Taking advantage of Yukinoshita Shizuku's trip to the bathroom, Tsushima Kagami sat alone on the living room sofa and opened his status panel.
He'd been so caught up playing with that revolver earlier that he'd nearly forgotten about the new Shop Exchange function unlocked when the system leveled up to LV3.
He tapped into it out of curiosity and gave it a quick look.
The longer he looked, the deeper his frown grew.
The shop was stocked with an impressive-looking spread of items.
The contents, however, were absolutely insufferable.
Energy Potion (Small), Energy Potion (dium), Energy Potion (Large) — stuff he'd already pulled from the gacha lottery so many tis he was sick of seeing it.
Scrolling further down, he found an assortnt of risqué lingerie, stockings, "new energy" girlfriends, "new energy" equipnt, and a pile of adult products he couldn't even na.
What on earth is this...
It felt like one of those impulse-buy platforms — lots of items on the surface, but all of it useless filler with half the categories duplicated.
Tsushima Kagami couldn't help but groan inwardly.
It's literally called a Pure Love System, and yet most of the rewards and items and skills have absolutely nothing to do with pure love.
And on top of that — this stuff you could just buy with real money. Redeeming it with Pure Love Points is an even worse deal than just heading straight to Akihabara and buying it yourself!
Wait, hold on.
What if I redeed all these relatively advanced "new energy" devices, then started a tech company and reverse-engineered them to bring them to market earlier than they'd naturally appear?
Wouldn't that make a new energy tycoon?
I really am a genius!
He was about to close the shop when he spotted a small line of text tucked in the corner of the screen.
[The Shop can be upgraded by consuming Pure Love Points. Upgrading unlocks more items.]
Tsushima Kagami tapped it to see how many points the upgrade required — two million.
Double what it had cost to level the system up to LV3.
Forget it.
He shook his head.
He'd burned through months' worth of accumulated Pure Love Points just to reach LV3, and now he had almost none left.
And who even knew whether upgrading the shop would just give him more of the sa useless junk.
Better to keep saving for now and revisit the idea later.
Just as he was thinking that, the bathroom door opened.
Yukinoshita Shizuku walked out, her expression back to its usual composed calm, as though nothing had happened a mont ago.
Only the faint blush lingering at the tips of her ears gave anything away — and even that was mostly hidden behind the curtain of hair she'd let fall forward.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
She walked over to Tsushima Kagami and spoke in her usual even tone.
"Shall we finish taking the asurents?"
"Sure."
Tsushima Kagami rose from the sofa as well.
The two of them repositioned themselves in the living room.
Yukinoshita Shizuku turned around, presenting her back to him, and without a mont's hesitation, shrugged her pyjama top off her shoulders, baring the smooth expanse of her back. Her bra — a deep royal blue with a faint sheen — caught the light in a way that was quietly, undeniably alluring.
Then she reached back and unclasped it too.
Tsushima Kagami drew a slow breath and picked up the asuring tape.
"Starting now, then."
"Mm."
He did his best to keep his movents precise and professional, holding one end of the tape in his right hand while his left arm reached around her side, preparing to pass the tape across her chest.
He tried carefully to avoid brushing her skin.
But Yukinoshita Shizuku — stripped of her pyjamas and her bra — was releasing a faint, delicate fragrance from her skin, like a blossom coming open.
Not the usual scent of her body wash or shampoo. What was it, then?
Or maybe he was just imagining things.
Tsushima Kagami pushed the wandering thoughts aside and continued guiding the tape by feel toward the highest point of Yukinoshita Shizuku's figure, then slowly drew it taut.
Yukinoshita Shizuku's body tensed ever so slightly — but relaxed again just as quickly.
The tape drifted and adjusted across her chest.
Then its edge lightly grazed sothing soft and sensitive. "Ah…"
A short, involuntary sound slipped from Yukinoshita Shizuku's lips.
On reflex, she shrank inward, both hands flying up to cover her chest.
She glanced back at Tsushima Kagami, a flush rising visibly across her cheeks.
"S-sorry..."
Tsushima Kagami froze too, tape still in hand, caught in a complete deadlock.
The air between them solidified for a few long seconds.
"It's… it's fine."
Yukinoshita Shizuku turned her face away, her voice dropping a notch from before.
"Keep going."
Tsushima Kagami looked at the back of her head — and found he absolutely could not focus.
That brief, involuntary sound kept echoing in his ears.
Oh no. Have I developed so weird three-dinsional fixation?
But that voice...
Tsushima Kagami recalled that he used to listen to certain audio dramas every now and then. Especially the other works by Haru Hana Ran, the voice actress behind Yuuka — he'd used those as a sort of substitute for a while.
