Chapter Ninety-Nine: A Farce

"I'm sorry, sorry—I didn't see your friend request yesterday."

Fujiwara Mizu's excitement dried his mouth out, and his fingers trembled slightly as he hurriedly typed back, "It's fine, it's fine. I was the one who added you so suddenly yesterday."

"Did you add me... for something?"

"I saw that we're both from Yachiyo City, so I thought maybe we could be friends," Fujiwara Mizu quickly replied.

"I see."

"Yeah, I noticed it in the group chat yesterday," he wrote back. For a moment, he didn't know what else to say.

Suddenly, a large hand snatched the phone away. Before Fujiwara Mizu could even get angry, he felt Matsuzaka Daibu hook an arm around his neck from behind and clamp him in a tight embrace. "Boss, Tiger, hurry up and see what she wrote!"

Aoki Tsukasa and Maeda Tora took the phone and quickly scrolled through the conversation.

Fujiwara Mizu cried out anxiously, "No, wait, don't!"

"Salty Fish..." Maeda Tora chuckled as he opened Salty Fish's profile. There was even a photo of her inside: a selfie that didn't show her face.

"Damn!" Maeda Tora's eyes went round in an instant, and he drew in a sharp breath. From the selfie alone, Salty Fish had a tiny waist, long legs, and a lush figure. Just on looks alone, she was an eighty-point beauty!

A girl with that kind of body, even if she were ugly, would still be every man's dream. Especially that plump, lifted backside—it was simply not something a high school student should have!

Yet the moment Aoki Tsukasa thought that such a lovely rear would also be used for taking a dump, his interest dimmed. Well, he wasn't going to be jealous anyway. Admiration was impossible, too.

Aoki Tsukasa looked at the photo, then at the fairly handsome Fujiwara Mizu, and raised a brow at him. "Not bad, Fujiwara."

"Boss!!" Embarrassed and enraged, Fujiwara Mizu shook himself free of Matsuzaka Daibu and snatched the phone back. "I only just met her!"

Maeda Tora slapped Fujiwara Mizu hard on the shoulder. "You've got something going for you now! You've really got something going for you!"

"Keep it up!" Aoki Tsukasa glanced over; from the two of them chatting, there was hardly any foundation at all. Nine times out of ten, this was going to crash and burn. After all, a beauty with that kind of body surely wasn't short of admirers. And from Fujiwara Mizu's way of talking, his flirting skills were painfully stiff.

But when he thought about it, he, an old bachelor, probably had no standing to talk. So Aoki Tsukasa merely shrugged and turned away. "I'm going to eat my bento."

Maeda Tora dragged Fujiwara Mizu along toward the rooftop, muttering as he went, "Listen to me: if you keep talking to her like that, she's definitely not going to want to answer you."

Fujiwara Mizu had already forgotten his embarrassment. Gripping Maeda Tora, he asked anxiously, "Then how should I talk to her? Tora! Help me!"

Matsuzaka Daibu snorted from the side. "What does he know? Let me, the great Daibu, the veteran heartbreaker, help you. You just do this, and then this."

Maeda Tora wore a face of refusal. "Listening to him definitely won't work. You need to do this, then that!"

Listening to the two of them spouting nonsense nonstop, Aoki Tsukasa nearly choked laughing on his bento.

And Fujiwara Mizu, looking bewildered, was guided by the two of them into a rambling, awkward conversation with Salty Fish.

Seeing Matsuzaka Daibu giving grand counsel as though he were a man who had been through it all, and Maeda Tora posing as a self-satisfied master of romance, while Fujiwara Mizu actually believed them, Aoki Tsukasa secretly relaxed: if this could actually work, then I, Aoki Tsukasa, will eat...

"She actually really wants to be friends with me!" Fujiwara Mizu's delighted shout made Aoki Tsukasa's mouthful of rice catch in his throat. He nearly died halfway through, failing before his evil deed was even complete, collapsing on the rooftop in the middle of battle.

Under the stunned gazes of the three, Aoki Tsukasa shakily raised a thumb, coughing as he managed to say in broken bursts, "Keep it up!"

Who would have thought that even though Maeda Tora and Matsuzaka Daibu didn't have girlfriends,

they could talk a big game!

"Click." The rooftop door suddenly opened, and an old acquaintance whom they had not seen for several days appeared on the rooftop.

It was Saito from the kendo club.

Aoki Tsukasa and the other three all turned in unison toward Saito at the rooftop entrance.

"Aoki-kun, I have something I want to discuss with you. Do you have a moment?" Saito said stiffly, facing the four bald men staring at him. His smile was extremely strained.

At that point, the three of them fell back into the world of strategizing for Salty Fish.

Only then did Saito breathe a sigh of relief. Pushing up his glasses, he looked at Aoki Tsukasa seated on an old, worn-out sofa, brows tightly furrowed and eyes red-rimmed, radiating an involuntary air of authority, and felt that this guy somehow looked even more terrifying than before.

