The car was quiet for a while.
The pain in Watanabe Tetsu's stomach had eased, and it seemed—for now—his life was no longer in immediate danger.
He spoke softly:
"I suggested deciding through exam scores because Seino Rin only manages to stay in first place by spending every day in school reading. But you, Yuki—you skip school for a whole month and still take second without effort. Now that you're actually attending again, first place is obviously yours."
Yuki Miki didn't respond.
She looked as if she had fallen asleep.
Watanabe Tetsu couldn't think of anything else to say.
He had just been beaten, had been training and studying every single day recently, and constantly thinking about how to deal with Yuki Miki.
His brain and body were already exhausted.
Add the comfortable temperature inside the car and the soft floor mat he lay on without moving… and his mind finally began to drift.
He even fell into a hazy dream:
He was suddenly back in his hometown in Iwate Prefecture.
For some reason, a jasmine plant had grown in front of his house.
He brewed jasmine tea with it—it smelled incredible—and he asked his parents to send some to Tokyo.
But when the package arrived, Yuki Miki extorted it from him.
He became inexplicably sad.
After that ridiculous, unrealistic dream, he woke up.
His awareness returned bit by bit—
And then he realized something was covering his eyes.
Startled, he instinctively reached up to remove it.
His hands were not tied.
He removed it easily.
He was lying on a bench in a small roadside park.
It wasn't late yet, probably an hour before dinnertime.
Nearby, a housewife returning from grocery shopping was feeding pigeons with her child.
A few elementary school girls—each carrying a backpack almost half their size and water bottles thicker than their legs—looked at him and whispered among themselves.
Watanabe Tetsu looked down at what he had removed from his face.
A pair of long, over-the-knee stockings.
"Ahahaha!!"
The girls burst into bell-like laughter at his stunned expression.
The laughter startled the pigeons pecking at crumbs scattered by the mother and child.
They fluttered their wings slightly, but instead of flying away, continued pecking the crumbs unfazed.
Watanabe Tetsu didn't care about being laughed at.
The fact he had gotten out of Yuki Miki's car without bleeding was something to celebrate.
He checked around the bench.
To his right was his backpack, unzipped.
A notebook was shoved inside at an odd angle, with a pen stuck between the pages.
Watanabe Tetsu pulled it out and saw that it was his English vocabulary notebook.
The pen was the 0.5 mm mechanical pencil he bought at the only general store in his hometown—an old design, but very durable.
On the two pages inside were huge sentences, each taking up an entire page:
"You should thank me. I resisted the urge to throw you out of the car and even saved your life."
"You fell asleep holding my stockings. I'm satisfied. You can keep them."
The letters were so big they wasted two whole pages—
Watanabe Tetsu didn't dare erase them.
Who knew if erasing them would get him killed.
And even if not killed, getting punched again wasn't worth it.
Once he became strong enough to fight Yuki Miki—
not only would he erase these words, he would throw every pair of stockings in his house into the incinerator.
But for now, he carefully folded the stockings and placed them into his backpack.
He checked the GPS on his phone—
He was no longer in Shinjuku.
He had been dropped off in Chiyoda Ward, a district filled with the wealthy.
A single house here could probably buy his entire hometown village.
Straightening his wrinkled uniform shirt and sleep-creased jacket, Watanabe Tetsu left the park.
The elementary school girls were still giggling at him.
Maybe by tomorrow, rumors of "the guy who used stockings as an eye mask" would spread through some elementary school—
Another reason for him to hate Yuki Miki.
He found the nearest train station and took the train back to his rented room.
That night, Watanabe Tetsu punished himself by training until midnight—
Because he had begged for mercy after only two punches.
His willpower was far from matching his overwhelmingly great personality.
Saturday and Sunday:
Watanabe Tetsu woke at 6 a.m.
6:00–6:30: dumbbell training.
When the radio started playing the second set of radio calisthenics, he followed along.
In his hometown for fifteen years, starting from elementary school, the school required students to take their radio exercise cards during summer vacation and get a stamp for each participation.
When the card was filled, they could receive snacks or stationery as a prize.
Watanabe Tetsu never went.
He hated exercise.
If he had to wake early, he'd rather lie on the tatami staring blankly, not leave the bed.
But now he had made a strict schedule—
Inspired by Gatsby from the copy of The Great Gatsby Seino Rin lent him.
He had to force himself to do things he hated.
That was the only way to become great.
"Bend exercise, stretch exercise, jumping exercise, running exercise…"
7:00–8:00: memorize English and Japanese.
8:30–11:00: library—read a biography beneficial to life, constantly searching for hints on "how to take revenge on Yuki Miki."
2:00–4:00 p.m.: study biology, modern society, math, art.
English and Japanese he was already working hard on daily, plus morning reading, so he didn't include them here.
7:00 p.m.: go to the newly opened city pool.
The 50-meter pool—swim ten full laps.
After such intense exercise, he got extremely hungry and ate a late-night snack two days in a row.
9:00 p.m.: listen to English radio while lifting dumbbells or doing push-ups.
11:00 p.m.: sleep sharp on time.
Watanabe Tetsu followed this schedule easily for two days—
But he worried he might only last for two.
He prepared himself mentally for a long-term war against laziness.
If I can't control myself, how can I get revenge on Yuki Miki?
He encouraged himself like this.
As he lived strictly by this schedule, excitement grew inside him.
Last Monday at a little past 7 a.m., Yuki Miki casually agreed to be his girlfriend.
Next Monday at a little past 7 a.m. was coming soon.
The "Yuki Miki route completed" reward had been 200,000 points—
Forty times more than the Tamamo Emi reward.
What about the weekly sign-in bonus?
Would it also be forty times bigger?
He deserved it, right?
If he hadn't been lucky enough to draw the Healing Potion, he'd already be dead at Yuki Miki's hands.
Even now he risked death at any moment—never mind "completing" her route.
Please let the reward be something incredible!
With that hope in mind—
Sunday morning, someone downstairs complained because he did radio calisthenics at 6:30 a.m.
It made the floor thump loudly.
He apologized and promised to do it in a park next time.
That afternoon, he received potatoes his parents mailed from home.
He made beef-and-potato curry—tasted good, mostly thanks to store-bought curry cubes.
After dinner, he took a nap.
Monday was coming.