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After another night of simple, in-depth communication, time quickly turned to the next day.
Morning, the familiar 7:20 a.m. In the living room, the man and the cat-girl sat together at the dining table.
Today's breakfast was steak pasta with fried eggs.
Although Hanakain Reiji was a genuine Kyoto native, and his family was a millennium-old, well-known Onmyōji family within the Kansai region and all of Japan, his eating habits leaned toward diversity.
He preferred Western and Chinese cuisine over traditional Japanese food.
If asked, he would simply say traditional Japanese food lacks flavor and isn't tasty.
"Slurp~ Why do we have to wake up so early again today?"
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Kuroka slurped up a large mouthful of tomato pasta, leaning half her body against the young man beside her, complaining softly as if she hadn't fully woken up.
Oh no, not "as if"—she simply hadn't fully woken up.
After all, last night, Hanakain Reiji had originally planned to reheat the food after his shower, eat dinner, hook up the new TV to the game console, play for a little while, and then go to bed when the time was right.
But the cat-eared girl, upon seeing this, started getting naughty again. Ignoring the fatigue that hadn't completely worn off from the earlier session in the bathroom, she started rubbing against him and obstructing his view, refusing to let him play properly.
The inevitable outcome was that she got exactly what she asked for: Hanakain Reiji immediately began a high-intensity "siege" that lasted until the server completely crashed in the early hours of the morning.
Adding the time spent showering afterward, it was almost 2 a.m. before they finally went to bed.
Sleep at 2, wake at 7. The King of Hell praises my good health.JPG
"Can't be helped. Classes start at eight," Hanakain Reiji's face showed no trace of tiredness.
"Classes, hmph... classes indeed."
Kuroka glanced sideways, muttering to herself, and wiped the tomato sauce from her mouth.
Although she constantly complained about Hanakain Reiji's insistence on attending that "lousy school," she was actually quite aware of the situation.
The fact was that eighty percent of their current income came from a certain Lady Rias. Every request was high-paying, low-effort, and clearly defined. There were no endless revisions, no impossible demands for "colorful black," and no excuses to arbitrarily withhold payment. She was practically the perfect client.
In contrast, while Hanakain Reiji also took jobs from the forum set up by the Jujutsu High School, most of the ordinary users there were just occult enthusiasts. For them, the forum was just for fun. Genuine requests for help were rare, and actual bounty posts were even rarer.
Of course, the most important reason was that her beloved sister was currently a peerage Devil under Rias Gremory.
Although all signs indicated that Lady Rias was not the type to boss around her subordinate Devils, considering the dangerous nature of the various missions Hana-Hana had been out on since they began cooperating, Kuroka felt it was better to have someone there to keep an eye on things.
While taking action herself would be a better choice, well... her foolish little sister probably wouldn't want to see her yet.
Not now, at least.
Lost in her thoughts, Kuroka's eating movements paused. She looked silently at the steak and pasta on her plate, lost in a daze.
Just then, the young man's voice, slightly muffled from chewing pasta, reached her ear.
"You okay? Did you fall asleep eating?"
"Mmm... No, how could I?"
Surprised that her lapse had been so easily discovered, the cat-eared girl instantly snapped back to attention, her cheeks slightly warm with annoyance. She lifted her leg and playfully stamped on his leg under the table with her clean, soft foot.
"I was just thinking, Hana-Hana, your school is having the weekend off in a couple of days, right? Do you want to go out and play somewhere then?"
"Oh, the weekend. I haven't decided yet," Hanakain Reiji swallowed his food and shook his head.
Again, if one wasn't aiming for a top university, the academic pressure on high school students in Japan was relatively light. A two-day weekend offered plenty of time to go out and experience their prime youth.
However, Hanakain Reiji preferred to stay home rather than go out.
After all, he had food, drink, air conditioning, and a game console at home. Outside, he would have to pull out his phone and follow the map for half a day just to find a restroom.
"You haven't decided, huh..."
Kuroka tapped the corner of her mouth with her index finger, thought for a moment, and suddenly her eyes lit up.
"Then how about going to Kyoto? Big Sister has never been to Kyoto before. Plus, Hana-Hana's hometown is in Kyoto, isn't it? We could call it a trip home to visit your parents~"
"No. You could say Hokkaido, and that would be fine, but count me out on Kyoto," Hanakain Reiji refused quite decisively.
"Why?"
"Can you imagine all your grand-aunts and grand-uncles surrounding you and pointing fingers? And what's even worse is having someone your age talk exactly like those grand-aunts and grand-uncles."
"Ugh... no."
Kuroka briefly attempted to imagine it, then decisively gave up.
She didn't have grand-aunts or grand-uncles.
People truly cannot imagine things they don't know, and cats can't either.
"Besides, my mom messaged me a few days ago saying she's returning to the Village of Braves for a trip, so she won't be in Kyoto during this time."
Hanakain Reiji shrugged.
"Also..."
His words abruptly stopped here. Seemingly recalling some delicate past event, the young man let out a soft "Ah."
Sensing the abnormality, the cat-eared girl beside him immediately leaned in, her eyes scanning him suspiciously before speaking slowly.
"Why didn't you finish talking? Were you thinking about another woman?"
"Ah... you could say that, yes."
Hanakain Reiji collected his thoughts and continued eating his meal.
"It's still about the Jujutsu Association matter from yesterday. They'll probably contact me again in the next couple of days, so it's hard to say if I'll be free this weekend."
"Oh~ Are you really not just thinking about that Senpai?"
"Why must I be thinking about that Senpai... Besides, the Jujutsu Association spends all their effort sealing those Sukuna fingers, right? I can blow them all up one by one and solve the problem once and for all. It's highly unlikely they would be indifferent to that, right? Maybe I can even skim a payment from the Jujutsu Association using this opportunity and achieve financial freedom... Hmm, thinking about it that way, it actually sounds quite good."
"Hmph..."
Kuroka expressed her disbelief.
"But Hana-Hana, if you only ever work or stay home, you'll find yourself without friends, you know?"
"Who says? I had a lot of friends when I was little."
Tipping his head back to finish the last bit of pasta in his bowl, Hanakain Reiji casually spoke as he stood up from the table. He carried his used plate and cutlery into the kitchen sink, then turned and headed straight for the entryway.
"Well, I'm heading out. See you tonight."
"Mmm, see you... tonight?"
Because the entire sequence happened so quickly, by the time the cat-eared girl at the dining table reacted, the young man had already changed his shoes and left, pushing the door open.
Aaaah! What does he mean, "I had a lot of friends when I was little"!
At a time like this, he should have said, "It's okay, having you is enough"! It's as if she truly wanted Hana-Hana to have many "friends"!
He was so frustrating.
...
On the other side, Hanakain Reiji, who had just walked out of the apartment building's main entrance, had barely set foot on the sidewalk outside when he heard a girl's gasp ring out from an extremely close distance behind him.
"Ah!"
A slight bump accompanied the sound.
When Hanakain Reiji turned his head, a white headscarf fluttered down like a butterfly in his vision.
And sitting on the ground was a blonde... nun?
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