Chapter 31
The Moonlit Night and the Kindergarten (Part 3)
“Ah, Taiyo-san.”
The song ended, and it seemed she had noticed me standing by the door. Tsukiyo got down from the piano bench and slowly walked toward me.
Up close, I could still see traces of tears at the corners of her eyes.
Her smile was still a little awkward.
As for what Ms. Marina had said to me earlier… yeah, better not bring that up.
“Sorry for making you worry. I’m fine now.”
“Since the children are here… that’s enough. But please don’t push yourself, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s that, mister?”
The seven kids fired off questions one after another, catching me completely off guard.
The heavy mood from before vanished instantly.
When you’re dealing with children, there’s no time to think about anything else. That’s probably for the best — Tsukiyo’s natural smile seemed to return, too.
In the end, since the kids wouldn’t let me go, I ended up joining their playtime with Tsukiyo.
I hadn’t finished my actual job yet, though…
Side by side, Tsukiyo and I watched the children as we played a simple game with them.
And then—
“Mister’s number one! Tsukiyo-sensei gets the punishment game!”
“There’s a punishment game?”
“It’s a simple one! You just take a piece of paper from each of those two boxes and read them together — that’s your punishment.”
“It’s not going to be anything weird, right?”
“Fufuun~ I thought them up myself! There’s no way anything weird would be in there!”
True enough, they were the kind of harmless games you’d expect kindergarteners to play — nothing harsh or cruel.
As the winner, I drew two slips of paper from the boxes and read them together:
“‘Kiss on the cheek’… huh!? Seriously?”
“A kiss! Teacher has to give mister a kiss!”
“They’re in looove! A kiss on the cheek!”
“W-w-wait a sec— Tsukiyo!?”
Tsukiyo, sitting beside me, pressed her hands over her mouth, her face turning bright red.
Okay, no — this is a weird punishment game! You clearly didn’t think this through at all!
Sure, for little kids it’s all just play, but if we actually did that, it’d be a huge problem!
The children, of course, were shouting for us to go through with it.
After what happened before, a cheek kiss was definitely not happening.
I started desperately thinking of a way to get out of this—
Just then, one of the kids suddenly stood up and started wandering off unsteadily.
A few steps later, the child tripped and almost fell.
“Ah, careful!”
Before I could react, the kid managed to regain balance and turned back toward us.
Thank goodness, no fall.
Just as I started to turn my head again—
Something soft and warm, along with a breath of hot air, brushed against my right cheek.
“Eh?”
The soft sensation disappeared in an instant. Nervously, I turned toward Tsukiyo on my right.
“Everyone, shh! Okay?”
“Shh!”
Looking more flustered than ever, Tsukiyo tried to calm the children down in a panic.
“Um… Tsukiyo-san.”
“That was it! What just happened now — that was it!”
She hastily pointed to her left index finger, where she was wearing something like a rubber finger cap.
“That didn’t feel like rubber at all!”
“It was! It was this!”
In the end, Tsukiyo’s denial and the kids’ silence left the truth a mystery.
I finished that part-time job never learning what that warm breath and soft touch really were.
And so, the long-awaited all-school assembly day finally arrived.
