Is that...?

“Your order's ready” A pot of ramen was placed on a table

The girl kept smiling as she confronted a scrooge-looking Shigeru in front of her. Shigeru went straight to the pot and filled up his bowl. Glancing at her with a death glare caused her to start sweating out of guilt from what she did to Shigeru. His head is covered with bandages while the bike marks are still on his face, Shigeru’s pissed cause his plans are ruin cause of this girl that doesn’t know how to ride a bike, he’s so pissed that his wings are about burst out and kill her and the humans in sight.

Now that the mask he wears is gone.

While she is just there, trying her best to treat him as a sin she needed to pay. But it baffled her to hear that he was stealing from a store

‘Wait, why am I feeling guilty about this? He’s a criminal. He stole food from a local supermarket, maybe he’s hungry, but HE has a lot of money in his pocket so why wouldn’t he pay?’ The blue-haired girl is having an existential crisis in her head, thinking if this guy is a good person or not

“Hey, miss” Shigeru ask irritably, which made her jumped out of surprise “Have you seen a wooden mask somewhere?”

“Uhm, is there a mask somewhere?” Ibuki tilted her head with a dumbfounded look on her face “But I did feel something like I hit a hardwood in front of me”

‘Shit, The mask broke in half. Now I can’t show my real self in front of the camera’ He started panicking as he imagined himself with his real deadpan personality

The mask that Shigeru mentioned is what makes him into a reckless teenager and a happy-go-lucky Vtuber. He obtained the mask while fighting off against a Mental user who’s after him, due to revenge, not the money. He decided to use the mask in order for those traumatizing memories to stay back away from his brain. That’s one of the reasons why ‘The Dark Wings Sightings’ have stopped.

Now without it, the sightings will start again pretty soon. But at the moment, he seems to be acting pretty casually but he doesn’t want to keep his guard down, he knows he can’t control his powers, his ability, it’s out of his control. He may be overpowered by others but he has no grasp of control, he can only do certain abilities, just enough to cause a large amount of destruction.

But right now, he regretted letting his guard down after realizing that he got hit by a bike by this blue-haired girl in front of her. He can’t seem to be vulgar to her, since this is the first time Shigeru saw a beautiful girl after the incident.

This girl has an intimidating beauty that this is also the first time someone made his shattered heart skip a beat. She has long, silky, glimmering hair that makes her look like an idol you see on a stage, performing. Some parts of her hair cover the right side of her face but her sparkly blue eye in her left is so captivating for Shigeru to look at.

‘Damn it, don’t let the looks fool you, she might try and manipulate you and ask you for money.’ He visualized a sadistic look of the girl in front of her

‘But’ He took a glace on her, she was carefully eating her ramen plate, but suddenly, she jumped due to a small portion of the hot soup touched her cheek

‘From what I’ve seen, she acts like an idiot, that enough doesn’t make me trust her yet, From all the times I’ve been manipulated to the point that it turned me into this monster, makes me have trust issues. Besides, I don’t even know this girl yet, of course, I don’t have to trust her. But how can she trust me when those old farts told her about me stealing’ He felt down again, he placed his chin on the table, as he’s in despair knowing that he can’t even use his own logic.

The girl seems to notice that Shigeru seems to be down, it makes her think that it’s related to his stealing deeds. She couldn’t stand to see someone feeling down for something idiotic, at least to her own conditions. She smirked as she patted Shigeru’s head. Suddenly surprised, Shigeru looked at the girl.

“Don’t worry, Don’t worry, Whatever you did, I’ll cover it up for you” She tilted her head, winked, stuck her tongue out to her side, and she compressed her left hand to form a knuckle and moved it like a cat, striking a small pose

To Shigeru’s surprise, That pose, it hit him like a truck ran him over to be transported to another world, it’s not that it’s cute, but, it is cute. He was just surprised due to the fact that he hasn’t seen someone did that pose for so long.

“Wait, Is that...?” Shigeru paused as his legs started to shake uncontrollably “Miyami Risu’s killer pose?!”

