“Here is…”
Kasumi Masanojo quietly woke up and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, confused that he was sleeping in a place he didn’t recognize.
He tried to get up, but his body wouldn’t listen properly.
After struggling, he finally managed to sit up and look around.
He realized this was a hospital room.
“Eh, why am I in a hospital…?”
Why was he lying in a hospital bed?
As he tried to think, a sudden intense headache hit him.
He clutched his head and curled up in pain.
After a while, the headache gradually eased.
Once the pain completely disappeared, he finally remembered why he was in the hospital.
“Oh, right.
I fought a bear…”
It happened during the karate club’s spring training camp.
Following the brain-dead musclehead logic of “training camp means mountains!”, Masanojo and the rest of the karate club were doing mountain training.
While running through the mountains, they unfortunately encountered a huge bear.
If it had been a moon bear, they might have managed somehow, but for some reason it was a brown bear.
Why was there a brown bear on the mainland?
It made no sense.
But since it actually happened, there was nothing they could do.
To make matters worse, they had split into small groups for the run.
Only a few people were there, and worst of all, everyone except Masanojo was a female club member.
To let the others escape, Masanojo recklessly faced the brown bear alone——
And the next thing he knew, he was in the hospital.
“Haha, well, if you fight a bear, ending up in the hospital makes sense.”
In a situation where one wrong move could have meant death, it was actually lucky that he got off this lightly.
It didn’t look like he had any major injuries either.
However, probably because he had been sleeping for a long time, Masanojo’s body had become quite thin.
Before hospitalization, he was over 180 cm tall and weighed nearly 90 kg.
Now his ribs were faintly visible, and his arms and legs were slender.
He no longer had a body suited for fighting.
“My muscles have dropped a lot… How long was I asleep…?”
This wouldn’t happen after just one or two days.
He must have been bedridden for quite a long time.
He wanted to know what date it was today, but there was no calendar in the room and no TV either, so he couldn’t check.
Well, since the patient was bedridden, maybe a TV wasn’t necessary.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr~~~
While he was spacing out, Masanojo’s stomach growled loudly.
Now fully conscious, his body was aggressively demanding food.
“I’m so hungry~~~~~~”
A powerful wave of hunger hit him.
His stomach kept rumbling as if trying to make up for all the lost time, showing no sign of stopping.
He looked at the clock on the wall.
It was past midnight.
There probably wouldn’t be any late-night snacks available.
That meant he had to wait until morning…
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr~~~
His stomach refused to accept that.
“Ugh… No good, I can’t hold it.”
Unable to endure the unbearable hunger, Masanojo made up his mind and got out of bed.
Although he had been bedridden, thanks to his previous training his steps were surprisingly steady.
“This should be fine.” Thinking that, Masanojo searched the hospital room and found some bills in a drawer.
He grabbed them tightly and left the room.
――――――――――――――――――――
Masanojo had assumed there would be vending machines selling food inside the hospital, but unfortunately he couldn’t find any.
Still desperate to fill his stomach, he decided to leave the hospital even though he knew it was a bad idea.
After walking for a while, he spotted a convenience store, rushed inside, and started buying food.
The store clerk stared at him with an expression as if seeing a ghost.
That was understandable.
Masanojo was wearing hospital clothes and clutching money — a completely suspicious sight.
It was only natural to be shocked.
But he had no mental space to care about that right now.
All he wanted was to eat as soon as possible.
With that single thought, he finished shopping.
After buying the food, Masanojo was about to head back to the hospital when an idea crossed his mind.
He had been bedridden for a long time.
If a doctor or nurse saw him eating solid food, they would definitely stop him.
But that would be a problem.
He was starving right now.
It was said that patients shouldn’t suddenly eat solid food because their stomachs couldn’t handle it, but Masanojo wasn’t worried about that.
His stomach was incredibly tough and could accept almost anything.
It was currently begging him to give it food right away.
Even heavy or greasy items would probably be fine.
Masanojo gave up on returning to the hospital and headed to a nearby park instead.
There, no one would stop him from eating.
Once he reached the park, he found a suitable spot, sat down, and laid out all the food he had bought on the table.
“Thanks for the meal~~~~~”
He bit into the food with great vigor and tears flowed from his eyes.
“Ugh, it’s so goooood~~~~~”
His body, finally receiving food after so long, was moved to its core.
The nutrients spread throughout his entire body, filling him with vitality.
Once he started, he couldn’t stop.
With no one watching, Masanojo threw aside all manners and devoured the food like a wild animal.
The food disappeared at an incredible speed.
Several thousand yen worth of items were all consumed and sent into Masanojo’s stomach in almost no time at all.
――――――――――――――――――――
“Haaah~~~~ That was amazing~~~~”
With his stomach full, Masanojo leaned back deeply in the chair and looked up at the sky.
Thanks to the cloudless night, he could see a beautiful starry sky.
Combined with his satisfied appetite, a strong sense of happiness washed over him.
“Fuuu…”
As he sat there enjoying the night breeze for a while, Masanojo suddenly felt someone’s gaze.
He turned his face toward the direction of the stare.
There stood two women.
Walking around outside at this time of night is pretty careless, he thought.
That was what Masanojo was thinking when he saw the women approaching him, and he became flustered.
“Eh, huh, ehh?”
The women kept coming closer.
For some reason, their expressions looked stern.
Two angry-looking women approaching him in the middle of the night.
Masanojo sensed trouble and tried to leave quickly, but the women blocked his path and he couldn’t escape.
Nervously, he looked at their faces.
The women approached him with stern expressions.
“Hey there, big guy.
What are you doing out here alone at this hour?”