Valentine’s Day (2)

She told me to follow her, and we strode down the hallway.

The place she led me to was called the old club building, a structure on school grounds that still looked perfectly clean but had been declared off-limits because it was scheduled for eventual renovation.

I wondered what she planned to do, only for the door to open without any trouble.

So it wasn’t even locked.

As I thought that, my mood was basically, 『Charge In! Encounter with a Nonhuman Being from Another World Arc!』

After all, I had heard the place was going to be renovated, so I had figured there might be something here—some strange entity or phenomenon or whatever. I had actually wanted to visit this place someday.

With that excitement, I spread my magical power through the building in hopes of encountering some mysterious being, but the only presences inside were those of three men who seemed to be in a room at the far end of the second floor.

“…Sigh.”

“…What? Getting scared?”

“Huh?”

I had wanted to use an encounter with the unknown as an opportunity to investigate whether this world might somehow be connected to the Demon Realm I had once lived in, but this was boring.

Even when I had been testing whether I could control my magical power and what I could do with it, I had wanted to meet beings like that, yet for some reason they always hurried off somewhere whenever I approached.

I could tell something was there, but I had never actually managed to meet one because they always ran away.

So I had thought that if something had settled down in a place like this, maybe it would have nowhere to escape and I might actually have a chance… sigh.

Apparently taking my sigh the wrong way, the girl walking diagonally ahead of me—what was her name again, Ko… Ko… something-san—turned around with a slightly smug look and grinned at me with a cheeky, challenging expression.

Well, yeah.

I had certainly been surprised by the sudden change in her behavior, considering how she had gone from looking somewhat subdued and anxious earlier to acting like this.

Aha. She must be an entertainment-industry student hoping to become an actress.

Our school had plenty of students like that, after all.

“Hmph. This is your punishment for getting full of yourself. Don’t blame me if you regret it.”

“Oh?”

“And just so you know, trying to run is pointless. The door was locked the moment we came in.”

“I see.”

“…You’d better hurry up and apologize, even if you have to get down on your knees. Otherwise, something really bad is going to happen to you.”

“My, my.”

“Hey! Have you even been listening to me this whole— You absolutely haven’t been listening at all!”

I had been quietly opening the doors of rooms we passed and peeking inside, while looking around the strangely clean interior of a building supposedly awaiting renovation, when the girl suddenly shouted at me.

She really did not need to yell. I could hear her perfectly well…

“I was listening.”

“Liar! Then tell me what I just said!”

“It’s not like I couldn’t answer something that simple. Umm… 『If I get cocky and make you kneel, I can beat you up』, right?”

“You mixed everything together! And now it sounds like you’re the one doing the beating! The thing that’s locked is the door!”

Well, I admittedly had not been listening all that closely and had mostly let it go in one ear and out the other… apparently I had gotten it slightly wrong.

If she said I had mixed everything together, that meant I had been fairly close, right?

“Sorry, sorry. So what did you say?”

“～～! Forget it, idiot!”

Apparently she was one of those young people with a short temper, because she marched forward as though refusing to explain any further.

Still, why had she brought me all the way out here?

Second period had already started and quite a bit of time had passed, so was she also planning to go home early?

As for the three people farther inside, they seemed to be strangers to me.

Their magical signatures were different from any I had sensed before.

“…Aren’t you scared?”

“Hmm? Of what?”

“…You have some idea what’s happening, don’t you? I went out of my way to bring you somewhere like this, so you must know something’s about to happen.”

“Yeah, more or less.”

My Demon Lord instincts had gone ping, so I had figured something was probably going on and that following her would be the better choice.

Of course, my Demon Lord instincts were not actual precognition, so I had no way of knowing what was happening or why this girl had come to get me.

“…You should seriously apologize before this turns into something that can’t be laughed off.”

“For what?”

“…To Tojo.”

“Tojo? He’s the one who called me here?”

So it was that peculiar spoiled-rich-boy thinker.

But I had not felt his usual persistent stare today, so I had assumed he was absent. His gaze was annoying enough that I always noticed when he was around, and today I had not sensed anything like it.

“…More precisely, his pawns.”

“Pawns?”

“He hangs around with some dangerous people too. These guys are part of that crowd.”

“Umm. So basically, Tojo’s underlings—or friends, whatever—called for me, and they told you to bring me here?”

“…Yeah. That’s right.”

“Hmm.”

“…What?”

“I was just wondering why you were doing what they told you. You don’t seem like you actually like Tojo, and it’s obvious you’re involved with them against your will. Ever since earlier, you’ve been putting on a brave front to hide your anxiety and fear, so I was having trouble reading you.”

“Wha…!?”

Her emotions had felt strange and unsettled from the beginning.

When she first approached me in the classroom, the strongest emotions I sensed from her were impatience and fear.

That was precisely why I had agreed to come along so readily, but when I accepted, what came back from her was relief, followed by something like regret—or perhaps guilt.

