The sudden voice jolted Hibiki Tachibana from his pleasant daydreams about the future.
He instinctively locked his phone screen and looked up to see a pretty, somewhat familiar face, cool in expression.
The newcomer wore the same Metropolitan High School uniform as him.
Her beautiful, slightly wavy black hair cascaded naturally over her shoulders.
It was his classmate, Mizuki Mirei.
Hibiki’s impression of Mizuki Mirei was actually a bit complicated.
Within Metropolitan High School, their situations were indeed quite similar.
Both were ‘outsiders’ who had transferred mid-semester in their second year.
Their personalities also seemed somewhat unsociable, leaving them with few friends in class to talk to.
Over time, they had become each other’s only option for normal conversation.
But to speak of their true connection, one had to trace back to a more distant time—elementary school.
Hibiki still remembered clearly: back then, his cheap, biological mother, who was at the peak of her career and bursting with vanity, loved nothing more than dragging young him around to so-called high-society banquets and celebrity dinners.
And Hibiki, armed with the soul and intellect of an adult transmigrator, proceeded to deliver a dimensional crushing blow at those parties.
He effortlessly left an indelible psychological shadow on a host of privileged children his age, successfully earning himself the reputation of a ‘child prodigy’.
The Mizuki Mirei before him was, unfortunately, one of those little brats he had ‘crushed’ back then.
“It’s you, Mizuki-san,”
Hibiki said expressionlessly, putting his phone back in his desk drawer, neither confirming nor denying Mizuki’s slightly sharp teasing.
He couldn’t deny it either.
Just seeing Mizuki Mirei’s face involuntarily brought back those awkward years of showing off in front of little kids.
The feeling was worse than having to eat three large bowls of rice in public.
It was so cringe-worthy he could dig out a three-bedroom mansion with his toes on the spot.
“What’s with that? Your reaction is so bland,” Mizuki Mirei seemed somewhat dissatisfied with his indifference.
She pulled over a chair from nearby, sat down boldly opposite him, and opened her own lunchbox.
“Let me ask you, is this all you’re having for lunch today?” She pointed her chin at the unopened melon bread on Hibiki’s desk, her pretty brows slightly furrowed.
Although Hibiki usually lived quite roughly, he at least prepared a somewhat nutritionally balanced lunchbox to bring to school.
It was the first time she’d seen him try to make do with just a convenience store bread like today.
“Ah, this…” Hibiki’s heart skipped a beat, thinking to himself, *I can’t very well tell you I was in a hurry to go commit a crime this morning and didn’t have time to prepare lunch, so I just bought a bread at a convenience store, right?*
His mind whirred, and a perfect excuse came out: “Yeah, I overslept this morning. Didn’t have time to make it.”
“Huh? Overslept?”
Hearing this reason, Mizuki Mirei’s face showed an exaggerated expression of surprise, as if she’d heard some tall tale.
“No way? That legendary child prodigy Hibiki Tachibana, fluent in three languages by three, able to mentally calculate calculus by five, always the first to raise his hand in class… actually had a day where he overslept?” This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“…”
Hibiki silently rolled his eyes as he tore open the bread’s wrapper.
“Mizuki-san, please, could you stop teasing me with those childhood stories from years ago? It’s really cringe, you know?”
“Heh heh.”
Seeing his deflated look seemed to put Mizuki in a great mood.
She let out a clear laugh, then used her chopsticks to pick up a golden, tempting piece of tamagoyaki from her lunchbox and unceremoniously stuffed it into the bread Hibiki had just taken a bite of.
“Alright, alright, I’ll stop teasing you. Seeing how pitiful you are, I’ll share half of this with you.” She then picked out a whole banana from her lunch and offered it to Hibiki.
Hibiki looked at the bright yellow banana, his movements pausing for a moment, his eyes turning slightly subtle.
“Mizuki-san, I have to remind you,” he said quietly.
“You’re not… using this as a roundabout way to call me a monkey, are you?”
The air instantly went quiet.
Mizuki Mirei was forced to leave the expensive private high school and transfer to this ordinary public one because her family had fallen on hard times.
But Hibiki was different.
He genuinely couldn’t keep up with the grades and was ‘gently hinted’ by his former school’s teachers to withdraw, forcing him to transfer here.
So, if the other party really was implying he was a dumb monkey who couldn’t keep up with the lessons…
he really had no way to refute it.
“…You!”
Her good intentions seemingly taken for ill will, Mizuki Mirei’s cheeks instantly puffed up like an annoyed hamster.
