Chapter 6: Ten Years Running the Childhood Friend Playbook, and a Drop-In Steals the Prize.
.....
"Oh."
One syllable. Delivered with the energy of someone acknowledging that the weather was cloudy. He picked up his cola and took a sip, and the confession settled into the air and dissolved like it had never been there.
Which was, of course, exactly what Yanami Anna needed it to do. Ten years of careful desensitization coming to fruition. She felt a small, quiet satisfaction.
She propped her chin in both hands, elbows on the table, and watched him with the relaxed attention of someone who had nowhere else to be.
He noticed. He held the straw out toward her.
"If you want some, just say so. You don't need to stare."
"Hmhm~" She made a sound of non-committal amusement and pushed the cup back toward him. "If I drink from that, it would be an indirect kiss. I can't just casually take advantage of a girl like that~"
"Suit yourself."
He finished the cola in one go and picked up his bag from beside the chair. "It's getting late. We should head back."
"A little longer~"
He ignored the wheedling tone, checked his phone, and added: "If you get home too late and your parents scold you, don't come crying to me for comfort."
"Heartless," she muttered. "I only asked you to front nine thousand yen for me."
He leaned across the table until his face was very close to hers, wearing an expression that was not quite a smile. "Speaking of which — when exactly does the generous Yanami-san plan to repay that debt?"
"Well... naturally... when I have money."
"And when will that be? You're not going to say something shameless like 'after I get a job,' are you?"
"Muu~~" She made a small sound of distress, then pressed her forehead against his and pushed his head back. "Fine! I'll make you a bento every day to work it off. That's a fair trade."
"That actually works. Saves me from getting dragged to lunch with female actors and directors at the production company."
"What?!" Her eyebrows went up. Her hand moved toward his chest on instinct. "You're not being taken advantage of by anyone, are you?!"
He rolled his eyes, swatted her hand away with a casual motion, then reached up and thoroughly disrupted her hair. "There's no one in this world who could pull that off."
"My hair—!!"
"Mm."
"Mm!? You're a robot, do you know that? You only know how to say mm and oh."
"Correct."
"Ugh. If I die young, it'll be from being annoyed to death by you."
"I think eating yourself into poverty is more statistically likely."
Caught, she looked away with the guilty energy of someone whose conscience had just filed a brief. "I don't gain weight. It doesn't matter how much I eat."
He unlocked his phone, found a photo, and turned the screen toward her.
Yanami Anna. Standing on a bathroom scale. Crying comprehensively.
"Then explain this timeline."
"YOU STILL HAVE THAT?!"
She lunged for the phone with the speed and commitment of someone defusing something. Her thumb worked across the screen in rapid focused taps. Delete.
Confirm. Check album. Check again. She performed a thorough sweep and returned the phone with a brilliant smile.
"That timeline has been completely erased."
"You're not aware of cloud backup, are you. I could format the phone entirely and recover every photo."
The triumphant general expression collapsed. She sank back against her chair with the specific quality of someone whose victory had been retroactively canceled, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"Don't do that. At minimum, wait until ten years after I'm dead before you restore the embarrassing ones."
His phone buzzed. Her mother, asking if she was with him.
"Your mom is asking. Time to go."
"Let's go!!"
The fear of maternal disapproval performed an instantaneous revival. She was out of her chair before the sentence finished.
At the point where their routes home diverged, she suddenly grabbed his sleeve.
"Kihara-kun... if I can't afford to eat someday... will you take care of me?"
"Is that something a normal high school girl says?"
"Of course it is. Am I not a perfectly normal high school girl?"
"Fine. I'll take care of you." He gave her cheek a few light pinches — marshmallow soft — then reached for the jacket on her shoulders.
She stepped back.
"I'm washing it and returning it in two days. You can't have it back now."
"Why?"
"Because—" she looked at the ground, cheeks pink — "if I give it back now, you might do something strange with it. Since I wore it."
Kihara looked at her.
He very briefly considered reaching into his shadow and producing Shinobu, just to educate this particular person about the gap between her imagination and his actual circumstances. He did not do this, because Shinobu in this world would immediately be flagged for supernatural ability use and banned, and the diplomatic fallout was not worth it.
[Kahkahkah~ Master~ now you understand my value, yes? Fifty donuts as tribute, or I'm withholding white-tiger feeding privileges indefinitely~!]
[That is pure opportunism.]
[Correct~!]
Fifty more donuts to make. He looked at Yanami Anna, who was studying the pavement with the body language of someone sneaking glances upward every few seconds, and decided the most productive available response was to reach out and thoroughly randomize her hair.
"Stop imagining things. I'm doing a surprise inspection of your room next time."
She escaped his hands, pulled down her lower eyelid, and stuck out her tongue.
"Nya nya nya! You need my permission to
enter my room and you're not getting it!!"
She ran inside without looking back. The front door closed.
On the other side of it, she leaned against the wood and pressed both hands to her chest, which was making itself heard. Her eyes were bright.
He promised to take care of me. Add it to the collection.
One at a time, one at a time. Eventually the stack of evidence will be undeniable. I'm going to get him. Absolutely.
Kihara went home. Made the fifty donuts. Prepared the bath.
He was lying in the tub with his eyes closed, working through a few things in the comfortable quiet of hot water and nothing urgent, when the air in front of him did something unusual.
It twisted.
A small dark point appeared — deepened — expanded into something that had the geometry of a hole in space, not quite a gap in Yukari's style, something with a different underlying logic — and then it opened fully and produced a girl.
Pink hair, long, floating around her in the water. A tail — slender, ending in a heart-shaped tip — moving gently behind her, its surface catching the light. Everything else: present, complete, and currently submerged alongside him in his bathtub.
He placed her in approximately one second.
"Lala Satalin Deviluke." First Princess of the Deviluke royal family.
She looked at him. Then looked down. Then looked up again, with the expression of someone who had encountered something their information hadn't prepared them for.
"Hello. I like you. Please marry me."
"...Hm?"
Lala tilted her head with genuine puzzlement.
Why does this alien already know the Deviluke royal marriage declaration?
....
Thank you for reading.