27 A Lost Child

"Didn't you guys break up?"

"Ye-" Chizuru who's in her nerdy outfit tries to agree and say that they did break up but gets interrupted.

"What? Who told you that? It was a rough patch, we got through it." Kazuya puts his arm around Chizuru's shoulder.

"That's so good. You guys worked things out."

"Yeah." Kazuya looks to the left to see Chizuru glaring at him.

Her look said, 'It was a mistake to ever think that talking to you at university won't make things a pain in my ass. It was so difficult to get those two off my back, and now they'll be at it again.'

'How did I even understand that from her look?' He blankly thinks to himself.

"So guys, Chizuru is getting late for her class, I'll walk her to class."

"Sure, get back before class starts."

At a seat in the back, a blonde girl is giving the duo of Kazuya and Chizuru a blank look.

"I'm going home." She gets up and picks up her bag.

"Ah Mami, but what about this afternoon's lecture."

"It's Koumigi, right? Just mark me down as here. He's pretty lenient with attendance."

"What's going on? She just left abruptly."

"Maybe she's not feeling well."

"Or maybe it hurts her to be here." Mami's friend eyes the spot where Kazuya was standing with Chizuru.

…

"Anybody was fine so I just picked the most convenient one. Why do I even care, dammit?"

Mami was in her room at home wearing comfy mini shorts along with a comfortable hoodie.

She was hugging a pillow close to her chest and burying her face in it, sitting on the bed with her back leaning on the wall. Her finger was twiddling with the nose of a stuffed bear plushie.

Suddenly an emo-looking guy with messy hair opens her room's door without knocking and says, "Sis, that person's here."

"Tell them, I'll go later." She hugs the pillow and lies down on the bed, facing away from her brother toward the wall.

"Really? Again? Dad's not gonna be happy, you know?"

"…" Mami's quiet.

"You didn't find a guy at university, did you?"

"Go fuck yourself, shortass." Mami throws the pillow that she was hugging to her chest at him.

He quickly closes the door and leaves with the last comment, "I'm taller than you!"

"…Die. Idiot."

"Falling in love is just… Painful." She hugged her knees and put her chin on them.

…

"What the hell was that?"

"What the hell was what?"

"You, telling everyone that we're dating… again."

"Oh that… Yeah. That was fun."

"That's it? We're supposed to be broken up."

"We are broken up."

"Then why the hell did you not tell them that?"

"I just wanted to…" Kazuya has an innocent look on his face.

'Gotta be a little shameless sometimes…' He laments inwardly.

"Well, whatever… Now what?"

"Don't worry your pretty little head. I'll take care of it."

Chizuru nagged at him a little more before he dropped her off at her next class.

…

"Mami went home?" Kazuya asked Kibe.

"Yeah, she left just after you."

"What are you doing asking about your ex? You've got such a nice girlfriend, you should cherish her to death. Forget about that Mami bitch."

"Yeah sure…" Kazuya trails off deep in thought as he pays attention to the lecture while thinking.

'I guess my tactic worked, let's see what she does now. Can't let the girl think that she has me wrapped around her finger.'

'I just need to get my freelance projects done and get the AI and ML Knowledge. That'll get me up to the next step of my plans.'

…

"Hey, Kazuya!" Kuri calls Kazuya after classes are over and he's about to go home.

"Kuri? What's up?"

"I have found a girlfriend too. We should double-date sometime."

"Sure…" Kazuya says non-committal to the idea.

"It's decided then. Saturday. We're doing a double date." Not wanting to give Kazuya a chance to reply, Kuri, walks off. Or at least he tries to.

"Stop right there asshole. Fuck you think you're doing? You think you can just make plans without actually listening to mine or Chizuru's answer."

'Does your bitch ass think that you're Chizuru? I let her run away because I like her. It's like any random schmuck can walk all over me. What kind of reputation did the original have dude?'

As usual, he criticizes the original inhabitant of the body because the guy was just that shitty.

"If you want me to go out with you on a double date then at least tell me the plan. What if you decide on a boring dumb thing and I bring my girl there? Wouldn't our date be ruined? Think about that stuff dude. So do you have a plan for the date?"

