In the afternoon, in front of the Volunteer Club room.
*KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!*
Akira knocked on the sliding wooden door with a casual, rhythmic tempo.
"Come in." A clear, chilling, and authoritative female voice resonated from within the room.
Akira slid the door open and stepped inside. Yukinoshita Yukino was sitting elegantly at her desk, holding a cup of warm tea close. In another corner, Hikigaya Hachiman was busy scrolling through his phone screen, while Yuigahama Yui stood nearby, ecstatically sharing a story with them.
Yukinoshita darted a sharp gaze toward the entrance, locking her eyes straight onto Akira. "So, you pervert, you finally remembered that you are actually registered as a member of this club?"
Akira pulled an empty chair and sat down casually. "Sorry, sorry. I had an incredibly pressing emergency matter to handle yesterday afternoon."
Yukinoshita’s gaze drifted down, landing on Akira's hands. "I heard from Yuigahama-san that your hands were injured?"
"Yeah, but don't worry, it's already been taken care of properly," Akira replied casually.
Yukinoshita took a slow sip of her tea, then let out a cold snort, launching a sharp sentence from her lips. "Is simply slapping on an ice pack considered proper medical treatment? Even a prehistoric ape knows how to shriek in pain when its skin is scorched by fire. It seems the contents of your brain are truly filled with a pile of trash."
'Analyzing that sentence, it’s technically a form of concern, but why does it sound so incredibly annoying when it comes out of her mouth?' Akira thought resignedly.
Yuigahama chipped in from the side with a visibly worried expression. "Yukinon is right, Akira-kun! If severe thermal burns like that aren't treated at a hospital immediately, the infection could spread and get much worse, you know."
Akira paused for a moment, then flashed a playful, broad grin that he intentionally made as dramatic as possible. "Alright then. Could our incredibly beautiful, dignified, elegant, cute, and utterly charming President Yukinoshita grant me a day's leave so I can head over to the hospital right now?"
Since Yukinoshita herself opened the window of opportunity, Akira certainly wasn't going to waste this golden chance to slack off from club activities. He could also utilize this free time to visit Fumiaki at the hospital.
Yukinoshita swiveled her face away, a faint, sudden flush of red tinting her cheeks due to Akira’s rapid-fire barrage of teasing adjectives. "Just go already. You are exempted from club sessions for the next two days. And another thing... stop describing me with such ridiculous words!"
"Yes, Ma'am! I'll be taking my leave then." Akira immediately stood up from his chair and strode out the door.
At the far end of the table, Hachiman stared at Akira’s retreating back with a gaze packed with intense envy. His dead, fish-like eyes vibrated slightly. 'Damn... if I intentionally injure my own hands too, can I get exempted from this depressing club activity?' Hachiman wondered, lamenting his fate.
Hachiman raised his hand slowly. "Um... Yukinoshita, actually I also—"
"Is Hikigaya-kun injured as well?" Before Hachiman could even finish his sentence, Yukinoshita cut him off with an icy stare. "Based on the mandatory physical examination data sheets of all students from last week, your body conditioning is confirmed to be 100% healthy. Though, to be honest, I initially assumed your entire internal organs had decayed into mush given the gloomy aura you constantly radiate."
Hachiman instantly straightened his posture, fiercely protesting. "Hey, what do you mean by decayed into mush?! I am... wait a minute, how on earth did you get to read my private physical examination data sheet?!"
Yukinoshita set her teacup back onto the desk with an elegant motion. "I accidentally caught sight of it when Hiratsuka-sensei requested my assistance in organizing the student file materials yesterday afternoon."
Not only Hachiman’s files, but Akira’s and Yuigahama’s sheets had also been completely read through by Yukinoshita. Recalling that, the specific physical metrics of a certain girl's bust size from the files suddenly flashed through Yukinoshita’s mind.
The black-haired girl subtly cast a sideways glance toward Yuigahama's highly defined chest curve, then slowly lowered her gaze to look at her own chest area, which was as flat as the Kanto Plain.
*Tsk.* Yukinoshita clicked her tongue quietly in pure irritation.
***
Akira strode past the main school gates. He checked the watch on his wrist, calculating that there were still a few hours left before the sun would set completely. Guided by his memories of this town, Akira navigated his way toward the nearby shopping district area.
"If I remember correctly, there used to be a fairly popular flower shop around this corridor segment." Akira scanned his surroundings for his target. "Ah, found it!"
His steps brought Akira to a halt in front of a flower shop with a wooden storefront sign that read: [Yamanaka Flower Shop].
The moment Akira pushed the glass door open, making the bell chime softly, his ears immediately caught the loud gossip of two girls near the counter. One of them, a wide-foreheaded girl with a short pink haircut, was gossiping intensely with a pale-blonde girl sporting a high ponytail next to her.