Ah, even just thinking about it now gives that feeling!
So that's it — it's not that I've developed so weird real-world fixation. I've always just been into voices. It's a voice fetish, plain and simple.
Shizuku's little sound just happened to hit that exact switch in my brain.
Well, today I've learned sothing new about myself.
Still — this is completely unsustainable for actually taking asurents.
What if Shizuku makes another noise like that?
"Hold on."
Tsushima Kagami said abruptly.
"I need to use the bathroom."
"?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku turned her head, a look of puzzlent in her eyes.
"Now?"
"Yeah, just a second."
Tsushima Kagami walked quickly into the bathroom and shut the door.
He stood at the sink and looked at himself in the mirror.
He took a slow, deliberate breath and murmured inwardly.
"Activate skill — Hypnosis App."
"From now until I finish taking Shizuku's asurents, you are a cold, composed, devastatingly handso man who feels absolutely nothing and exists solely to operate a asuring tape!"
The skill's signature pink rings rippled out of thin air.
The eyes of the reflection in the mirror gradually grew still and clear, utterly without turbulence.
Tsushima Kagami gave himself in the mirror a cool, composed nod.
Good. Ready to go.
He stepped out of the bathroom.
Yukinoshita Shizuku was still standing exactly where he'd left her, in the sa position.
Seeing him erge, she instinctively turned her back again — but her eyes couldn't help sneaking a sideways glance at him.
"Let's continue."
Tsushima Kagami walked back to stand behind her, his tone so calm it bordered on indifferent.
Yukinoshita Shizuku picked up on the difference imdiately.
The Kagami from a mont ago — the one who'd been caught in an agonising deadlock after accidentally grazing her — was gone.
In his place stood soone with clear, untroubled eyes and unhurried composure.
The way he picked up the asuring tape was smooth and natural, as though this were the most ordinary task in the world.
The tape looped around her chest again.
This ti, Tsushima Kagami's hands were steady as a robotic arm — the tape settled precisely in position without a single unnecessary touch.
His breathing was even, his gaze fixed on the tape's markings, as though what stood before him were nothing more than a mannequin.
In Kagami's eyes, there was not a trace of worldly desire...
"Bust... 87.5."
"Underbust... 69."
He read out the numbers in a perfectly flat tone.
Yukinoshita Shizuku blinked. Hadn't it been 87 just the other day?
Had it changed again?
But she said nothing, only offering a quiet "mm" in reply.
Next was the waist.
Tsushima Kagami lowered the tape and circled it once around the narrowest point of her waist.
His fingers pressed lightly against both ends to confirm the fit, then he read out the number.
"Waist... 58.5."
The sa businesslike tone throughout — like soone filling out a form.
Taking the hip asurent required the tape to pass around the fullest part.
Tsushima Kagami crouched down behind her and fed the tape upward from below.
At this angle, his face was only a few centitres from her hips.
Yukinoshita Shizuku could feel the faint warmth of his breath drifting across her skin.
The thought of it made her press her thighs together without thinking.
"Stand still!"
"How am I supposed to asure like this?"
"Ah—! Yes!"
Tsushima Kagami's sudden reprimand jolted Yukinoshita Shizuku back to attention.
What on earth had she been thinking?
But…
It's not… wet again, is it?
If Kagami saw...
The thought sent her hands flying to cover her own flushed cheeks.
But Tsushima Kagami's gaze remained perfectly undisturbed.
"Hips... 89."
He stood up, jotted the number down in the small notebook he kept on him, then continued.
"For garnt length we asure from the shoulder line, right?"
"Mm... yes."
Tsushima Kagami was about to step around to her front when he stopped.
Yukinoshita Shizuku looked at him with a puzzled tilt of her head.
"What is it?"
Tsushima Kagami simply pointed at her bra, which was still hanging loose.
"You can put your bra back on now."
"Oh..."
"Right, sorry — I forgot."
Good grief, why am I the one apologising?
Yukinoshita Shizuku thought with a pang of indignation as she refastened her bra.
Tsushima Kagami draped one end of the tape over her shoulder and let it run down along her spine. His fingers grazed her back now and then, light as the brush of a feather.
Yukinoshita Shizuku held her head up, eyes closed, her lashes trembling faintly.
As though, having grown used to Kagami's occasional touches over the past few asurents, she had begun to simply feel them.
"Garnt length... 55."
Sleeve length required her to raise her arm slightly.
Yukinoshita Shizuku did so, and Tsushima Kagami asured from shoulder to wrist.
"Sleeve length... 52."
