"No, if he likes Nino, there's no reason why he wouldn't have her contact information."
Immediately, Maruo realized something was amiss.
"Could it be that he's not brave enough to ask Nino?"
Although not qualifying as a father in many aspects, he still had a general understanding of his daughters' basic personalities.
For instance, Nino, who had a strong character and was very independent.
If Ren was a shy kid, it would make sense if he couldn't ask for contact information from Nino.
Because he didn't interact much with Ren, he didn't know exactly what his character was like.
But it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Ren was a shy kid.
After almost not finding a reasonable explanation for this, Maruo had a new question.
Why didn't Ren ask Itsuki for Nino's contact information instead of asking from him?
Looking at their previous meetings, Itsuki and Ren's relationship could be said to be quite good.
Wouldn't it be easier for him to ask Itsuki directly?
There was clearly a better option, but he chose the worst one.
It didn't make sense.
Moreover, if Ren was really a shy kid, he would never go to Nino's father and ask for her contact information.
"Unless... He wants to tell me that he likes Nino and hopes I can keep my promise not to stop him."
Thinking about what he said to him earlier that he wouldn't stop him from falling in love with his daughter, Maruo felt that he had guessed the truth.
"Is he testing me?"
Nakano Maruo: [Nino-kun's email address is:...]
Seeing the email replied by Maruo, Ren was very happy.
With that, he had a reasonable excuse to ask Nino.
Kamikawa Ren: [Thank you.]
He replied politely.
Nakano Maruo: [Don't worry, I'll keep my promise.]
Just as he was about to register a new email address, Maruo's email came again.
"?"
What promise?
Why couldn't he understand?
Kamikawa Ren: [What promise?]
He decided to ask.
"Pretending not to know?"
Seeing the email he had just received, Maruo couldn't believe that the other party didn't understand his meaning.
Who doesn't know how to pretend to be confused?
Nakano Maruo: [The promise you want me to keep.]
"???"
More question marks surrounded Ren.
He only asked for Nino's email address and never mentioned any promise!
'Is this a generation gap?'
After reading the conversation between himself and Maruo several times, Ren thought of something he had never touched upon before.
He usually talks to people like Gabriel and Fumino who are his age, and the biggest age difference between him and them is only Mafuyu.
Moreover, he wasn't much older than him.
But Maruo was at least seventeen years older than him, or even more.
It's understandable if there's a generation gap in their conversations.
'In this case, pretend to understand everything and fool him.'
After figuring out the meaning of Maruo's inexplicable words, Ren had an idea.
Kamikawa Ren: [Yeah, that's good.]
The perfect random words.
"As expected."
Seeing him admit it, Maruo knew that his guess was correct, so he put aside his phone and didn't continue to reply.
There was no need to reply to it now.
If he kept talking, it would only add to the pain in his heart.
"It seems like he was fooled."
After waiting for a while, Ren found out that his random actions had succeeded when he found out that Maruo didn't send any more messages.
Then, he continued to register a new email address, intending to use the new email address to send a message to Nino.
The process of registering an email address was not complicated, and he registered it quickly.
As he was considering the content of his email, a sharp woman's voice sounded in front of him.
"Ren-san, why are you here?"
"Yotsuba?"
When Ren realized again, he saw Yotsuba standing in front of him wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and overalls, still wearing the iconic green ribbon on her head.
The number 428 was also written on the white short sleeves.
"Did Ren-san come to play with us?"
Yotsuba approached and made a guess.
"Not really."
"Then why are you at our house?" Yotsuba was puzzled.
"Hm?"
Hearing this, Ren looked around confusedly.
Only then did he realize that he had been walking near the Nakano's house without realizing it.
No wonder Yotsuba asked him if he came to play with them.
"I just happened to be wandering around here." He explained.
"It seems I misunderstood." Yotsuba cupped her hands to her chest and invited with a smile, "In that case, Ren-san, if you have no plans this afternoon, would you like me to come to our house to play?"
"Sure."
After thinking about it, Ren agreed.
Coincidentally, he could use this opportunity to find out what Ichika and the others liked, and maybe he didn't need to ask Nino.
"Let's go to the convenience store first!"
Seeing him agree, Yotsuba said excitedly.
"Why do you want to go to the convenience store?"
Yotsuba explained a little embarrassedly, "Because I was asked by Nino to buy drinks for my family, so I bothered Ren-san to go to the convenience store with me."
"Oh, let's go."
"Oooh!"
······
"I'm back."
After opening the door, Yotsuba shouted loudly.
"Guess who I brought back."
"Welcome back. Who did you bring?"
Ichika, who was lying on the sofa watching TV, had no desire to speculate.
"Excuse me."
Ren brought the bag, followed Yotsuba, and entered.
"Huh? Whose voice is this?"
Ichika felt the voice was very familiar and immediately returned to a serious sitting position.
"Ren-kun? Why are you here?"
Seeing Ren who had just entered, Ichika was very surprised.
"When I went out to buy drinks earlier, I met Ren-san wandering around, so I invited him."
After saying that, Yotsuba shook the bag of drinks she brought.
"What a coincidence."
After saying this, Ichika stood up, approached Ren, and took the bag from his hand.
"Ren-kun, please sit down quickly." She said.
"By the way, where's Nino? Didn't she ask me to go out and buy drinks?"
After putting down the drinks, Yotsuba realized that the very important person had disappeared from the living room.