Chapter 293, Reception

Watching the time slowly passing by on the phone, Zhuo sat and waited.

Just after a while, the doorbell rang.

As for the apartment building, Ren already had the door card and could come in directly, so Zhuo had already expected that they would go straight to the door of the house.

Seeing Ling also turned his head at this time, Zhuo nodded, stood up and walked to the door, untied the security chain and turned the door handle.

After opening the door, standing in front of it were Kiritani Jin and Kanda Tomokazu, whom Zhuo was already familiar with.

"Merry Christmas~"

"Merry Christmas."

Seeing the two smiling peacefully, Zhuo also smiled in agreement. After all, today was Christmas, a day for fun, and playing with friends made him feel happier.

"Hey hello, Merry Christmas~"

Then a ghostly face popped up from behind the two of them and greeted them enthusiastically.

"Ah, Merry Christmas."

"Why are you acting like a devil to me? And what about the tone I taught you last year?"

Zhuo shifted his gaze and saw Yurina, who was wearing a bright flower arrangement on her head. The latter's enthusiastic greeting was met with Zhuo's listless return, and then he showed a dissatisfied expression.

Hearing Yurina say this, Zhuo also remembered last year's Christmas - to be precise, Christmas Eve, which he spent with Yurina, Jin, and Kazama Ruri. At that time, Yurina insisted on pestering him to practice the tone of "Merry Christmas".

"Come in...what took you so long?"

"Anyway, all sorts of things happened~ Let's put this aside for now, where's Romanov?"

"in."

After Zhuo gave a brief answer, he accompanied the three people who had taken off their shoes and walked into the entrance hall.

However, what Zhuo did not expect was that Ling had been standing at the end of the entrance without him knowing when. After seeing several people enter the room, he clasped his hands in front of him, bowed slightly and calmly to express his welcome.

Ren and the others naturally looked in her direction as well—and their eyes widened.

Their surprise was not without reason.

First of all, Ling's attitude of welcoming him was too natural. It's not an exaggeration to say that she followed the husband's lead. She didn't follow Zhuo out to greet him or open the door. Instead, she waited behind him. This was no longer a friend or girlfriend, but a couple who had been married for many years. It was probably something like this.

Looking at Ling's almost flawless appearance, Zhuo couldn't help but think "How nice it would be if all this is true". Zhuo knew that he had told Ling in advance "Just let her know that I don't have anything special to her", so although Ling's actions were a little excessive, no, it could be said to be a killer move, but Zhuo also realized that this was the way to deal with it after Ling agreed.

"Excuse me for interrupting you."

"……excuse me."

"excuse me."

Ling calmly walked down the hallway and took out three pairs of disposable slippers from the shoe cabinet in the corner - because there were only two of them at home, Zhuo only had his own slippers and the slippers Ling brought when he moved in, and the rest were all prepared disposable slippers.

By the way, Zhuo's slippers are grey, while Ling's are white.

"Mr. Romanov, long time no see~"

"What do you mean by long time no see? You probably don't know each other."

"Humph, this is called the mutual admiration between campus beauties, you don't understand." Seeing Yurina quickly put on her slippers and ran towards him with a smile on her face, Zero straightened his posture slightly and bowed his head again, then replied lightly, "It's been a long time since I last saw you. Welcome to the Utsunomiya family. Please forgive me for the poor hospitality."

Although this "Welcome to the Utsunomiya family, I'm sorry for the hospitality..." was also enough to explode, Zhuo was still more confused about when these two people knew each other... Since moving in, Ling has been with him almost every day. Even before moving in, they were only apart when buying groceries and parting very early and very late. They were in the same class at school. So when was it... Zhuo looked at Ling with a slightly confused look, and after Ling noticed this gaze, he stood beside Utsunomiya Zhuo with a calm face.

"Welcome, both of you." Ling once again bowed beautifully to Jin Kiritani and the other person who were following behind Zhuo. Jin Kiritani and Tomokazu Kanda also cooperated somewhat stiffly in making polite greetings.

Of course it would be stiff, this hostess posture.

So even if I secretly bumped Zhuo's back with my shoulder, Zhuo wouldn't be able to explain it.

……

"Please use."

Even if they were not good friends who came for the first time and might be leaving soon, they were still guests, so it was natural to entertain them. However, before Zhuo had time to go to the kitchen to prepare, Ling had already walked into the kitchen and brought tea, so Zhuo could only wait and see what happened.

He had never imagined that one day his small living room would be troubled by insufficient space - because the only place to sit was the sofa, so Zhuo sat cross-legged opposite the low table and let the guests sit on the sofa.

Fortunately, Ling had prepared enough tea sets when he had money before, which came in handy in places like this.

By the way, since Ling had no place to sit, she chose to sit very close to Zhuo.

Kiritani Jin, Kanda, and Yurina sat on the sofa where Sho and Rei usually sat, with smiles full of emotion or complexity on their faces.

"Hahaha thank you so much, thank you for your hospitality."

"Me too, thanks for the treat."

"…This should have been done by Zhuo, right?"

Yurina muttered as she took a sip of her tea before being won over by Zero's tea-making skills.

If Zhuo were asked to make tea, he would probably only be able to produce the astringent taste of black tea, or simply plain boiled water. Ling probably took these into consideration and took action first.

Then, Yurina showed a slightly helpless expression.

"Yeah, if we use it to bathe, the temperature of the hot water is too random, it will scare away the customers, hahaha..."

Although what he said was not wrong, it was still a bit unpleasant to be pointed out. Having said that, even when Zhuo used the "Staring Attack", Yurina smiled indifferently, so he could only shut his mouth and let Yurina watch with a smile.

"No, this is what I should do." Zero responded calmly without any expression.

“…Ah, what is this?”

"That's what."

"What are you two talking about? We've had our tea, it's time to get going."

"Don't worry, the light show will start in the evening, and even other things have to wait until the evening, so there is plenty of time."

"Just like what Tong Gu said, oh Zhuo, we should wait until there are more people before going. You don't want to be lonely when you get there, right?"

"That's what I guessed."

Seeing that his two good friends were determined to sit for a while longer and echoed the same sentiment, Zhuo sighed again, not knowing for the umpteenth time today.

(End of this chapter)