ROE-421 Please marry me when I grow up, he said. The boy who once said those words appears before me as my daughter’s fiancé… On the night I was told about their engagement, I found myself drawn to the grown man he had become. Hoshifuyu Touka

Decades ago, I was confessed to by Kouta-kun, a classmate of my daughter who lived nearby. I thought it was probably just the admiration a teenage boy feels for an older woman, so I told him, I’m sorry. Years passed, and when I opened the front door to welcome my daughter home with her fiancé, a familiar young man was standing there. To my surprise, my daughter’s fiancé was Kouta-kun. Feeling nostalgic, that night I casually asked him if he remembered what happened back then, and he unexpectedly said, I still like you, ma’am, and kissed me.