After a series of smooth operations, Yukino finally suppressed her physiological desires.
But she also knew that this suppression was only temporary; what should she do in the future?
As she grew older, the characteristics of a "Snow Woman" would become more pronounced.
It had now reached the point where it was affecting her life, even shortening her working hours. In the future...
Yukino shook her head.
Being a human... whether being a human or a "demi-human," what's important is the present. The future can be dealt with later.
She suddenly remembered that this surge of desire came too suddenly, and she had forgotten to do what she was supposed to do.
Yukino quickly picked up the sorted garbage bags, unlocked the door, and headed downstairs.
Because she was a woman living alone, Yukino had specifically added two extra anti-theft locks to her existing door lock.
As a result, she had never encountered any of the theft incidents that had occurred in the apartment building before.
She had just reached the fourth floor.
Yukino subconsciously glanced towards unit "404," thinking that the child should be doing his homework at this time...
But before that thought could fully settle.
The door to 404 opened a crack.
"!!"
Yukino instinctively hid behind the wall at the stairwell.
She didn't know why she was hiding; it was just... a vague feeling of having a guilty conscience like a thief.
Yukino peeked around the wall towards the door of unit 404.
With a "bang," the door closed again.
Yukino didn't see Satoru, but she saw a girl dressed in a flamboyant, almost revealing way, standing somewhat at a loss in front of the "404" door.
Yukino lightly covered her mouth.
...Huh? Huh!
This outfit, this makeup... sh-should be a call girl, right?
Why would that kid look for a call girl to vent his desires? Does he not have a girlfriend? ...Ah, so he doesn't have a girlfriend.
After an inexplicable feeling of happiness, Yukino suddenly realized something was wrong.
What am I thinking!
Shouldn't I be lamenting why that kid, who looks so proper, would seek out a call girl... isn't that the issue?
What kind of nonsense is this!?
Yurika irritably ruffled her hair.
She had been sent out without having done anything.
She was somewhat bewildered.
Such things happened occasionally, usually because the price couldn't be agreed upon.
But with that young man's appearance and physique, let alone the price, Yurika would accompany him for free... no, she'd even pay him.
Yurika initially wanted to knock on the door again, but then she remembered Satoru's resolute gaze.
She was still sensible enough not to make a fool of herself.
Did he lose interest after knowing she had slept with a black man? Yurika thought carefully; if an outsider were to look at it from a third-person perspective, it did seem quite disgusting.
Tsk.
After clicking her tongue, she took out her phone, intending to call Mike.
But after thinking about it, she decided it was better to contact him by text message.
"We're breaking up, I'm not interested in you anymore."
The text message read.
Satoru sat on the windowsill, looking out, and could just see Yurika walking out of the apartment building.
He chuckled, pushed up his glasses, and deeply hid his accomplishments.
Then he looked at the black guy next door, who was still in a severely injured, collapsed state, though his laptop was energetically clattering away again.
You see, this is what's called learning from the barbarians to defeat them.
He jumped down from the windowsill and then stomped on the red dot camera in the corner, crushing it. At the same time, he picked up the card that had fallen to the ground.
The card was secretly given to him by Yurika yesterday, and Satoru had originally thrown it into the trash can.
But after the hallway incident, he took it out of the trash can again.
He placed it at the entrance.
When he left, Satoru noted the card's location.
And after returning from school, there were signs that the card had been moved.
At that time, Satoru knew someone had invaded his house, and when he looked with his x-ray eyes, he indeed saw the black guy next door smiling like an idiot.
He immediately guessed who the intruder was.
It seems I need to deal with this black guy as soon as possible, Satoru thought after stretching his neck.
...
"Thump!"
Suzuka's head hit the desk.
"So~~~~annoying~~~~~ahhhh~~~"
She let out a soft moan like a sigh.
As the captain of the Karate Club, she could escape even if surrounded by three or four people.
But facing the four options "A, B, C, D" of the multiple-choice question below her fair forehead, she was completely at a loss.
"Math, so hard..."
Suzuka looked at the problem with a bitter expression.
What was the most frustrating part? It was that after applying a formula and spending nearly half an hour of persistent effort, she finally got an answer of "4."
Just as she was happily about to fill in the answer, she looked again and saw A0, B7, C4.5, D26.
"?"
Where's my 4? Where did my 4 go, dammit!?
Suzuka was almost in tears.
Tired, won't love again.
Moreover, her score in this math quiz was unusually terrible.
Suzuka almost wanted to pull her smooth black hair until it stood on end.
...I'll ask for outside help.
She took out her phone and sent a photo of the problem to her childhood friend Ayumu, adding, "What's the answer?"
Ayumu replied after a while.
"Satoru chose C."
Suzuka stared at the "C" option for a while before clapping her hands.
She filled "C" into the ( ) with a feeling of "I feel like I understand everything, but I actually understand nothing.jpg."
In an instant, this problem seemed to be naturally perfect, beginning to emit a flawless light.
"Mhm mhm!" Suzuka nodded twice vigorously, then: "...Huh?"
It seemed she had overlooked something important.
She turned back and looked at her phone again; the interface was still on the message Ayumu had sent.
She unhesitatingly tapped the call icon.
Ayumu answered immediately.
"What—" Before Matsubara could finish his question, Suzuka impatiently blurted out her question:
"You you you you you you you you you you you you, do you have Satoru's contact information!?"
"...Yes, I do." Ayumu said with a laugh, "...Huh? Rather, isn't it stranger that Suzuka you don't? A while ago, Satoru was like a contact information giveaway; many people in our class have his number now."
Whether it was a misconception or not, Ayumu always felt that Satoru's demeanor when taking out his phone that day had a hint of showing off.
As if a primitive man had learned to use modern high technology for the first time...
"How would I have it? I haven't seen Satoru in so many days!" Suzuka said.
"That's strange, Satoru has been attending club morning practice recently, haven't you seen him?" Ayumu asked again.
Suzuka:...
They just missed each other.
In the more than a year since she entered high school, this was the period when she had missed morning practice the most.
As the captain of the Karate Club, no one dared to blame Suzuka for missing morning practice, but she wasn't slacking off; rather... she had been having long phone calls with her best friend, Akane, lately.
Every day, she was enveloped in the joy of staying up late, so she naturally woke up late.
Suzuka paused. She looked at her desk; besides the math problems, there was also a Chinese passage excerpted from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."
She suddenly realized, my best friend misled me!!
...
...