The blinding late-afternoon sun pierced through the cracks of the yellowed curtains, stabbing straight into his eyelids and making him scowl. He opened his eyes, feeling a sharp pain shooting down from his temples to the nape of his neck, as if someone had just smashed a sledgehammer right into his skull.
He propped himself up. The bedsheets were crumpled, carrying the faint, musty scent of a cheap student rental room that hadn't been cleaned in ages. This was not his high-end apartment with broadcasting equipment worth thousands of dollars. This was a completely alien place.
He shut his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. A flood of fragmented, chaotic memories that didn't belong to him began rushing into his brain.
Kinoshita Kazuya. Twenty years old. University student. Family runs a traditional liquor store in the countryside. And most importantly, a pathetic, cowardly loser with no drive, lacking dignity to a miserable extreme.
He slowly opened his eyes, the corners of his mouth involuntarily curling up into a cold, deeply sarcastic smile.
He remembered now. He had died in his old world in the most ordinary way, and now, his soul had been shoved into the body of the male lead in some trashy piece of fiction he had only ever heard people cursing about online. A world molded by the mindset of a weak dreamer, where men were willing to fall to their knees, throwing money around recklessly just to buy a few fake hours next to a pretty face.
"Disgusting," he muttered. The voice emerging from his own throat sounded foreign, yet it dripped with absolute contempt.
According to the memory stream of this body, just this morning, the original Kazuya brat had received a horrific shock. Right in the middle of the university campus, his girlfriend of exactly one month - Nanami Mami - had dropped a sudden, feather-light breakup line: "Sorry... I've fallen for someone else. Let's break up, okay?"
No valid reason. No proper explanation. Only a cold turn of the back, leaving the brat standing there frozen, before he ran for his life back to his dorm, hiding under the blanket, crying pitifully like an abandoned dog, and then relieving himself using his own imagination...
He got out of bed, walked into the cramped bathroom, and looked at his reflection in the mirror.
A scholarly face, disheveled hair, eyes puffy from crying for too long. He turned on the faucet, scooped up a handful of freezing water, and splashed it straight onto his face to wash away this weak, pathetic look.
When he looked up again, those red, swollen eyes were gone, replaced by a gaze that was sharp, dead silent, and dark as a bottomless lake.
"Broke down this much just because of a superficial breakup in a hallway? You really are a defective product of creation, Kazuya," he spoke to his own reflection.
In his past life, he made a living with his words. He was someone who wielded true power in manipulating the masses with rhetoric, utilizing a sharpness and extreme level of rationality. He despised hypocrisy, especially hypocrisy from women - a deep wound for which he had once paid the ultimate price with his honor and career. He would never accept himself, or the body he was now residing in, being treated like an easily discarded toy without a clear explanation.
Everything must be clear. All trash must be sorted and cleaned up properly before being thrown away.
He turned back to the bed and picked up the phone lying haphazardly on it. Unlocking the screen, he found the contact named "Mami-chan," adorned with countless nauseating heart emojis saved by the previous owner. His fingers typed swiftly, the rhythm decisive and cold.
[Meet me at L'Amour cafe at 4 PM. I need a direct and proper explanation like adults, not that casual remark in the middle of school earlier. Don't make me wait.]
Message sent. No emojis, no pathetic clinging. He tossed the phone onto the desk, went to the wardrobe, and picked out his crispest black dress shirt and a pair of dress pants. He slicked his messy hair back, exposing his forehead and the confident gaze of someone who always controlled the game.
Booking a rental girlfriend or whatever could wait. Right now, it was time to get serious...
…
L'Amour cafe exuded a classic European style. Soft jazz played from a record player in the corner, blending with the rich aroma of freshly roasted coffee and the buttery scent of baking croissants.
He arrived fifteen minutes early. Choosing a seat right by the glass window, he crossed his legs, interlocked his fingers on the tabletop, and leisurely observed the crowd passing by outside. At this moment, the concepts of suffering or heartbreak didn't exist in his mind. The only things present were analysis and calculation. He was preparing for a psychological "surgery" without anesthesia.
At exactly 4 PM, the wind chime hung at the door jingled softly. Nanami Mami walked in.
She wore a frilly, off-the-shoulder pastel dress, fully showing off her slender shoulders and alluring collarbones. Her short blonde hair was curled inward to frame her cute, chubby face. She scanned the room, and upon catching his gaze, the corners of her mouth instantly painted a smile - a smile perfectly designed to show remorse and confusion while maintaining the noble air of someone bestowing a favor.
"Kazuya... You're early?" Mami gently pulled out a chair and sat opposite him, her voice clear, slightly drawn out at the end. She deliberately avoided his gaze, staring intently at the menu on the table as if bearing an invisible psychological pressure.
