Chapter 105: A Gift for Mr. Qingling
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No one knew what the two of them were doing. Beneath the slightly undulating blanket, all that could be seen from above was the sturdy back of a man.
Only the brown curls scattered beside him revealed that there were actually two people tangled together.
Like a human pyramid.
When the movie ended, the dim screening room suddenly blazed with light. Everyone’s eyes struggled to adjust as they rose from the circular sofas, raising their hands to shield their faces.
They slipped their arms affectionately around their companions and left the theater amid laughter and chatter.
The deserted screening room was left with only two people inside.
Harano Kasuga tossed the disposable blanket aside and climbed out first. His pockets were stuffed full, though no one knew what was inside.
Uehara Yoshimi remained under the blanket for a while, her little face flushed, before finally emerging as well.
She was still clutching something in her hand. It was bulky, and from the corner showing beneath her fingers, it looked rather like a tissue.
Toilet paper?
No one knew.
Kasuga only knew that he felt refreshed and invigorated.
After leaving the Starry Sky Cinema, he gazed at the crowds flowing along the street, feeling thoroughly relaxed and content.
Couples passed by them one after another, and every girl stole an unavoidable glance.
The handsome young man wore a fitted short-sleeved shirt that accentuated his solid muscles, while his black sports jacket hung from one hand.
Ever since he had started working out, his physical condition had improved by leaps and bounds. His resistance to the cold had increased considerably as well.
Even during the chillier autumn weather, Kasuga still wanted to wear summer clothes. If Miss Kiyoshima had not insisted on stuffing a jacket into his hands before he left, he really would have gone out in nothing but a short-sleeved shirt.
But there was no helping it. Now that there was someone at home who loved to nag, a young man’s freedom outside came with certain restrictions.
The post-nut-clarity haze gave Kasuga plenty to think about.
He even deeply despised himself for being such an old scumbag.
Ugh! Damn it!
Kiyoshima Miryu, Uehara Yoshimi, and Ogata Yuriko.
Every one of them was the perfect partner in someone else’s dreams, yet Harano Kasuga was still here, picking and choosing among them.
What a bastard.
Machete warning.
The more he thought about it, the more a pensive, world-weary air settled over his handsome features. Girls passing by could not help turning their heads again and again.
What could possibly have happened to make such a handsome man look so melancholy?
He seemed to have merged with the bleakness of autumn around him. No—instead, it was as though autumn itself were withering for his sake.
Several high school girls even stood nearby, their gazes filled with pity and concern.
They wondered whether they should go over and listen to his troubles, but at that moment, a beautiful woman entered this world and shattered its desolation.
Uehara Yoshimi, arriving somewhat late, seized Kasuga’s arm and clung to it. In doing so, she also crushed the young girls’ hopes of winning his heart.
They had to be siblings, right?
They had to be...
“What are you thinking about?” Uehara Yoshimi asked curiously.
When she had just seen his back, he had looked as though some enormous tragedy had befallen him. His melancholy had been almost painful to behold.
“Of course I was thinking about you!” Harano Kasuga said with a broad grin.
“Hmph! I don’t believe you!” Uehara Yoshimi suddenly looked like a bashful young girl, her fair nose wrinkling slightly.
Her heart felt as sweet as the popcorn they had just eaten.
For a moment, Yoshimi felt as though she had grown more than ten years younger, as if she had truly returned to that carefree, romantic age of youth.
Harano Kasuga was her new boyfriend from school. Every day after classes, they would stroll home together.
They would save a little money each day, then go out to see a movie together on their days off.
Their hearts were filled with longing for the future. Without realizing it, Yoshimi tightened her hold on Kasuga’s arm, as though afraid he might escape, wrapping him completely in her tenderness.
The sight made all the nearby boys burn with envy.
Pure, unadulterated envy.
Feeling the warmth against his arm, Harano Kasuga froze for a moment. Then he leaned close and whispered into her ear,
“Yoshimi, you really are beautiful. I mean it...”
The words tickled. Yoshimi had discovered that this man loved whispering into people’s ears. Who knew where he had learned it?
What a mischievous little devil.
For the rest of the afternoon, Harano Kasuga accompanied Uehara Yoshimi as they wandered around and enjoyed themselves. They had their photographs taken at a roadside photo booth, then went to a more upscale shopping mall to choose some clothes.
