Haruto let out a soft, amused sigh. "It seems like you've already completely forgotten what we were discussing just a minute ago."
He reached out, gently retaking her hand which he had refused to let go of entirely, sending a familiar, tingling ripple of sub-zero chill across her skin.
In an instant, the mention of the chill snapped Shizuka's mind right back to their earlier conversation—the undeniable display of raw, supernatural power, and the impossibly detailed ice sculpture that had materialized right out of thin air.
She instinctively stared down at the small, intricate ice replica of herself still resting on the polished wooden table, the memory of how Haruto had conjured it from nothingness flashing vividly in her mind.
It was utterly, terrifyingly impossible to deny what she had witnessed with her own eyes.
"How... How on earth did you even do that?" she whispered, her voice losing its teasing edge entirely.
"Supernatural powers," Haruto responded with absolute, casual calm.
"..."
This time, Shizuka Hiratsuka didn't brush it off as a joke or a clever street magician's trick.
She began to think much more carefully about the reality of what she had just experienced—it clearly defied every known law of physics and science.
To give her a more direct, unforgettable demonstration, Haruto pointed a single finger toward the miniature ice sculpture sitting quietly on the table.
Crack!
A faint, sharp sound echoed, and suddenly, the ice sculpture—an exact, flawless miniature replica of Shizuka Hiratsuka—began to twitch and move.
At first, its joints shifted stiffly, as if breaking in its frozen mechanics.
But within seconds, it smoothly stepped forward, beginning to pose dramatically right there on the tabletop, even casually spreading its legs in a provocative, lifelike display.
"Stop it right now!!!"
Shizuka shrieked in mortification, frantically lunging forward and smashing her hands over the ice sculpture to trap it and halt its movements.
Seeing a hyper-realistic ice version of herself acting so scandalous right in front of the boy she was on a date with was entirely past her threshold of psychological endurance.
"Do you believe me now, Sensei?" Haruto asked smoothly, a smug grin tugging at his lips.
"Yes, yes, I believe you! Just make it stop!" Shizuka nodded repeatedly, her face burning a violent crimson.
Seeing her overwhelming reaction, Haruto casually snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the ice sculpture dissolved into fine mist, evaporating cleanly into thin air without leaving a single drop of water behind.
"It's... completely gone?"
Shizuka numbly touched the dry, polished surface of the table, then felt the residual cold sensation still lingering on her fingertips.
This... this was literal magic!
She was now thoroughly, inescapably convinced that Haruto possessed powers far beyond human comprehension.
But the staggering magnitude of the realization hit her hard, rattling her nerves so deeply that she immediately poured and downed several more glasses of strong alcohol in quick succession, finally slumping back against the leather sofa in a daze.
Supernatural abilities... The existence of such a thing was enough to completely shatter and rebuild her entire worldview.
Staring blankly at Haruto through a slight haze of alcohol and shock, she finally forced herself to ask the terrifying question, "Are there... many other people like you out there in the world?"
"Not many," Haruto responded evenly, his expression turning slightly more serious.
"But this world isn't as simple as it looks. Angels, demons, and entities far beyond human imagination might exist out there, too."
He didn't spell it all out explicitly, but Shizuka could instantly sense the profound weight hidden beneath his words.
Angels and demons... it was almost too vast and apocalyptic for her tired teacher's brain to fathom.
She watched as Haruto's expression shifted, a faint, wicked smile playing across his lips.
He leaned in close, bringing his face right beside her ear, and whispered in a low, intoxicatingly dangerous tone.
"If you're willing to step past the ordinary and become one of my girlfriends, I can show you an entirely new, boundless world."
"!!!"
The sudden surge of his warm breath directly against her sensitive ear made Shizuka's heart violently hammer against her ribs, especially since no man had ever dared to cross her personal boundaries with such terrifying intimacy before.
But right as her brain short-circuited from the sheer audacity of the line, a key phrase pierced through the fog of her thoughts.
"One of my girlfriends?"
She jerked back, staring at him with wide, highly suspicious eyes.
"Wait a second... what exactly is that supposed to mean?!"
Haruto offered a completely unabashed, casual shrug.
