Near Fujisawa station, the "7-Eleven" convenience store glowed with fluorescent light and excessive air conditioning. Although it was a vital source of supplies for Kaito—almost a temple, in his view—today, the place served more as an exchange point for emotions than for products.
He entered, the door chime announcing his presence with a cheerful ding-dong that contrasted sharply with his expression of someone about to commit a stupid financial crime.
He went straight to the bakery shelf.
There they were. Choco Cornets. Cone-shaped buns, filled with cheap chocolate cream, wrapped in crinkly plastic. Price: 128 yen (with tax).
"Fia," Kaito called mentally. "Inventory."
"There are 14 units on the shelf, Chosen One!" the goddess replied, salivating ethereally. "The System classifies this item as a 'D-Tier Snack', but with a hidden 'Romantic Nostalgia' bonus!"
"I'm buying them all," Kaito decided.
He grabbed a basket and started sweeping the shelf. One by one, the buns fell into the basket. The sound of crinkling plastic was rhythmic and aggressive.
An employee restocking drinks stopped and stared. Kaito ignored him. He gathered the fourteen buns. Looked at the empty space on the shelf. It seemed too little.
"I need more," he muttered. "Inflation demands volume."
He went to the counter. "Do you have more stock in the back?"
The cashier, a college student with a bored face, looked at the basket full of chocolate buns and then at Kaito.
"Are you throwing a... themed party?"
"I am conducting an experiment on the price of human self-esteem," Kaito replied, impassive. "Stock. Now."
The cashier blinked, shrugged, and went to the back. He returned with a cardboard box containing ten more units.
"I'll take it all."
Five minutes later, Kaito left the store carrying two giant plastic bags, stuffed with conical buns. He spent about 3,000 yen. The equivalent of an indie game on Steam on sale.
"Kaito..." Fia whispered, worried. "That is a lot of gluten. What do you plan to do? Build a bread fort to protect yourself from her feelings?"
"I am going to demonstrate an economic point," Kaito said, walking toward his apartment. "If her love is worth a bun, I am going to show her how little she is worth in the current market."
Apartment 301 was plunged in depressive silence.
Futaba sat in the corner, hugging her knees, emanating an aura of misery so dense it seemed to distort the light around her. Mai was sitting at the table, flipping through a fashion magazine, but casting worried glances at Futaba.
The door opened. Kaito entered.
He didn't announce his arrival with a simple "I'm home," nor did he take off his shoes calmly. Instead, he headed to the kotatsu table and dumped the contents of the two bags.
Twenty-four Choco Cornets fell onto the table, forming an unstable mountain of plastic and dough. Some slid off and fell to the floor.
The noise was muffled, but the visual impact was tremendous.
Mai looked up from the magazine, one eyebrow perfectly arched. "Kaito. What is this? Did you rob a bakery or decide to develop Type 2 diabetes out of spite?"
Futaba lifted her head, eyes wide behind her glasses. She stared at the pile of buns. The smell of artificial chocolate and preservatives filled the small room.
"Tanaka?" she whispered. "Why...?"
Kaito kicked his shoes away, went to the kitchen cabinet, got a glass of water, and sat on his beanbag, facing the mountain of bread and the depressed girl.
"Rio Futaba," he began, his voice resonating with the authority of a small claims court judge. "An hour ago, you told me that the basis of your psychological split, the reason you hate your body, and the reason you created an attention-seeking doppelgänger, was an act of kindness from Yuuma Kunimi."
Futaba blushed, looking away. "Don't simplify things..."
"The act," Kaito continued, ignoring her, "was the donation of one (1) Choco Cornet. Current market value: 128 yen."
He pointed to the table.
"Here are twenty-four Choco Cornets. Total value: 3,072 yen. I bought them with the change I found in my winter pants pocket and a little lunch money."
He leaned forward, eyes fixed on her.
"By your logic, Futaba, I just performed an act of kindness twenty-four times greater than Kunimi's. Mathematically speaking, you should be twenty-four times more in love with me right now. You should be writing sonnets about my gray hoodies and creating a third personality dedicated to worshiping me."
The silence in the room was absolute.