The pink-haired girl leaned forward, whispering with an excited tone. "Hey, Ino, have you heard yet? The criminal news that everyone has been frantically discussing lately?"
"What news?" Ino inquired curiously while trimming a flower stem in front of her.
"That serial homicide case from last night! I heard the victims were all women, and the killer allegedly acted with extreme brutality before stealing all their money!" Sakura explained with burning enthusiasm. "This is absolute fact! My relative who works as a patrol officer mentioned that when the police squad arrived at the mountain forest scene last night, they caught a glimpse of the killer's silhouette leaping from the ground straight onto a five-meter-high tree branch in a single bound!"
Ino let out a soft snort, throwing a sarcastic look toward her best friend. "Leaping five meters high?! You’ve got to be kidding me. Is he some kind of superhuman? That sounds exactly like a plot from a light novel, there's no such thing as superpowers or magic in the real world."
Sakura, feeling her story being doubted, immediately puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. "Hey! What's with that doubtful stare?!"
Ino chuckled amusedly. "Well, ever since childhood, you've always possessed a monster-like raw strength that exceeds average boys, Sakura. Don't tell me... you're actually that psychic killer?"
"Hah?! No way! If I actually possessed supernatural powers, you’d be the very first person I’d pulverize with my fists!"
Near the entrance, Akira stood frozen in place, his forehead practically painted with dark lines. 'Yamanaka Ino? Haruno Sakura? What the hell is this?! Why is this fictional universe narrowing down so much that characters from that world are dragged into being ordinary high schoolers here?!'
While internally bewildered, Akira stepped toward the counter space where Ino stood.
Ino, who had been just about to fire back a retort at Sakura, swiveled her body around the moment she noticed a customer approaching. She locked a professional, warm smile onto her face. "Welcome to our shop! How can I help you, Sir?"
"I'm looking for a bouquet to visit a friend who is currently admitted to the hospital. Do you have any recommendations for a suitable flower?" Akira asked.
Ino tapped her finger against her chin, thinking for a moment. "For visiting a patient, I personally highly recommend carnations. They possess a deep philosophical meaning of care, warmth, and wishes for a swift recovery."
"Alright, I'll take the carnations. Please package them neatly," Akira said as he pulled out his wallet to pay.
A few minutes later, Akira walked out of the flower shop with a fresh bouquet of carnations nestled securely in his arms. He made his way toward the nearest bus stop, sitting casually on the waiting bench while operating his phone with his left hand, which wasn't too heavily bandaged. From an outsider's perspective, his posture at that moment looked exactly like a love-struck youth preparing to board a bus to confess his love to his girlfriend.
*HONK!*
A large transit bus arrived at the station and opened its doors. Akira reflexively raised his gaze to observe the line of passengers stepping down.
From inside the bus, a family consisting of four individuals stepped onto the sidewalk. A husband and wife walked at the back, keeping an eye on their two daughters walking ahead. The older girl was frantically lecturing her younger sister—a girl wearing a white undershirt, a red outer coat, complete with a sweet white beret sitting neatly on her head.
"K... Kato?!" Akira’s eyes widened instantly. The girl's name reflexively escaped his lips out of sheer shock.
***
"Megumi~ Today is my birthday! Come on, hurry up and tell Big Sister, who exactly is this guy?!" Throughout their entire walk since they were inside the bus, Kato Hiromi kept clinging tightly onto her younger sister's arm, pressing her with pure curiosity.
Megumi let out a resigned sigh, staring at her sister with a flat gaze. "Sister Hiromi, he is just my classmate from school. Besides, even if you knew his name, there is no way you'd recklessly show up at my classroom to interrogate him, right?"
Megumi was genuinely feeling mentally exhausted today. The moment she arrived home this afternoon, she directly informed her mother that there was no need to go through the trouble of preparing a lunch bento box for next Monday, because someone had promised to make a specialized bento just for her.
Hearing her younger sister—who was famously known for being ultra-passive and socially isolated—suddenly accept a food offer from a member of the opposite sex, Hiromi instantly concluded that her innocent little sister had finally managed to secure a close friend. Since that moment, Hiromi had been relentlessly terrorizing Megumi with a barrage of interrogative questions.
"Hah?! Him?!" Hiromi instantly shrieked with excitement, halting her steps entirely as her eyes widened perfectly toward her sister. "Megumi... don't tell me, you secretly have a boyfriend?!"
Hiromi genuinely couldn't believe this. Her younger sister, who had always maintained a freezing, quiet demeanor, with a presence as thin as a ghost for years, suddenly experienced an incredibly drastic relationship development within just one month of entering her first year of high school!
Megumi averted her gaze, trying to avoid her sister's intimidating, piercing eyes. "He is not my boyfriend, I already told you we are just regular friends."
