After about a 15-minute train ride, followed by a walk under the scorching midday sun, Aoki arrived at the address Yamada Ryo had given him.
Just as he expected, it took around 20 minutes in total.
The destination was a luxurious standalone house that looked nothing like the modest apartment he lived in—it was on a completely different level.
He vaguely remembered that Ryo was what you'd call a "stealthy rich girl," so seeing this upscale home didn't exactly surprise him.
Since she'd mentioned on LINE that her parents were out, Aoki didn't hesitate.
He stood in front of the slightly extravagant wooden gate and pressed the doorbell.
Then, just to be sure in case she was holed up in her room and didn't hear it, he took out his phone and sent a quick message:
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[I'm here.]
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The message was marked "read" almost instantly—but Ryo didn't reply.
Then, just half a minute later, the wooden door suddenly swung open from the inside.
Aoki, still looking at his phone, flinched slightly at the abrupt movement.
He instinctively looked up—and his eyes immediately landed on Ryo.
Since she was home alone, her appearance today was quite different from usual.
Gone were the stylish outfits she usually wore.
Instead, she had on a simple, plain-colored T-shirt with no frills or decoration.
It looked a bit oversized and even covered half her thighs.
As for the bottom—
She wore a pair of comfortable-looking beige shorts, and underneath them, sheer black tights that were thin enough to show a faint outline of her skin.
Also worth noting: she wasn't wearing any shoes.
Her feet, still wrapped in those thin tights, were resting directly on the floor.
Not that it looked unhygienic—the floor was so spotless it practically sparkled.
"Good afternoon, Suki-san."
Standing inside, the girl greeted him casually after opening the door.
Her voice brought Aoki's gaze back to her face.
He gave a small nod in response.
"Yo," he replied, raising the takeout bag in his hand slightly. "Your delivery has arrived, Ryo-san."
"Thanks for the trouble, Suki-san."
She gave a quick glance at the food in his hands before continuing with a strangely serious tone:
"As a reward, I'll treat you to some ice cream later. And then maybe ask you for another favor afterward—"
"Ice cream melts if you try to take it home," Aoki cut in, his expression twitching slightly.
After that brief exchange at the entrance, he followed Ryo into the house.
The inside of the villa was even more luxurious than it looked from the outside.
Every piece of décor screamed high-end, and the layout perfectly matched Aoki's mental image of what a rich person's home should look like—
A huge living room, hallways running down either side, and doors leading to various rooms.
It was honestly hard to believe that the same girl who borrowed money from him or asked him to buy her meals actually lived here.
As he walked alongside Ryo, Aoki casually scanned the place with subtle curiosity, letting his mind wander a bit—until she suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
"My room has the AC running. Why don't we just eat in there?"
Aoki blinked, but quickly nodded. "Sure, I'm good with whatever."
And so, he followed Ryo into her bedroom.
Now, one might think this would be an awkward situation—a guy and a girl alone in a house, sharing a bedroom during the middle of the day...
But for both Aoki and Yamada Ryo, there wasn't a shred of awkward tension.
Ryo, most likely, was just a bit too dense about things like that.
And Aoki?
Well, one look at her room immediately killed any hint of a romantic atmosphere.
It was completely unlike what you'd expect from a high school girl's bedroom.
For starters, the space was practically filled with bass guitars.
Scattered around were all kinds of manga and magazines, and the overall vibe of the room leaned more toward a messy mini livehouse than a cozy teenage girl's sanctuary.
Honestly, there wasn't even the slightest trace of romantic tension in the air.
If anything, Aoki felt more like he'd walked into someone's makeshift music studio.
And then—
His gaze landed on the kotatsu sitting in the middle of the room.
He blinked in silent confusion.
A kotatsu... in summer?
Sure, there's no rule saying you can't use one during the summer.
But typically, the heavy quilt draped over it gets removed so it can be used as a regular table during the hotter months.
But the one in Ryo's room...
The blanket was still very much on.
Looking between the kotatsu and the girl beside him, Aoki silently reaffirmed what he'd already suspected:
'This person really is weird.'
Ryo, of course, didn't seem to care one bit about the look he was giving her.
