"Sigh. You don't have friends, you wouldn't understand."
"Ahem, ahem..."
Yukinoshita Yukino, who was in the middle of drinking tea, was immediately angered to the point of choking when she heard Mori Shinra's words.
What do you mean, you don't have friends, you wouldn't understand?
That's hilarious. It's not like she even really wants friends. Has anyone told you that you sound incredibly pretentious?
Facing Yukinoshita Yukino's unfriendly expression, Mori Shinra continued, "I'll ask him about it later. More importantly, when there are no requests, what's the usual plan for our club?"
Yukinoshita Yukino lowered her head in thought for a moment, then looked up at Mori Shinra and answered in an uncertain tone, "Read?"
"Why is that a question?" Shinra retorted.
"When there are no requests, you can just do your own thing," Yukinoshita Yukino said seriously, then added after a thought, "It's best not to make too much noise."
"Will other clubs complain?"
"It will disturb my reading."
Shinra was speechless. Seeing that Yukinoshita Yukino had already opened her paperback book, he simply took out his own phone.
Even if he was going to read, he would use his phone. After all, a paperback isn't much bigger than a phone, so why not use the phone? Turning pages is more convenient on a phone, too!
Speaking of phones, Shinra didn't quite understand why so many Japanese high school students around him still loved to use flip phones with keypads when the smartphone era had clearly arrived.
But since he had his phone out, Shinra looked at Yukinoshita Yukino and said:
"Yukinoshita-san."
"What is it?"
"Do you have LINE?"
Yukinoshita Yukino glanced at Mori Shinra's phone, closed the book she had just opened, and then took out her own phone from her school bag... a smartphone.
"Here." Yukinoshita pulled up her LINE ID and handed her phone directly to him.
After knowing each other for two weeks, the two officially exchanged contact information.
The process was perfectly ordinary, with no 'doki...doki...' heartbeats. Both of them felt it was a trivial matter.
After he finished, Shinra returned the phone to Yukinoshita. It was only after getting her phone back that she belatedly realized, had she just exchanged contact information with a member of the opposite sex?
She hadn't thought anything of it at first, but now that she considered it, her heart inexplicably started beating a little faster.
Yukinoshita Yukino secretly glanced at Mori Shinra, who was busy with his phone. Seeing that he didn't seem to have any particular reaction, she silently chided herself for overthinking.
As the club president, what's wrong with adding a member's contact information?
Buzz buzz~
Her phone suddenly vibrated. Yukinoshita lit up the screen and saw that Mori Shinra had sent a cat sticker.
But unlike ordinary cute cat stickers, the cat he sent... was difficult for her to describe in words.
The picture was of an orange cat. It was hard to tell if it was the camera angle or if the cat was in a state of stress, but its ears were pressed flat against its head. Overall, it gave off a feeling of being both fierce and cowardly, both well-behaved and mischievous.
OldManHissing.jpg
Where did he find this cat picture?
The sticker clearly wasn't cute, yet it gave her an irresistible urge to save it. In fact, that's exactly what she did. She silently long-pressed the image to save it, then properly replied to Mori Shinra with a 'Hello'.
The moment she sent that 'Hello', she received another sticker. It was the same cat, but this time with a rose added, making it look like the cat was presenting a flower.
Same procedure: long-press, save.
YourStickerIsGreatButNowItsMine.jpg
Perhaps even Yukinoshita herself didn't notice that the corners of her mouth were already starting to curve upwards uncontrollably.
"By the way, you're so popular with everyone, Yukinoshita-san, so why don't you have any friends?" Shinra deliberately poked the sore spot.
Sure enough, the corners of Yukinoshita's mouth, which had just started to lift, immediately pressed back down upon hearing his words. Her gaze shifted from her phone, met his for a moment, and then moved to the side.
"...You have friends, you wouldn't understand."
Okay, so it's a boomerang, is it?
Shinra wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but he felt like the girl's cheeks were puffing out slightly.
Looking at the swirling colors of emotion around her, Shinra said, "Who says I don't understand? Hmm... you can be perfectly happy on your own. The idea that you absolutely have to be with other people is what's lame, right?"
"..." Yukinoshita Yukino glanced at Shinra, then immediately looked away and closed her eyes, as if deep in thought.
"You like being alone, but other people take it upon themselves to pity you. That's an annoying feeling, isn't it?"
"You definitely have very few friends!" Yukinoshita Yukino said, as if in a fit of pique.
People who are too perceptive can't make many friends. It wasn't that she had never met socially adept people with high emotional intelligence, but she had never seen anyone quite like Mori Shinra.
—It was as if he could read minds.
"Haha, my apologies. It's just that you're very easy to read, Yukinoshita-san."
Me? Easy to read?
Yukinoshita Yukino felt like he was being ironic. Her entire life experience had proven one thing to her: it is impossible for people to truly understand one another.
"No one has ever thought so. If..." Yukinoshita said, as if talking to herself, yet also as if replying to him.
In any case, after saying this, Yukinoshita was like a hedgehog curled into a ball. She picked up her book, indicating with her actions that she was now refusing to chat.
Shinra had no problem with that; his goal had already been achieved anyway.
In his field of vision, a golden exclamation mark had appeared above Yukinoshita's head.
You see, didn't I say a request would come?
After two weeks of research, Shinra had come to a preliminary understanding of the Wish Power system's mechanics.
First, not just anyone's wish could generate Wish Points. The person had to have a certain connection, or what one might call causality, with him.
Second, wishes also had levels. The lowest level should be gray, which only gave one Wish Point. Shinra's first Wish Point came from completing a gray wish. The highest level should be gold, like the one that had just appeared above Yukinoshita's head.
Third, there were various ways to trigger a wish, but through his tests over the past few days, Shinra found that a wish was more likely to be triggered when the target's emotions fluctuated greatly. This point had just been verified with Yukinoshita.
Fourth, the difficulty of completion varied according to the level of the wish. He could directly see the details of a gray-level wish, but for a gold-level wish, he couldn't get any information from it at all.
Shinra initially deduced two possibilities. One was that high-level wishes had prerequisite tasks. The other was that his relationship with Yukinoshita wasn't deep enough yet, and she had no intention of entrusting her wish to him.
The above two possibilities were not mutually exclusive; they could both be true at the same time.
But no matter what, Shinra felt that since Yukinoshita could display an exclamation mark, there would surely be a day when it could be resolved.
Don't fear a difficult wish, fear having no wish at all!