Page 237 of Faking the Goal

She picks up the second volume and checks inside.

Then the third.

Finally, she looks at me.

"You translated these?"

"Yeah."

"All twelve?"

"Yeah."

"Ken-chan, when did you even find the time?" She looks back down at the book, running her fingertips over one of the translations. "This must've taken you forever."

I rub the back of my neck and shrug. "It took some time, sure. But it's pretty easy to finish twelve books when you don't mind doing the work."

Her brows pull together like she doesn't believe me.

"I kept seeing you look at them at the café," I explain. "Every time you came across one while you were working, you'd stop and flip through it even though you couldn't read a fucking word. And every single time, you looked so disappointed when you had to put it back."

Her expression softens.

"So I tried to find the English editions for you, but they were out of stock everywhere I looked. I figured I could wait until they came back in stock..." I glance at the open volume in her lap before meeting her eyes again. "But I didn't want you to have to keep looking at something you wanted and not be able to have it when I could do something about it."

She goes completely still.

"So I translated them."

For a moment, she just stares at me.

"All twelve," she whispers.

I shrug, feeling strangely exposed now that I've actually said it out loud. "It was just a few hours here and there."

Except it wasn't. Some nights I stayed up far later than I should have, hunched over those fucking pages despite how packed my schedule already was. But none of it had felt like work. Not when I kept imagining the exact expression she's wearing right now.

"Besides," I say, quieter this time, "I knew it would make you happy."

Something changes in her eyes.

Fuck.

I should probably stop there.

Instead, my thumb brushes absently over the edge of the book in her lap. "And I like making you happy, trouble."

The words leave my mouth before I can reconsider them, but I don't take them back.

Because they're true.

Because making her happy has become one of my favorite fucking weaknesses.

I like the way her whole face changes when something catches her off guard in a good way. I like being the reason behind that smile. I like knowing I can take something she wants, something small enough that anyone else might overlook it, and turn it into something that makes her light up like I handed her the whole damn world.

It's becoming a problem, really.

Give me one smile like that and apparently I'm willing to lose sleep, rearrange my schedule, and translate twelve fucking volumes of manga by hand.