The sudden voice snapped Tachibana Hibiki out of his pleasant daydreams about the future.
His thumb moved on instinct.
The phone screen went dark.
Only then did he look up.
Standing beside his desk was a girl in the same Metropolitan High School uniform as him.
She had long black hair, slightly wavy at the ends, falling naturally over her shoulders.
Her features were refined and cool, the kind of beauty that made her seem a little difficult to approach at first glance.
Mizuki Mirei.
His classmate.
Hibiki’s impression of Mizuki Mirei was complicated.
At this school, their situations were surprisingly similar.
Both had transferred in during their second year of high school.
Both had personalities that leaned toward aloofness.
Neither had many people in class they could casually talk to.
Over time, they had somehow become each other’s only regular conversation partner.
But if one traced their connection further back, it began long before Metropolitan High School.
Elementary school.
Hibiki still remembered it clearly.
Back then, his biological mother had been in the rising phase of her career, full of ambition and vanity.
Her favorite activity had been dragging her young son to all sorts of so-called high-society banquets, charity dinners, and gatherings where wealthy families paraded their children like proof of superior bloodlines.
Unfortunately for those children, Hibiki had carried an adult mind from another life.
At those parties, he had casually displayed the kind of knowledge and maturity that no child his age should have possessed, crushing the confidence of an entire generation of privileged little brats and earning himself the reputation of a “child prodigy.”
Mizuki Mirei, standing before him now, had been one of the unfortunate children caught in that disaster.
“It’s you, Mizuki-san.”
Hibiki expressionlessly slipped his phone into the drawer and offered no real response to her teasing.
He could not deny it.
Every time he saw Mizuki Mirei’s face, he was forced to remember those awkward years when he had shown off in front of children like some unbearable little genius.
The embarrassment was enough to make him want to dig a basement beneath his desk and disappear into it.
“What’s with that reaction?”
Mizuki Mirei seemed dissatisfied with his flat tone.
She pulled a nearby chair over without asking, sat down across from him, and opened her lunchbox.
“You’re so boring.”
Then her gaze fell on his desk.
Sitting there was a single unopened melonpan from a convenience store.
Mizuki’s brows drew together slightly.
“Wait.
Is that all you’re having for lunch today?”
Hibiki glanced at the bread.
“Ah, this…”
His heart skipped for a fraction of a second.
He could not exactly tell her, I was in too much of a hurry to commit a supernatural crime this morning, so I bought bread from a convenience store on the way to school.
That would be difficult to explain.
His mind turned quickly.
“Yeah,” Hibiki said with a calm face.
“I accidentally overslept this morning and didn’t have time to make anything.”
“Overslept?”
Mizuki stared at him.
Then her face showed an exaggerated look of disbelief, as if he had just claimed the sun rose in the west.
“No way.
The legendary child prodigy Tachibana Hibiki, fluent in three languages at three years old, able to do mental calculus at five, always the first to raise his hand in class, actually had a day where he overslept?”
“…”
Hibiki tore open the bread wrapper in silence.
“Mizuki-san.”
He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed with the composure of a man enduring public execution.
“Could you please stop bringing up ancient history?
It’s awkward.”
“Heh.”
Seeing him deflate seemed to improve Mizuki’s mood.
She laughed lightly, then picked up a golden piece of tamagoyaki from her lunchbox with her chopsticks and stuffed it directly into the bread he had just bitten.
“Fine, fine.
I’ll stop teasing you.”
She gave the sad-looking convenience store bread a critical glance.
“You look too pitiful today, so I’ll share half of this with you.”
After saying that, she took out a whole banana from her lunch bag and offered it to him.
Hibiki looked at the bright yellow banana.
His movement paused.
His eyes slowly became subtle.
“Mizuki-san,” he said quietly.
“I should remind you of something.”
“What?”
“You’re not using this as a roundabout way to call me a monkey, are you?”
The air went silent.
Mizuki Mirei had been forced to leave an expensive private elite school and transfer to this ordinary public school because of her family’s decline.
Hibiki’s situation was different.
He had genuinely failed to keep up with the academic pace of his previous school.
His grades had fallen badly enough that the teachers had “politely advised” him to transfer.
So if Mizuki really meant to imply that he was a dumb monkey who could not keep up with lessons, he would have no way to refute it.
“You…!”
Mizuki’s cheeks puffed up like an annoyed hamster.
Her goodwill had apparently been interpreted as malice.
She glared at him, then reached across the desk.
“If that’s how you’re going to think, then keep eating your dry bread.
Give back my tamagoyaki.”
She made as if to snatch the bread from his hand.
Although Hibiki was practically a block of wood when it came to the opposite sex, even he knew this was not the time to keep being stubborn.
“I was joking.”
He raised his hands in surrender.
“Don’t take it seriously.”
Then he quickly took the banana, peeled it, and bit into it before she could change her mind.
To be honest, for someone who carried memories from another world, trying to survive lunch on a single cold piece of convenience store bread felt a little too miserable.
Mizuki’s charity had arrived at exactly the right time.
Seeing him yield and accept her kindness honestly, the anger on Mizuki’s face finally faded.
