Chapter 23 - A God’s Whim part 1

I washed the knife Hiromu-san left. Technically, it must belong to the JSDF guy, but still…

“Sorry, but I’ll make use of the knife you left.”

I washed myself, and all the blood from my T-shirt and the coat… it still feels so wrong that all the bloodstain can be easily taken care of due to me acquiring the sickening skill [Criminal].

I looked back at my status panel, then at my EXP Gauge.

[Shindou Yuuma - Level 14] x6

“I can level up and probably regain all my memories now, but I would be found out if I do that…”

“Kyaun!” Kon pointed at the Lizardman corpse we defeated.

“Ah, right. The two of us defeated the Lizardman, let’s use that as an excuse.”

[Skill Unlocked: Criminal Lv 2]

“WHAT THE HELL! HOW DOES THAT COUNT AS A CRIME!? IS IT THE ACT OF COVERING UP, HUH!?”

“Kyaun?”

“Ah, sorry. The system is picking up a fight with me.”

“Kyaun…?”

“Haha, you probably don’t really get any UI besides the Party Member List you see on top left all the time, and the party invitation I sent when you back then.”

“Kyaun Kyaun!” Oh, I think he remembers. Even though it was so chaotic back then, I thought he didn’t even realize it.

“Alright, I guess I will level up. Can you take care of Yumemi when she wakes up later?"

“Kyaun!” He puffed his chest and put his right front paw to it, I bet he’s saying “Leave it to me!”

“Thanks, Kon.”

“Kyaun!”

>X<

After having a year of Mika approaching me, coming so far from Tokyo to Kyoto each time… it finally happened, the thing I feared of, happened on my 15th birthday.

It’s been so long since I ever celebrated my birthday, and today they suddenly wanted to have a feast and took the day off.

And for some reason, a big box was left in my room. It is so big you’d think inside it is a person…

The only one who can get this through is my own family, so let’s just say they are the culprit.

If it is really that person inside, it would be bad to make her wait so long inside such a box in the summer…

“Haah…” I braced myself… and opened the box.

The box is Mika suited in a wedding dress holding a [I’m your present] sign, with a ribbon on her head.

“Uhm… Eat me?”

*SLAM* I slammed back the box by instinct and ran down the stairs.

“Oh, that’s quick of you. You didn’t last long?”

“MOOOOM! WHY IS MIKA HERE!? AND DON’T SAY DIRTY JOKES TO YOUR OWN SON!”

“Hmm? A girl living alone is dangerous, so she’ll be living with us from now on. Since she’s going to the same school as you, it’s better that way right?”

“Huh, ah… she’s been busy with modeling in Tokyo ever since the new semester after all, that rumor of our class got a ghost as a student started to spread…”

Her father still has a company to run in Tokyo after all, it’s not like he can come to live again in Kyoto with her just like that.

In the first place, Mika debuted because she wanted to help her father’s business, so hindering that is nonsense.

“My, to think I would have grandchildren so soon…”

“Hurry up and make MIKA-chan my onee-chan, my lovely dumb Onii-chan~”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY FAMILY!?”

“Yuu-kun… won’t you eat me?” Mika came down too.

“Enough with ‘eat me’ jokes!”

“WOOOOWWWW!!! MIKA-chan’s so cute~! Ah~ if I’m a man, I’ll propose to you righ here right now!” My little sister Haruka, as usual, is fawning over her Oshi.

“She really is gorgeous, as expected of my daughter-in-law!” Let’s forget my mom’s comment.

Dear Father, are you watching over us right now? If you do, please come to my dream and tell me how to fix my family's brain.

“Haah… Mika, just get changed and eat with us.”

“You said that, but it’s me and mom who cooked, you know~”

“Ugh… I know… thank you for that…”

Mika changed into pajamas, and then we sat down together and ate the feast.

Later that night, I gave up and let her snuggle in my bed. I didn’t lay any fingers on her, and surprisingly, she is just burying her face on my back.

