It wasn't long before evening settled over Academy City.
Inside a grimy phone booth by the roadside, a girl wearing Tokiwadai Middle School's summer uniform was hunched over a small portable laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she muttered softly to herself, scrolling through maps and data.
"So the next one's here, huh…"
Her voice was heavy, weighted down by a crushing exhaustion. The once bright and cheerfully energetic Misaka Mikoto seemed to have lost her spark entirely; all that remained was a profound weariness that made one's heart ache just to hear it.
With that same tired tone, she worked the keys, adding a new marker to a corner of the map displayed on-screen. The location she marked clearly showed the words: "Mizuho Organization Pathology Analysis Laboratory."
A soft snap sounded as Mikoto closed the laptop's lid.
Then, she stepped out of the phone booth.
The last rays of the evening sun fell over her slender frame, making her squint and raise a hand to shield her eyes.
"So dazzling…"
Anyone overhearing that would have been puzzled. The evening sunlight wasn't strong enough to require shielding, not unless you were staring straight into the source. But even that gentle light was enough to sting Mikoto's perpetually tired eyes.
She only thought to herself, a grim resignation settling over her, "Looks like I don't have time to head back to the dorms…"
Night would soon arrive. And when it did, that was when her true, draining work began.
"Guess… there's still time to eat…"
But truthfully, Mikoto didn't have the appetite. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, in fact, she hadn't had a proper meal in days. Yet now, the sheer weight of her mission meant she simply couldn't bring herself to eat.
"I have to… stop them…"
Her voice was a whisper, barely audible, as if she were reinforcing her own fragile resolve with those two painful words.
She was about to find a quiet place to rest before nightfall when, in the next instant, something flew straight toward her.
Pā!
Reacting purely on instinct, Mikoto reached out and caught the object midair.
It was a wrapped hamburger, still warm.
"You'd better eat."
A familiar voice reached her ears, laced with an irritating casualness.
"Your stomach's practically stuck to your spine. You can't hide that from your kouhai, the one who can accurately guess your three sizes just by looking at you."
Hearing that, Mikoto froze for a moment, then spun around toward the voice.
The person who entered her field of vision wasn't a stranger. They weren't friends, they hadn't even had a conversation that lasted more than ten seconds, yet Mikoto had been chasing this person for months. She held quite the score to settle with him.
So, of course, she recognized Fang Li instantly.
"You?!"
Even Mikoto couldn't hide her surprise.
"What? Surprised to see me?" Fang Li was sitting casually at a table outside a small street café, a tray in front of him loaded with hamburgers, fries, fried chicken, and cola. He shrugged as though greeting an old friend passing by.
"You're always the one looking for me, so I figured it was about time I returned the favor."
At that, Mikoto's eye twitched violently.
"You've got some nerve saying that!" she snapped, pointing at him, her voice rising in genuine frustration. "Who was it again who ran off the instant we first met, before I even said a single word?!"
"That couldn't be helped," Fang Li said, putting on an innocent look. "My subordinates warned me that some ridiculously powerful Electromaster has been roaming around this district, even sneaking out for midnight strolls. And apparently, every delinquent dumb enough to mess with her ends up half-paralyzed from electrocution. You can't blame a guy for being a little scared."
"Half-paralyzed my foot! I control my lightning perfectly! Even if the voltage's over a billion volts, I'd never kill anyone!" Misaka Mikoto protested with clear irritation. "And besides, aren't you supposed to be some delinquent boss? Aren't you worried you'll lose face in front of your underlings for giving up so easily?"
"If I were gonna lose face, that would've happened ages ago," Fang Li said with a deep, dramatic sigh, curling his lip. "I mean, come on, being chased all over the city by three middle school girls from Tokiwadai… any shred of dignity I had as a 'boss' is long gone."
"Then just stop running, let me zap you once, and we'll call it even. Problem solved, right?" Mikoto offered it as if it were the most natural solution in the world, then froze mid-sentence. "Wait… three?"
One of them was Misaka Mikoto. Another was Shirai Kuroko.
But the third Tokiwadai girl chasing Fang Li around… who could that possibly be?
Before Mikoto could even ask, Fang Li went quiet. His expression turned strangely dark, almost as if some deeply buried trauma had resurfaced. When he finally spoke, it was in a low, heavy tone.
"Don't ask. It's… better for you if you don't know."
The words might have sounded like a complete evasion, but for some reason, Mikoto couldn't help but feel a sudden sense of sympathy, as though she somehow understood his specific pain.
"Is that so?" she said softly, almost pitying him. "Guess you've had it rough too, huh."
She didn't even stop to consider that she herself was one of the three Tokiwadai girls making his life difficult.
"Well," Fang Li continued, stretching his shoulders to break the tension, "since it's a rare chance and I don't feel like being chased around again today, let's just call a truce for now."
He pointed toward the empty chair across from him.
"When I asked one of my guys to order food, the idiot brought an extra set. Take it. My treat."
"You've got some nerve, you know that?" Mikoto said, half-dumbfounded by his audacity. "Do you realize how many people would kill for a chance to eat with a Tokiwadai ojou-sama? Most of them couldn't even get that opportunity if they begged on their knees, and you just toss the offer out there like it's nothing? Worst pickup line ever."
"So are you eating or not?" Fang Li said impatiently, reaching for the leftover bag of fries. "If not, I'm tossing it."
"Didn't your elementary school teacher ever tell you not to waste food?" Mikoto shot back without hesitation. "Don't throw it away, I never said I wouldn't eat!"
As soon as she said it, Mikoto froze for a moment. Until a second ago, she hadn't felt like eating at all, so why had she agreed so easily?
Then she realized.
(So that's what it is…)
She'd been running on pure nerves for days, far too tense to think about something as simple as a meal. But with Fang Li's irritating, teasing tone completely breaking the spell of tension, that constant tightness inside her had finally, unknowingly, started to loosen. That was why accepting food felt so… natural.
Looking down at the still-warm hamburger in her hands, Mikoto felt a faint warmth, the first flicker of comfort in days, flow through her tired heart.
(There's still… a little time, after all…)*
With that thought, Misaka Mikoto took a deep breath and walked toward the empty chair across from Fang Li.
(End Of This Chapter)
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