Miho stood back, clasping her hands together as if watching a particularly juicy climax of a drama. She was practically vibrating with the potential of the situation. "This is so happening," she murmured under her breath, already reaching for her phone in her pocket. "This is definitely happening."

Miho’s thumb hovered over her phone screen with surgical precision. As Kaori and Nagi remained locked in their flustered back-and-forth—Kaori’s hands still slashing through the air and Nagi’s face still a bright, betraying shade of peony—Miho caught them in a single, candid frame.

The composition was perfect: the stoic, red-faced boy looking down at the shorter, explosive girl in the oversized shirt, their proximity in the narrow aisle making them look far more like a bickering couple than "just classmates."

The soft click of the shutter was swallowed by the hum of the freezer units.

"Okay, okay! Deep breaths, you two," Miho laughed, finally tucking her phone away and holding her hands up in a mock surrender. She stepped back, the predatory gleam in her eyes softening into a playful, self-satisfied shimmer. "Relax. I was just teasing. You guys looked so serious that I couldn't help myself."

Kaori stopped mid-sentence, her mouth still open to deliver another retort to Nagi. She blinked, her shoulders slowly dropping from their defensive hunch, though the crimson stain on her cheeks refused to fade. "Teasing?" she echoed, her voice still a pitch too high.

"Yeah," Miho chirped, adjusting the bag of lemons on her arm. "I mean, it is a huge coincidence, but I’m not actually going to call a press conference. You two just react so loudly it’s like watching a rom-com in real time. It's adorable, really."

Nagi let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since he stepped into the store. His heart rate began to decelerate, though his face still felt like it was radiating enough heat to thaw the nearby frozen peas.

"Right," Nagi muttered, shifting the weight of his shopping basket. "Hilarious."

"Don't be like that, Asahina-kun," Miho teased, giving them a wink as she started to back away toward the registers. "I'll leave you to your... 'grocery shopping.' Try not to start any more rumors in the cereal aisle!"

With a final, mischievous wave, she disappeared around the corner of the display, leaving a heavy, awkward silence in her wake. 

The silence that followed Miho’s departure was thick enough to choke on. 

For several long seconds, the only sound was the low, electric thrum of the meat lockers and the distant beep of a checkout scanner. 

Neither of them moved. They stood in the middle of the aisle like two survivors of a natural disaster, both staring intensely at a nearby mountain of canned tuna.

Finally, Kaori jerked into motion, her movements jagged and over-coordinated.

"Right! The groceries!" she exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly.

She turned on her heel and marched toward the meat section, her oversized T-shirt billowing behind her.

‘Do people really see us that way? she wondered, her pulse fluttering in her throat. 'Like… a couple? Is it that obvious? No, wait, is it that confusing?’ The word "adorable" echoed in her head, making her stomach do a strange, uncomfortable flip. 

She slowed her pace, the cool air of the freezer units hitting her flushed skin. She couldn't help it; she had to see what he was doing.

She glanced back over her shoulder.

Nagi was trailing a few paces behind, his shopping basket swinging rhythmically at his side. The deep, agonizing crimson had drained from his face, replaced by his usual, impenetrable mask of calm. He looked entirely back to normal, as if the last five minutes had been nothing more than a minor scheduling conflict.

As she looked, his eyes flicked up and locked directly onto hers.

The sudden contact sent a fresh, sharp jolt through her. 

A tiny, uncontrollable blush dusted her cheeks again, and she quickly looked away, though not before she saw Nagi slowly raise a single, questioning eyebrow. He didn't say anything, but the silent look was enough to make her heart skip a beat.

They moved deeper into the meat section, the rhythmic hum of the industrial coolers filling the space where conversation should have been. 

Kaori tried to regain her composed persona, leaning over the glass display to inspect the marbling of the beef. 

Nagi stood right beside her, leaning in as she pointed out the difference between the cuts.

Their shoulders brushed—just a light, incidental contact of cotton against nylon—but in the quiet of the aisle, it felt like an electric spark. 

Nagi didn't pull away, and for a moment, Kaori forgot to as well. They were huddled close, peering at the price tags and quality grades, their heads nearly touching as they debated the merits of a ribeye versus a chuck roast for his grandfather’s stew.

Just as Nagi reached for a tray of premium Wagyu, a soft, rhythmic clicking of heels approached. 

Two elderly women, their shopping carts clinking with tea and pickled vegetables, slowed as they passed the pair.

"Oh, look at them," one whispered to the other, her voice carrying easily in the refrigerated air. "So focused on picking out their dinner together. It reminds me of my youth!"

"Yes," the other sighed with a nostalgic crinkle of her eyes. "Ah... young love. It’s such a vibrant thing, isn’t it? They make such a handsome couple."

The words hit Kaori like a bucket of ice water.

She recoiled instantly, taking three quick, jagged steps away from Nagi until she was practically backed against a display of sausages. Her heart hammered against her ribs, the uncomfortable flip in her stomach returning with a vengeance.

‘Couple?!’