“Oh, so you know her” Ibuki chuckled “Not expecting from someone who looks grouchy all the time”

‘You piece of shit, you got balls of steel to say that in front of me?’ He furiously thought as he tried his best to make a fake smile

“Well, she is a very popular idol, why wouldn’t I know her?” Shigeru slammed his hand on the table, so loud that it made Ibuki jumped out of surprise.

“She’s literally the idol of the century, I just couldn’t stop jamming every time her music plays everywhere, sadly that she died, but at least she died doing the things she loved” Shigeru placed his hand on his forehead and started to flow some tears in eyes

Ibuki just sat there, deadpan just see through Shigeru’s lies, she looked fed up with this situation cause he’s creating a scene that made the two of them look like freaks.

“You know, no need to exaggerate it, I’m also a fan,” Ibuki said, swiping her sweat “You know, you literally trying so hard to lie in front of me. Like I told you, you have nothing to worry about me, I won’t report or something, so stop defending yourself and change the topics,”

She smugly looked at Shigeru “Mr. Thief”

‘This stupid girl…’ Shigeru’s blood starts to boil out his anger towards this girl, laughing at him

“It’s true that I loved the idol,” He pointed at her “But that doesn’t change the fact that I still hate you, for hitting me in the face with that stupid bike of yours, Tck” He looked away while continuing to eat his pot of ramen

“You know you sound so fake no matter what, it looks like your trying to put a facade on that personality of yours” She crossed her arms “I don’t know why you steal, even though you have enough money to pay it. I won’t gonna ask about your personal life, since you might have a reason why you do this. Oh, I’m sorry for my late introduction,”

She stood up, gracefully as her hair, sways along with her movements, she offered up her hand to the frustrated looking Shigeru

“My name is Hirai Ibuki, you can call me Ibuki” She smiled as she tilted her head “I don’t want anyone to call me by my last name”

Shigeru suddenly felt a spark of pain from her voice, like it pierced through his heart. It’s not that her voice was bad or just off, he just felt the pain that she’s hiding behind this smile of hers showing in front of him, it’s probably her saying her name out loud. As Shigeru is about to shake her hands, her hands softly shiver, not from nervousness, nor from embarrassment, it’s fear.

Out of the people that Shigeru met, this is the first time he felt the pain of others through communication, he doesn’t even know why this happened, it might be related to his ability, at least that’s what he thinks. He always encounters people that are on the brink of turning into Mental users. He may look like a meany person, but he has a kind heart that sways through the pain of others by communicating using his own pain.

But this is different, this could only mean one thing...

She’s a Mental user, suffering a greater pain as much as he is

The reason he came to this conclusion, is that every time a Mental user comes and hunt him, they always have reasons why they want to capture him, as response, Shigeru felt a spark of pain through their words, it must be their traumatic past.

Especially the last one who almost killed him…

“And you are...?” Ibuki continued to shook his hand as she waits for his respond

“Takeda Shigeru, you can call me neither of my name”

“Nice to meet you, Shigeru, hehe”

She gave Shigeru a sweet smile but all he responded was a nervous chuckle. The two of them let go as Shigeru continue eating his ramen while leaving Ibuki hanging with a smile.

‘Oh no, did I do something wrong? I think I gave him a bad impression, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad’ Ibuki thought while keeping the same smile

Shigeru realized that it was rude for him to never continue the conversation with someone he just met, seeing the lifeless look on Ibuki’s face while keeping the smile as she looked through her phone just paints himself in the wrong light.

“So Ibuki-” Shigeru suddenly paused, glued to Ibuki’s phone cover and keychain. Out of nowhere, Shigeru was shocked all of the sudden, as his body started to shake

With the confused looked on Ibuki’s face as he responded to the frozen shocked Shigeru with a hum, she looked as to where his eye are looking, it embarrassed her as she suddenly remembers who’s on the phone cover and the keychain.

“Hehe, Sorry, It’s really embarrassing to see something like this right?” She chuckles as she scratched her nape out of embarrassment

‘OI! OI! Is that…‘ He thought as he looked closely at the character in the keychain with the appearance of a cute boy with cat ears for headphones, that also has a fashion sense towards purple and blue

‘MY VTUBER AVATAR?!’