"I won't lie to you or try to feed you sweet lies, Sensei. I plan to have more than one girlfriend."
"Ha?!"
After hearing Haruto's jaw-droppingly blunt confession, Shizuka's mind felt like it was spinning violently in a blender.
She had almost been completely swept off her feet by his smooth charm, his incredible displays of power, and his attentive pursuit, but his final, unapologetic revelation utterly threw her balance to the wind.
This guy... is literally admitting right to my face that he's an unapologetic playboy looking to hoard women!
Normally, if any ordinary man had tried to pull this kind of transparently brazen garbage with her, she would have introduced his teeth to a swift, bone-crushing Taekwondo roundhouse kick without a second thought.
But Haruto didn't play by normal rules—his brutal, disarming honesty made it genuinely difficult to figure out how to react.
Standing on the razor's edge between outrage and absolute capitulation, even the iron-willed Shizuka Hiratsuka genuinely didn't know whether she should punch him straight across the table or pull him closer.
In the end, overwhelmed by the spinning vortex of emotions and alcohol in her head, Shizuka excused herself to the restroom to gather her scattered thoughts.
Standing before the marble sink, she stared blankly at her flushed reflection in the mirror and suddenly let out a wry, helpless chuckle.
"Unbelievable... This has got to be the first time in my life someone has been so brazenly, unapologetically honest about just wanting me," she murmured to herself, shaking her head at her own inability to stay angry.
After splashing a handful of cool water onto her face and thoroughly drying her hands, she straightened her dress and stepped out of the bathroom, fully determined to march back to the table and firmly, unequivocally reject Haruto once and for all.
However, lost in her internal debate, she wasn't paying close enough attention to the bustling hallway and accidentally brushed shoulders with a gaudily dressed woman walking past.
It was nothing more than a light, harmless bump, but the woman—plastered in heavy makeup and thick, dramatic eyeliner—glared at Shizuka's elegant appearance with immediate, unwarranted displeasure.
"Ow! Watch where you're going, bitch!" the woman squawked.
Then, with an utterly exaggerated, theatrical motion, the woman deliberately dropped to the polished floor, pitching a fit.
Instantly, a massive, muscular man covered in crude tattoos and wearing a chunky gold chain stepped forward, playing the role of the outraged, protective boyfriend.
"Hey! Are you blind or just stupid? How dare you shove my girlfriend to the ground!" the man barked, instantly raising his voice to draw a crowd and intimidate her.
Shizuka's expression darkened instantly.
Her years of experience dealing with delinquents and street punks made it painfully obvious: this was a classic, cheap extortion setup—a localized "bump and scam."
Unfortunately for these two professional con artists, they had picked the absolute worst person in the entire city to target.
With her black belt in Taekwondo and her simmering frustration, Shizuka was just about ready to treat them to a devastating roundhouse kick.
Before Shizuka could drop her stance and deliver a swift kick, however, the aggressive man suddenly froze mid-stride, locking completely in place like a statue.
Beside him, the dramatic woman on the floor stopped wailing just as abruptly, her mouth frozen open in a silent scream.
"You alright, Sensei?"
Haruto stepped out from the hallway corner, his expression calm as he walked up beside her.
Shizuka blinked in utter astonishment, staring at the motionless couple. "What... what just happened to them?"
"Don't worry about it," Haruto said smoothly, offering a reassuring smile. "They're just going to take a very brief, involuntary pause. Let's head back."
He gently reached out, taking her hand to guide her past the frozen pair.
Still recovering from the shock of seeing people literally locked in time, Shizuka let herself be led away without a word.
A moment later, as they turned the corner out of sight, the paralysis lifted, and the two scammers snapped back to reality.
"Huh? Where the hell did they go?" the man muttered, blinking in total confusion as he looked around an empty hallway.
The woman scrambled up, looking equally bewildered.
But almost immediately, an odd, uncomfortable sensation washed over both of them.
As if driven by a bizarre, unexplainable impulse, the man and woman both reached down toward themselves, completely unaware that Haruto had left them a quiet, parting "gift" to ensure they never tried shaking down strangers again.
******
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