The Goddess Needs A Break!

I, Akari Akazawa, am doing my best to ensure the Tanaka family extravaganza goes according to plan!

I've been tasked with cooking the snacks, appetizers, and entrees for the party, so I've been trying my best to determine which dishes I should make for each.

"How about we do some standard American dishes for the entree to make it easy for everyone to eat?" Flora suggested.

Akari had been stuck on what to do for the entrees for a long time, so she was grateful that Flora had suggested something at all. "What American entrees should we do then?"

"Hmm, how about some modern staples? We could do hamburgers, hotdogs, and pizzas to start off. There should be a grill in the backyard warehouse somewhere, so grilling is an option as well," Flora explained.

"Ah, that should be good for the entrees for now then. We can think of some more later on," Akari happily clapped her hands. "I'm really happy that you helped me out on this. Thank you very much."

"No need to be so stiff. You're our daughter as well~" Flora reassured her.

Even though Flora and Yuuto had long ago accepted Akari as their own daughter, she was still being a bit stiff with them.

Akari wanted to be their real daughter as well, but the sense of distance was still making it awkward for her.

"O-Okay..." Akari nervously stammered.

Flora saw that Akari was still a bit on edge around her, so she decided to take a different approach to the situation. "Let's take a break from the planning and have some fun. I know exactly what we can do!"

"E-Eh? Okay?" Akari said as she was being dragged off by Flora to the attic of their house.

The Tanakas kept a lot of their stuff in the attic of their house, which was why it looked like a maze of unfound treasure.

Some may call it messy, but it was a horde of memories to be more exact.

Once the two of them climbed up the ladder to the attic, Flora went to go look for a specific box in the corner of the attic. "It should be over here somewhere... Ah!"

Looks like she found what she was looking for, but what could possibly be in that box?

Flora wiped off the dust on the box before she opened it. "It's been a while since I opened this box up..."

"What's in the box?" Akari curiously asked.

Flora joyfully began to open the cardboard box. "Hehe... You'll see soon~"

As soon as the box was open, Akari leaned over Flora's shoulder and peered into the contents of the box. "What are those? Photo albums?"

Inside the box were multiple hardcover photo albums that were labeled with the date and year of the time they were taken.

"Yep, you're correct. These are the photo albums of the Tanaka family," Flora nodded. "More importantly, these have Takei's baby pictures."

"!" Akari stared at the box with a half-surprised and half-interested expression.

"I can tell what you're thinking, and I'm on board with that idea!" Flora cheered her on by giving her a thumbs-up.

Akari hesitatingly reached towards the box. "Takei wouldn't care, right...?"

***

At the same time that Akari was about to go through the photo album of the Tanaka household...

"Achoo!"

Takei randomly sneezed as he was walking home from the cake shop that Ryuto worked at.

I have a really ominous feeling in my gut that something bad relating to me is happening right now...

***

"Here's a picture of Takei when he first learned how to ride a bike. He fell over and cried over so much that I had to buy him some ice cream for him to cheer up!" Flora laughed as she pointed to the picture of her young son.

Akari found that picture and the story behind it pretty funny, but Takei would get depressed if he found out that she laughed at it.

Therefore, she refrained from full-out laughing and managed to only let out a light giggle.

"Hehe, what's the story behind that picture?" Akari pointed to a small picture in the corner of the page.

"Oh, that one! That was Takei's first time hanging out with friends from school. Just look at how happy he is!"

In the picture was Takei in his third year of grade school and next to him were some friends of his.

Two of the friends looked oddly familiar to Akari.

"Those two..."

"Ah, that's Eiji and Rikka when they were younger. Takei told you that they lived near us back then, right?"

"Yeah, it's just weird seeing your friends when they were really young," Akari replied.

Another one of the pictures had Takei happily hugging his mother after a school play, which was something that Akari found really cute.

"He was a really cute child," Akari murmured.

"I see you understand the greatness of my child. Welcome to the club, my fellow comrade," Flora jokingly shook Akari's hand.

There was another picture of Takei falling into the lake after trying to climb a tree, which made Akari forego giggling and completely die laughing.

This would be a secret that she was planning to take to her grave, even Flora was forced into secrecy about Akari's laughing fit.

After the two of them were satisfied with looking through the photo albums, they put the albums back into the box and went back downstairs.

"Ahhhh, that was really refreshing," Flora stretched her arms out.

Akari gently smiled and bowed towards Flora. "I had an enjoyable time. Thanks for letting me see those."

"No problem, how about you give ol' mama a hug as payment then," Flora joked around. "Ahaha, I'm just kidding. You don't have to-"

Right before Flora could finish her sentence, Akari wrapped her hands around Flora and gave her a big bear hug. "Thank you for looking out for me. I'll do my best to make the party successful!"

Seeing her second daughter be so kind and energetic towards her made Flora almost shed a tear. "Let's do our best!"

—

Supreme Idiot Couple Meter: 14 - > 17%

She finally has looked at Takei's baby pictures!

Serious-san: Don't even think about it.

Sugar-chan: Aww... please?!

Serious-san: No.