After that, Yuzuru bought grilled squid, and Arisa bought grape sweets.
Unlike candied apples, grape sweets was small and easy to eat, which made it a big hit with Arisa.
“Where to next? I’m thinking something sweet this time…”
“Ah… goldfish scooping…”
Arisa spoke in a faint voice.
She stopped walking and stared intently at the stall.
“Want to try it?”
“Yeah… but I’ve never done it before. It’s difficult, right?”
“Everything’s worth trying.”
Yuzuru encouraged her, but Arisa still seemed hesitant.
Hm? If she wanted to try it, why not just do it? Yuzuru wondered—then quickly realised why.
“If you can’t keep them, we’ll take them in at my place. So don’t worry.”
“Is that really okay?”
“We’ve got a pond at home. The goldfish I caught years ago are still swimming around in it.”
Goldfish from festival scooping stalls tend to die easily—whether because their quality isn’t great to begin with, or because they’re stressed from being chased around all day.
But the ones that survive that initial hurdle are unbelievably tough.
They can live for well over ten years without a problem.
Reassured that Yuzuru would take them, Arisa followed him towards the stall.
At first, the stall owner greeted them with a cheerful “Welcome!” at the sight of new customers. But the moment he realised it was Yuzuru, his face twisted into a grimace.
“Ugh! The Takasegawa brother! I told you—you and your sister are banned!”
The stall owners they’d visited so far had all been friendly towards Yuzuru, so this reaction seemed surprising to Arisa.
She looked up at him with wide eyes.
“…Did you do something?”
“Back in the day, I over-harvested goldfish.”
“How many?”
“About fifty. Between me and my little sister.”
“That ban is entirely justified.”
Thinking about it now, they’d practically been on the verge of putting the stall out of business.
Though, to be fair, Yuzuru and Ayumi had been little kids at the time.
Incidentally, Yuzuru’s father later paid for all the goldfish, so the stall survived.
“Well, well… I’m not the one scooping. She is.”
Yuzuru said that as he lightly tapped Arisa on the shoulder.
Arisa gave a small bow.
The stall owner’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Oh? Now that’s a real beauty. For such a cute girl, I’d love to say she’s more than welcome… but this isn’t some punchline where she turns out to be a goldfish scooping master, is it?”
“She’s never done it before.”
“…Well, in that case.”
Apparently satisfied, the stall owner handed Arisa a bowl and a poi The thin paper scooping net used in goldfish scooping in exchange for the money.
Arisa rolled up her sleeves, looking tense as she lowered the poi into the water.
She lifted it beneath a goldfish—
And it tore.
“Hmm… this is hard. Can you really scoop them with paper like this?”
“Your boyfriend and his sister nearly ruined my stall with that same paper.”
The owner said it with a satisfied grin.
Now that he knew Arisa was genuinely inexperienced, she was, from his perspective, easy prey.
Still, Yuzuru didn’t want her wasting too much money.
“Mind if I show her how it’s done? I’ll pay.”
“You’re not allowed.”
“I’ll release whatever I catch. And I won’t do anything like scooping a bunch and exhausting them. …I want to show her my good side. Please help me out.”
“…Tch. Fine.”
At heart, the man was good-natured. Once Yuzuru brought up “her,” he gave in without much resistance.
Of course, the “her” he was referring to here simply meant Yukishiro Arisa as a pronoun—not “girlfriend.”
So technically, Yuzuru hadn’t lied at all.
Taking the poi, Yuzuru began explaining.
“If you move it straight up or down, the paper will tear. So slice through the water instead—move it diagonally when putting it in and when lifting it out.”
Ideally, you’d avoid letting the tail rest on the paper, but that would be too difficult for a beginner like Arisa. So he started with the very basics.
Then he demonstrated right in front of her.
One fish.
Two fish.
“Want to try together?”
“Yes.”
Yuzuru placed the poi in Arisa’s hands and moved behind her.
He gently held her hands and guided the motion, slowly scooping up a goldfish.
That made three.
“By the way, do we have to release this one too?”
“Of course.”
So they released the three fish.
After that, he got a new poi and handed it to Arisa.
“Give it a try.”
“Okay…”
With an unusually serious expression, she held the poi and slowly moved it towards the fish.
Her target was one swimming near the surface.
She slipped the poi beneath it and lifted.
The goldfish settled onto the paper.
Quickly, Yuzuru held out the bowl, and Arisa dropped the fish into it.
“I did it—I did it!”
Arisa beamed happily.
She was all smiles, clearly delighted.
Arisa was already more than beautiful and cute even when she was just being herself… but when she smiled like this, her expression became far, far more charming than usual.
It was a fact only Yuzuru knew.
“Yeah, you did. As expected of you, Yukishiro.”
Yuzuru lightly patted her shoulder.
Normally he wouldn’t casually touch her like that, but for some reason today he felt like it—and simply went with the flow.
Arisa, meanwhile, didn’t seem bothered at all. If anything, she smiled even more happily.
“Hey. Hurry it up.”
The stall owner’s gruff voice—delivered while pointedly looking away—snapped them back to their senses.
Arisa’s cheeks flushed slightly, and Yuzuru awkwardly turned his gaze back towards the goldfish.
After that, Arisa managed to scoop three more.
In total, she ended up with five goldfish.
For her first time, it was a major haul.
