Kasumigaoka Utaha's situation seemed abnormal, so Asakura wanted her to stay by his side, which would make it easier to observe her. However, it was clear that the girl's level of favorability toward him hadn't reached that point yet; she had only shared some personal thoughts with him simply because he was a stranger—many people find it easier to pour their hearts out to a total stranger than to someone they know well. Consequently, after declining Asakura's invitation, the girl hurriedly left the milk tea shop with her manuscript.
"This is tricky..."
Asakura sighed and was about to head home when he saw a blonde girl with twin tails swaying along the commercial street toward the slope leading to Sobu High. He quickly followed after her.
"Yawn..."
Eriri, clutching a small shoulder bag, let out a massive yawn. Even with makeup on, the dark circles under her eyes made it obvious she hadn't slept much the night before. Although Sayuri had advised her to get some good sleep at home before looking for Asakura, Eriri couldn't contain her excitement over finishing the costume designs and had made the trip anyway.
"Hmm, come to think of it, summer break has already started. Will that guy even be at Sobu High?"
After yawning, Eriri rubbed her eyes. Her brain felt sluggish from the lack of sleep, and she struggled to pull herself together, trying to get her mushy mind to function. "Honestly, I shouldn't have let him brush me off with that nonsense yesterday. I didn't even get his contact info..."
If she had known how to reach him, she wouldn't have had to come all the way to Sobu High; she could have just called or texted to arrange a meeting at a family restaurant or a cafe closer to her home.
"Today, I must..." the girl said fiercely.
"Must what?" a voice asked.
"Get that guy's contact info!" Eriri said. "I definitely won't let him brush me off so easily this time!"
"And what do you plan to do once you have it?"
"I'll send him fifty LINE messages every day until he's sick of me!"
"Don't you know you can block people on LINE?"
"He wouldn't dare!"
The drowsy Eriri muttered fiercely before suddenly snapping awake as if from a dream. She turned to look at the person who had been talking to her. Then, she saw Asakura grinning at her.
"I'd actually dare."
The girl wanted to say something tough to keep up her momentum, but when she finally spoke, it came out sounding somewhat weak. "I-it's just fifty LINE messages a day. It's not that big of a deal..."
"Forget about friends; even for a girlfriend, fifty LINE messages a day is already pretty 'heavy'."
Asakura shook his head. Whether in his past life or this one, Asakura's chats on apps never exceeded ten sentences unless it involved handing over work. As soon as the words left his mouth, he saw Eriri looking at him warily.
"What's up?"
"I have no intention of being your girlfriend!" the girl declared righteously. "Don't flatter yourself!"
"What nonsense are you talking? How could someone like you ever become my girlfriend?" Asakura didn't indulge her, responding with a cold snort of mockery.
"Why not?! What's wrong with me?! I'm a beautiful girl too! I'm super popular at Toyogasaki!" Eriri clamored with dissatisfaction.
"Do you think I'm lacking beautiful girls around me?" Asakura responded with a fake smile.
Eriri choked. Even based on her somewhat blurry memories of the Sobu High School Festival, there seemed to be plenty of beautiful girls around him...
Moreover, this guy was someone who genuinely possessed supernatural powers. If he wanted to, such a being likely wouldn't lack money or power, let alone women willing to throw themselves at him...
Thinking about it that way, she really didn't seem to have much of an advantage in terms of appearance.
"Even setting the beauty part aside, I can draw! I'm the ace of the Art Club!"
"True. At least in the world of ryona, no one—" Asakura made an accordion-like gesture with his hands, "—compares to Kashiwagi Eri-sensei."
"Guh, that's supposed to be a compliment, so why am I not happy at all...? Also, don't say that name in a place like this!"
"Kashiwagi Eri-sensei?"
"I don't know anyone by that name."
"So, the design sketches I gave you only yesterday, did you finish them already?" Asakura asked the girl.
"How do you know I finished them? Maybe I just came out for a stroll to change my mood?" Eriri pouted and started arguing with him.
"Who goes for a stroll to someone else's school...?" Asakura complained. "There are no shops at all on this slope."
"Maybe I'm just scouting locations for my next manga!"
"Because we don't get along, you're going to turn my school into a location for a ryona manga? You're way too depraved. Even I'm impressed..."
"No, I'm, NOT!" Eriri was so angry she nearly crushed her teeth. "It's a normal manga! A normal one! The kind you can submit to Weekly Shonen Magazine!"
"..." Asakura wore the most shocked expression he had ever displayed.
"What's with that face?! You're way too shocked!"
"I think I just had an auditory hallucination," Asakura said, digging at his ear. His expression still looked incredulous. "Kashiwagi Eri-sensei said she's 'going ashore'..."
"Stop saying it like she's been 'at sea' this whole time, hey!" Eriri's ears turned red.
"The ryona world cannot lose Kashiwagi Eri-sensei! It's like Jerusalem losing Tifa!" Asakura said solemnly.
"It can totally lose her! Besides, those two things have absolutely no connection!"
"Eriri! I won't allow you to look down on Kashiwagi Eri-sensei!"
"Who's the one looking down on her?!"
After bickering for a while, Eriri was the first to give in.
"Anyway, for various reasons, I've decided to draw manga," she said, sounding like she'd given up on herself.
"Those are some 'various' reasons indeed. This and that and that..."
"Isn't that how anime explains everything away?"
"You're way too '2D.'"
"Say whatever you want." Eriri didn't care. She simply didn't want to explain to Asakura the real reason she wanted to draw normal manga.
"More importantly, I've finished your costume designs... yawn. I added a bit of my own interpretation," the girl said, yawning again. She then pulled a piece of paper from her shoulder bag and handed it to Asakura. "Here, take it!"