Her shoulders relaxed, and she sat back down.
And so lunch began in a slightly awkward but familiar atmosphere.
The two of them shared Mizuki Mirei’s generously packed bento.
The lunchbox was surprisingly well prepared, with rice, tamagoyaki, simmered vegetables, karaage, and a few neatly arranged side dishes.
Hibiki ate slowly at first, then with increasing sincerity as his stomach reminded him that supernatural masterminds also needed calories.
During their casual conversation, Hibiki decided to get a little revenge for her earlier teasing.
“Speaking of which,” he said, picking up a piece of karaage, “after graduation, Mizuki-san, you’ll probably inherit your family’s Shihou Shrine and officially become a shrine maiden, right?”
He sighed with deliberately exaggerated regret.
“What a waste of your grades.”
Unexpectedly, the moment he mentioned her family shrine, Mizuki’s expression changed.
The shift was small, but Hibiki caught it.
Her fingers tightened around her chopsticks.
Her gaze lowered slightly.
“…Whether I can inherit it or not is still uncertain.”
Her voice became much softer.
There was a hint of complaint in it, barely audible beneath the noise of the classroom.
Hibiki’s attention sharpened.
He did not show it on his face.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing.”
“You don’t look like it’s nothing.”
Mizuki pressed her lips together.
Hibiki did not push too hard.
He only guided the conversation with a few seemingly casual questions, the kind that sounded like idle curiosity rather than deliberate probing.
Perhaps because she had been holding it in for too long, Mizuki eventually began to speak.
A few years ago, Shihou Shrine had lost its greatest political backer.
The person had once been an influential figure in the political world, someone whose protection had allowed the Mizuki family to maintain their position in the Shinto sphere despite their shrine’s modest size.
But that backer had fallen from power after a sudden political storm.
Since then, the Mizuki family had been suppressed and encroached on from every direction.
The number of parishioners had fallen sharply.
Creditors with unclear origins began appearing one after another.
The tax office conducted audits with suspicious frequency.
Local officials suddenly became difficult to contact.
Requests were delayed.
Documents were questioned.
Small problems became large problems, and large problems became threats.
One trouble after another clung to the Mizuki family like rot on bone.
Recently, a new religious organization called the Meiyuan Church had approached them directly.
Their goal was simple.
They wanted to buy the entire plot of land where Shihou Shrine stood.
At a low price.
Relevant government departments had also begun advising Mizuki Mirei’s father, Mizuki Daikei, the head priest of Shihou Shrine, to sell the shrine and land as soon as possible to “avoid greater trouble.”
Hibiki listened quietly to Mizuki’s complaints.
On the outside, he nodded with the appropriate amount of concern.
Inside, however, his thoughts had already begun moving.
Meiyuan Church?
He had been wondering how to find a suitable excuse for Ibaraki-Douji to visit those people and teach them another lesson.
And now, just as he was getting sleepy, someone had delivered a pillow.
“The Meiyuan Church…”
Hibiki pretended to think for a moment.
“I think I heard my aunt mention them before.
They’re no good.
Their methods are almost like yakuza.”
He looked at her.
“You’d better be careful.”
“I know.”
Mizuki sighed.
Her earlier sharpness had dimmed into something weary.
“But the situation at home really isn’t optimistic.
You know my father’s personality.
If the pressure keeps increasing, he might actually hand over the family shrine.”
Hibiki nodded.
He silently filed away this important piece of information.
Out loud, he only offered a few ordinary words of comfort.
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“If anything happens, discuss it with your family first.”
“Sometimes delaying for time is also a strategy.”
The words were not wrong.
But they were also not what Mizuki had hoped to hear.
Seeing his calm, almost detached attitude, Mizuki secretly bit her lip.
In truth, she had not approached Tachibana Hibiki today purely out of concern between classmates and childhood acquaintances.
There had been another purpose.
She had hoped to find a powerful new backer for her family shrine through him.
The Tachibana family’s influence in Japanese politics and business was terrifying.
If that family was willing to say even a single word, then forget a small Meiyuan Church; even Shinto Honcho would have to reconsider any improper designs on Shihou Shrine.
But how could she say that directly?
Help my family.
Ask the Tachibana family to protect our shrine.
In exchange, I can…
No.
She could not say it.
Her pride, her upbringing, and the last dignity of a girl who had once been raised as the daughter of a respectable shrine family all stopped her.
She could not bring herself to act like some villainess in a drama, offering herself as a bargaining chip in exchange for her family’s peace.
Today’s attempt, it seemed, had failed just like all the others.
Disappointment and powerlessness welled quietly in Mizuki Mirei’s chest.
She closed her lunchbox sooner than usual.
“I’m going back to my seat.”
Her voice had returned to its normal coolness, but the brightness from earlier was gone.
“Thanks for the company.”
Hibiki watched her stand.
“Mizuki-san.”
She paused.
“What?”
“Thanks for lunch.”
For a moment, Mizuki looked as if she wanted to say something.
In the end, she only gave a small nod.
Then she carried her lunchbox back to her seat in silence.