Tokyo Psychic

Page 157

Akira Kurusu opened the plastic bag and looked down at its contents, which were all kinds of props related to nighttime protection measures. He looked at Mutsumi Wakaba in front of him with utter shock and asked, "What do you mean by this?"

Be gentle with Xiangzi.

"?"

Seeing Akira Kurusu's shocked gaze, Mutsumi Wakaba whispered, "We're going to the Toyokawa house tonight."

"You think I'm going to stay there overnight?"

"Hmm." Wakaba Mutsu's voice trailed off. "Because, Ren slept in Shoko's room last night."

"And..." she said, lowering her eyes and avoiding eye contact with Akira Kurusu, "there were many people from the Toyokawa family in the venue."

"They found you? Did they say anything specific?"

Ruoye Mu nodded and then shook her head, "She just asked me to cooperate in taking a few photos."

She looked at the plastic bag in Lai Xixiao's hand, a blush rising on her pale face. "Xiangzi doesn't understand these things, and she's easily embarrassed, so she definitely won't prepare in advance... So, please."

Lai Xixiao looked at the plastic bag in her hand with a subtle expression. "I thought you were going to use it."

Ruo Yemu shook her head in a panic, her light golden eyes immediately filled with unprecedented unease. But she didn't dare to run away, or rather, she didn't have the option of "escape" that a normal girl would have. She just stood there feeling wronged, waiting for Lai Xixiao to "bully" her next.

When Akira Kurusu saw Mukaru Wakaba's submissive demeanor, he immediately abandoned all thoughts of teasing her—teasing a girl with a mental illness was a bit too far from the moral line.

The phantom thief took Wakaba Mutsu's hand and led her around a corner. Ahead, they would see the familiar red and white awning. "Didn't you want to see where I usually live? It's right there."

He pointed to the coffee shop that was just a stone's throw away.

Next to the red and white awning stood a sign that read "LeBron".

......

I heard the clear, crisp sound of the wind chimes swaying.

Sakura Sojiro looked up and said instinctively, "Welcome to LeBron."

Then he saw Akira Kurusu, and then he saw the quiet and beautiful girl Akira Kurusu was holding hands with, and a helpless smile appeared on his face, "You little brat... sigh!"

Sakura Sojiro seemed to have thought of something, sighed with a hint of disappointment, and then looked at Kurusu Akira, "Aren't you going to introduce him?"

"Wakaba Mutsumi".

Akira Kurusu raised her hand, which was clasped together with Mutsu Wakaba's. The girl suddenly felt flustered, lowered her face, and dared not look at the old man in front of her.

Sakura Sojiro shook his head. "I've cleaned the attic. You can go up and take a look."

After thanking him, Akira Kurishi led Wakaba Mutsu up the steps.

......

Upon entering the attic, Wakaba Mutsu was immediately taken aback by the excessively sparse environment.

Wakaba Mutsu had never been to such a place before... where the living conditions were so terrible.

She looked up at Akira Kurusu beside her.

"Lian, do you usually live here?"

"Yes."

If Ye Mu let go of Lai Xixiao's hand, she would throw herself into his arms and hug him tightly.

What are you doing?

“Xiangzi taught me this,” Ruoye Mu explained softly. “If you don’t know how to express your emotions, you can do it this way.”

"You can't do that with strangers."

"Yes." Wakaba Mutsu nodded slowly. "The lotus is different."

Akira Kurusu hugged Mutsumi Wakaba back with a helpless expression.

About five minutes later, Wakaba Mutsu reluctantly broke free and began groping around the attic.

Akira didn't stop her, and after watching her wander around for a while, she said, "Next, shall we go and take a look at my school?"

"Yes." Ruoye Mu turned around, her voice trembling slightly. She quickly walked closer and hugged Laixi Xiao tightly again.

Perhaps she found it unbelievable to live in such an environment? In any case, fear, surprise, admiration, heartache... all sorts of complex emotions were intertwined, choking the girl's heart.

