Following Tohka’s lead, we ended up in front of a shop in the shopping district.
According to Tohka, this place was famous for its kinako bread.
"Hey! I bought it! The kinako bread here is special. Come on, Len! Eat up! You too, Shido, Origami, and Hieta!"
Tohka bought kinako bread for all of us, and the nutty aroma made it feel like the bread itself was proudly showing off how good it was.
"...Hmm. So this is kinako bread."
Len looked the bread over from top to bottom, then took a bite without hesitation.
I tried a bite too. It was my first time eating it, so I hadn’t expected much, but it was surprisingly good.
The fluffy texture, the nutty flavor, and the gentle sweetness made it easy to see why Tohka liked this one best out of all breads.
"Well? It’s good, right, Len?"
"Hmm... yes. The fragrant flavor and soft texture make it fair to say it’s delicious."
Len seemed fairly satisfied too.
"How about you, Hieta?"
"Mm. It’s tasty, sure. It’s just not really my thing."
It was good, but at least for me, it wasn’t a match.
To begin with, I didn’t even like bread that much, and I preferred salty things over nutty ones, so I’d eat it if it was there, but not enough to go out of my way to buy it.
"That’s a shame. Then, Len, do you think it could become something you like?"
Tohka asked Len that with eyes full of expectation.
She’d bought the kinako bread she liked in order to make something Len would like, so it was understandable that she’d be hopeful. But judging from Len’s meaningful expression, I didn’t think a good answer was coming.
"That... who knows."
As expected, Len’s answer landed somewhere between yes and no.
"Oh... I see."
Tohka looked a little deflated, as if she’d been discouraged by the answer.
"...You’re off."
Tobiichi stepped in to give Tohka a bit of advice.
"Hm? But kinako bread is sweet."
"That’s not what I mean. Sure, this kinako bread is delicious. It’s the kind of quality that makes me understand why you’d want to brag about it."
"Fufu, of course it is."
The two of them had grown pretty close since Tobiichi sealed Tohka.
Whenever I saw Tobiichi praising Tohka like that, it felt a little strange because it was different from the memories I had of the old world.
Still, it was clearly a good change, so I kept quiet and watched as Tobiichi put on a serious expression.
"Even so, something’s still missing. With a small arrangement, it has the potential for a total transformation."
"W-What!? How do I do that!?"
"Simple. Shido, take a bite of this kinako bread."
Shido took the bread Tobiichi handed him and bit into it with a slightly puzzled look.
"Yeah. It’s good. So what do I add to make it better?"
At Shido’s question, Tobiichi lifted the bread high and said with a proud face,
"Complete. The supreme delicacy. The kinako bread Shido ate."
"Oh, shit."
So that was the arrangement she meant: Shido indirect-kiss edition.
Shido looked at me like he thought he’d misheard, but honestly, I didn’t really want to deny it either.
"R-Really? It becomes tastier because of that...?"
Tohka swallowed hard and stared at the kinako bread Shido had bitten into. I slapped my forehead, and Shido panicked and tried to stop her.
"Don’t fall for it, Tohka! Origami is smart, but sometimes she turns into an idiot!"
Not sometimes. I think she only turns into an idiot when it involves Shido.
I wanted to say that, but I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t feel like getting glared at for no reason.
"I-Is that so...? Hmm, I thought if it was even tastier kinako bread, Len would like it..."
As Tohka looked even more disappointed than before, Len opened her mouth as if there was nothing she could do about it.
"Ah, don’t misunderstand, Tohka. This is my issue. The feeling of liking something is just... a little hard for me to understand. So don’t worry. The bread you gave me isn’t bad."
Despite her suspicious appearance, the way she soothed Tohka somehow overlapped with an older sister comforting a younger one.
Maybe that feeling was even stronger because the two of them really did resemble each other quite a bit.
"I see. Well, everyone has their own tastes. I hope Len finds something she likes someday!"
At Tohka’s brightened-up words, Len gave a somewhat troubled smile for some reason.
We ate the kinako bread Tohka had bought and talked about all sorts of things.