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Most of the time, however, it was Yoshimi buying clothes for Kasuga.
The young man was treated like a model, dressed and redressed at her whim.
Girls seemed to be born with an interest in shopping and playing dress-up.
And with Kasuga’s current physique and appearance, he was practically a living clothes horse.
Youthful, sunny, carefree, melancholy—whatever the style or mood of the outfit, Kasuga wore it with ease, making every garment look extraordinarily elegant.
The managers of two specialty stores even began tactfully asking what Harano Kasuga did for a living.
When they learned that he was still a student, they immediately proposed hiring him as a part-time model. Not only did they offer remarkably generous pay, they also claimed to know people in the entertainment industry and said they could help Kasuga get his start there.
Kasuga silently maintained his doubts about the manager’s claims.
Although this was a relatively high-end clothing store, it was nowhere near the level of being able to reach major celebrities.
And the manager certainly did not look like some hidden master of the industry.
Ding!
[Event triggered!]
[The player’s handsome appearance and incomparable aura have caught the eye of the manager of a famous specialty store during an ordinary shopping trip. The manager has proposed inviting the player to become a model. Perhaps the player could become famous throughout Tokyo overnight and open an entirely new path in life. After all, you are confident that your looks can crush 99.99 percent of the pretty boys in the entertainment industry. Let the pretty boys compete with you in muscle, and the handsome men compete with you in looks. Only then can you become the one and only Harano Kasuga!]
[Please make your choice: Your selection will unlock an entirely new career path!]
[Yes!] or [No!]
This time, things were simple. There were only two choices: yes or no.
But Harano Kasuga had no intention of choosing either.
Instead, he smiled and said, “Please let me think it over.”
He had neither clearly refused nor clearly agreed. By giving an ambiguous answer and leaving things open, he ensured that there would still be room to maneuver.
Ding!
[The player has made a choice outside the system’s options! After evaluation, the player has left room for both refusal and acceptance. The event will be preserved. When the player makes a final decision, the event will trigger again.]
Several lines of text reappeared on the virtual panel. The event that had just been triggered slowly turned gray, shrank smaller and smaller, and finally merged into the two enormous characters representing the quest menu.
Kasuga opened the quest menu. The old quests that had accumulated over a long period of time popped up one after another, filling the virtual panel in an instant. Among them, the gray text was especially conspicuous.
If one of those quest-obsessed maniacs had seen this scene, they would have collapsed and torn their hair out.
Sure enough, whether it was a random event or a casual game, everything was permeated by five simple words:
“Here to serve the player!”
The game had made it perfectly clear from the beginning:
[This game is a romance assistant. It has no compulsory quests, no compulsory events, and no compulsory interference with the player’s life trajectory. It is a “three-no game.” Every choice you make will alter the direction of an event. When you find yourself hesitating, you may refuse to choose.]
Harano Kasuga rather liked this “three-no game.”
Nothing was forced. Whether he wanted to complete a quest was entirely up to him. Just as before, he had chosen not to undertake the compulsory quest involving Miss Kiyoshima, and his little life was still proceeding smoothly and enjoyably.
The manager looked somewhat disappointed, but he nevertheless handed Kasuga a business card and said with a beaming smile, “If you decide to give it a try, feel free to call me anytime.”
He even added, “Whatever salary another store offers Kasuga, I’ll increase it by twenty percent.”
Clearly, the manager thought very highly of Harano Kasuga.
Kasuga smiled and nodded.
Only Uehara Yoshimi frowned slightly. The madam was evidently not entirely convinced by the manager’s words.
After leaving the clothing store, she said softly, “Kasuga, you can just come work at my convenience store. If that isn’t enough, I can raise your pay. And if that still doesn’t work, I can hire another girl to help you.”
The conditions offered by the madam were even more tempting.
Indeed, ever since obtaining the system, Harano Kasuga had been working fewer and fewer shifts at the Kamimoto Convenience Store.
It had left the madam feeling somewhat anxious and insecure.
Faced with the generous offer from kindhearted Yoshimi, Kasuga smiled warmly.
“You don’t need to pay me at all, Yoshimi. Are we really going to keep score between us?”
The remark was shameless, making him sound like a freeloader who deserved a beating. Yet when Uehara Yoshimi heard it, she was delighted.
After wandering around a while longer, Madam Uehara was finally called back by a phone call from Miko.
