“Forget it… It’s what I brought on myself anyway.”
He laid all of it on that day’s broken appointment.
Bearing the salvation of everyone in his heart, he had inevitably hurt a girl waiting for him to give her an answer, and so it was only right that he be given the cold shoulder.
Now he no longer much wanted to dwell on these things.
For a matter that was already unlikely to change, he would do as before, and quietly play the role of someone guarding her from the dark.
“Mm, this scent…?”
At the thought, he had meant to leave it at that, but a thread of fragrance left in the air made him stop without thinking.
A familiar lavender scent, mixed with a faint smell like cream, extremely similar to what he had smelled on the bed at home.
“How could it be. Is something wrong with my nose…”
Tsukimi Ryuune hid at the corner of the stairs, and inside she could be said to be a little flustered.
The coldness was only put on.
Though she really did dislike him, the tracking of this period had gradually melted a little of the wall of ice she had built against Kagami Yuto.
This was not hard to understand.
During the tracking, the two of them had not made direct contact, but she had seen everything he did.
She stood beside him, and sometimes she could not help wondering why he did a thing, and what the meaning of doing it was.
That she could concentrate wholly on studying one person was, at root, also because she had grown curious about him.
Especially under the halo of the Ultraman, that curiosity was even greater.
And the feelings that arise between people are often born of one side’s curiosity about the other.
“Who told you to leave last time without a word.”
“Liar.”
Watching his somewhat lost back, Tsukimi Ryuune could not help feeling a few threads of the pleasure of revenge.
Who told him to trample her feelings.
Besides, she had said she would make him regret it.
Though the process was not what she had imagined, the result had still been reached.
But she felt this was still far from enough.
This man’s will was still too firm.
She had to use a higher method to torment and destroy his heart.
As it happened, Yapool’s Super Beast was nearly finished too, and to her it counted as something she could use.
But before that, there was still one thing she had to do.
She had to deepen this man’s guilt toward her.
Only then could she make him doubt what he had always insisted on.
It was a perfect plan.
Time came to evening.
Kagami Yuto left school after work as usual, but unlike ordinary days, today he did not head toward home.
The reason was nothing else.
He had to go to a class reunion.
In truth he had hesitated a little.
After all, he had the duty of protecting the citizens.
But this time Roa had taken the initiative to urge him to relax, and he really had not joined a group activity in a long time.
He was gradually falling out of his social circle.
“That said, if something happens, won’t I still have to drop them and leave? It’s because of that I don’t really want to go…”
Helplessness showed in his eyes.
“Even so, you can’t keep yourself strung tight the whole time. Yuto, the way you are, I’m really worried the enemy will catch an opening in you.”
Kagami Yuto sighed.
How could he not understand the reminder.
But what he was even less able to answer was the next thing the other said.
“And I feel you’re a little too… Mm. A thing like this, isn’t it fine to just say a word? Or are these friends of yours, like that girl, all very important people to you?”
“Important… That’s because I already owe my student.”
“I should have been the one to save her, not the source of her hurt. Unfortunately, I failed to do that.”
He answered no further, pushed open the door, and walked straight into the restaurant before him.
Tsukimi Ryuune followed far behind him.
She was a little surprised at this path after work today, different from the usual.
She did not think much of it.
Out of curiosity, she followed close on his steps.
The restaurant was a little noisy.
As far as the eye reached were men and women about his age.
Some looked as if they had just rushed over after work, in the professional dress of all sorts of trades.
Some looked as if they had long since left their jobs, in casual designer clothes.
Some even wore suits and ties, putting on the look of a successful person.
A mixed scene like this soon brought four words to her mind: a class reunion.
Kagami Yuto, in the midst of it, looked utterly unremarkable.
After greeting a few people he knew beside him, he casually found a seat and sat down in silence.
A scene like this was somewhat unexpected to Tsukimi Ryuune.
She had thought he was the sort who could get along with anyone back in school.
She had not thought that, in the end, he was like the great majority, and his presence was perfectly ordinary.
In truth she could not be blamed for thinking so.
After all, the work of a counseling teacher itself meant contacting all sorts of people.
Without a bit of social ability, an ordinary person really could not do it.
Precisely because of that, she had instinctively felt Kagami Yuto ought to be very popular in his own class.
She had not thought reality was not so.
“Long time no see, Yuto. What, did you come straight over after work too?”
“Ah, yes. It really has been a long time.”
Kagami Yuto was somewhat lukewarm, but faced with an old classmate greeting him warmly, he was still willing to show a smile and exchange a few words.
“I heard you’re a teacher now. Which school? Is the pay all right?”
When old classmates meet, the questions discussed are nothing more than those few.
Where one works, whether life is good now, whether one is married.
Basically all face-saving topics adults cannot avoid.
Fortunately Kagami Yuto did not care about these, so he was frank and straightforward.
“It’s all right. I’m quite satisfied with my life now.”
“Nine to five, the pay is stable, and most of the time I’m not that busy. When I have time I can still do some things I want to do.”
“Is that so. That really is pretty good. Not like me, working like mad to get married. I feel like I’m about to collapse from exhaustion.”
“Speaking of which, aren’t you planning to find someone?”
“Eh… With my work, no, it wouldn’t suit me.”
“? What do you mean? Aren’t there female teachers at your school?”
At those words, Kagami Yuto only then reacted, and inwardly sighed at where his thoughts had gone just now.
“There are. I’m just not very interested.”
“One look and I can tell you don’t go to mixers much. Haha.”
Tsukimi Ryuune listened invisibly from the side, thinking what boring, greasy topics these all were.
What was rare, though, was that she actually saw a thread of ease on Kagami Yuto’s face.
Perhaps it was the atmosphere around him, and seeing old classmates.
But to her, this was not something worth being glad about.
The more naturally he acted, the more like a living person, the more she doubted her own guess.
She had thought that at a class reunion, an occasion with many acquaintances, she might see some opening he let slip.
She had not thought it was still only her own wishful thinking.