“It reminds me of that day…”

“Hmm? What day?”

“The day you covered for me.”

“Ah, the day you pe–”

“Yuu-kun!”

“Yeah, my bad.”

“That day, I think I fell in love with you…”

“So that’s why you started bothering me back then, huh?”

“What do you mean by bothering you!? I was just asking you to play together!”

“And I always rejected your offer, you always threw something at me, don’t you remember?”

“... huh? Did I do such things…?”

“Yeah, with blocks, toy cars, crayons, toy ladle hurts the most because you hit me with it.” I’ll keep quiet since she doesn’t seem to remember she almost hit me with a kid chair.

“Uu… I’m sorry…”

“No need to apologize, I forgot such things happened until we reunited, and that refreshes all my memories including the bad ones.”

“Yuu-kun, you’re a meanie!” She started hitting my back with a low tap.

“Also, regarding white day, that was not thoughtful of me. I never knew giving marshmallows on the white day would mean like that.”

“... then, what do you want to say back then?”

“Thanks for caring about me, I guess? Now that I think of it, it’s the first time I got chocolate not from my family, so I was pretty excited about it.”

“Hmmm… so you got chocolate from other girls when I was away, huh…” She got sulky.

“No, they are from the boys who asked me for gaming advice. They took me by surprise when they aligned them on the floor to recreate my face, working together with other employees.”

“Uu… I won’t lose…”

Just what in the world are you competing against?

>X<

Summer holiday ended, and Mika started going to our school.

Some of our old schoolmates came and greeted her, since it’s been so long since she’s back here.

Some of them asked about her work, and some of them are just asking small, whatever things.

For some of the boys who went to the same kindergarten as we did, some were acting like they were close to her, wanting to get closer with her.

To be honest, that irritates me. What are they, monkeys in heat?

“Sorry, but I like Yuu-kun. We’re living together now.”

Every eye turned on me in an instant.

The girls looked so excited, and all the monkey boys were sighing for some reason.

“If it’s Yuu, there's no chance I could win.”

“Yeah, he’s been the nicest guy around…”

“Even though he’s not that sociable though…”

“Sorry for mocking you back then, ‘kay?”

“Thinking back again, that was childish of us, right…”

“Thanks for helping me with games!”

“You’re so tough, bro. It might not be good to bring this up, but that speech you gave at your father’s funeral was giving me chills.”

“Ah, that’s right! He’s so cool back then!”

“I had to agree with that, but it’s not the time to bring that up, you boys.”

““Sorry…””

“Also, I am just a casual fan of MIKA, so knowing Yuu is the prince she wanted to be with kinda reassured me!”

… huh? Those are not the responses I would expect.

Since when did everyone think of me like that?

Mika walked to me and spread her arms wide, blocking me from everyone.

“It’s nice that everyone knows Yuu-kun… but remember, I was the first one to fall in love with you, okay!?”

Ugh… that’s cute, damnit…

“Wow~ the summer had just ended, yet you two are getting hot here~”

“So, who confessed first?”

“Since when are you two going out?”

Everyone was so chaotic and thought we’re a couple, but…

“Uh, we’re not going out,” I interrupted.

… That day, I think I got the harshest sarcasm in my life. Even when I came home, my family who seems to have heard about what happened also gave me some extra damage.

>X<

For our third semester, Mika got the first commercial series offer for a perfume brand she loves to use.

Since it’s the first time she’s getting such a job, she asked me to go accompany her.

On the set, we got into some trouble. It is supposed to be a one long take by the side of a hot spring that will be timelapsed later.

Recently, there was a pervert, who sniped a ball capsule filled with indecent white liquid on young girls.

Mika was in the midst of the shoot. Thank goodness it’s just a replica made from some egg white, but still…

“AAAAHHHH!!!” That messed her mentally.

