’s mom at a glance.

“You must be the one our troublemaker daughter kept talking about.”

“I, uh… I’m not sure what she told you, but… yes, ma’am…”

“Come on in. You go ahead and take your shoes off.”

“Wait, isn’t that kinda unfair?! Why’s Nacchan getting special treatment?!”

“What, you want me to make _the guest_ take off your shoes too? It won’t take long, so hurry up. And wash your hands once you’re in.”

Even as she pouted and complained, Inari obediently started taking off her shoes.

As the homeowner—well, technically Inari’s parents were the homeowners—anyway, I didn’t want to go in without her, so I waited until she was done, and then followed her into the living room.

“Here, sit down. I’ll bring you a snack.”

“…Thank you.”

“You’re so polite—unlike someone else~”

She said that while giving Inari a look.

Inari grumbled that she was being treated unfairly again, but her mom didn’t seem fazed at all.

They must always be like this—bickering affectionately.

Honestly, it was kind of fascinating to see what a “normal family” looked like.

Like, “Oh, so this is what a typical mother and daughter are like.”

“Mom, come on, you _know_ I look exactly like you, right? So if I have no manners, that means _you_—”

“Honestly! The things you say to your mother!”

“Wah—ouch?!”

In response, her mom yanked on her cheek.

She really refuses to lose, huh.

Just giving in with a simple “yes” would’ve been smarter.

I let out a small sigh as I watched Inari getting her cheek pulled.

She looked more like a kid than usual.

Maybe she felt at ease because she was with family.

“I’m not sure if it suits your taste, but here you go. Eat up.”

“Thank you very much…”

“It’s just some snacks from the convenience store—what’s there to worry about?”

“Don’t be rude.”

As I munched on the snack, I quietly watched their banter unfold.

It was a bit noisy, but somehow comforting.

The snacks were good too.

“Um… Ichinose-chan?”

“You can call me Natsu. I’m more used to being called by my first name…”

Hardly anyone around me used my family name, so hearing “Natsu” just felt more natural.

Though there _was_ Ragu-sensei, who still insisted on calling me “Ichinose” even after I said it was fine to use my first name—but that was a different story.

“Really? Then Natsu-chan, how’s our daughter? Is she treating you well?”

“Hmm… We get along fine. She’s mischievous, but I think she’s a good friend.”

If Inari were truly weird or a bad person, Toya would’ve cut ties with her from the start.

Toya has a pretty clear line between good people and bad ones.

Me? I’m the type who gets soft when someone treats me even a little kindly, which sometimes got me into trouble.

I’d thought about fixing it before, but in the end, it was a chronic habit I couldn’t shake.

“There’s _no way_ my daughter is a good friend… Especially not with someone as cute as Natsu-chan.”

“Mom, you’re making it sound like I’d do something weird to Nacchan!”

“But it’s true, isn’t it? Don’t you remember elementary school? There was that cute kid in your class you kept teasing until they transferred.”

“T-That was ages ago! I don’t tease people _that_ badly anymore! Besides, I’ve been extra careful with Nacchan!”

…Well, maybe not _at first_.

When we first met, Inari was like a charging boar whenever she saw something cute.

Compared to that, she’s really calmed down a lot.

Maybe because she once saw me coughing like crazy after getting startled—
Since then, she’s been more considerate toward me.

“By the way, your hair and eyes are really beautiful. Meanwhile, my daughter decided to bleach hers bright yellow… sigh.”

“You said it was pretty before! Why are you changing your mind now?!”

“Well, it _was_ pretty then. You graduated high school, so I thought I’d give you some freedom… and then you go and dye your hair bright yellow, ugh…”

From a parental standpoint, dying your hair yellow probably wasn’t ideal.

Though for Inari, yellow was basically her personal color—and it suited her too, so I had no plans to criticize it.

But her mom had natural black hair, and I could imagine Inari looking great with black hair too.

Come to think of it, was Inari the only V-Spe member with dyed hair?

Toya and Nagisa both had beautiful black hair.

As for me, my hair was naturally white.

“As long as it doesn’t damage the hair too much, trying different colors can be fun. I’d actually _like_ to have black hair, but because of my situation, I can’t dye it.”

“Nacchan…”

Ah—
I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.

The atmosphere suddenly dipped, and I let out an awkward laugh.

Now that I thought about it, I’d never dyed my hair.

When I was in school, I didn’t dye it because, well, school.
And after I became independent, there was no one to look good for, and I didn’t want to waste the time.

Only recently had I wanted to try—
I guess because I wanted to see myself again with black hair, like in the past.

“Oh, so instead of dyeing it, I tried wearing a wig. My friend I live with said it looked good on me too.”

“Whoa, Nacchan with black hair…”

“Isn’t it kind of weird?”

“No way, you looked adorable! Hmm… If white makes you look ethereal, black gives off a Princess Kaguya vibe from _The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter_~”

To lighten the mood, I quickly pulled out my phone and showed them a picture I’d taken while wearing the wig.

Princess Kaguya, huh…
Yeah, the wig did have super long hair compared to my tiny body.

Inari’s mom reacted just like Inari—going from “Oh my~” to “Oh my, oh my~” in succession.
Then she gave me the exact same look Inari did.

Ah, I know that look. It’s the _“I want to hug her~”_ look.

With Inari right next to her, the resemblance was even more obvious.

_Inari really did take after her mom…_

Honestly, they were like copy-paste mother and daughter.

Fables