With the last number read out, Tsushima Kagami coiled the tape back up, recorded the final line in his notebook, then looked up at her with those eyes — utterly free of worldly desire.
"That's everything. All done."
Yukinoshita Shizuku looked back at him, montarily at a loss for words.
Is this still Kagami? How can he have absolutely zero reaction?
"Are you..."
She hesitated, then spoke.
"Are you alright?"
"Of course."
Tsushima Kagami smiled — but even that smile carried a certain keep-your-distance coolness to it.
"Sothing the matter?"
"Nothing."
Yukinoshita Shizuku shook her head and pulled her pyjamas back on.
"Thank you."
"Don't ntion it."
The two of them stood in the living room for a mont, the atmosphere vaguely awkward.
In the end, Tsushima Kagami spoke first.
"I'm heading to bed then. Early start tomorrow."
"Mm. Good night."
Tsushima Kagami nodded, turned, and walked back to his room.
The mont the door clicked shut, he leaned against it and let out a long, slow breath.
Then a quiet smile spread across his face.
Well done, Yukinoshita — I didn't betray your trust!
The Hypnosis App's effect was still running; he could feel it — that post-release state of zero worldly desire still settling over him like a calm fog.
But at the sa ti, he rembered every single thing that had happened with perfect clarity.
Every asurent. Every touch. Every number.
And back in the living room, Yukinoshita Shizuku was still standing in place, staring blankly at the door Tsushima Kagami had just closed.
She looked down at the pyjamas she'd just put back on, then drifted over to the mirror and looked at her own reflection.
Most of the flush had faded from her cheeks, but sothing new had crept into her eyes — sothing complicated.
That Kagami just now...
She couldn't quite put a na to the feeling.
He'd been so professional, so controlled — it should have been reassuring.
But why...
Why did it leave her feeling just a little bit… deflated?
Yukinoshita Shizuku shook her head and scattered those ssy thoughts away.
Then she too returned to her room, climbed into bed, and lay down.
Looking out at the moon through the window, she slowly closed her eyes.
But the scenes from that evening kept replaying in her mind, one after another.
Especially the warmth of his breath against her skin when Tsushima Kagami had crouched behind her to take the hip asurent.
The sensation of his fingers tracing down her spine along the tape as he asured her garnt length.
And that mont when the tape had accidentally grazed her sensitive spot...
Yukinoshita Shizuku swallowed involuntarily, slowly gathered the duvet up, and tucked it between her thighs. Her other hand ca to rest against her own chest...
"Kagami..."
"You… you big lump of wood~"
The next morning, Tsushima Kagami was deep in a dream — living out his glorious fantasy of being a wild west cowboy rogue — when the scene abruptly cut away.
His beautiful dream morphed into sothing more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. A damsel he'd just rescued from a gang of bandits was vacuuming the house for him, but the suction was so powerful that it caught him too.
As Tsushima Kagami wrestled endlessly with the vacuum that had latched onto him, unable to pull free, the spot it was suctioning kept shifting — until at last it fixed firmly onto his lips.
No matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't get loose. His lips grew more and more sore and numb, until he gradually, groggily woke up.
"Morning, Kagami."
As usual, the first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was Yukinoshita Shizuku, already crouched right in front of him.
This morning, Yukinoshita Shizuku was smiling more brightly than usual.
Sothing good must have happened to her.
Tsushima Kagami, for his part, was simply relieved to have woken up from what had been a rather unpleasant dream.
He returned her smile and called out a greeting.
"Shizuku — good morning."
As he said it, he noticed his lips felt a bit sore and swollen, and reached up to touch them on instinct.
"What's wrong with you?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku watched him suddenly pressing at his own lips and tilted her head.
"My mouth feels kind of puffy."
"That's probably just the dry weather."
"When your lips get too dry they start to crack, and that naturally leads to that sore, swollen, even painful feeling."
Tsushima Kagami listened and nodded.
"That does make sense."
"Looks like I need to rember to drink more water."
"Oh! I have so lip balm here — take it."
Yukinoshita Shizuku hurried back to her room and returned with a lip balm, pressing it into Tsushima Kagami's hand.
"Thanks."
Tsushima Kagami tucked the lip balm away, then got up and stretched.
"I'm going to go wash up."
"I'll go start breakfast."
With that, Yukinoshita Shizuku followed behind Tsushima Kagami out of the room.
...…
In the school classroom.
During the lunch break, Tsushima Kagami had once again commandeered Shimizu Nayotake's desk as his personal dining table, setting his bento box down as though it were the most natural thing in the world and digging in.
Every so often he'd pick out the octopus-shaped mini sausages from his bento that he didn't want to eat, place them on the box lid, and slide them over to Shimizu Nayotake.
