Once the dazzling department-store fashion show was over, a deep indigo night mist settled over Tokyo’s sky.
A skyscraper sky-lounge restaurant in the heart of Ginza.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows stretched Roppongi’s forest of buildings and its glittering nightscape, while the table before us was elegantly laden with A5 wagyu steak, truffle pasta, and a seasonal dessert course.
"Wow...! Yujin, the view is so pretty, and the food is incredible too! But doesn’t this place look really expensive? Is this okay?"
As Nejire’s blue eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed, I lightly wiped my mouth with a napkin and picked up the bill from the table.
Total payment: 45,400 yen.
Without hesitation, I took out my aunt’s black corporate card and handed it to the waiter.
"Put it through in one payment."
Szzzt—click.
In the exact 0.1 seconds it took for the receipt to print, I could vividly imagine my aunt checking the payment notification at the Tokyo office and screaming bloody murder so loudly the ceiling of her director’s office would blow off: "You thieving little bastard of a nephew—!!"
It’s an expense for improving intern welfare and nourishing the brain cells of U.A.’s next top-ranked admittee, that’s all.
With a faint smirk, I shoved the card back into my wallet.
I could just clean up the matter of my aunt’s spine-shattering backhand tomorrow by taking first place at the U.A. exam.
"Now that dinner is over, allow me to escort you to the highlight of today’s date."
"Huh? The highlight?!"
Leaving the restaurant, I led Nejire by the hand toward a quiet rooftop emergency stairwell.
Then, quietly threading my fingers through her pale ones, I lightly flicked my thumb.
The [3x3 Cube] orbiting fifteen centimeters above my left shoulder seized the atmospheric coordinate system over Tokyo down to the nanosecond, while the black inverted-cross piercing in my left earlobe exhaled an icy chill.
• Target coordinates: Above the steel transmission tower at the top of Tokyo Tower.
• Ground-friction coefficient: zero (0).
• Localized spatial-compression vertical consecutive jumps.
Fsssh—
"Ah...?!"
Tokyo’s dazzling neon signs and forest of buildings plunged beneath our feet, swept up in a momentary spatial distortion.
—!
After folding and stepping on the atmospheric boundary three times, we landed atop the steel railing of Tokyo Tower’s highest spire, a place no ordinary person could reach.
The biting wind hundreds of meters above the ground was perfectly dampened by the minute spatial filter in my frontal lobe, scattering as softly as a breeze. Before us, an entrancing 360-degree panoramic night view of all Tokyo poured down like a spilled Milky Way.
Gorgeous lights glittering beneath the dark winter sky.
And the two of us standing above them.
"...Woooow."
Nejire caught her breath and gazed, spellbound, down at the sea of lights before her.
Her blue wavy hair fluttered in the wind, and her blue eyes shone brilliantly, reflecting the nightscape.
Looking down at that fairy-like profile, I let out my usual sly, cool smile.
"What do you think, upperclassman? This is the best spot in Tokyo for a night view. Are you pleased with the results of my internal coordinate-system calculations?"
"Yeah, I love it...! It’s the best, Yujin!"
Overcome with emotion, Nejire abruptly burrowed into my arms. In the night wind hundreds of meters above the ground, I naturally wrapped my arms around the back of the blue-haired fairy who fit so snugly against my chest.
The black inverted-cross piercing in my earlobe and the [3x3 Cube] above my shoulder maintained a mild temperature as I cocked up one corner of my mouth.
"This is a personalized one-on-one service exclusively for Tokyo’s finest VIP customer."
As Nejire quietly felt my heartbeat from within my embrace, she pressed her forehead against my chest and spoke in a low mumble.
"But... Yujin, you’re so handsome and such a good talker, so you must have dated a lot when you were in Korea, right? I’ve always been called weird and spacey... I don’t really have many friends, and I’ve honestly never dated anyone before. So I was worried that maybe I’d be a bother to you, or a burden..."
There was an unexpectedly cautious anxiety in the voice of U.A.’s Big Three member who usually bounced around as though nothing in the world could scare her.
