After finally sending off the Senpai named Niijima Makoto, the pedestrians around them increased; it was the volleyball team finishing their training.
The boys, drenched in sweat from Kamoshida's drills, stumbled out of the school gate. The excitement they felt when they made the school team had been completely worn away by long-distance running, frog jumps, shuttle runs, and similar training exercises.
Kamoshida, as a physical education teacher, usually appeared approachable and easygoing. However, once training or matches related to volleyball were involved, he would immediately become highly motivated, even proactively calling to excuse all team members one by one, then taking them to the gym to repeatedly temper their weak bodies until they were exhausted and sweating profusely.
Togawa Sakiko nervously folded the thick stack of 10,000 yen bills into the zippered inner pocket of her jacket, then looked at Kurusu Akira, who was walking beside her, with a hint of complaint, "Why did you lie?"
"A beautiful high school girl from another school standing on the small road outside the school gate, collecting money and bowing to the boy paying her—anyone with a bit of common sense would misunderstand that as something rather… improper."
"Don't say it." Togawa Sakiko hastily dropped this sentence, then quickened her pace, swiftly passing Kurusu Akira and heading towards the station.
Kurusu Akira turned back to bid farewell to Mishima Yuki, who had just exited the school gate, then quickly went to chase after the fleeing band keyboardist ahead.
Mishima Yuki stood on the steps, looking somewhat confused in the direction Kurusu Akira had left. After a few seconds of thought, he finally showed a look of sudden realization.
Then his face was filled with indignation and envy.
Damn Amamiya Ren, he secretly found such a beautiful girlfriend behind his brothers' backs!
...
The lingering glow of the sunset gently brushed against the glass curtain wall of the train station, and in the mirror-like glass wall, the figures of a boy and a girl appeared, one after the other.
"Anyway, about the fast-food job today, I'll trouble you to introduce me to the manager."
"If you tidy up your hair and take off your glasses, you definitely won't need me to introduce you."
"That would be too ostentatious, it goes against my life creed." Actually, it should be "Phantom Thief creed" here.
Kurusu Akira looked back at his reflection in the glass wall: thick, reflective plain glasses, long bangs covering his forehead and part of his lenses, messy, weed-like hair, and a slightly hunched back... and finally, Shujin High School's dark, unkempt uniform that showed no sign of "cleanliness" or "freshness."
Anyone who saw him, unless they looked closely, would probably immediately think he was an unkempt, slovenly otaku.
Togawa Sakiko was already used to Kurusu Akira's occasional chuunibyou remarks. "At least you should comb your hair a bit; you can't be a waiter looking so sloppy… Or do you have extensive fast-food preparation experience?"
As she complained, she swiped her card to pass through the turnstile. The waiting area during rush hour was as crowded as ever. The relatively enclosed space brewed a frustrating cacophony, and even a slight distance made it difficult for them to hear each other's conversation.
Kurusu Akira proactively walked ahead to shield Togawa Sakiko from the chaotic crowd at the station. As the train arrived, he brazenly pushed through the people in front, leading her into the carriage.
Several well-dressed office workers were angered by his overly unconventional actions, but just as they were about to resist and speak up, they realized that Kurusu Akira's hand on them seemed as unshakeable as if cast from bronze and iron. No matter how much they pushed, they couldn't move it.
So, all sorts of unpleasant words were quietly swallowed, and they endured in silence.
With the help of his Persona, Dioscuri, Kurusu Akira's daily workouts yielded extraordinary results. While he hadn't fully recovered to his peak physical condition from his previous life, he held an almost overwhelming advantage over ordinary people who had never undergone such training.
Togawa Sakiko nervously scanned the surrounding gazes, then quickly followed Kurusu Akira. They found adjacent empty seats at the rear of the train car.
Feeling somewhat impolite, Togawa Sakiko stared at Kurusu Akira for a while. "Are you ostentatious enough now?"
The Phantom Thief, however, didn't bat an eye. "I have flexible criteria for evaluating my 'life creed.'"
Togawa Sakiko let out an almost imperceptible sigh, then raised her hand to tidy her slightly messy hair. "Actually, you don't need to do these things specifically to take care of me."
"So Togawa is fully aware of her own beauty."
"Please don't say that, it makes me feel very embarrassed."
"It's not okay to praise you as a beautiful girl?"
"Sorry, I'm just not very good at dealing with your… praise?"
"That's strange, you don't even like hearing the truth."
Togawa Sakiko was stunned for a moment. She had once again solemnly apologized to Kurusu Akira.
"I've always studied in an all-girls school, so I've had almost no opportunities to become friends with boys my age. That's why I'm not used to our current way of interacting… I'm sorry for making Amamiya-san, who was taking care of me until now, misunderstand. I will try my best to get used to these things in the future."
Now it was Kurusu Akira's turn to be dumbfounded.
What is going on with this girl? Can she please stop being so ambiguous when she talks?
He finally understood what Kawaragi Momoka must have felt when they chatted privately.
Kurusu Akira pinched his chin, adopting a thoughtful expression. The train window reflected his deep gray eyes. "Togawa, are you saying I'm your only male friend?"
Togawa Sakiko's expression became subtly conflicted. She found Kurusu Akira's statement a bit strange, yet she couldn't find anything unreasonable about it, so she could only dryly reply, "Yes."
"Have you ever spoken to a handsome boy your age like me before?"