Ruoye Mu was never good at expressing herself, and faced with this situation, besides holding Laixi Xiao tightly, she didn't know what to say or do.

It took a long time before they let go of each other's hands.

She asked Lai Xixiao, "If Ren and I lived here together, would Ren like me?"

Lai Xixiao raised her hand and patted her on the head, asking the girl in surprise, "Is it because you think Xiangzi might have said that to me this time?"

Ruoye Mu nodded, blushing.

"I didn't even agree to Xiangzi's request, do you think I would agree to yours?"

Ruo Yemu quickly shook her head, timidly taking a few steps back, her face turning deathly pale. In short, she dared not utter another word. She was probably also horrified that she had said such a thing.

Akira Kurusu stepped forward and took Mutsu Wakaba's hand again, walking nonchalantly towards the stairwell. "Let's go, before the weekend club activities start, let's hurry and go to the school."

Only after leaving LeBron did Wakaba Mutsumi look at Kurusu Akira with complicated emotions, and then say, "I'm sorry."

"It's best not to say 'I'm sorry' to Xiangzi."

"Xiangzi will be angry." Ruoye Mu had a deep reflection on her actions from last night until now.

"If it's Mu, she probably won't be angry."

Wakaba Mutsu looked up at Kurusu Akira with a somewhat confused expression.

"Really?"

"real."

“Then…” The doll-like girl felt something like a flame burning in her long-dormant heart, her heartbeat was so fast, like the roar of a motorcycle engine.

"There are some things I should say after I've thought them through."

Akira Kurusu, who had just mounted the motorcycle, reached out and touched her warm face. "At least you need to make yourself healthy first."

Wakaba Muku nodded and was led by Kurusu Akira to sit on the motorcycle.

She rested her face against Akira's back, her light golden eyes reflecting the blue sky and white clouds. The thin clouds were like countless threads pulling a puppet, gradually fading away with the flow of the summer breeze.

......

The air conditioning in the 24-hour convenience store clashed with the outdoor heat in front of the automatic doors. An office worker in a suit, but with dyed green hair, stared blankly, clutching a rice ball. A red dot lit up on his phone screen, a reminder of unread Line messages, like the lipstick residue left on a woman in a kimono at last year's Sumida River Fireworks Festival.

Suddenly, I felt that my suit was a little tight. I used one hand to adjust my tie, the front of my shirt, the back of my collar... I felt that everything was not fitting properly.

It seems that rather than this suit, he should be wearing something that was once thought to be worn by prisoners, sitting in a space that was once thought to be where prisoners stayed, listening to a middle-aged man holding books on the podium spouting long-winded theories.

The rice ball was quickly swallowed.

The female students passing by laughed and chatted about trivial matters, their happiness arousing a strange jealousy in the man. He lit a cigarette, the smoke quickly dissipating in the hot air, vanishing silently like unfulfilled dreams.

Sometimes he was vaguely aware of the loneliness of life, yet he firmly believed that there was an extraordinary fire hidden deep in his heart.

But if you really go back to look for traces of that flame, you'll find that it has vanished without a trace.

Suddenly, a familiar figure appeared in my line of sight.

After trying hard to recall, I finally remembered that this was the boy I had seen in the park near Shigenjaya a few months ago.

The other person was wearing designer casual clothes that I could only dream of, and was leading a very beautiful girl down the street.

Ah, he is now...

The convenience store door behind me was opening and closing.

A man with dyed hair and wearing a suit walked out holding a roll of promotional posters. Noticing his underling's expression, he smiled helplessly and said, "You actually still remember him."

"Matsusaka-kun, you..."

Matsusaka didn't say anything, but simply handed him a cigarette.

The younger brother quickly put the cigarette in his mouth, and then Matsuzaka bent down to take out a lighter and light it for him.

The two of them smoked for a while.

Matsuzaka handed him the poster.

"This is what I won in the raffle at the store just now."

"Ok?"

