"Goodness, if you had made a chocolate yourself like last time and written a proper letter, that would have been fine."

"This time you just sent a chocolate gift box that you bought at a department store promotional booth, and there were only a few words written on the postcard. You didn't show any sincerity at all."

"You have the nerve to call this a gift?"

"Isn't there another teddy bear?" Shinichi Kudo's expression remained unchanged as he tried to defend himself.

When teddy bears were mentioned, Kousuke was exasperated. He bluntly called out Shinichi Kudo without any hesitation, asking him:

"I didn't even want to bring this up, but wasn't that teddy bear a free gift with the two boxes you bought?"

Who would give away a free gift as a present?

He pointed to himself and said:

"You've seen me prepare gifts before, and I even taught you how to do it."

"I don't expect you to learn it completely, but at least don't use freebies as gifts, okay?"

He could tell that Xiaolan was delighted when she received the gift, but he could also tell that she was somewhat disappointed after learning the truth about it.

He still remembered that day when he overheard Xiaolan muttering something:

"If only he could put one percent of the effort he put into the case into this."

Actually, what many girls value is the sentiment behind it.

Take Ai Haibara for example. If she puts her heart into it, even if he gives her a bouquet of wildflowers, she won't mind and will still be happy to receive a gift.

However, Shinichi Kudo's gift was rather perfunctory, and the sentiment behind it was almost negligible.

"Cough cough..."

Shinichi Kudo, somewhat embarrassed by being exposed, spoke in a softer voice and offered an explanation:

"I went shopping that day and saw that, so I bought two boxes..."

"Give her one box, and keep one for yourself."

"How did you even come up with this idea?" Guangyou said, speechless. "Alright, I can only give you some advice. You'll have to handle the rest yourself."

"I'm leaving now. Be careful."

After waving goodbye to Shinichi Kudo and leaving those words behind, Kōyū turned and left.

...

Sunday arrived in the blink of an eye.

Kōyū and Ai, who had arranged to meet Akemi at the entrance of Teitan Elementary School, were already waiting there, but Akemi, who had made the appointment with them, was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, then let's go to the school and wait."

After hanging up the phone, Ai put away her phone and said to Kōyū:

"My sister said she had something come up and would be late, so she told us to wait for her at school."

"Alright then." Kōyū wasn't angry. Since he had nothing else to do today, he and Ai walked into Teitan Elementary School.

There weren't many people at the school on Sunday, and there weren't many tourist attractions on campus.

The two of them wandered around the school to pass the time.

When the two arrived near the animal shed at Teitan Elementary School, they spotted a familiar figure in front of it.

"Ms. Kobayashi?"

Seeing the person, Guangyou was a little surprised and walked up to ask, "Teacher, what are you doing here?"

"We have guests coming over today, so I'm here to greet them."

Sumiko Kobayashi, who was squatting in front of the animal shed, stood up, answered, and then asked the two:

"And what about you?"

"Did you forget something at school?"

"No," Guangyou explained briefly. "We had made an appointment with someone, but they had something come up, so we came to the school to wait for them."

"I see." Kobayashi Sumiko nodded.

"Ding-a-ling~"

Suddenly, a text message notification tone sounded.

After reading the text message, Kobayashi Sumiko put away her phone and said to the two of them:

"The teacher suddenly had something to attend to and went back to the office first."

"If it's alright, could you two please take care of the animals in the animal shed?"

"All you need to do is change their water and do a simple cleaning of their enclosure."

Kōyū glanced at Ai, whose gaze was fixed on the little rabbit and who had a smile on her lips, then looked away and agreed.

"No problem, we don't have anything else to do anyway."

"Thank you very much."

After thanking the two, Kobayashi Sumiko turned and went back to the teaching building.

Meanwhile, Kōyū and Ai began cleaning the animal shed.

Since the student council at Teitan Elementary School takes turns being animal caretakers, responsible for looking after the animals and cleaning, the cleaning is not troublesome.

It took the two of them about fifteen minutes to finish cleaning.

After changing the water and adding food for the animals, the two squatted in front of the hut and watched the rabbits eat.

After watching for a few minutes, Kōyū's gaze drifted to Ai's face.

He then noticed that there was a feather stuck in Ai's hair.

He originally intended to tell Ai, but he didn't say it on a whim.

Slowly extend your hand...

As they drew closer, Kōyū held his breath and became increasingly careful, afraid that Ai would notice.

He glanced at Ai out of the corner of his eye.

Fortunately, the girl's gaze remained fixed on the cute little bunny.

Although it wasn't anything shameful, and Guangyou couldn't explain why he did it, deep down he found it very interesting.

We're closer now.

We ran into each other.

When the feathers were removed, Ai still noticed.

Noticing Guangyou's actions, she turned her head and subconsciously gave him a reproachful look.

Seeing her adorable expression, Kōyū couldn't help but smile, gestured to the feather in his hand, and said to her:

"Ai, come closer."

"Any more?" Ai thought there were still feathers, so she leaned closer to Kousuke.

Guangyou didn't explain, but waited until she leaned closer and said to her as if telling her a secret:

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