Glaring at Hibiki, she said somewhat angrily, “If that’s what you think, then just keep eating your dry bread! Give me back my tamagoyaki!”
As she spoke, she made as if to snatch the bread from Hibiki’s hand.
Although Hibiki was practically a block of wood when it came to handling romantic feelings from the opposite sex, he knew he absolutely couldn’t keep being stubborn at this moment.
“Just joking, don’t take it seriously.”
He quickly raised his hands in surrender, then swiftly took the banana, peeled it in a few quick motions, and stuffed it into his mouth.
To be honest, for a transmigrator whose soul hailed from China, lunch consisting of just a cold piece of bread was indeed a bit too much to bear.
Mizuki Mirei’s ‘charity’ came at just the right time.
Seeing Hibiki yield and honestly accept her goodwill, the anger on Mizuki Mirei’s face finally dissipated somewhat, and her body relaxed again.
And so, lunch began in this slightly awkward and awkward atmosphere.
The two finished sharing the bountiful lunch Mizuki had brought, and Hibiki finally filled his stomach.
During their casual chat, to get back at her for the earlier teasing, he mischievously brought up Mizuki Mirei’s little-known ‘hereditary shrine maiden’ family background. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“Speaking of which, Mizuki-san, after graduation, you’ll probably officially inherit your family’s Shifune Shrine and become a real shrine maiden, right?” He feigned a sigh of regret.
“Ah, what a waste of your good grades.”
Unexpectedly, at the mention of her family shrine, Mizuki Mirei’s expression suddenly became very unnatural.
She instinctively lowered her head, her voice much quieter, carrying a hint of barely perceptible complaint: “…Whether I can inherit it or not is still up in the air.”
This reaction immediately caught Hibiki’s attention.
He probed further without changing his expression.
Under Hibiki’s seemingly casual guidance, Mizuki Mirei seemed to find an outlet, pouring out all the bitterness she had suppressed in her heart.
It turned out that several years ago, after the Shifune Shrine’s biggest political patron—a highly influential figure in politics—unexpectedly fell from power due to a sudden political storm, her Mizuki Family’s standing within the entire Shinto sphere had been under constant pressure and encroachment from all sides.
A massive loss of parishioners, various inexplicable creditors showing up, frequent audits from the tax department…
All sorts of troubles, like maggots clinging to bone, came one after another, suffocating her family.
And recently, a new religious group called the ‘Miyuan Cult’ had directly approached them, intending to buy the entire plot of land where the Shifune Shrine stood at a low price.
Even the relevant government departments were openly and covertly advising her father—the Shifune Shrine’s head priest, Mizuki Daikei—to sell the dojo and land as soon as possible to avoid bigger trouble.
Hibiki listened carefully to Mizuki Mirei’s complaints while nodding frequently in his heart.
*Miyuan Cult?*
He was just worrying about how to find a pretext to have ‘Ibaraki Doji’ teach that clueless cult organization a lesson.
Wasn’t this perfect?
A pillow delivered just as sleepiness arrived.
“The Miyuan Cult,” he said, pretending to mention it offhandedly, “I think I heard my aunt mention them. They’re no good, their methods are almost like yakuza. You’d better be careful.”
“I know…” Mizuki Mirei sighed bitterly, agreeing with him.
“But… the situation at home is really not optimistic… You know my father’s personality. It’s very possible… he might really hand over the family shrine under that external pressure.”
Hibiki nodded, silently committing this important piece of information to memory.
Outwardly, he just offered a few Perfunctory words of comfort and didn’t say anything more.
Seeing his detached, indifferent attitude, Mizuki Mirei secretly bit her lip.
Actually, her initiative approach to Hibiki today wasn’t entirely out of care as childhood friends and classmates.
She harbored a deeper purpose—she hoped to find a powerful new patron for her family shrine through Hibiki.
With the Tachibana Family’s terrifying influence in both Japanese political and business circles, if they were willing to speak up, not to mention a small Miyuan Cult, even the Association of Shinto Shrines itself wouldn’t dare have any further designs on the Shifune Shrine.
But how could she possibly say such a thing directly?
Her pitiful A young girl’s self-esteem and modesty prevented her from making up her mind to Completely losing money like the villainesses in dramas, offering herself as a bargaining chip in exchange for her family’s peace.
Today’s test, it seemed, had ended in failure just like the ones before.
Filled with disappointment and helplessness, Mizuki Mirei hastily finished her lunch, Sullen picked up her lunchbox, and returned to her own seat.