Not getting the answer he wanted, Yamano Yuuta didn't respond to her words and continued to ask, "So, Natsuha, have you made any friends?"
Hearing his words, her eyes, as radiant as red wine, narrowed slightly.
Being particularly observant, Shinomiya Natsuha couldn't miss the focus in his question.
But she didn't think much of it.
Through the filter of love, she just assumed Yuu-chan was worried that her practice of Aikido might lead to isolation by the girls in her class.
After all, it's rare for girls to practice Aikido.
Without shared topics with the girls around, it's easy to be excluded.
And in Yuu-chan's eyes, she was still a 'serious' person.
Serious people aren't always liked...
"Yuu-chan, do you think I'm that bad? How could I not make any friends?"
"I have friends in class... and in the club..."
Listing a few friends she made, Shinomiya Natsuha, for certain reasons, didn't mention Sasaki's name.
But for Yamano Yuta, who knew about Sasaki's existence, her omission had a significant implication.
If nothing had happened between them... why wouldn't she mention Sasaki?
His eyes showed a hint of darkness due to his lowered eyelids.
Yamano Yuta didn't ask anything more, responding absentmindedly to Shinomiya Natsuha's conversation while eating his steak.
After they had finished their meal, it was already 4:20 PM.
According to Shinomiya's plan, after eating, they should wander around, buy a few things, and then head home to tell her mother that Yuu-chan had come to visit.
But Yamano Yuta had different plans.
His purpose for coming wasn't to stroll around here.
Having had a meal and discovered something alarming, how could he be happy?
After leaving the restaurant, Yamano Yuta proposed the next step of his plan.
"N-Natsuha, let's go see a movie."
"Now?"
"Yes, because we separated right after confirming our relationship, I haven't watched a movie with you as a couple yet."
"You're right. So, what movie should we watch?" With time still early, Shinomiya Natsuha had no objection to watching a movie.
"I booked a new release, the reviews are pretty good..."
As they left the restaurant, Sasaki was just across a not-so-wide street from them.
With hia hearing, it was impossible not to hear their conversation.
Upon learning which movie they booked, Sasaki said to Nogami, who was sitting next to him:
"Follow them in. One of you sit behind them, and one next to the boy. If he does anything inappropriate, interrupt him."
Although Sasaki was speaking to Nogami, as the most memorable delinquent leader to Shinomiya, he certainly couldn't go in himself.
So, after he finished speaking, Nogami patted the two delinquents sitting behind them:
"You heard the boss, go and follow his instructions."
"Yes!"
After instructing his subordinates, Nogami continued to ask:
"Boss, should we stay here?"
Glancing at the yellow hair, who was also following the couple outside, Sasaki pointed to the busy waiter across the street and said:
"Find an excuse to bring that guy out, I have something to ask him."
For delinquents like them, this was a routine task, with no difficulty at all.
Without any hesitation, after Sasaki gave the order, Nogami called the rest of their group and left the café in a hurry.
"Sigh~"
Looking through the glass window at their swaggering backs, weird hairstyles, and exposed tattoos, Sasaki sighed in resignation.
Honestly, these delinquents were very useful and efficient.
As long as they couldn't defeat him, they were excellent tools.
But their appearance was really an issue.
When it was just him and Hayase, many girls in the café would secretly glance at them and try to strike up a conversation.
But once Nogami and his group joined, all the girls in the café quickly left.
This clearly showed that the delinquents from the same school as Nogami weren't to be trifled with in this area.
But this had nothing to do with Sasaki.
What he wanted to do was to change their appearance.
Otherwise, every time he was with them, they attracted too much attention.
.
.
.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of batons and fists hitting flesh through clothing, akin to pounding a sandbag, echoed in the alley full of discarded items.
"No, please—"
Bang!
The painful whimpers and pleas were interrupted again by a leather shoe kicking the abdomen and a baton hitting the back.
Looking at the blood-foamed, miserable figure of the waiter they had dragged from the restaurant, standing next to Sasaki, Nogami, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and his brows twitching at his subordinates' relentless beating, hesitantly said:
"Boss, it's enough... if we keep this up, it'll cause trouble."
The golden-brown eyes, which in sunlight gave a warm, reliable feeling, turned dark brown in the dim alley as Sasaki focused on the blood-soaked figure lying not far away.
Removing his emotionless gaze from the beaten waiter, he turned to the hesitant Nogami beside him:
"I thought you delinquents who fight often wouldn't fear blood."
"Yes, we're not afraid of blood, but we are afraid of killing..."
For these delinquents who frequently fight, seeing blood is commonplace, and broken arms or legs are not unusual, but beating someone to death was unheard of...
Glancing at the waiter not far away, who no longer had the strength to protect his head and couldn't even beg for mercy, Nogami, who was worried about causing a death, took a deep drag of his cigarette, wanting to say more words of caution.