The wonderful afternoon was brought back to reality by that single call.
She was no longer a carefree young girl. She was the mother of a carefree young girl.
Feeling a slight sense of loss, Harano Kasuga kissed the madam goodbye and watched her graceful figure return to the convenience store.
Then he looked at the large pile of shopping bags in his hands.
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That was when he encountered a rather troublesome problem.
How was he going to explain where the clothes had come from once he got home?
Should he say that he had bought them alone? If so, he would certainly have to endure Miss Kiyoshima’s complaints. How dare he go shopping for clothes without inviting her?
Should he claim that Heisuke Yoji and Kunita Ichinaka had bought them for him?
He looked at the stylish, minimalist clothes in his hands.
Yeah, that sounded even less believable.
“So you’re saying that you, Heisuke Yoji, and Kunita Ichinaka bought all this together?”
Inside the rented apartment, Kiyoshima Miryu sat on the sofa. With slender fingers, she casually applied nail polish, occasionally blowing lightly on them. After a while, she finally lowered her hand.
Her haughty little face was expressionless as she looked down at the handsome young man sitting on a cushion. Beside him were seven or eight exquisitely packaged bags.
“Yep, yep! Those two have absolutely terrible taste. At first, they picked out a whole pile of gaudy clothes for me. I couldn’t even bear to look at them, so in the end I chose everything myself,” Harano Kasuga said indifferently, grinning broadly from his seat on the cushion.
“By the way, the owner of that clothing store even praised me for being handsome and insisted that I become his model! I told him that wouldn’t do. Some clothes can only be worn for my little Miryu to see!”
As he spoke, he took the business card from his pocket and waved it in the air to prove that he was telling the truth.
He did not hand it to Miss Kiyoshima, however. What if the girl suddenly got it into her head to call and check? Wouldn’t that mean he could simply start life over?
“What a narcissist. Maybe he was only looking for cheap, reliable labor. You’re reading too much into it!” Kiyoshima Miryu curled her lip. Although she was secretly pleased, she had already formed the habit of teasing him.
Harano Kasuga said nothing. After putting the card back into his pocket, he took out two even more beautifully wrapped bags from behind him and held them out to Miss Kiyoshima.
“Miss Kiyoshima, these are presents for you!”
He finished with a charming smile.
“Hmph. At least you know how to behave!” Miss Kiyoshima raised her little chin proudly, though the smile on her face was almost impossible to suppress.
She took the bags and pretended not to care as she glanced inside.
In an instant, her little face flushed.
“Is this really a gift for me, or is it a gift for yourself?”
Kiyoshima Miryu pulled the contents from the bag in disbelief.
Her pretty face was filled with astonishment, as though she had never encountered anyone so shameless.
Inside was a black-and-white outfit: a lace-trimmed floral dress made with very little fabric, complete with a pair of cat-ear accessories.
Everything about it made clear that this was no ordinary article of clothing.
“What’s wrong? I think it looks great!” Harano Kasuga said shamelessly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “You can only wear it in front of me, though!”
“How dare you!”
Kiyoshima Miryu hurled the clothes straight at the young man opposite her. Her face was scarlet with embarrassment and fury, her pearly teeth clenched as she struggled to understand how his skin could possibly be so thick.
Half an hour earlier—
Harano Kasuga had stood outside the apartment building, shaken his head, and reluctantly hailed a taxi back to the shopping mall.
Relying on his thorough knowledge of Miss Kiyoshima’s figure, the handsome young man bought two more unusual outfits to give her.
Although Miss Kiyoshima disliked wearing such delicate, girlish clothes, Kasuga had nevertheless imagined what she would look like in them.
It might actually suit her rather well.
Especially when he pictured Kiyoshima Miryu’s proud little face, flushed with humiliation and embarrassment, Kasuga felt a surge of excitement.
Without giving it much thought, he paid for the clothes immediately and walked away feeling extremely satisfied.
When you had more money, you had to learn to enjoy some of it yourself.
Ah, no, that wasn’t right.
When you had more money, you should also buy Miss Kiyoshima a few more outfits in different styles.
Yes. That was exactly it.
He absolutely had no other intentions.
Before leaving, however, Kasuga still doubled back to the jewelry store to take a look.
“All right, stop being angry. This is the real present I got for you!”
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End of chapter.
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