“Just…
a little farther to the left.
Yes, right on that spot—ahh!” Inside a secluded private room at a yakiniku restaurant somewhere in Kyoto, Mizuki Makoto let out a scream loud enough to make passersby call the police.
Miwa Kasumi was sweating as she pressed against his lower back, looking torn between concern and professionalism—after all, her doubled “massage-related lost wages” were at stake.
The fat from the Kobe beef sizzled on the grill, and its rich aroma restored a little color to Makoto’s face despite his back injury.
“Makoto-kun, that was one hell of a Fever move you pulled!” A booming voice loud enough to lift the roof exploded through the room.
Supporting his back, Makoto turned to find a broad-shouldered man with wild purple hair and the build of a brown bear dropping into the seat beside him, while Hoshi Kirara, impeccably dressed and wearing a seductive smile, leaned comfortably against him.
It was Hakari Kinji.
This Tokyo Jujutsu High second-year had been sent to Kyoto as reinforcements during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.
Thanks to both his technique and his poor relationship with Kyoto’s conservative faction, he had staged a very real brawl at the command center and beaten several conservatives badly enough that they were apparently still on oxygen.
‘So that blindfolded bastard really did send him to Kyoto on purpose, didn’t he?’ “Hakari-senpai, shouldn’t you be back in Tokyo writing statements of apology?” Makoto asked weakly, adjusting his glasses.
“Or have the higher-ups become generous enough to forgive you for knocking their dentures out?” Before he had even finished speaking, Makoto suddenly realized something.
His eye twitched as he stared at Hakari stuffing grilled beef into his mouth with obvious familiarity.
“Wait, no.
What are you, a dog?
How did you find this place?
I didn’t post anything on LINE, and I definitely didn’t share my location!” “Don’t sweat the details.
We’re all comrades of Fever!” Hakari let out a wild laugh and slammed a hand down on the table.
Leaning close, he fixed Makoto with the gambler’s gleam in his eyes.
“Makoto-kun, I saw those pictures of you crippling Naoya in the group chat!
That attitude—ignoring the rules and grinding those old men’s faces into the dirt—is exactly what my business needs!” ‘Got it.
That bastard Panda definitely sold me out for a good price.’ “Hakari, I have a very serious question.” Makoto set down the Kobe beef Mai had dipped in beaten egg, braced his aching back, and looked more solemn than he had at any point that evening.
The sheer force of Hakari’s “I’m the best, and rules are bullshit” enthusiasm made the hanging lights overhead tremble.
“Your business—I can make a pretty good guess what it is.
But did that blindfolded asshole actually approve of you dropping out to run a gambling den?” Hakari’s hand froze halfway to his mouth, sake cup in hand.
His eyes, so full of Fever a moment earlier, began to dart from side to side, and his booming laughter cut off into an awkward cough.
“…More or less?
Maybe?
I guess he tacitly approved?” Hakari muttered, turning toward Kirara.
“Kirara, when I sent in my withdrawal request, did Gojo-sensei reply with one of those ‘OK’ stickers?” “Kin-chan, Gojo-sensei replied with, ‘(^▽^) I’m going to buy you a grave plot,'” Kirara said sweetly, crushing that illusion without mercy.
“Yep.
That sounds like the blindfolded asshole.” “Gojo-sensei hasn’t teleported here to drag me back yet because he’s busy cleaning up my mess.
If he works his ass off protecting me, only to discover that the student he saved has gone off with another dropout to open an illegal casino…
use your brain, Hakari.
Do you really think that blindfolded asshole won’t get mad enough to cut another hour from his sleep just to haul all three of us back and whip us around the training field like spinning tops?” The room fell into a silence born of shared trauma at the thought of the strongest sorcerer alive.
Ignoring the pain in his back, Makoto rolled his eyes and looked toward Kirara, who was elegantly turning a strip of short rib over on the grill.
With her fluffy pink curls, carefully applied eyeshadow, and smile that landed somewhere between girlish sweetness and mature allure, she looked exactly like the kind of beautiful young woman talent scouts would stop on the streets of Harajuku.
“Um…
Kirara-senpai?” Miwa, seated beside Makoto, finally could not hold it in any longer.
She stopped rubbing his back and twisted her fingers together, her cheeks coloring as she spoke in a voice barely louder than a mosquito’s buzz.
“I know this is rude to ask when we’ve only just met, but you’re really beautiful…
How do you keep your skin so luminous?
Kyoto’s wind is so harsh that mine always feels dry.” Mai did not say anything, but she set down her sake cup as well.
Her eyes, usually full of coldness and arrogance, now moved over Kirara with the faintly wary, curious scrutiny of one woman sizing up another.
“Aww, Miwa-chan, you’re adorable.” Kirara gave a sweet, clear laugh.
“The secret is simple.
You just have to keep your heart full of Fever every day, and then…” “Then remember to shave every morning.” Makoto cut off Kirara’s beauty advice without expression, picked up a lettuce leaf, and stuffed it into his mouth before adding around the bite.
“Miwa-chan, Mai-chan, I know this may challenge the limited and conservative common sense of you Kyoto people, but I should point something out—Kirara-senpai is very much a man.” “WHAT?!” Miwa’s hand slipped, and the pressure she put on Makoto’s back suddenly doubled, nearly killing him on the spot.
Her already wide eyes went even wider as she stared at Kirara’s curving figure, frozen as though someone had cast a binding spell on her.
Mai fared no better.
The sake she had just swallowed sprayed across the grill with a hiss, sending up a plume of sharp white smoke.
Without even wiping her mouth, she pointed at Kirara with a trembling finger.
“A man?
With that sense of style, that voice…
you’re telling me he’s a man?!” “That’s right, one hundred percent.” Far from offended, Kirara gave Mai a playful wink and deliberately tugged her collar a little lower, showing off the smooth line where an Adam’s apple might have been.
“What’s wrong, Mai-chan?
Have you been caught?” For a moment, the private room sank into a very strange silence.
The earlier discussion of skipping class, dropping out, and getting into fights suddenly seemed insignificant beside the shock to their understanding of gender.
Miwa had begun to question her entire life, while Mai was spiraling into far deeper doubt—wondering what kind of incomprehensible spiritual pollution Maki had been exposed to during her half year at Tokyo Jujutsu High, and whether Maki could still be considered remotely normal at all.