"Then how exactly did you two first end up knowing each other? For him to go as far as making a bento for you, your relationship must be incredibly close, right? Come on, tell Sister!" Hiromi kept pressing, her gossip soul fully ignited.
Hiromi knew all too well the unique physical characteristics of her younger sister. Aside from the phone numbers of family members, the contact list inside Megumi's LINE app was virtually a blank void without anyone else's name. Even a few individuals who had briefly claimed to be Megumi's "friends" back during middle school frequently overlooked her presence entirely out of forgetfulness. As time went on, Megumi became far too lazy to maintain social relationships and never wanted to actively move toward approaching others.
That was precisely why Hiromi was entirely certain that this mysterious boy Megumi met at Sobu High School must possess a highly extraordinary characteristic to successfully make a girl like Kato Megumi confirm him as a "close friend."
"Kitahara-kun is my desk mate. He directly greeted me on the very first day of school, and we gradually became close friends after getting to know each other better," Megumi explained, locking her eyes lekat-lekat onto her sister's face.
The two sisters stared at one another for a few moments.
Hiromi let out a long, defeated sigh. "Is that really it? The story sounds way too much like a subplot for some nameless background character in an anime."
Hiromi had initially assumed that, given Megumi's unique trait, her encounter with this mysterious boy must have been packed with cinematic twists or dramatic turning points. She never expected the actual process to be this mundane and uneventful.
"Even though I’ve long accepted the reality that my presence isn't exactly prominent, I still feel a slight spark of irritation when you put it so bluntly, Sister."
"Waaaah~ Megumi is mean! Now that you have a guy making bento for you, you’ve completely forgotten about your own Sister! You're so fickle-minded!" Hiromi began to whine dramatically, pretending to wipe away non-existent tears from her cheeks.
Megumi merely took a short breath, staring at her sister's antics. A deep trace of helplessness settled across her usually flat and unreadable countenance.
Seated in the row of chairs directly behind the two girls, the Kato parents had actually been silently listening to the entirety of their conversation from the very beginning.
"It feels a bit wrong to say this out loud, but to be completely honest, I genuinely didn't expect that there would be someone at her new school who could immediately notice Megumi's presence," the mother whispered quietly to her husband.
The father gave a heavy, somber nod. "Yeah, and the fact that it's a boy. I really want to arrange a time to meet and talk with that kid face-to-face."
The moment they heard Megumi recount how a boy had taken the initiative to notice her and greet her first on day one, a sudden wave of uncharted warmth tightened inside both of their chests.
Deep down, they had always harbored a massive sense of guilt, believing they had failed to be proper parents to their youngest daughter.
Since childhood, Megumi had been overlooked far too frequently by her surroundings—including by her own family. One of their darkest memories took place back when Megumi was still in elementary school. The couple had taken her shopping at an incredibly crowded department store, where the sheer volume of the crowd accidentally severed Megumi from their grip.
Terrifyingly, neither parent realized that one of their children was missing. They only remembered they had brought their youngest daughter along after hearing a PA announcement from the mall's information desk calling out Megumi's name. The memory of frantically sprinting through the crowds to reach the lost-and-found station still left them shaken to this day.
Yet, back then, the elementary school girl had merely looked up at her father with an incredibly serene expression. "It's fine, Dad. I'm already used to it."
Those innocent words leaving Megumi's tiny lips that day instantly shattered her father's composure. For the very first time in his life, he wept heavily as a father right in front of his youngest child.
He desperately wanted to change to make up for his negligence, yet Megumi’s paper-thin presence instinctively caused him, his wife, and even other Kato relatives to accidentally overlook her time and time again. Over the years, that psychological coping mechanism was exactly what molded Megumi's personality into the flat, detached demeanor she held today.
"No wonder Megumi has been smiling a lot more since entering high school. I even caught her texting late into the night a few days ago. Is this boy named Kitahara the reason?" the mother whispered again, staring intently at her daughter’s back. "His surname is Kitahara, right? Do you think... Megumi actually harbors special feelings for him?"
The father fell silent, weighing the matter with paternal wisdom. "It’s highly likely Megumi's intentions are leaning that way. But for now, it’s best if we quietly observe the development of these young people from a distance. It would be even better if we could find a chance to meet that boy alone sometime in the future."
As a father, he trusted Megumi's judgment implicitly. But at the same time, he wanted to personally watch over her future. He could never erase the scars of the past caused by his failure, but he vowed to provide the absolute best protection to secure Megumi's future happiness.
*CRAAASH!*
The transit bus abruptly groaned to a halt, its automated doors sliding open with a solid hiss.
One by one, the members of the Kato family began stepping down onto the sidewalk of the bus stop.
But at the exact second their feet made contact with the asphalt, a sudden male shout, completely packed with absolute shock, violently shattered the quiet evening air.
"Kato... Kato?!"