After pausing briefly in the doorway, she casually stepped into her room.
At the same time, she spoke up, "Just put the food on the table. By the way, suki-san… is there any cutlery in here?"
"There's cutlery. And some disposable plastic bowls too. Pretty fancy ones," Aoki replied casually.
The "table" she was referring to was the kotatsu.
After stepping into the room, Aoki placed the food he'd brought down onto it and answered absentmindedly as he started unpacking the bag.
He crouched down and began taking out the food containers sealed inside—only to suddenly stop halfway.
He glanced at Yamada Ryo beside him, hesitated for a moment, then asked,
"Uh—do you have anything like a tablecloth? These containers might leak oil when opened. Better to put something under them first."
"A tablecloth…"
Ryo blinked and thought for a second before replying, "No tablecloth, but I do have some really big tissues somewhere in the room…"
Ryo had a habit of spending her spare pocket money on quirky, probably useless—but definitely cool-looking—items.
Most of these things usually cost under 1000 yen.
The "really big tissues" were something she'd ordered from Amazon a while back, just to test how many times a single sheet could be folded.
She'd used one and then tossed the rest aside.
They were probably somewhere on her desk, but because that desk was covered in a chaotic pile of magazines and manga, she wasn't quite sure where exactly they had ended up.
Saying, "I'll look for it," Ryo began rummaging through her desk.
But as mentioned before—whether it was magazines, manga, or all kinds of music-related textbooks—if it was a book, it went on that desk.
And over time, the desk had become a veritable disaster zone.
Trying to find a packet of tissues buried under half a month's worth of accumulated reading material was, to put it mildly, not an easy task.
Moving one or two books wasn't a big deal.
But once she started shifting several around, accidents became almost inevitable.
For example—
While she was searching, she had moved all the books from the left side over to the right.
And after adding who knows how many magazines to the stack, the now shoulder-high pile of books on the right, which was already teetering from being unevenly stacked, suddenly tipped over.
It didn't hit anyone, thankfully, but the books on the desk all tumbled to the floor in one massive spill.
Even the once relatively neat stack on the right collapsed along with them.
Ryo, who had just picked up a book titled Hokkaido Geology and was about to toss it on the pile, froze as she stared at the chaos before her.
Meanwhile, Aoki, sitting by the kotatsu, opened his mouth as if to say something but fell silent, sighing inwardly at the situation.
Thinking it'd be best to help clean up quickly, he bent down and picked up a manga that had landed near his feet.
But then—
Just as he was about to say, "Let's clean this up first," something else caught his eye.
A different magazine had also fallen, and when he spotted it, Aoki completely froze—both in motion and in speech.
Ryo owned a lot of books, in both quantity and variety.
From obscure manga to oddball textbooks like Hokkaido Geology, if it caught her interest, she'd buy it.
Still, Aoki hadn't expected this.
No, maybe it wasn't that strange, he reasoned—he could kind of understand it, in a very "it is what it is" way.
But what surprised him more wasn't that she bought it—but that she hadn't hidden it.
"〇〇〇〇〇"
Staring at the magazine beside him, Aoki remained frozen.
His expression shifted—from stunned, to shocked, to downright unsure of what to do next.
Maybe… just quietly tuck it away, pretend he never saw it, and move on. That way, no one would feel awkward…
He hesitated, thoughts racing.
Then he finally settled on that approach.
Unfortunately, it was already too late—Ryo had clearly noticed him pause and freeze.
And so—
Aoki instinctively glanced at the cover, then up at Ryo. Their eyes met.
...
That magazine had been something Ryo picked up a few months ago at a convention.
She'd bought it because the vendor had advertised it under the banner of a manga she was really into at the time—using the word "doujin" to grab attention.
Thanks to the opaque black shrink wrap, you couldn't tell anything from the outside.
But once she'd opened it…
Ryo took a deep breath.
She looked down at the R-rated doujinshi lying on the floor, then up at Aoki.
Their eyes met again.
'Should I… explain?'
That was the thought running through her head as she opened her mouth.
"Um, suki-san, that… actually…"
"It's fine, Ryo-san."
But before she could even finish her sentence, Aoki gently cut her off.
"I understand."
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