Judging by the trajectory, I borrowed a bicycle and rushed towards the culprit, seized him and called the police. It’s a teen in a camouflage suit, using a self made catapult launcher and was targeting another woman when I got there. Before I handed him to the police, but took a picture and his Student ID just in case he did something similar.

I returned to the set, only to find Mika running to me and cried on my chest.

Today’s shoot was a mess, and she blamed herself for it. For the scream.

Thank goodness, the director didn’t scold her.

“One of my producer friends was a victim of that pervert too. She’s also taking timelapse of a girl grasping the stars in between meteor showers, making the model go through with it since they don’t have any second chance. Even though my friend won the short film competition, the model wasn’t really happy about it and quit the industry.”

To put in short, the pervert did the same to a model that is in a timelapse that got no second chance.

“Regarding that…” I told the director that we won’t have to worry again, since I caught the culprit and handed him over to the police.

Just in case, I shared the ID card of the culprit to the director, so that if the same person acted again, we can dox him out.

The shoot after that… well, I should say it worked… somewhat fine. Mika forgot to act in some parts and did not listen to the director's instructions, probably because she’s still shaken by what happened yesterday.

The director had no time to continue since she had another shoot schedule to take in Hokkaido, so we wrapped up with something the director said okay, but not happy about.

It was a so-so CM, I would say. That marks the end of her ever appearing in such CMs.

But ever since that incident, Mika became traumatized whenever he saw some thick liquid, making her unable to even eat her favorite meal, her father’s curry.

I felt like Mika wasn’t being herself at all.

The aloof but fiery girl who has always approached me so fiercely, was kinda dormant this year. Even the whole school realized that and asked me if I had messed up or something.

When I realized some news had reported the same incident happening again. Was he out of Juvenile or something!?

In the heat of the moment, I created a random Chwitter and posted the culprit’s Student ID. With the backup of the CM director’s official account, the post got so viral it made the raid on the school just to capture the guy make it to the news.

But even so, Mika didn’t really feel too good about the news.

>X<

I turned 17 this year.

One day, I was invited to Tokyo for some dinner. Alone, in a fancy restaurant inside a hotel. In front of me was Mika’s father, who looked so pale and sleep-depriven.

We talked about Mika, of course. Listening to the story, I don’t think the two of them had ever properly talked these years.

When I asked him about why he let her daughter live with a stranger’s family, let alone to a boy he has no knowledge about, he replied to me.

“It’s the least thing a no-good father like me can do for my lovely daughter. It is to make up for the time I separated her from you too.”

… I heard about why Mika suddenly moved away. About how she never actually met with her mother properly, and about the struggle this man had to go as a father while doing some business.

The company he has now wasn’t really a big one, but it is a profitable one for sure. It is thanks to his skill and connections.

But the irony is, he didn’t know how to talk with her daughter. He thought he took so much from her that he didn’t have any right to say anything about her life.

“... Mikazuki-san. May I say something?”

“Do you know how often that girl praised your hard work? That even though you went through many hardships and can’t really make any time for her, you still made her the best curry in the world?”

“Huh…?”

“Did you also know that she can’t eat your curry anymore ever since what happened at the CM shooting?”

“Huh!? But she was… huh?”

As expected, Mika didn’t talk about the incident to her father. She must’ve been forcing herself to not make her father worry.

I told him a lot of the memories Mika and I made during these years. The side of the daughter he never knew of. I want him to know her daughter more. I want them to be able to communicate better.

“I want… Mika to properly smile again…”

Yeah, ever since that day, I never find herself smiling from the bottom of her heart. Maybe, if it’s her father…

“... Yuu-kun, you actually loved my daughter so much, didn't you?”

“... well, yeah. If not, I would’ve rejected her so long ago.”

“Haha, I see… I’ve forgotten how many years since I had a proper talk with that girl… yeah, I’ll try to call her tonight for a long talk.”

“Please do, since you’re the only family member she had.”