Kuri is stunned for a few seconds as his confident-looking facade falls off and he stammers a bit, F-Free Climbing also called bouldering. I was thinking we'd go there."

'Don't hate all socially inept people just because you hate one of them.' He says to himself.

"That sounds fun. Let's do it at around 3. I want to take Chizuru to dinner after that."

"I-I'm not r-really f-free for so long." Kuri stammers in a panicky way as if he's hiding something.

"Don't worry dude. We are just going to do free climbing with you and your girl. The rest of the time is going to be just me and Chizuru. We'll separate after the free climbing stuff."

Kuri visibly sighs in relief and says, "Oh that's good. So… Let's do a double date Saturday."

"Yeah. See that wasn't hard. All you had to do was to let me talk. It's not like I'll reject you instantly."

…

That night Kazuya was chatting with Chizuru about their date.

-So Saturday. I'll take you out. keep yourself free from 3 till the night.-

-I refuse.-

-I refuse your refusal. You're coming, even if I have to drag you out of your apartment in your pajamas.-

-But… I was planning to do some rental work Saturday to make the money. I really can't come.-

-It's fine. You can come over to my place and eat your food here. You can sleep here too if you want. It'll save half your usual bills for the rest of the week.-

-Stop your meaningless bullshitting.-

-I'm serious. At least about the food part. If you don't want to come to my place, I'll come to your place with the ingredients and we'll eat together. You can be my loving housewife that cooks while I, the chauvinistic man of the house bring the food and money. It'll be perfect.-

-Leaving aside the last part of your text. Food is the least of my expenses and I don't need you to do that for me.-

-If you say so. But I think it'll be fun. I can say that I'm fucking bored of eating alone all the time. Anyway, we got off-topic. You and me. Date. Saturday. If you're down on money, then I'll lend you some, and you can give it back to me later.-

-I was thinking…-

-Don't even say it.-

-I didn't even send that text.-

-I know what you're gonna say, and while I have no money problems renting you, I will in no circumstance do it. You and I are friends, your mask is an unbelievably fickle thing and if you end up classifying me as a client, then all my effort to make you my friend will go down the drain.-

He doesn't say that he feels like it's degrading for her to be paying her because she enjoys what she does.

Chizuru looks speechlessly at her phone while lying on her bed.

-Imagine me sighing at your text. I'll go with you on Saturday. And it better be fun. Or else I'm never talking to you again.-

-I call bullshit. And you don't have to worry, it'll be fun.-

…

The next day, on Tuesday.

Kazuya is walking back home from college while humming a tune and listening to a song.

Suddenly he feels something or someone bump into him and steps back a bit.

As he looks down he sees a girl in a school uniform fallen on the ground in front of him. She had short brown hair and was wearing a cute blue ribbon.

'Did a lost child run into me?' He thinks for a moment but then notices her ample bosom and long slender legs that are emphasized by her hiked-up skirt.

'Nah she's probably doing some kind of schoolgirl cosplay or something.'

'Let's fuck with her a bit.' He was bored and thought to have fun with a new cute character that appeared.

"Hey, little girl are you okay?" He hands her hair to her with a charming smile.

She looks at his hand and then looks down feeling a breeze somewhere that she shouldn't feel.

She blushes and hurriedly fixes her skirt before looking at his outstretched hand. She grabs it and says, "Thank you, mister."

She hurriedly leaves after Kazuya helps her up.

'What the hell? Was she truly a little girl? I'm so confused right now.'

Kazuya thinks to himself before continuing on the way back home.

…

The rest of Kazuya's week went by like usual.

His MMA level increased to Level 8, his Business Administration level increased to level 5 and he was done with about 40 projects by now.

The projects that he completed were similar to the ones he'd already completed so it was easy to get by after reusing old code with a few tweaks. This made his progress much faster for the week.

Especially since he now had some actual motivation to get his project done.

Mami kept avoiding him for some reason and he didn't care much for her since he wasn't planning on doing anything about her yet.

Finally, it was Saturday and he knocked on Chizuru's door to leave for their date.