She was acting. And she was acting quite poorly in the eyes of a professional like him.
He didn't reply immediately. He signaled the waiter, ordering a black iced coffee with no sugar for himself and a glass of plain water for her. Mami frowned slightly at this cold assertiveness.
Usually, Kazuya would awkwardly ask her what she wanted to drink, and only then nervously order for himself, wouldn't he? How could a pathetic person like him change so quickly in just a single afternoon...?
"Why... did you call me out here?" Mami spoke first, her large, round eyes looking up at him. "I already made myself clear at school this morning. I know you're sad, but..."
"I didn't call you here to listen to your whining or watch you play the victim." He cut her off, his tone deep, steady, pronouncing every word clearly. The volume wasn't loud, but the icy feeling in his words made Mami shudder involuntarily.
He slowly leaned back in his chair, his gaze gliding over every contour of her face like two sharp scalpels.
"This morning, you threw a random breakup line at me and walked away without the slightest hesitation. From an adult's perspective, that is uneducated behavior lacking basic respect. I'm not sitting here to cling onto some cheap romance. I'm sitting here so you can give me a reason that is actually acceptable. Speak. Why?"
Astonishment was evident on Mami's face. Her cutesy mask began to crack. She had prepared a script where Kazuya would cry, beg her to come back, or at least silently drop his head on the table.
She had wanted to come here to enjoy a sense of superiority, watching a pathetic man grovel at her feet, satisfying her twisted, narcissistic ego. But the man sitting in front of her right now exuded an invisible pressure, a terrifying calmness.
"I... I told you then that I had fallen for someone else." Mami bit her lip, repeating the most classic excuse liars often used to elevate their own value. She hoped this brutal confession would deal a fatal blow to Kazuya's self-esteem, causing him to break down.
But contrary to Mami's expectations, he just smirked. A condescending half-smile, exactly like how a normal person watches a monkey perform tricks.
"Fallen for someone else?" He spoke mockingly, each word as sharp as a razor blade slicing through flesh. "Are you trying to make yourself seem more valuable with that cheap, cliché excuse?"
"What are you talking about?" Mami's eyes widened, her voice rising in anger. "I'm being honest with you!"
"Honest?" He repeated the word with utter contempt. He leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table, closing the distance. His pitch-black eyes drilled into Mami's violently wavering pupils.
"Stop deluding yourself, Mami. Do you think you're a goddess? Do you think that just by tilting your head, blinking, and acting fragile, every man in this world will grovel at your feet for you to trample on?"
He didn't raise his voice, but the piercing cold in his words made Mami feel suffocated.
"Allow me to be blunt. You didn't break up with me because you found someone better. You broke up with me because you crave control. You entered this relationship just to validate your own appeal, and when you got bored, you threw it away, expecting the dumped party to wail so your hollow ego could be filled with dirty self-satisfaction."
"You... you're crazy! Kazuya, what the hell are you babbling about?" Mami panicked, her hands gripping the edges of her skirt tightly. For the first time in her life, she felt as if someone had stripped bare all of her darkest thoughts right in broad daylight.
The waiter hesitantly approached, placed the coffee and the ice-filled glass of water on the table, and quickly retreated upon sensing the suffocating atmosphere between the two.
He paid no mind to the waiter. His gaze remained pinned on Mami, not letting her off the hook for even a second.
"In my eyes right now, you aren't even qualified to be an ex-girlfriend," he lowered his voice, mocking her to the core. "A woman who is a slut in her thoughts, shallow in her intellect, and loves playing the victim like you... at best, you are just a talking dishwasher. Ah, no... Even worse than a breeding machine."
"KAZUYA!"
Mami shrieked piercingly. The humiliation, fury, and trampled ego caused her cute face to contort and turn bright red. Her mouth dropped open, ready to scream insults, ready to raise her hand and slap that freezing face mocking her. She had to teach this piece of trash a lesson.
But she was a beat too slow.
He never gave his opponents a chance to counterattack. The exact moment Mami opened her mouth to spit out his name, his right hand decisively grabbed the glass of water packed with ice cubes. With a fast, clean, and utterly ruthless motion, he splashed all of that freezing water right into Mami's face.
Splash!
Water flew everywhere. The freezing ice cubes hit Mami's cheeks and forehead, then clattered onto the glass tabletop. Her carefully styled blonde hair clung wetly to her cheeks. Her perfect makeup smeared. Her expensive off-the-shoulder pastel dress was soaked, sticking tightly to her freezing skin.
Mami's sputtering and shocked shriek rang out, tearing through the cafe's tranquil atmosphere. The jazz continued to play, but every gaze from all the surrounding tables instantly converged on the window corner. Whispering and pointing began to erupt.
"Oh my god, what's going on?"
"A lovers' quarrel?"
"That girl looks so pathetic..."