She gripped the handle of her own basket so hard her knuckles turned white. ‘I’m getting too comfortable,’ she scolded herself, her eyes darting everywhere except at Nagi. ‘Getting this close... standing like that... I'm letting my guard down just because it's summer.’

Nagi, holding the tray of beef, looked over at her with that same infuriatingly steady gaze, though his ears were a tiny bit pink, whether from the heat or something else entirely. 

"What?" he asked simply.

"Nothing!" Kaori snapped, her voice a bit too loud for the quiet store. She turned her back to him, pretending to be intensely interested in a nearby shelf of spicy mustard. "Just... move it, Asahina-kun. We have other things on the list. We're not here to dawdle all day!"

The remainder of the shopping trip passed in a blur of forced focus. 

They moved through the produce section and the dry goods aisles like two magnets of the same pole. Whenever Nagi drifted too close to help her weigh a bag of onions, Kaori would find a sudden, urgent need to inspect a box of crackers five feet away.

 Nagi, for his part, simply followed the jagged rhythm of her movements, his expression a mask of stoic compliance as he checked off the items on his grandfather’s list.

At the checkout, the silence was punctuated only by the rhythmic beep of the scanner and the rustle of plastic bags. Nagi insisted on carrying the heavier bags of beef and root vegetables, despite Kaori’s brief, half-hearted protest.

They stepped back out into the sweltering afternoon, the heat pressing down on them like a heavy wool blanket after the crisp air of the store.

"You don't have to walk me," Nagi said, shifting the weight of the bags. "The dojo is the other way."

Kaori stared at the shimmering pavement, her fingers twisting around the handles of her own lighter bag. "It’s... it's on the way to the park," she muttered, her voice uncharacteristically small. "And you're carrying the heavy stuff. It would be inefficient if you got heatstroke before you delivered the meat. Just... come on."

“You were struggling with the lighter one,” Nagi said, walking beside her.

The walk was quiet, the sound of their footsteps synchronizing as they passed the neighborhood park again. 

The tension from the store had mellowed into something softer, a shared, quiet presence under the shade of the overhanging trees. 

As they reached the street next to the park, the houses became larger and more secluded behind manicured hedges.

Kaori came to a stop in front of a modern, two-story house with a slate-grey gate. She turned to face him, the afternoon sun catching the stray, lavender-brown hairs that had escaped her messy bun.

"This is it," she said, reaching out to take the heavy bags from his hands. As their fingers brushed during the handoff, she quickly looked down at her shoes. "Thanks for... You know. Helping with the selection. And carrying these."

She looked up, her usual sharp gaze softened by a shy, fleeting smile that made Nagi’s pulse jump. "I'll see you ar—"

The front door clicked open with a heavy, deliberate sound.

The air around them seemed to drop several degrees as a woman stepped onto the porch. 

She possessed the same striking features as Kaori, but where Kaori’s sharpness was tempered by youth, her mother’s was set in stone. Her hair was pulled back into a bun so tight it looked painful, and her eyes—cold and analytical—immediately fixed on Nagi with a piercing, unmistakable disapproval.

"Kaori," the woman said, her voice like a sheet of ice cracking. She didn't acknowledge Nagi with a greeting; instead, her gaze raked over his casual clothes and the bags in his hands before returning to her daughter. "You're late. And I don't recall you mentioning you'd be bringing company to our doorstep."

Kaori went rigid, her face instantly losing its soft glow as she scrambled to adjust her grip on the groceries. "Mom, it’s not like that. We just ran into each other at the market, and he—"

"Inside. Now," her mother interrupted, her tone leaving no room for debate. She stepped back to let Kaori pass, her eyes never leaving Nagi, looking at him as if he were a particularly bothersome weed that had sprouted in her garden. "We have work to do. Good day, young man."

The door began to close before Nagi could even mutter a polite goodbye, leaving him standing alone on the sidewalk in the sweltering heat. 

Nagi adjusted the remaining bags in his grip, the plastic handles digging into his palms. He stared at the closed door for a second longer than necessary, the sudden chill of the encounter still prickling against the back of his neck.

‘What’s her problem?’ he wondered, a frown finally breaking his stoic mask. It was a sharp contrast to the shy smile Kaori had just given him. 

With a quiet exhale, he turned and began the trek back toward the dojo, his mind a messy catalog of beef cuts, lavender-brown hair, and the terrifying ice in her mother’s eyes.

He didn't notice the woman walking toward him from the opposite direction.

Airi was the mirror image of her younger sister, but with a fluid, relaxed air that Kaori hadn't quite mastered yet. She was dressed for the heat, swinging her car keys around her finger as she headed toward the house. 

As Nagi brushed past her, lost in his own head, Airi slowed her pace.

She stopped near her gate, looking back over her shoulder to watch him walk away. She tilted her head, a playful, intrigued spark lighting up her eyes as she took in his stoic face and the slight annoyance radiating off him.

‘Who’s this cutie?’ she thought, a mischievous grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.

She didn't follow him, nor did she call out. Instead, she turned toward her front door and saw her mom scolding her little sister.