And now that we were here, there was tension, fear, and that same impatience from before.

She kept talking to me with a show of bravado to hide all of it, but mixed in were hints of pleading and confession, leaving everything too ambiguous for me to fully read.

This kind of emotional instability was like that of a young child.

She had no conviction, no settled core strong enough to hold herself firm, as though her sense of self were still swaying between the waves. There was a distinctly childish breadth and fluctuation to those emotions.

Hmm.

Her body had grown into that of an adult, but her mind was still immature, or perhaps…

It felt as though her heart had not caught up.

In my previous life, humans had been considered adults at fifteen… Perhaps having such a long period before adulthood in this world meant their hearts stayed childish longer too.

“There, again. This time it’s discomfort—no, maybe fear…? You’re extremely unstable, aren’t you?”

“Wh-What the hell are you…?”

“A dazzling high-school girl. Why?”

“I already know that! God, seriously, what is wrong with you!? Forget it! I don’t care anymore!”

I gave her a perfectly normal answer, yet she got angry with me.

She must have been calcium deficient.

Maybe I should bring her some dried sardines as a gift next time.

The girl stomped onward, and I followed her to a door at the far end of the second floor.

She knocked, opened the door, and went inside, so I followed after her.

Apparently, the room had originally been open as an audiovisual room with monitors installed in it, and unlike the other clubrooms, which had looked like little six-tatami rooms, this one had been made considerably larger.

The desks and chairs had been gathered toward the back, and three men who looked slightly older than me were sitting in chairs, grinning in our direction.

“Good work, Konomi-chan.”

“…Sure.”

“Hah! Wow, she really hates you. Oh, what’s this? A foreigner? Damn, she’s gorgeous!”

“Why don’t we just ignore Tojo and have some fun with her ourselves?”

“I’d love to, but Tojo’s got connections with the higher-ups in our group too. If we pull anything weird, we could seriously end up at the bottom of a river.”

“It’ll be fine if nobody finds out! Just threaten her and she won’t tell anyone!”

“Ahh… well, I guess a little wouldn’t hurt.”

The three men laughed noisily among themselves.

They looked like nothing more than tiny animals barking threats to make themselves look intimidating.

You know, that thing where the smaller the animal, the more desperately it wants to bark and threaten you.

—Still… I see.

…So this girl’s name was Konomi…

People had called her “Kono-chan” and “Konomin” before, so I supposed it really had been that simple…

“Whoa, looks like we scared you stiff. Don’t be so frightened, missy. Tojo ordered us to let both you and your friend go home safely if you listen and do what you’re told. Though I dunno exactly how ‘safe’ you’ll be.”

“My friend?”

“Yeah, your friend. Looks like you really got on Tojo’s bad side. Come over here and take a look.”

I walked farther into the room as instructed, and Konomin started to reach a hand toward me, only to lower it again and remain standing by the door with her head bowed.

What was that about?

Had she been trying to stop me from escaping or something?

It was fine. I had no intention of running, so she could relax.

“Ta-daaah! A touching reunion!”

One of the men pointed the remote in his hand at the monitor and pressed a button, and there—

Tomo appeared on the screen with her hands tied behind her back.

“…Tomo…?”

“Ahh, Tomo-chan, was it? Yeah, yeah. She’s been caught by Tojo and some of our buddies, and right now she’s waiting for you. And we’ve been told to bring you over there. Understand?”

“…I see. Then hurry up and take me there.”

I spoke without emotion, suppressing the feeling boiling up inside me as though it might erupt at any moment.

—Tomo was crying on the screen.

Her eyes were wide with fear.

…Ahh. So that was what this was.

“Hmmm, what should we dooo? Maybe we’ll think about taking you there if you give us a little service first.”

“…Service?”

“Yeah. Entertain us a little and maybe we’ll take you there. You know what I mean, right?”

“I understand what you mean.”

“So, come on. For starters, take off your jacket—”

As the man carelessly reached toward me, I crouched to avoid his hand, swept one of his legs aside to force his stance wide open, and kicked upward.

His body lifted slightly into the air, and before he could even understand what had happened, I grabbed his filthy dyed-blond hair and smashed him into the floor, cracking the surface around him as a red flower bloomed beneath his head.

That was close.

I managed to protect him from my own strength with my magical power and somehow avoid crushing him.

Well, I had cracked the surrounding floor while dispersing the impact, and his head seemed to have split open a little, but as long as he was still properly alive, it should be fine.

I would not particularly mind killing him, but this world did not work that way, after all.

Besides, I still needed them to perform the simple task of leading me to Tomo.

I slowly rose to my feet, glared at the remaining two men who stood frozen in shock, and quietly drew in a breath.

—Ahh. I was angry.

“If you do not wish to have your neck twisted off, answer me at once. I have no intention of arguing with you. Where is Tomo?”

With my red eyes, different from usual, glowing brightly, I threw those words at them.