Aoki Tsukasa covered his mouth and finally managed to force down a little of what was stuck in his throat. He felt as though if he closed his eyes, tears might spill out. In order not to make a fool of himself, he could only keep his eyes wide and stare at Saito. "What is it?"

Saito was pinned under Aoki Tsukasa's red-eyed stare and felt his whole body begin to tremble, as if he had encountered a hungry beast in the wilderness. Cold sweat broke out on his back as he stammered, "Well, um, I... I wanted to ask Aoki-san... Aoki-brother to sign up for the kendo club tournament."

"Hm?" Aoki Tsukasa's low questioning sound in his throat startled Saito into standing straight at once. "Sorry, big brother!"

"Hmph?" Aoki Tsukasa was afraid that if he spoke, he would throw up, so he kept his mouth tightly shut and continued questioning with his throat.

"Because this year's Dragon Flag Tournament has introduced a new mixed division, and since senior Ishihara from the kendo club withdrew on his own, no one can team up with Senior Dojima for the competition. That's why I came to ask big brother!"

Saito felt as though his back were soaked through with sweat, yet Aoki Tsukasa still sat there with his brow furrowed, saying nothing.

"Um..."

No good, no good. If I speak, I'm going to throw up. Is there any water?

Anyone who has ever been choked knows that holding it in like this is truly miserable, as if you might die from it. Without water to force it down, it was enough to drive a person mad.

Saito seemed to read the answer from Aoki Tsukasa's expression and hurriedly said, "Sorry, it seems big brother Aoki doesn't want to participate. I was too rash. I'm sorry!"

At this point, Maeda Tora suddenly cut in. "Are you the boss's underling? Why are you calling him Boss Aoki too?"

Saito looked at Maeda Tora, with his scarred face and ferocious expression, and nearly turned blue with strain. "I'm sorry!"

"Bang!" Aoki Tsukasa slammed the table, startling everyone present. His trembling finger pointed at Maeda Tora, his expression twisting viciously.

Maeda Tora's heart went cold. He hastily shouted, "I'm sorry, boss! It was none of my business!"

"S..." Aoki Tsukasa pointed at the drink beside Maeda Tora's bento box, his eyes practically bulging out of his head.

"Big, big brother wants me to die...?" Maeda Tora swallowed hard, his expression terrified.

"Pour it...!" Aoki Tsukasa covered his mouth, his eyes widening even further.

Maeda Tora looked at the drink Aoki Tsukasa was pointing at, his expression conflicted. Could it be that he wasn't telling me to die, but to pour water...? Slowly yet resolutely, he reached toward the bottle, feeling miserable inside. It seemed he'd really angered the boss today. If he didn't do something, the boss probably wouldn't calm down!

And no wonder. That morning, when they talked about protection money, the boss had already seemed very unhappy.

Clenching his teeth, Maeda Tora steeled himself and shouted, "Boss! I understand! I'll pour this water. I only hope you'll forgive me!"

With that, he opened the bottle cap, closed his eyes, and under the stunned gazes of the others, poured the contents over his own bald head with a tragic air.

"Pour it on me, you idiot!" Aoki Tsukasa could no longer hold back. He pulled away the hand covering his mouth, snatched the bottle from above Maeda Tora's head, where only a mouthful remained, and gulped it down.

Maeda Tora looked dazedly at the drink still dripping from his bald head and muttered, "Could it be... not... not pouring water on my head?"

"Aoki-kun, let's eat our bentos together!" The rooftop door opened again with a click. As Ohashi Kokomi came in holding her lunchbox and turned her head, she saw Aoki Tsukasa holding a drink bottle, while Maeda Tora stood before him covered in liquid, looking utterly desperate. Her smile gradually stiffened.

Seeing Aoki Tsukasa turn red-eyed toward her, gripping the bottle and still wearing that terrifying, twisted expression, the lunchbox in Ohashi Kokomi's hands fell to the floor with a clatter.

"S-sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt!" Her eyes immediately filled with tears, and she turned to run back the way she had come.

"No..." Aoki Tsukasa murmured, letting the bottle fall weakly from his hand to the ground.

He turned to Saito, his expression bleak and hollow. "Isn't this wrong?"

"It is! Big brother!" Saito's legs went weak and he dropped to his knees, instinctively clutching his head.

Click. The rooftop door opened once more. Ohashi Kokomi picked up the lunchbox that had fallen earlier, but when she looked up and saw Saito kneeling there with his head in his hands, and the drink bottle rolling at Aoki Tsukasa's feet, tears spilled stubbornly from her eyes. The image of the gentle, reliable Aoki Tsukasa in her heart seemed to shatter.

Clutching the lunchbox to her chest, she said, "I never imagined Aoki-kun was really this kind of person!"

With that, she cried and ran off.

Aoki Tsukasa lowered his head expressionlessly and stared at Saito.

Saito realized he had probably done something terribly wrong. Swallowing hard, he forced out a smile uglier than a grimace. "I... I didn't mean it..."