"...No." Togawa Sakiko suddenly felt very powerless.
Kurusu Akira was a bit smug. "Then you should cherish it. It's a rare opportunity to be friends with a handsome boy as shockingly and uniquely handsome as me."
Togawa Sakiko finally understood. She wanted to retort to Kurusu Akira, but she couldn't find a suitable opening—
Because Kurusu Akira did indeed know many beautiful girls.
On the other hand, as a student from an all-girls school, she had almost no experience communicating with males, let alone with a handsome guy like Kurusu Akira, who could appear on the cover of a fashion magazine with just a little grooming.
She could only tentatively ask, following a popular internet meme, "So, 'shockingly' and 'uniquely' handsome Amamiya-san, are you saying you want me to pay you a friendship fee?"
"I wouldn't dare to let Lady Togawa pay a 'friendship fee'; that should be me showing filial respect to you."
Seeing Kurusu Akira's gloomy expression, as if saying, "There's already a thick barrier between us."
At this moment, Togawa Sakiko was surprised to find that she couldn't naturally joke along with him on this topic. She always subconsciously had to consider her personal image and daily etiquette.
"Making friends with boys, even the rhythm of conversation feels very different."
"Right? When I first played with girls in elementary school, I was like you, always feeling a bit reserved when talking."
"Huh? Amamiya was already very popular with girls in elementary school, then." Togawa Sakiko tried hard to simplify her habitual address of "Amamiya-san" to "Amamiya."
"To be precise, it was just that the girls in my class preferred to play with me… If you had to say 'popular,' it was more likely that I received one-sided care from an older senpai, like an older sister."
Kurusu Akira recalled his sixth grade in elementary school, when that senpai from Gekkoukan Academy's high school section took him around various places in the school. Sometimes it was the student council's lavishly decorated office, sometimes the rooftop of the teaching building where Persona users exchanged information. Of course, more often, she secretly brought him into a single room in the girls' dormitory to spend the night.
During those years he attended elementary school at Gekkoukan Private Academy's elementary division, he lived on the money his parents loaded onto his meal card each week. Since he wasn't old enough to work, he had almost no pocket money. Topics like "video games" often carried a mysterious filter of envy and longing.
It wasn't until later that he met the girl named Shiomi Kotone, who was in her second year of high school and six years his senior.
Thus, "video games" gradually became an option in Kurusu Akira's elementary school life.
And the only time he had to play games in a week back then was probably every night, lying on Shiomi Kotone's bed, fiddling with a Nintendo Wii or a Sony PS3.
Looking back now, one can't help but lament that Gekkoukan Private Academy, as an integrated school located on an artificial island, had rather inappropriate arrangements for "physiology class" and "health class."
His first "physiology class" only began after he advanced to middle school.
Thanks to this, he had shared a bed with Shiomi Kotone for a long time, almost completely unaware. Sometimes, she even exchanged an "extra hour of game time" for him to fulfill various strange requests at the time, such as "you must sit on my lap to do homework" or "you must let me hug you when you read."
It wasn't until one day, when the red-haired student council president suddenly burst into Shiomi Kotone's bedroom in a rage, scolding her for a full half-hour while pointing at her nose, that his frequency of spending nights in the girls' dormitory gradually decreased.
Having spent many years in closed-off education at Gekkoukan Academy, it was during his time studying in Tokyo that Kurusu Akira learned that, under normal circumstances, elementary school students would gradually begin to learn about "physiology and health."
So many years have passed, and Kurusu Akira still can't say for sure what kind of feelings Shiomi Kotone harbored for him back then—he dared not imagine anything too depraved, as that would too greatly destroy Shiomi Kotone's image in his heart.
He just assumed that the girl who once contracted with the Velvet Room simply had some "little brother complex" tendencies and enjoyed playing with children more…
He really couldn't think or imagine any further.
Otherwise, Kurusu Akira felt his childhood would probably become a complete tragedy in some sense.
"We've arrived at the station."
The Phantom Thief stood up and patted his somewhat stuffy forehead.
That's the downside of rush hour.
People were everywhere, inside and outside the train car. The way you squeezed in was the way you had to squeeze out.
He gallantly shielded Togawa Sakiko amidst the jostling passengers, then, like salmon migrating upstream, he was swept along by the current and countless companions, pushing and shoving his way into the narrow river mouth.
...
Shibuya Central Avenue.
Crowds like shadows, countless bustling figures moving through the cascade of neon lights.
'Cosmic Tower Burger, I'm back.'
Kurusu Akira once again paused at the entrance of Big Bang Burger, gazing at the unchanging animated advertisement on the display screen. He recalled the Gundam in the LeBlanc attic, the resolve to devour food at the table as if facing death, and the miserable end of releasing pain like a storm in the toilet, and couldn't help but be filled with emotion.
However, this time, he returned to this burger joint not as a "challenger"—
"You are the challenger!" Kurusu Akira, in uniform, looked at the man who boasted of being a "big eater," then solemnly placed the tray holding the Cheese Devil and the Burger Meat Devil on the table.
His expression gradually turned fierce, then he picked up the timer from the tray.
"Are you ready, sir?"
The big eater looked at the enormous object in front of him, as thick as a forearm. The muscles in his face trembled, and his eyes welled up with tears of regret.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To Read Advanced Chapters, and support this novel, please join me on [email protected]/geats2000
(Note: Replace "@-" with "a" on your web browser.)