Shiina Chizuru's cheeks flushed crimson, and her eyes darted helplessly left and right.
Seeming to sense the person in front of her looking down, Shiina Chizuru finally dared to look up.
Heaven help her, this was the first time in Shiina Chizuru's life she had such intimate contact with a peer of the opposite sex. Her head bumped against Hayato's chest, yet it felt like a stone hitting her own heart.
But even with their eyes locked, Shiina Chizuru's current vision was blurry. Her eyes seemed to have lost their sense of distance, seeing everything out of focus.
In fact, she barely dared to look at this boy, who was so close, more than a head taller than her.
"…"
Shiina Chizuru's heart pounded.
He, he wouldn't… just go with the flow and do something to her right here, would he?
Although she guessed this was an unavoidable matter, still…
Hayato gazed tenderly at Shiina Chizuru's flushed face, then said softly:
"Ah, you have dark circles, quite severe ones."
"…"
"To have such dark circles at only seventeen or eighteen, you'll age very quickly later on."
"…"
"Tsk tsk tsk, do young girls nowadays not pay attention to skincare anymore?"
Then, Hayato's hands loosened with ease.
Shiina Chizuru, as he expected, immediately turned around, took out her phone, and used it as a mirror to check herself.
Even Shiina Chizuru, a girl who usually didn't pay much attention to makeup, would be quite concerned about such things.
There really were some… Shiina Chizuru didn't usually look in the mirror much. When she put on makeup, she'd just casually apply some light makeup and head out, valuing natural beauty and doing as she pleased, so she hadn't really noticed.
Indeed, there was a thin layer of purplish-blue under her eyes.
Didn't sleep well? — Of course not, how could she have slept well these past two days?
As soon as she fell asleep, the devil's figure would appear before her eyes… scaring her whole body into trembling.
"I should put on some eye cream…"
"Skincare products are just embellishments; the main thing is rest, rest," Hayato said sagely.
"Bastard…"
The instigator, however, was still unaware, still speaking brazenly. Shiina Chizuru, though, only dared to curse softly, then remembered the important matter and said, "This morning, I heard someone say that Oshika Masaru has recently been boasting that he met a very powerful person… Will he come back to cause you trouble?"
"Mind your own business," Hayato said indifferently, "You don't need to worry about me."
"Who's worrying about you?"
Shiina Chizuru spat. She was just afraid that if he got beaten up, wouldn't she fall into the hands of Tamura and Oshika Masaru?
Compared to those two guys, the boy in front of her was practically a great benefactor.
So, she continued to remind him:
"I heard that he's someone from Tokyo… very fierce, seems like not just a delinquent, but also involved with the underworld."
At this point, Shiina Chizuru couldn't help but feel a little worried.
If she told him not to come to school temporarily, then Oshika Masaru's target would definitely shift back to her…
"Tokyo?"
Hayato heard it and chuckled. "Heh, Tokyo. If that guy came from Beijing, then I might be a little scared…" he said, imagining someone with a 'heaven-reaching' tattoo on his head.
Shiina Chizuru wanted to remind him of something else, but seeing Hayato's perpetually unamused Sima face, she stopped talking.
She wrinkled her cute little nose.
It would be best if he and that group of scoundrels suffered mutual destruction, so she could have an easy time!
…
Oshika Masaru and Tamura were discharged from the hospital.
After a night of examinations yesterday and another day of examinations today, the hospital still found nothing.
After the two regained consciousness, they could only announce:
Nothing's wrong, you've recovered, you can go.
Then Oshika Masaru and Tamura could only be discharged confusedly, just as they had been admitted confusedly.
Walking on the road outside the hospital, Tamura looked at Oshika Masaru's sullen Sima face beside him and asked cautiously:
"What should we do about this?"
In truth, Tamura was already a bit scared.
"How about we just let it go?"
"That Anshi Seiji is unnervingly strange."
But it was one thing for Oshika Masaru to be timid in front of Hayato; if he acted the same way in front of Tamura, wouldn't that make him a laughingstock to all the students at Hachijojima High School?
He was furious and gritted his teeth: "Let it go? How could I possibly just let it go!"
"W-what else do you want to do?" Tamura wanted to say that he had seen how his legs went soft just looking at that kid, so how could they possibly beat him.
"Didn't I tell you? I recently met a big brother." Oshika Masaru smiled coldly: "Call for backup!"
As he spoke, he took out his phone and dialed the number for Hayashi Hidemichi.
"Hello?" Hayashi Hidemichi answered.
He waved slightly at Kurashiki Reina, who was not far away, signaling that he had something to do and needed to go out to take a call.
Kurashiki Reina ignored him, instead buying a can of coffee milk from the vending machine and sitting down on the nearby bench.
Kurashiki Reina was now wearing a plain bathrobe, her hair damp, with glistening water droplets on her long, fair neck.
She had just finished soaking in the hot spring.
This was Amagi Onsen Ryokan, and its specialty was the hot springs.
After finishing work, coming here for a soak was truly a treat.
The hot springs at Amagi Onsen Ryokan came in three types.
They were the women's bath, the men's bath, and the mixed bath.
Kurashiki Reina didn't understand the necessity of the third one.
But one had to admit, the therapeutic effects of the hot spring were quite good.
After the soak, most of the fatigue in her body had been washed away, and she even felt a bit floaty.
Just as Kurashiki Reina was reaching for her phone to check the news or something to pass the time, a man sat down next to her, looking very burly.
He looked like a small mountain.
Kurashiki Reina looked up, even though the bench was three or four meters long.
And she was the only one sitting there.
Although she knew this was a public place and the other person had the right to sit wherever they wanted, Kurashiki Reina still sensed ill intent.
"Miss."
Sure enough, the man struck up a conversation with her, his voice carrying a heavy, masculine tone.
"...Huh?" Kurashiki Reina frowned, crossing her left leg over her right and hugging her chest, adopting a defensive posture.
"You're not a local, are you? Where are you from? Ah, I have to say, the hot spring here is truly quite comfortable." The man was probably in his thirties or forties, at least a generation older than Kurashiki Reina.
And as an adult, he was using a casual pickup line to talk to a high school girl so much younger than him, which made alarm bells ring in Kurashiki Reina's mind.
"Later on," the man pointed to a spot not far away, which was the entrance to the hot spring, "shall we go soak in the mixed bath together? Maybe there will be some unexpected surprises."
Saying this, the man's face was filled with a smile.
His already small eyes were squinted into slits.
Kurashiki Reina also narrowed her eyes, but unlike the man's smile, her brow was furrowed into a deep frown.
"If you're trying to hit on me, forget it. My boyfriend is here with me," Kurashiki Reina said.
"Heh heh, don't worry, your boyfriend won't know~~ We'll be quiet about it..." the man said, licking his lips.
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