“Soon, your whole family will be too to hers, right?”

“Bwuh!?” I spitted the juice.

“Please take care of my daughter from now on.”

After dinner, we walked to the station together.

“Oh yeah, by the way, your father has helped me when I was struggling with my business, do you know that?”

“My father did?”

“Yeah, and I attended the funeral, barely made it in time.”

“Oh… sorry, I don’t remember much about what happened at the funeral.”

“You know, Yuuma-kun. That’s also the day I was deeply impressed by a teenager for the first time in my life. Your speech that day about how you want to protect your family in your father’s place, deeply left an impact in my heart.”

“I see…? Everyone said that my speech was great, but I think that’s a given since I’m the only man left in the family.”

“Yeah, even so, that’s what made me envy you.”

“I’m not that great of a person to be envied of.”

“See, that mature part of you is what I envied. This is the first time I told this story to someone other than my wife…”

Mika’s mom, huh…

“I ran away from my home back when I was a highschooler. I pursued the path of the cook, but failed miserably. I refused to go back and applied for jobs everywhere, and then I was lucky enough to enter a company and built so many connections because I was so sociable. I even got tasked to make some negotiations.”

He has more guts than he looks, and that somewhat made me feel a bit envious of him.

“But when I remembered about my parents and wanted to check on them, I found it’s already too late. They are long gone… but, the two of them were actually taking care of a woman who fled the big city, and I heard all the things that happened when I was gone from her. She even cooked my mom’s special dish, red seabream curry with kecap manis.”

“Kecap manis?”

“It is sweet soy sauce, pretty common in Indonesia, and Yume loved it in her curry too… wait, that’s not the important part now.”

Kecap manis, huh? I’ll remember that.

“We were filling out the loss we had with each other, and eventually fell in love with each other, and got married.”

“So that person is…”

“Yeah, she’s Yume-chan’s mother, Amane. I only found out she had a weak body after she conceived Yume-chan. She was so stubborn to give Yume-chan a chance at life. She fell into a coma after giving birth to Yume-chan, and never had a chance to even hold her… we moved to Singapore for a while because Amane’s body was getting weaker, before she finally let out her last breath.”

So that’s why they suddenly moved out, huh…

Now that I think of it, Mika’s never really talked about her mom, but that’s because she had no memories of being together with her, huh…

“I made Yume-chan go through with my selfishness back then, so I want to make up for it by letting her do whatever she wants.”

“Aren’t you giving her too much freedom?”

“Haha, you might be ri–” *STAB*

At that moment, something flashed in my mind. The wound on my father’s body, that never really bothered me up until now.

Red liquid started to pour down from the wound… of Mikazuki-san’s…

I caught him before falling, and tried to block the blood leaking out of his wound with one hand while the other was dialing for an ambulance.

I looked around for the culprit, and checked their running posture and overall figure. I will definitely catch you.

“Someone got stabbed, the place is near Shibuya station! Mikazuki-san! Hang in there!”

“Yuuma-kun… hear me out…”

“No, do it after you are back in shape! Don’t make such a bad omen!”

“I left a USB inside the safe at our apartment… The password is 923155…”

“Stop, sir! Don’t speak anymore! An ambulance will come soon!”

“It is filled with all my passwords… and numbers for my financial accounts… please use them to make Yume-chan happy…”

“Don’t say that, sir! You’re gonna make it out alive!”

… huh…? Even though I barely knew him, I was shedding tears…

Was it because I remembered my father? I’m not really sure.

But what I’m sure of that night was the cold truth of the world.

Mika’s father’s death because of blood loss…

I could only hear the rain outside the hospital, and Mika’s crying.

The next day, I helped the police in pointing out the culprit. We found him immediately thanks to surveillance cameras.

The culprit was the CEO of a small business that recently failed miserably just because they picked up a fight against Dreamin.co, Mika’s father’s company.

Dreamin.co was later bought by a large group and got back on the track again.