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Yukino Yukinoshita was on her way to school.
Due to an incident at the beginning of the school year, she had moved out of her home to live alone, and naturally, no longer had a driver or luxury car to pick her up.
However, for the young girl, this instead gave her a hard-won sense of freedom.
And occasionally on the way, she could also see some stray cats. Although most cats are very wary and difficult to approach—which is only natural, as those with particularly low vigilance are likely caught by shelters and neutered—even so, if she could see a cute cat that met her aesthetic, it could still make the young girl's mood good for the entire morning.
Today was no exception. When she passed by the usual haunt of stray cats, she instinctively looked over.
It was a vacant lot for sale, but because the location wasn't particularly good, the sign had been up at the real estate agency for a long time without being sold. At this time, the ground was already covered with weeds. If not for the neighborhood children always playing there, those weeds would probably have already reached people's ankles.
Thanks to such a good ecological environment, Yukino Yukinoshita could always see those little wild cats here on her way to school.
However, today's situation was quite different; before her, there was already an uninvited guest on this vacant lot.
It was a boy wearing a Soubu High School uniform. He held a cat treat stick, shaking it, seemingly trying to lure a few small kittens closer, while making 'tsup tsup tsup' sounds with his mouth.
That sound is usually used to tease dogs, isn't it? As the young girl silently complained, she nonchalantly took a few steps forward. Only then did she see the face of the uninvited guest, as well as the small pet carrier placed at his feet.
To Yukino Yukinoshita's surprise, the person was someone she knew.
To say she 'knew' him wasn't entirely accurate; more precisely, they had only had a slight interaction. Their relationship certainly wasn't good—although her relationship with everyone in the school wasn't good, if others' friendliness towards her was 50, then this person's was probably only around 30, close to the point of hostility if it dropped another 10 points.
After a slight hesitation, the young girl opened her mouth and asked, "Asakura Takuma, what are you doing here?"
The boy turned his head, and the moment he saw Yukino Yukinoshita, his expression, which had been quite gentle from teasing the cats, suddenly turned much more hostile.
"That's none of your business, Miss Yukino, the tattletale?"
"I merely reported your actions to the teacher out of basic human decency," the young girl said, completely unafraid of his rude attitude, only frowning: "If you don't want to be reported, then just be a good person in your daily life."
"You make it sound like I'm a convict," Asakura shrugged, not wanting to get entangled with this person: "What can I say, man."
Although this person seemed very popular before his transmigration, Asakura wasn't a two-dimensional character, and had no interest in characters who were 'tsundere' but not 'dere' in action.
Just like little demon girls, encountering them online or in games can be laughed off, or even joked about, but encountering them in reality just makes one feel like they're a brat who deserves to be grabbed and beaten.
"I'm not a man. Your meaningless words are making me wonder how you got your English grades," the young girl retorted.
Seldom communicating with people, she seemed unaware that Asakura had raised a white flag and did not want to interact with her.
"I don't know if you've heard, there's a idiom called 'suspecting your neighbor of stealing your axe,'" Asakura was almost amused to anger. He directly spoke sarcastically: "Prejudice in people's hearts is a great mountain."
"Of course, I know it. But this has no bearing on the current situation. The neighbor in the idiom didn't have a record of theft, but I cannot trust your character."
Yukino Yukinoshita glanced at the cats hiding in the grass, only peeking their small heads out to watch the two of them, then looked at the pet carrier at Asakura's feet, and asked again, "What were you doing just now?"
"None of your business," Asakura rolled his eyes.
He and Yukino Yukinoshita actually didn't have much animosity before. It was just that Hiratsuka Shizuka wanted him to join the Service Club, but neither Yukino Yukinoshita nor Asakura were interested in it. There were some problems during their negotiation, which eventually led to a small conflict, causing Yukino Yukinoshita to always think Asakura wasn't a good person, and Asakura still didn't like her much to this day.
This was also the first incident that broke his 'anime heroine' filter. After that, he understood that the heroines in anime were not perfect saints, and might not even be considered good people when their positions differed.
It was also after that, that Asakura could face the anime characters appearing in his life with a more normal mindset.
He stood up, intending to ignore her, and decided to move to another place to catch a cat that could help Gokou Ruri with her experiment.
Of course, it wasn't a cat experiment or anything like that; it was simply starting from the simplest part, letting the young girl try to command the cat. As long as the cat could understand her meaning and execute the command, half the task would be completed.
Only after this success would the next experiments be conducted, such as trying to make her command dogs or birds.
"You want to catch a cat?" Yukino Yukinoshita narrowed her eyes and pressed.
"Are you deaf?" Asakura, who was picking up the pet carrier, looked at her unhappily: "Even if I wanted to catch a cat to raise, what does that have to do with you?"
"But in less than half an hour, it will be homeroom. As far as I know, the direction you're heading, this vacant lot, and the school are not on the same line, which means you'll either bring the cat to school or you'll skip class."
Yukino Yukinoshita calmly stated, "Neither of those counts as good behavior."
"Well, thank you for worrying about my business, but again, my business is none of yours, and the teachers will absolutely not find my cat in school. You can go ahead and continue to distort the truth and tattle like yesterday, but whether Hiratsuka and the others will still believe you after you slander me too many times, that's another matter."
Annoyed by her attitude of only pointing fingers with 'correct' statements, Asakura this time said in a deep voice without backing down: "If you're not afraid of being late, then by all means, follow me."
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