“Here, eat your broccoli too. Not just tomatoes.”
“No!”
At Arisa’s words, Yuri shook her head stubbornly.
Beside her, Manaya happily munched away on apple slices.
The rule was simple—
if you wanted dessert, you had to eat at least one bite of vegetables.
“Look—Yusa’s eating hers, you know?”
Arisa said, glancing towards Yusa.
She was in the middle of eating her baby food.
Holding her own spoon, she was busily stirring it into a mush,
while Yuzuru, who had her on his lap, held a proper spoon.
“Yusa, say ‘ahh’.”
“Ahh.”
As Yuzuru prompted her, Yusa opened her mouth wide.
He gently fed her some broccoli that had been boiled until soft.
“Mmm!”
Yusa happily flailed her hands and feet.
She wasn’t picky at all—she enjoyed everything she ate.
“She’s not even feeding herself!”
Yuri puffed out her cheeks.
Yuzuru and Arisa exchanged wry smiles.
Yusa couldn’t feed herself properly yet,
which was why she was being helped.
They gave her a spoon for practice,
but as expected, she mostly played with it.
“Will you eat it if I feed you?”
Arisa asked with a half-smile.
Yuri’s eyes widened,
then she gave a small, embarrassed nod.
“I’ll eat…”
“Alright—ahh.”
“Ahh…”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Yuri took the broccoli into her mouth,
chewed a few times,
then swallowed.
Afterwards, she drank some water from her bottle.
“Am I better than Yusa?”
“You are, you are.”
Arisa gently stroked Yuri’s head.
Looking satisfied, Yuri then asked—
“Can I have my apple now?”
“Of course.”
Beaming, Yuri started eating her share.
Meanwhile, Manaya had been watching the whole exchange intently.
“…Do you want to be fed too, Manaya?”
“More!”
Instead of answering directly, he pointed at his lunchbox.
The apples inside were already gone.
He didn’t want to be fed—
he just wanted seconds.
“Hmm, seconds, huh…”
“Why not? He can have mine.”
Yuzuru shrugged, but Arisa hesitated.
“We’re getting ice cream later, remember? And dinner after that…”
“Then we’ll just push dinner back a bit.”
At his suggestion, Arisa nodded.
“You’re right. Okay, you can have Papa’s. Say thank you.”
“Thank you!”
“Alright—pay me back when you’re older.”
Manaya immediately opened Yuzuru’s lunchbox
and started eating whatever he liked.
He wasn’t picky overall,
but like any child, he had preferences—
meat and sweets were favourites,
vegetables… not so much.
“Leave me at least a bit, okay?”
“Okay!”
Manaya nodded—
after finishing all the fried chicken.
And just like that,
everything except the vegetables disappeared from Yuzuru’s lunchbox.
Afterwards, the family continued playing around the zoo.
The children especially loved the petting area.
They got to touch chicks, rabbits, and guinea pigs—
animals they couldn’t interact with at home.
Though as a result,
they ended up covered in fur.
“All three of them fell asleep.”
“That’s a relief… I don’t think I could handle them getting noisy in a traffic jam.”
On the drive home,
Yuzuru and Arisa spoke in hushed voices.
They were stuck in traffic—
whether from an accident or construction, they didn’t know.
Most children hated being stuck like this,
so having them all asleep was a blessing.
“…I just hope they’ll sleep tonight too.”
“Ah… well, let’s worry about that when we get home.”
Yuzuru gave a wry smile.
By the time they got back,
the children would probably be fully energised again.
“Still… this feels nostalgic.”
“…What does?”
“Remember? The first time we came here—we got stuck in traffic too.”
“Ah… yeah.”
This wasn’t their first time at this zoo.
They had come here once before—
back when they were university students.
“We even said it was a ‘practice run’ for when we’d come with kids.”
“Hehe, we did. …Didn’t help much, though.”
“Not at all. I didn’t realise it would be this exhausting.”
“Exactly. Especially the animal walking—what a disaster.”
There had been an activity where you could walk goats or rabbits.
They had tried it—
but a five-year-old and a three-year-old couldn’t manage it properly.
Both Manaya and Yuri got bored halfway through and gave up.
“Yeah… I think we can skip this place for a while.”
“Agreed. Let’s come back when Yusa’s a bit older.”
“…Won’t that just make things harder?”
“By then, Manaya and Yuri will be calmer.”
“…Probably.”
At Yuzuru’s question, Arisa averted her gaze.
Yuri, maybe—
but Manaya calming down? That was harder to imagine.
“Oh, that reminds me—back then…”
“Yes?”
“We stopped by a hotel on the way home, didn’t we?”
“What exactly are you remembering?”
Arisa burst out laughing.
“Well… it was fun.”
“I won’t deny that, but…”
“Maybe we should go again sometime?”
“Eh… but the kids…”
“We can leave them with my parents. One night would be fine.”
“…Mm, I suppose…”
Just as they were having that conversation—
“Where are you and Mum going?”
A voice came from the back seat.
Both of them stiffened.
“N-nowhere.”
“Like we’d go anywhere without you.”
“That’s a lie! You just said ‘hotel’! Where are you going? Take me too!”
“We said we’re not going…”
They scrambled to cover it up.
“…Mm… are we there yet? How much longer?”
“Waaahhh!!”
The commotion woke Yuri,
and Yusa started crying.
Their son demanded answers.
Their daughter whined about the wait.
And the youngest cried without understanding why.
The car ride home turned into complete chaos.