Mami covered her face, her whole body trembling violently from the cold and an unprecedented humiliation. She had never been treated so cruelly and roughly. Actual tears welled up, mixing with the freezing water streaming down her chin.
But it still wasn't over. The one holding the power to manipulate the crowd was not her.
Amidst the astonishment of the surrounding diners, he leisurely pulled several large-denomination bills from his wallet. He didn't run away or panic. With the demeanor of a courteous yet cold-blooded gentleman, he scattered the bills onto the soaked table right in front of the shivering Mami.
He deliberately raised his volume, enunciating clearly enough so that the neighboring tables wouldn't miss a single word. He knew how to use language to sway public opinion, turning himself into the one in the right, a deceived victim indignantly demanding justice.
"Here's the money for your water, and consider it compensation for your trashy personality and your one month of youth that's as short as a Korean guy's junk," he said, his voice hardening, carrying deep disdain. "Next time, before you cheat on someone to run off with another guy, remember to wipe off the lipstick mark on your neck. It's disgusting."
A perfect lie. There was no lipstick mark on Mami's neck whatsoever. But that didn't matter. His words instantly turned the tables. The curious, pitying gazes of the bystanders immediately shifted into contempt and scorn.
"So she cheated on her boyfriend."
"She looks so pretty but acts like a slut, no wonder that guy was angry enough to throw a whole glass of water at her."
"What a piece of trash..."
The whispers now felt like thousands of needles stabbing straight into Mami. Stripped of her victim mask, publicly humiliated in a crowded place, Mami's pride shattered into pieces.
As soon as she felt genuinely threatened, she buried her face in her hands, sobbing from the humiliation; no one dared approach to defend her, as everyone was convinced she was truly a brazen cheater. Mami hastily grabbed her handbag and bolted out of the cafe like a fugitive, leaving behind the deafening chime of the bells and the scornful glares of the public.
He stood there, watching her soaked, pathetic figure vanish into the crowd of pedestrians. No guilt. No sympathy. Only a cold satisfaction filling his chest.
The first bag of trash had been neatly disposed of.
He turned around, shoved his hands into his pockets, settled the bill, and calmly walked out of the cafe, leaving his untouched black iced coffee on the table.
Strolling down the bustling streets of Tokyo under the fading sunset, he took a deep breath. The air seemed much fresher. The headache was gone, replaced by absolute clarity.
"Dragging your life through the mud just for a woman like that? Whatever man wrote this script definitely needs to see a psychiatrist," he muttered sarcastically.
Based on the original Kazuya's memories, the upcoming chain of troublesome events wouldn't stop here. The next major event was Grandmother Nagomi collapsing from a stroke and being hospitalized. In the original plot, that very incident sparked a series of lies, days of wasting money renting a girlfriend to cover up his own inadequacy, tying himself into a messy web of endlessly dragged-out troubles.
"Since I have to go through this mess, I will personally clean it up in the fastest way possible. Cut off all hope, settle every single debt clearly."
He stopped by a tree on the side of the road and pulled out his smartphone. He tried to recall the sole tool that the Kazuya brat had used to meet the female lead. A terrible service, exploiting human loneliness for profit like a smokeless industry.
Sliding his finger across the screen, he accessed the app store and typed the keyword "Diamond." The sparkling diamond icon appeared.
He downloaded it and set up an account in under three minutes.
"Regardless, I need to wrap up all of these burdens neatly, leaving absolutely zero emotional strings attached. Just some cheap, dime-a-dozen romance."
The app's interface opened, displaying a slew of smiling faces and fake rating stats of girls who made a living entertaining with their looks. He didn't bother reading the cheesy bios. His cold, calculating gaze skimmed through the list and stopped at the profile topping the rankings.
Mizuhara Chizuru.
The profile picture was of a girl with long, glossy hair and a radiant smile, so perfect it lacked a single flaw. A well-trained, industrial smile.
"A money-printing machine wrapped in human skin," he remarked in a disdainful tone. For someone who loathed deceit as much as he did, this profession of selling smiles and pretending to be in love for money truly sat at the bottom of respect, far worse than a prostitute.
However, at present, she was the most optimal tool for him to execute his plan.
He didn't hesitate, pressing his finger straight onto the "Book now" button.
A notification confirming an appointment for tomorrow afternoon popped up on the screen. He turned off the phone and pocketed it. The corners of his mouth curled up again, a sly smile of a man prepared to crush all the stupid rules of this world.
"Don't disappoint me for that exorbitant price, you third-rate actress..." His shadow stretched long across the asphalt, straight and independent.
The cheap romance play written by an incompetent author had just had its first page torn out by his own hands. Instead, he would personally rewrite the rules of survival in this world: Rationality, ruthlessness, and absolutely no room for any weakness to breed.