A Cheeky Junior Denied Me My Entire Life, so I Tested What Would Happen if I Jumped off a Rooftop to Vent My Anger
“So this is the special world that Asama-san said……?”
Asama-san brought me to a chain beef bowl restaurant nearby.
“Fufu. Aoi-kun, you’ve been sleeping all night, so I thought you must be hungry.”
“…… I’m glad you’re looking out for me, but…”
I think it’s a bit of an understatement. …I don’t mind though. Asama-san looks at me with a sullen expression, and her mouth twists in amusement.
“It’s joke, a joke. This is just to prepare your stomach before the battle. The real fight is afterwards.”
“Well, fine then…… or rather, Asama-san, you eat a lot, don’t you?”
“Is that so? I don’t think so. I think it’s normal.”
“…… normal, huh?”
Asama san ordered a special beef bowl, pork soup, and salad. Additionally, she ordered a beef dish and fried chicken. I eat as much as a high school student after returning from club activities. Last time I went to eat ramen together, I finished a large bowl of ramen without any trouble…
Perhaps Asama-san is a big eater.
“That too is somehow different from the image I have”
I muttered a little and started eating the tuna bowl that was brought to me with a spoon. …To be honest, I didn’t have much of an appetite. If it weren’t for my favorite tuna bowl, it would have been hard to put into my mouth.
Asama-san brought a glass of water to her mouth with a graceful gesture, and then said.
“Actually, there’s an immortal who’s been running amok around here lately. I’m going to play with him a bit today.”
“Rampaging, like those …… defeaters or whatever they’re called, are you fighting them or something?”
“It’s not so much raging, it’s more that they’re on my radar. The one …… Aoi-kun met yesterday is an exception in a number of ways, though.”
“…………”
I should have left quietly, but Asama-san seems to know that I was attacked by that puppet master named Shiga.
I let out a small breath.
“I was a little curious, but defeaters aren’t immortals, right? So why can they move puppets? Their physical abilities aren’t even that great, so what’s the theory behind that?”
Hearing my words, Asama-san meditates as if thinking.
“Hmmm. I didn’t dare explain that part, It’s complicated.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Eventually, Aoi-kun will be able to do the same thing, so I’ll explain it in detail when that time comes. So for now, just think of him as using magic and there won’t be any problems. Don’t worry. They can’t kill Aoi-kun.”
Asama-san asserts as a matter of course. …… Surely it was that guy’s dog and I was not going to die. But it seems to me that if I had made a mistake, I could have died.
Besides, according to that puppeteer, there are several ways to kill an immortal, and from the way that guy talked, it seemed like he had killed a number of immortals in his life.
…. Well, if Asama-san says I won’t die, then I guess it’s all right.
“But what’s the reason for the Immortals to go on the rampage? No matter how much they don’t die, there are no idiots like …… trying to conquer the world like in a manga right?”
“No, there are. There are also such weirdos. That’s why there are such things as defeaters.”
“…… is really like an anime, isn’t it?”
“Manga is like reality.”
Asama-san then pours water into a glass from the water pitcher on the table. When I realised that the mountain of beef bowls was empty. Asama-san laughs.
“The number one reason immortals go wild is because they can’t sleep …… .”
“Can’t sleep ……?”
“Yeah. I don’t mind not sleeping, but the ones who can’t stand it, can’t stand it. It’s like the bloodsucking urge in vampires. The girl I’m going to see now is going crazy because she hasn’t slept for a long, long time. So I’m going to kill her. That way, that girl will be able to sleep peacefully”
Asama-san gets up. I managed to finish my tuna bowl and followed her back.
“So, Asama-san, where are the immortal that you know? Does she live unexpectedly close by?”
“Well. Where does that girl live now? I don’t know, but I’m meeting up with her properly, so it’s all right. …… See, there was that abandoned building where I took Aoi-kun before, wasn’t there? There, even if you get a bit rowdy, no one will know.”
Asama-san laughs. Laughing, she pulls my hand and starts to walk away.
“I mean, Aoi-kun, you’re not feeling well, are you? Did something else happen to you besides being attacked by that puppet master yesterday?”
“…… Asama-san, you can see through everything, can’t you?”
A look that seems to see right through me. I look up at the sky as if to escape. There are no clouds today and the stars are beautiful. The moon is still missing. It’s as if there’s a hole in the world.
“…..last night. I talked to a girl I used to date from childhood.”
“Ah, you met that girl?”
“That girl? Asama-san, does she know Usa-san?”
“Yes, well. I’ve talked to her a bit. ….She’s a rather unstable girl, isn’t she?”
“She wasn’t like that in the past.”
People change, for better or worse. As people change, so do their emotions. We can’t stay the same.
“Well, I’ve said pretty much everything I wanted to say, and I don’t have any major complaints. It’s just that neither Usa-san nor Rengo said anything definite, so it doesn’t feel clear to me.”
“Normally, that’s how it is. Rather than that, Aoi-kun is just too bold. You may seem quiet, but on the inside you’re not at all, Aoi-kun.”
“I usually hide it, but I’m surprisingly short-tempered.”
“…… Short-tempered, but patient. It seems contradictory, but it’s not. I think that’s a very good thing about you, Aoi. It’s so human and charming.”
Asama-san looks into my face with a bewitching face. I also averted my gaze. Asama-san said.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’ve had a chance to say goodbye. Now you can live with me without any worries, right?”
“Not without sorrow, but I think we could have parted ways. Although I said some things that I didn’t need to say. …… “
Instead of saying things like that on that occasion, there should have been many things that I should have said earlier.
…It seems like I get emotional when I’m in front of Rengo and Usa-san. I guess it’s because I have so much pent-up anger, but somehow I just think it’s uncool.
I’m still immature, still a child. In the end, I’m only thinking about myself, even though I’m blaming Usa-san and Rengo.
“Don’t worry about it so much. No matter how enlightened you pretend to be, we are all human beginners for the first time in our lives. There’s no need to regret our failures and setbacks, no need to be ashamed of being immature.”
“…… I’m glad you said that, though.”
“From the looks of it, it seems like there was something else going on besides Usa-san. Or maybe that’s why you were wandering around the city last night?”
“…… Really, I can’t hide anything from Asama-san. But we’re here now, abandoned building. We can talk about it later, right?”
I laugh, trying to fool myself. Asama-san also smiles happily.
“Yes, that’s right. It seems that …… it’s ahead of us, so let’s go there too.”
The two of us enter the abandoned building. The door was unlocked, as it should be.
“But this place is surprisingly spacious.”
What was the building originally? Not quite a shopping mall ……, but much bigger than the neighbourhood supermarket. The abandoned building on the outskirts of town at night is silent and an eerie atmosphere pervades the area.
“……!”
There, lit up by the moonlight, was a girl. She was not a human ……. She had large wings on her back. Large black wings, like a bat …… or even a demon. The girl itself seemed to melt into the darkness.
The girl’s black hair, long enough to touch the ground, swayed in the wind that blew in through the gaps in the wall.
“Ah, I can finally sleep …….”
And then the girl collapsed.
“…… eh?”
Asama-san did nothing. …… No, maybe she did something I just didn’t notice. Thinking this, I turn my gaze towards Asama-san.
Asama-san was laughing happily.
“It’s been a long time since we met in person, Shiga-san.”
The man who appeared from behind the girl with wings …… Routen Shiga. That puppet-user man who killed me ignored Asama-san and turned his gaze towards me.
“A very early reunion, boy.”
This is probably an abnormal situation that Asama-san had not anticipated. But for some reason, I was laughing.