Having barely managed to gloss over the situation, Sora watched Sagiri head upstairs to her room before finally breathing a sigh of relief. He entered the bathroom and began to wash up.
He quickly finished his shower, tossed his clothes into the washing machine, and then returned to his room to continue grinding his skills.
However, after sitting down, he couldn't calm his mind for a while.
"A Kuroneko who can transform into a catgirl, the invisible Elf next door, the Angel-sama who can stop time, and Sagiri, whose personality suddenly drastically changed..." Sora twirled a pencil between his fingers. "Life has suddenly become very weird."
The night passed without words.
The next day.
Sora woke up on time, washed up, prepared breakfast for the two of them, grabbed his schoolbag, and headed out the door to school.
In truth, Sora wanted to temporarily suspend his schooling to dedicate more time and energy to grinding skills. Unfortunately, his aunt, serving as his temporary guardian, absolutely refused to agree, so he had to continue attending school every day.
Arriving at the train station, a petite girl with waist-length flaxen hair came into view.
The girl carried her schoolbag with both hands, standing quietly in the corner. Unfortunately, she still drew attention as if she had a built-in halo. Whether it was boys or girls around her, people would secretly cast their gazes her way.
"Ah, that girl is so cute."
"Her skin is super white."
"Her hair looks so silky, she must put a lot of effort into maintaining it."
"She gives off such a gentle vibe, I wonder if she has a boyfriend."
"If she would date me, I'd be willing to let her drive luxury cars and live in a mansion."
"..."
Shiina Mahiru looked straight ahead with a calm expression, clearly already accustomed to being stared at and discussed. Only when Sora appeared did she shift her bright eyes to cast a glance.
Their gazes met in the air, but neither showed any intention of speaking up to greet the other.
Sora didn't like being stared at; saying hello would definitely attract gossip, so it was better to just look down and play on his phone.
A moment later, a train slowly approached.
Sora put his phone away, lined up to board the train, and found an empty corner to stand steadily.
Before long, a petite figure was swept along by the crowd and, after a slight hesitation, stood right beside Sora. It was precisely Shiina Mahiru.
Sora turned his head to look. Mahiru happened to look up at the same time. Their eyes met once again in the air, and then both of them wordlessly averted their gazes, still without saying a word.
The train slowly started moving, heading forward.
After arriving at the next platform, a few passengers got off, and even more passengers squeezed on.
Sora had originally been looking at the scenery outside the window, but he suddenly saw in the reflection of the glass that Mahiru was gently biting her lower lip, her delicate eyebrows furrowed in distress.
"What's wrong?"
Sora cast an inquiring look.
"It's nothing..."
Mahiru held her breath, responding softly.
She said it was nothing, but the girl's furrowed brow still hadn't smoothed out.
Sora shifted his gaze and quickly locked onto a passenger standing next to Mahiru.
It was a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard wearing a wrinkled suit, one of the passengers who had boarded at the recent stop. It seemed he had just woken up from a hangover.
Could it be a train pervert?
Sora frowned slightly, lowering his voice.
"Mahiru-san, let's switch places."
Since he had encountered it, he naturally couldn't sit idly by.
"There's no need..."
Mahiru subconsciously shook her head, clearly having a personality that disliked troubling others.
Sora didn't speak; he simply grabbed Mahiru's wrist and swapped places with Angel-sama.
The next second, a weird odor flooded his nose, making the corners of Sora's eyes twitch slightly. The stench of alcohol mixed with the stench of tobacco made one involuntarily hold their breath.
So it wasn't a train pervert, but a biological weapon attack!
"Izumi-kun, let's switch back?"
Mahiru tilted her small face up and gently tugged at Sora's sleeve, clearly not wanting Sora to suffer on her behalf.
"Do not converse while riding the train." Sora remained expressionless. "Stand properly and don't move."
"...Thank you."
Mahiru's long eyelashes fluttered gently, casting dancing silhouettes over her pretty face, as she pursed her pink lips and whispered her thanks.
The rest of the trip was silent.
The train finally arrived at the school station.
"Phew..."
Sora quickly stepped off the train and immediately took deep breaths.
"I'm sorry for causing you trouble, Izumi-kun."
Mahiru followed behind as she got off, apologizing in a low voice once again.
"I accept your apology." Sora waved his hand. "Let's go to the classroom."
"Okay."
The two walked to school side by side, and then wordlessly parted ways at the entrance.
Sora entered the classroom. Just as he sat down, a hand quietly patted his shoulder.
Smack.
Turning his head to look, he saw a blue-haired girl who had appeared behind him at some point. It was precisely the gluttonous girl, Yanami Anna.
Strangely enough, today Anna didn't have her bright and radiant smile on her face. Instead, she had puffed up her cheeks, looking like a squirrel whose food stash had been stolen.
"Sora, you're so mean!"
"Hmm?" Sora looked over in confusion. "What did I do?"
Anna put her hands on her hips, her voice full of grievance.
"Sora did all sorts of terrible things to me last night. I kept crying no, but you refused to stop..."
Stop talking nonsense! I haven't seen you at all since school ended yesterday afternoon, alright!
Sora was expressionless. "I was at home the entire time last night. Slandering someone's innocence is illegal."
"In my dream, I'm talking about in my dream." Anna rested her chin on her hands, her eyes sparkling with azure ripples. "Anyway, Sora was so rough in my dream and made me unhappy, so this weekend I'm going over to your house to eat!"
"..."
Eating is fake, scouting the enemy is the true objective.
Waking up this morning, after lying in bed in a daze for a while, Anna sat up. Ignoring her messy pajamas, the first thing she did was take out the Losing Heroine Diary from under her pillow.
Just as Anna had imagined, the diary's content had updated.
It was a diary, after all; one update a day was very reasonable.
But the contents of the diary made Anna very unhappy.
[When you read this sentence, your weight has already reached 100 kilograms...]
[XX Year XX Month XX Day]
[Weather: Cloudy]
[You happily arrived at school, ready to share gossip with Sora. You saw a boy confessing to a girl under the cherry blossom tree, and your heart was filled with envy.]
[You wanted to confess, but every time you opened your mouth, you lost your courage.]
[Three years of high school passed. With Izumi Sora's help, you successfully got into Tokyo University. You were very happy and ate frantically for half a month to celebrate. Your weight increased by 2.5 kilograms.]
[During university, you still hadn't confessed.]
[After graduating, Izumi Sora married Yamada Elf and Izumi Sagiri, and the three of them lived happily together.]
[On the day of the wedding, you got blackout drunk.]
[A week later, you drowned your sorrows in alcohol and binge-ate.]
[Half a year later, you were still binge-eating.]
[Your weight skyrocketed, and you ultimately grew old and died all alone.]
"My future self will actually weigh 100 kilograms?"
"Impossible!"
"Absolutely impossible!"
"I am the Chosen One whose body type never gets fat no matter how much I eat!"
Seeing the contents of the Losing Heroine Diary, Anna was super angry at the time.
But aside from her weight, another matter caught Anna's attention even more.
"Sora actually married Sagiri?"
"If I recall correctly, Sagiri is his little sister, right?"
"Even if they aren't related by blood, he can't marry his sister, and it's three people together... why are there more and more thieving cats!"