A laugh slipped out at that pointless worry. Brushing Nejire’s blue waves back, I slipped one hand into my slacks pocket and delivered the most narcissistic speech imaginable.
"Ha, why are you going out of your way to worry about something so pointless? I’ve never had a relationship last longer than a week either."
"...Huh? Really?!"
Nejire lifted her head from my chest, blinking her blue eyes.
"Of course. It’s just that every girl I’ve been with until now was seriously beneath the standard needed to handle my dazzling looks and top 0.001-percent frontal-lobe processing specs. You’re the only person who has ever matched my utterly absurd level and class, so what are you talking about, being a burden?"
In my own mind, it was a perfect, sweet line that elevated Nejire as the one and only person in the world.
But—
"..."
In an instant, Nejire’s body stiffened in my arms. The lively light in her sparkling blue eyes slowly went out for a moment, and an aura so deep and dark it was almost chilling began to seep out.
Clutching the collar of my shirt tightly, Nejire asked in a calm, low voice completely unlike her fairy-like tone from moments ago.
"...Yujin."
"...Yes?"
"Then... how many people have you dated?"
"..."
At once, the black inverted-cross piercing in my left earlobe froze solid, and even the [3x3 Cube] orbiting over my shoulder stopped its internal gears.
...Fuck. That was completely the wrong answer.
The genius brain that could unravel complex spacetime coordinate systems in 0.1 seconds belatedly realized that it had stepped on the real-world catastrophic death trap known as the number of ex-girlfriends.
Cold sweat ran down my back, but I forced on a shameless front and awkwardly raised the corners of my mouth.
"N-No, upperclassman! Why does that matter? Throwing statistical data from the past into the trash is a fundamental qualification for anyone in the sciences! The most important thing is... the absolute present fact that you and I are watching Tokyo’s night view together at this very moment, isn’t it?!"
A far more vicious and chilling blue murderous aura than even the wind atop Tokyo Tower quietly descended over the head of the examinee spouting awkward sophistry.
Within the silence that seemed to freeze the sky above Tokyo Tower, Nejire’s stiff cheeks slowly relaxed. The cold blue eyes that had gone dark filled once more with her usual lively light, and then a bright smile spread across her face with a snort.
"Pfft, ahaha! I’m kidding, I’m kidding!"
Nejire stretched out the hand that had been gripping my chest and ruthlessly mussed up my black hair, which I had slicked back with wax.
"You shot up so tall and put on such an act like you’re an adult, but seeing you stammer because you got flustered, you’re still completely adorable! Yujin needs to stay cute!"
Even as my hair became a total mess, the cold sweat running down my back dried, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief inwardly.
...I survived. I evaded the crisis with my dazzling logical calculations—
But just as I lowered the defense switch in my frontal lobe and was about to relax—
Slide.
Nejire’s pale hands, which had been stroking my hair, brushed past my ears before tightly wrapping around the back of my neck and pulling my face close enough that our noses nearly touched.
Her breath brushed my ear from that intimate distance. Nejire was smiling brightly, her eyes beautifully curved, but within those blue irises was a faint glow of possessiveness far clearer and heavier than before.
"But? You’ll need to watch how you behave from now on, so that the number of your ex-girlfriends doesn’t go up by even one in front of me... okay?"
A sweet whisper tickled my ear.
"I don’t have the slightest intention of letting anyone else have you, Yujin. You’re going to be mine forever, so be prepared, okay?"
"..."
The [3x3 Cube] orbiting over my shoulder came to a sudden stop, while the black inverted-cross piercing in my earlobe felt colder than cold—as if it were freezing over.
...Wait a second.
An ominous calculation code flashed through my brainstem.
The infinite-engine-level restraint and possessiveness hidden behind this blue-haired fairy’s innocent smile.
The thought began to race furiously through my head that my improvised response from moments ago—the one I thought had merely gotten me out of danger—might actually have been the worst, most fatal wrong answer, one that had completely bound my entire life in the grip of U.A.’s Big Three.
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