The younger brother stared blankly at the poster that read "Celebrating the millionth copy of No Game No Life Volume 1." The exaggerated illustrations and various cute girl character portraits seemed out of place with the fierce-looking man in front of him.

"You're only finding out now?" Matsuzaka pulled out his cracked phone from his pocket, searched for the name "Kurasu Akira," and handed it to him.

"That guy who looked completely lost back then is now an amazing person."

......

Dusk fell on the narrow path of Cangshan 1-chome, and a crow, its cause of death unknown, lay dead in the shadows of the bushes.

Akira Kurusu led Mutsu Wakaba into the tram station.

“It’s an ordinary school,” said Wakaba Mutsumi in a soft, porcelain-like voice, “but it feels very special.”

What's so special about it?

“Especially in…” Wakaba Mutsu turned around, standing at the entrance of the tram station, her light golden eyes reflecting the figure of Kurusu Akira.

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(This is ridiculous! Why hasn't the "update limit" been added to the backend? I uploaded a few pictures and it froze my account for an hour again. I set up automatic updates, but it didn't update automatically... I'm too lazy to complain.)

(In short, I've gone overboard and the "seven-in-one" chapter is complete. Please vote with your monthly tickets!!!)

(Also, there will be no update tonight. Tomorrow around this time, there will be a "five-in-one" or "six-in-one" chapter, which will finish writing the story of Wakaba Mutsumi's parents' repentance all at once.)

After episode 8 of Mother Hen Card, regarding Wakaba Mutsumi:

Thoughts on Episode 8 of "Mother Hen Card": It wasn't a backstabbing; the book already addressed that. Metis explained that Wakaba Mutsumi has a very severe personality disorder, and the potential conflict in the parents' settings stems from distorted desires.

PS2: In the book, Takuto Maruki used to provide psychological counseling to Mutsuka Wakaba.

PS3: As mentioned in Chapter 141 of the book, Metath is a newly created personality with very weak power. All the Personas' power must be borrowed from Wakaba Mutsumi.

In conclusion: The character design of Wakaba Mutsumi in her current book is correct, thanks to Maruki-sensei's treatment.

I wasn't backstabbed by WSD; I blocked every single one of WSD's attacks using the patches I had applied beforehand.

136. If Ye Mu needs more than just a psychologist (four-in-one)

Desire ferments into a viscous honey within the pores, while the lips of actresses on giant advertising screens open and close at 24 frames per second. Neon lights, like the debris of a fallen celestial body, proliferate among the cancerous cells of office building glass curtain walls. Men in suits, their necks gleaming with oil, strut through the streets of Shibuya like gladiators smeared with olive oil.

They were heading toward an unseen beast, while the stands above them were filled with bloodthirsty spectators.

The defeated gladiators, wounded and battered, wander the darkness of the streets and alleys. Injuries and defeat are the curses that every gladiator fears most—the result of the curse is the inability to return to the arena, and... the loss of their home.

As Takayuki Ye stepped out of the opulent hotel and stood in the middle of the street in Shinjuku 1-chome, drunk, the losers in life and work flowed slowly past him like a tide.

At the dinner table, the dull thud of the investor setting down the program's performance report, along with his admonitory words, struck him like a heavy hammer.

"Takafumi, we've entrusted all our most crucial resources to your program. We did this out of trust in the Toyokawa family..."

"But you know, your surname is just 'Wakaba'."

"if......"

The dull thud of countless leather heels striking the manhole cover and the concrete ground was the irregular heartbeat of the city. As Ruoye Longwen looked at the lost and dejected faces on those diverse faces, his heart felt as if it were being tightened by an invisible rope, and he suddenly felt an indescribable sense of suffocation.

He gazed at the steel and glass canyon before him, as if he were walking towards a giant gladiatorial arena.

A ferocious beast called "Failure" burst forth from the depths of the crowd, spewing foul breath at him.

[The variety show hosted by famous comedian Takafumi Wakaba has poor ratings...] This kind of news will probably soon appear in those scornful media reports.