- Hikigaya Residence -
"Goodbye, Dad! Come back early!"
"Be good, Komachi. You can watch anime on the laptop, but don't open the door for strangers!"
Ryohei set off to find work.
He noticed Komachi refused to go out and play. As a former teacher, he understood: she was likely ashamed or confused by the divorce. While she seemed to accept the reality, her understanding was fractured, and she was prone to harboring hidden resentment.
That woman, Kazusa Touma... truly incomprehensible, Ryohei sighed.
A peaceful life, a doting husband, and beautiful children... what more could someone want?
The psychology of a woman before cheating: "Is this wrong of me toward my husband? But what can I do... I think I really love him too. Oh, whatever, just this once!"
The psychology of a woman after cheating: "You're my one and only husband!"
Ryohei couldn't help but wonder what was going through Kazusa Touma's mind.
Like a moth to a flame, she had incinerated the lives of everyone around her.
Usually, women cheat because their husbands are inattentive, lack ambition, earn too little, or are incompetent in bed.
But "Ryohei Hikigaya" was ambitious; he had been wealthy before his post-divorce spiral into bankruptcy. As for "competence," he had two children, so that shouldn't have been the issue.
Hachiman looked just like his father (eyes aside), and Komachi shared the same family "ahoge."
If he wasn't a failure and he wasn't inattentive, he was a legendary "Licking Dog," after all, then why?
Ryohei shook his head and hopped on a bus. Using Google Maps, he navigated toward the Chiba Talent Market.
He had spent the previous night researching on his laptop and had even found a razor in a moving box to clean himself up. He looked less like a walking tragedy now.
However, the news was bleak. The economy was sliding.
The Sunset News reported riots at the Prime Minister's official residence, one dead, three injured. The "Internet Winter" wasn't just a local problem; the East Asian Empire and the Atlantic Federation were both sliding into a Great Depression.
Ryohei didn't care about the "High Politics" of Nagatacho.
He had the soul of a corporate drone.
But as he stepped into the Talent Market, he realized that even if you ignore history, history will eventually come looking for you.
National unemployment had hit 5%, double the average of the last three years.
Six million people were out of work. The ripple effect from the Atlantic Federation was turning into a global tsunami.
Ryohei spent half the day in line at the Chiba Job Placement Center without even reaching a window.
It was expected.
However, he did find a government notice: as a completely unemployed person with minor children, he was eligible for a one-month emergency subsidy. It wasn't much, but it might cover two months of rent.
He wasn't emotional about the failure.
He knew that without the original Ryohei's specific skills, he'd never land a high-paying elite job again.
If he had to work manual labor to survive, so be it.
The original Ryohei was actually an academic elite, a graduate of Tokyo Gakugei University, the "Number One Normal School in Asia." He even had a valid teaching license. But for some reason, he had chosen entrepreneurship over teaching.
The problem was that Ryohei's "Lin Zhe" memories were from a different world.
In this timeline, the empires of old had survived. Republics were the outliers.
His history degree was functionally useless here. He didn't have time to re-educate himself; he just needed rent money.
*****
Setsuna Kitahara was still on the warpath.
She had just discovered Ryohei's bankruptcy after visiting his old house and seeing the new owners' suspicious glares.
She tried calling him, but the line was dead.
He blocked me!
Setsuna wandered the streets of Chiba, her hair a mess, her clothes wrinkled.
She couldn't understand him.
Doesn't he care about Kazusa? Shouldn't we be allies trying to save our families? He has children! How can he be so indifferent?!
Is he a simp or not?!
"Heh, who am I to talk?" she thought bitterly. "I'm just a fool who centered my whole life around my husband, only for him to cheat."
Compared to the well-maintained, "blooming" Kazusa, Setsuna looked like a "war-torn" wreck.
Her blood pressure was bottoming out, and her health was failing.
Suddenly, a wave of stomach cramps hit her near Chiba Park.
She collapsed onto a bench, pale and sweating.
And there, three meters away, a "wild" Ryohei Hikigaya walked right past her with his hands in his pockets.