But meeting Sasaki's eyes, which seemed dark brown, like dried blood, his throat tightened, and he ultimately looked away.
Clearly, for a paper tiger like Nogami, who only acted tough in front of students, Sasaki's dead-eyed, lifeless gaze was terrifying.
He didn't know if Sasaki had ever killed anyone, but he was sure he would dare to.
Just as he thought.
Sasaki indeed dared.
With his abilities, killing someone would be all too easy.
After all, many parts of the human body are far softer than stone.
And with Fujitsubaki's backing...
There are too many people who go missing and are never found in this country each year.
One more missing waiter wouldn't matter.
But killing him would be a waste.
For the lower-class people, the world is already a hell; he wanted these scum to live and atone for their sins.
Through violence and drugs, they enslaved others; calling them scum was too kind.
This waiter was just a helper.
Next up was Masaru Oga!
Retracting his gaze from Nogami, Sasaki looked at the waiter again, then stepped forward slowly and took a wooden baton from one of the delinquents.
These guys were afraid of causing a death, so they didn't use much force, despite their seemingly vigorous efforts.
To give Nogami's newly recruited underlings a chance to recognize his authority and to vent his own frustration on these scum, Sasaki needed to give these delinquents a little shock.
If they couldn't even fight properly, they had no business being delinquents.
As long as he didn't kill them outright, Fujitsubaki could save them.
So, Sasaki began to strike, aiming at every part of the waiter's body except his head.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dull thuds of blows, the whimpering of a creature near death, and the sound of breaking bones mixed together.
The delinquents standing around, watching Sasaki, felt chills run down their spines.
Their disdain for him dissipated as they watched him swing the baton again and again with a blank expression.
Smack~
Throwing aside the splintered baton, Sasaki looked at the figure lying on the ground, unrecognizable except for his head, and pulled out his phone from his pocket.
Beep~
"Hello, send someone over..."
---
...
18:20.
As they walked out of the cinema and stood amidst the crowd, Yamano Yuta's face didn't look good.
It made sense; anyone would be upset if they were interrupted while trying to get close to their girlfriend.
But that wasn't the main issue.
The main issue was Natsuha's attitude.
After all, seemed different from the Natsu-nee, he remembered.
In the past, if he wanted to get close to her and got caught, she'd grab his wrist and say something that sounded like scolding but felt like teasing.
But this time, after being interrupted by that delinquent-looking guy, she didn't gently grab his hand and scold him playfully.
Instead, she propped her face on her hand, half-covering her face, effectively rejecting his attempt to get close.
This would never have happened before.
What's going on?!
Yamano Yuuta, with his emotions plainly written on his face, made Shinomiya Natsuha, who already felt he was acting strange, even more worried.
Suppressing the inexplicable heat rising in her chest, the girl, who had felt dizzy since entering the cinema, rubbed her temples and stopped walking.
She called out to Yuta, who was walking ahead with his head down:
"Yuu-chan~ Are you really okay?"
"I..."
He wanted to say he was fine, but thinking about Natsuha's earlier evasions and her rejection of his advances, Yamano Yuta couldn't bring himself to say it.
Realizing that tentative questions would only make him feel worse, he hesitated before asking:
"Natsu-nee... Who is Sasaki?"
!?
Hearing a name her boyfriend shouldn't know, Shinomiya Natsuha instinctively let her surprise slip out:
"How do you know about him?"
Seeing her so shocked, Yamano Yuta lowered his head, his tone unreadable, and said:
"Should I not know about him?"
"Shouldn't I know what happened between you and him?"
At this point, even with her head spinning, Shinomiya Natsuha understood that Yuuta had come to her because he suspected her of cheating.
Unable to believe he would doubt her, the girl felt disappointed and bitter.
At the same time, she was also puzzled.
While it was certainly true that she had a crush on Sasaki, but it was just a crush.
Apart from the first time they met when she was scared by a rat and he hugged her, there was nothing inappropriate in their interactions.
What could have happened between her and Sasaki?
Not knowing why Yuu-chan would suspect her, the girl realized that to clear up the misunderstanding, she needed to know the cause of the misunderstanding first.
Pulling him into a nearby alley, Shinomiya Natsuha, clutching her schoolbag and trying to calm her increasingly erratic heartbeat, asked:
"Although I don't know how you know about him, it seems you've misunderstood us. It's true we know each other, but nothing happened between us."
"Nothing happened? Then why didn't you mention his name when you were introducing your friends?"
"He's not that important, whether I mention him or not doesn't matter."
"Not important... Would you hold hands with someone who's not important?"
Not believing her explanation, the boy took out his phone and showed her a photo of her and Sasaki 'holding hands'.