There was a moment of silence in Hiroto"s study.
"Could she be a relative of some sort?" Seiji tried posing a question.
"I think so as well." Hiroto nodded. "If I tried to continue investigating, that"s a good place to start from, but I think there"s no more need. She canceled her cell phone number, and her name and ident.i.ty were obviously fake. She pretended to be someone who had died ten years ago… No matter who this girl is, that"s more than enough for me to forbid my son from going out with her again.
"I deleted her cell phone number and picture from my son"s cell phone and told him that she was a scammer who was pretending to be someone who had died many years ago. Although I don"t know what her objective is, she"s definitely not anyone proper, and he"s forbidden from meeting her anymore, and he is to adamantly refuse to talk to her anymore and completely avoid her.
"Hiros.h.i.+ obviously doesn"t want to do this, and he only agreed to do so on the surface due to my pressure.
"Aiko and I have continually been watching him, and haven"t noticed anything abnormal from him recently, nor have we seen that girl around him."
The middle-aged father looked at the teenage boy.
"Harano-kun, I"m telling you all this, not only to answer your question, but also in hope that you"ll be on your guard. If you see this girl, pay attention to not have anything to do with her… don"t become like Hiros.h.i.+ is currently."
His tone was filled with concern of an elder towards a junior.
Seiji smiled at this. "Thank you for your concern, Fuumsan. I shall be cautious."
After Seiji left Hiroto"s study, he was invited by Airi to her room.
Seiji went to her room and chatted with her just like last time.
"Onii-san, I"m going to go to Genhana Middle School starting from next year, and at that time… Can I go to the high school section to look for you?" Airi asked while hugging her large Milk Cream Bunny plus.h.i.+e.
"Of course," Seiji responded. "I"ll be quite happy to have a cute junior come looking for me."
"Cute…" Airi"s heart kept pounding when she heard him call her that.
"Then… Can I call you Seigo Senpai?"
Not Harano Senpai, but Seigo Senpai.
Seiji thought about it, and felt that it was just a way of addressing him, and he didn"t mind too much either way, so he answered with "Sure."
"Nice!" Inside her mind, Airi clenched her fist in a victory pose.
"You can call me "Airi" as well," she said while riding along the momentum.
"Okay, Airi-chan."
The little girl embarra.s.sedly covered half of her face with the plus.h.i.+e when she heard him calling her by name, and she was smiling in a silly manner.
Seiji looked towards her.
"Airi-chan, how"s your current relations.h.i.+p with your brother?"
The little girl paused in surprise for a moment, and then her expression became slightly downcast.
"Brother apologized to me, and I apologized to Brother as well, but… I"m still a little scared of him, and feel like something"s different about him."
"So, the relations.h.i.+p between you is a bit colder than before, is that right?"
Airi nodded.
After that type of incident, it was probably difficult to recover a normal sibling relations.h.i.+p within a short time, especially with the older brother still being in such an unusual state. Seiji thought of Hiros.h.i.+ Fuuma"s expression and behavior and figured that Hiros.h.i.+ had probably remained like this during the entire time after the incident.
Was that girl really just a scammer? Was she someone with "mystical" powers? Did she go out with Hiros.h.i.+ and have s.e.x with him in order to do something like absorb his spiritual essence?
He still couldn"t see anything when he used [Astral Vision] to inspect Hiros.h.i.+ Fuuma. At least, he wasn"t cursed or anything on the surface.
That girl canceled her phone number and hadn"t contacted him again, so this seemed like it was over.
"After some time pa.s.ses, and your brother recovers, you can slowly work on your relations.h.i.+p with him," Seiji told her. "It was his fault for doing that to you, but maybe he"s also a victim of sorts as well."
Airi nodded once again.
"My dad told me that Brother became strange because of a bad girl"s influence."
Well, it would be good if she was just a normal bad girl.
"Has your dad showed you that girl"s picture before?"
"He has. He told me that if I meet her anywhere, that I should avoid her. And if I see her together with Brother, I should use my cell phone to call him or mom immediately."
"Do as your father says," Seiji told her as he thought things over. "Apart from this, call me as well… Perhaps I"ll be able to do something."
Airi blinked at this.
"Seigo Senpai, you"re concerned about what that bad girl is up to?"
"Yeah… Because I think that she might not be an ordinary person."
"Not an ordinary person?"
"It"s not convenient for me to explain, and there"s no need for you to know." Seiji smiled. "At any rate, if you see her, please let me know."
"Okay…" Airi didn"t really understand, but she agreed.
Afterwards, they chatted for a while longer.
Then, Seiji felt it was time to go, so he left and said goodbye.
Before he left, Hiroto Fuuma gave him an exquisite gift box. He only said that it was a small present, and didn"t say what it was.
Seiji politely accepted the present and said goodbye to the Fuuma family members and left like that.
After returning home, he opened up the gift box to find inside a set of exquisite high-cla.s.s tea utensils. He decided to look it up on the internet and found out that this tea set was worth almost 200,000 sakuras, which was quite a serious present for any normal family.
s.h.i.+ka washed the newly opened tea utensils, and made tea using them.
After the tea was ready, Seiji drank some tea together with her and discussed his plan to go to the doujins.h.i.+ convention tomorrow.
s.h.i.+ka was no longer as worried about her "Reaper"s Curse" afflicting her as she used to be, but she still needed to avoid places where people were dense and in large numbers, so she didn"t intend to go.
"If you"re interested, you can watch my stream. If there"s anything you want me to buy for you, let me know," Seiji told her.
Basically, he was going to have s.h.i.+ka share the stream with Hana and watch the doujins.h.i.+ convention… Did this count as taking two more girls with him?
s.h.i.+ka nodded in agreement.
The next day.
Seiji put on his backpack and outfitted himself with the high-quality outdoors streaming equipment before leaving his apartment.
He knocked on the Uehara family"s residence, and Mika came out. She paused for a moment when she saw all the streaming equipment on him.
"I still haven"t begun streaming," Seiji smiled. "The batteries are limited, so I"ll only start streaming when I arrive."
"Oh…" Mika relaxed at hearing this.
The two of them headed together towards the place where everyone had agreed to meet up: an intersection near the business area.
When they arrived, they saw that Kaho was waiting there already.
After greeting each other, the three of them waited for a while, and Chiaki and Yukari arrived.
Yukari was wearing a black windbreaker and a white breathing mask as well as sungla.s.ses and a wool hat, completely covering her face.
"So this is what she meant by "completely disguising herself…"" Seiji felt as if he was looking at himself from the day of the Winter Snow Festival.
"Good morning, everyone, I"m Reiko." Yukari greeted them in an upbeat tone, before looking towards Kaho. "You must be Lavender, right? h.e.l.lo, nice to meet you."
"h.e.l.lo… Nice to meet you." Kaho looked at her and blinked as she responded.
"You don"t need to mind. Although she"s covering herself up like this, she"s a good person… Probably." Chiaki smiled as she said so.
"The word "probably" is unnecessary!" Yukari retorted.
"Everyone"s here, so let"s get going," Seiji told them.