Shimizu Nayotake looked at the little row of octopus-shaped sausages. By now she was entirely used to this — the corner of her mouth lifted faintly.
For her face, that counted as a very obvious smile.
"Thank you."
She accepted the box lid but didn't eat imdiately — she looked up at Tsushima Kagami instead.
"That thing you asked about yesterday..."
"Ah — the song? Your progress?"
Tsushima Kagami took a bite of his breaded pork cutlet, chewing as he spoke.
"How's it coming along?"
"Have you run into any issues?"
Shimizu Nayotake shook her head.
She lifted a sausage with her chopsticks and took a small nibble.
Sunlight from the classroom window fell across her face, lending a warmth to features that were usually hidden behind her long fringe.
"I think I've got it down well enough to sing."
She swallowed and said it quietly.
Tsushima Kagami nodded with a smile.
"Then let's pick a ti and run through it once with everyone in the Manga Research Club."
Shimizu Nayotake nodded.
"When are you free?"
She thought for a mont, then nad a date on which she had no shift and enough ti to spare.
Tsushima Kagami noted it down, then looked up at her with a grin.
"It's settled, then."
"Everyone's really looking forward to seeing what Nayotake can do."
"Are you guys eating lunch?"
Ijichi Seika appeared beside the two of them, bento box in hand, watching them.
Tsushima Kagami saw it was Ijichi Seika, glanced at her bento box, and wordlessly waved her into the lunch gathering.
Ijichi Seika didn't hesitate — she sat herself down cheerfully.
Ijichi Seika had always had a sowhat free-spirited personality not unlike Hiratsuka Shizuka's.
But after what had happened between her mother and Tsushima Kagami last ti, she hadn't quite known how to act around him.
It was only recently, thanks to the cultural festival drawing the Manga Research Club and the Light Music Club into frequent contact, that the awkwardness between them had begun to dissolve.
Ijichi Seika had finally started acting like herself again.
"You seem to be in a good mood today, Ijichi."
Tsushima Kagami teased.
"Ehh, I guess."
Ijichi Seika opened her bento box to reveal a neat arrangent of fried prawns and tamagoyaki.
"Oh, right — there's sothing I need to tell you two."
"What's up?"
"For the kindergarten volunteer practicum in two days — the three of us got put in the sa group."
Tsushima Kagami blinked, then rembered that Tsukuyomi Komoe had indeed ntioned this.
He looked from Shimizu Nayotake to Ijichi Seika.
"So just the three of us?"
"Yep."
Ijichi Seika nodded, then suddenly made a slightly complicated expression.
"And do you know which kindergarten we're going to?"
"Which one?"
Tsushima Kagami asked, curious.
"It's the one Little Nijika attends."
"Well, what a coincidence."
Ijichi Seika made a wry face.
"When Mum found out, she made a point of telling to behave myself and not embarrass Nijika."
"So what are you planning to do?"
Tsushima Kagami asked with genuine interest.
Ijichi Seika was stumped.
She chewed on her chopstick for a mont, then admitted with mild embarrassnt.
"I have no idea."
"It's just minding kids, right? How hard can it be?"
"Kids these days are a real handful, you know."
Tsushima Kagami said with a laugh.
Ijichi Seika thought of Little Nijika — who gave her a run for her money on a regular basis — and nodded in solemn agreent.
"So do you have any ideas?"
Ijichi Seika asked.
Tsushima Kagami rubbed his chin and thought for a second.
"Too much hassle."
"I'll just grab a picture storybook and improvise a few little skits based on whatever stories are in it."
Having said that, he glanced over at Shimizu Nayotake — and his eyes lit up.
"Nayotake — what if you sang a few children's songs for the kids? They'd definitely love it."
"I… I can't do that."
Shimizu Nayotake refused at once.
"Then what are you planning to perform for the kids?"
"I'll just… play with them."
"I've got it!"
Ijichi Seika, who'd been quietly wrestling with the sa question, suddenly exclaid.
The other two looked over.
"I'll just play guitar!" Ijichi Seika said quickly.
"Of course — why didn't I think of that sooner?"
Ijichi Seika had the look of soone who'd just solved a problem that had been staring her in the face all along.
"By the way — when Little Nijika finds out you're coming to her kindergarten, she's definitely going to be excited."
At that, Ijichi Seika smiled to herself and let the thought hang there without adding anything more.
But the aning was plain enough.
She was telling Tsushima Kagami: don't turn Little Nijika's excitent into disappointnt.
____
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🔥 New history: Danmachi: Summoning Ruri Gokou, And other Chuunibyou Brats
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