The main topic was stories about things that had happened to each of us.
Len said she didn’t really have any stories yet, so she mostly listened.
"The one I remember most is when I first met Hieta."
"Ah, that time was a little..."
If she meant when I first met Shido, she was probably talking about the time after I joined Ratatoskr and blasted him away with [Force].
Since Tobiichi was the one who’d fired the shot then, she looked a little awkward when that story came up.
"Back then..."
"You don’t need to apologize. It’s in the past. And I’m talking about Hieta, not Origami, right?"
"Why me...?"
Of all things, she had to bring up that era with me too. If there was a mouse hole nearby, I wanted to crawl into it and disappear.
I’d done so many bizarre things back then because my head had clearly been messed up, so I’d generated a mountain of black history.
"Oh? When you first met him, huh."
"When I heard there was a male spirit, I thought I’d have to take Hieta down and nearly had a heart attack."
"That happened too."
It was a misunderstanding that had already been cleared up now because I’d told the people at the spirit mansion and on [Fraxinus] about my past, but before that, they’d really thought I was a spirit.
It had all happened because the souls making up my body, and the source of my strength, emitted a wavelength similar to the spirit waves spirits gave off.
Well, AST and DEM still seemed to think I was a spirit, but since we were enemies anyway, it didn’t matter.
Come to think of it, there was probably at least one person whose hair got burned by the [Warm Flame] when we ran into AST last time. Hopefully they were okay.
"Speaking of spirits, I just remembered something. One of the spirits AST has to watch out for most is Hieta."
As Tobiichi, who’d been quietly thinking with her eyes closed, suddenly shared a piece of news none of us had heard before, we all stared at her in shock.
"Huh?"
"Me?"
"Hieta?"
"Me?"
I couldn’t make sense of it at all.
What on earth had I done to get marked as a dangerous target?
All I’d done was...
"Electrocuting them, burning the ends of their hair, smashing CR-Units, dodging every attack while mocking them, and attacking their optic nerves with bright light, among other things. With all the physical and mental exhaustion, pain, and property damage that came out of that, that’s how he ended up on the list."
"H-Hieta, what the hell did you do...?"
"Uh..."
Just from the things Tobiichi listed, it was obvious I’d done a lot of stuff.
Burning hair was probably the most vicious of them, but honestly, I thought that was just part of fighting.
I had no reason to fight according to the enemy’s convenience.
But for some reason, Shido was looking at me like I was a monster.
Tohka had the same kind of look, which was a little absurd.
"Why are you looking at me like that? I’m innocent. If AST had just run away the moment they saw me, none of that would’ve happened."
I’d only done all that because they kept picking fights. If they’d backed off when they saw me, none of it would’ve happened.
When I voiced that opinion, Shido’s gaze got even harsher.
Now he was looking at me like I was completely insane.
If he was going to look at me like that, I had a card of my own.
"If it’s come to this, then about Shido back in those days..."
"Aaaahhh!!!"
The moment I tried to bring up the chuunibyou phase I’d seen in the video, the man himself spasmed and clamped a hand over my mouth.
I’d created black history here too, sure, but compared to Shido, who’d already been a person in this world, mine didn’t even come close in either quality or quantity. In a deal like this, I always had the advantage.
"H-Hieta! That story is a little...!"
Even though Shido desperately covered my mouth and tried his best to hold out, Tobiichi moved in close and, with the brightest eyes I’d seen all day, said to me,
"That time, you say? Tell me in detail."
As expected of Tobiichi. She was truly the kind of crazy person who wanted to dig up anything and everything about Shido.
Was this what they called a lunatic with clear eyes?
"Mmph. Mmph-mmph."
When I pointed at Shido’s hand and made it very clear that I wanted to speak but couldn’t because my mouth was covered, Tobiichi looked at him with a face full of resolve.
"...Shido, go wait outside for a bit."
"W-Wait! Origami! Just a second!"
Shido’s scream as he was shoved aside with no power to resist because it was Tobiichi made my mouth itch.
Well then, I should say it, right?
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