Fia, who had come out of the closet in her physical form to try and steal a bun, stopped with her hand outstretched, frozen by the absurdity of the argument.
Futaba looked at the mountain of bread. Looked at Kaito. Her face went from pale to a furious red.
"You..." she stammered, voice trembling with indignation. "You are an idiot! That's not how it works! It's not about quantity! It's about the moment! It's about who gave it! Kunimi is... Kunimi is special!"
"Why is he special?" Kaito countered, relentless. "Because he plays basketball? Because he's tall? Or because he was the only person who looked at you when you were starving emotionally and threw you a crumb?"
He grabbed one of the buns from the pile and threw it into her lap.
"You were hungry, Futaba. Hungry for attention. Hungry for validation. Anyone who gave you food would have sufficed. If it were the school janitor offering you a plum onigiri, you would be in love with the janitor right now. You don't love Kunimi. You love the fact that he saw you when you felt invisible."
"Stop!" Futaba shouted, throwing the bun back on the table. "You don't know anything! You don't know what it's like to feel alone, surrounded by people, feeling like your body is a... a freak show that grew too fast and that everyone looks at, but no one sees the person inside it!"
"I know what it's like to want to be alone," Kaito said. "And I know that when you are desperate, anything looks like salvation. But, Futaba, look at this."
He gestured to the pile of cheap buns.
"You sold your self-esteem for 128 yen. You split your soul because you thought that was the price of your happiness. That is a terrible deal. It is inefficient. It is illogical."
He leaned back on the beanbag, crossing his arms.
"You are worth more than a convenience store bun. You are the smartest person in that school. You understand quantum physics. You know how the universe works. And yet, you let a shallow version of yourself take control because you think being 'hot' on the internet is worth more than being a genius in the lab."
Futaba was trembling. Tears streamed down her face, falling onto the bun in her lap. But they weren't tears of sadness. They were tears of anger. Anger at him. Anger at the situation. And, finally, anger at herself.
"That was..." began Mai, who had been watching everything in silence, "...incredibly cruel, Kaito."
"It was necessary," Kaito said, though he felt a slight pang of discomfort.
Mai stood up and walked over to Futaba. She sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.
"What he is trying to say, in his troglodyte way, Rio," Mai said softly, "is that you put Kunimi on a pedestal because he was kind. But his kindness shouldn't be the only thing that defines your worth. And the 'Other Rio'... she isn't a villain. She is just the part of you that wants to be seen, but doesn't know how to ask for it without posting flashy photos."
Futaba sobbed, hiding her face in Mai's shoulder. "I hate her. I hate the photos. I hate that everyone likes her and no one likes me."
"They don't like her," Kaito said. "They like the fantasy. They like pixels."
He stood up and went to the pile of buns. Grabbed two. Threw one to Fia, who caught it in the air with a squeal of divine joy, and opened the other for himself.
"Eat," he ordered Futaba. "You need sugar to process the trauma. And after that, we have a plan."
Futaba lifted her head, eyes red and swollen behind crooked glasses. "What plan?"
"We are going to the Mall this weekend," Kaito said, biting the tip of the bun. It tasted too sweet, as expected.
Futaba's eyes widened. "We?"
"I can't..." she whispered. "I don't have clothes. I don't know how to act like her. I am... weird."
"You have Mai," Kaito pointed his thumb at the actress. "She is a professional at pretending to be whoever she wants. And you have me."
"And what do you do?" Futaba asked, sniffling.
"I am the crisis manager who will ensure that if everything goes wrong, the blame falls on Fia," Kaito said.
"HEY!" Fia shouted, mouth full of chocolate. "THAT IS SLANDER! BUT... THE BREAD IS DELICIOUS! HAPPINESS BONUS +5!"
Futaba looked at the pile of buns. Looked at the apathetic boy eating chocolate and the famous actress hugging her.
She picked up the bun that was in her lap. Opened the package slowly.
"128 yen..." she murmured, looking at the sweet. "It really is cheap."
She took a bite.
"It's stale," she complained.
"Bought it on sale," Kaito admitted. "Cost efficiency."
For the first time in days, a tiny, almost imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of Rio Futaba's mouth.
________________________________________
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