āIām Kaito Kanzaki, nice to meet you.ā
In response to Kuroās call, I introduced myself and bowed my head.
After that, Kuro gave me a smile in return.
āPlease, itās fine to talk casually to me. Iām a second-year high school student, too.ā
āWell, Iāll take your word for itā¦ Nice to meet you again, Kuroyanagi-kun.ā [TLN: The first greeting was more formal/speaking to higher-ups but you canāt see it in the translated version lol.]
I was hesitant to call him by his first name, so I called him by his last name instead.
āYeah, then again, Iām Ryu Kuroyanagi. Nice to meet you, Kanzaki-kun.ā
Kuroyanagi-kun introduced himself in the same way I did.
Kuroyanagi-kun is very easy to talk to.
He didnāt give me an unpleasant look even when he saw me with my bangs covering my eyes.
Thatās why heās easy to talk to.
āKuro isā¦ also reservedā¦ You can justā¦ talk like usualā¦ā
Alice-san, who had been silently watching our exchange, interrupted me.
Well, I knew that Kuroyanagi-kun was taking care of me from the tone of voice.
So I nodded my head in agreement with her.
āHmm, but you just refer to yourself as me, the rest is the same as usual, right?ā
āNoā¦ thatās not the caseā¦ Iāve heard that your tone isā¦ rough thoughā¦?ā
āā¦ā¦ā¦.Who the hell said that? Oh, no, wait, thereās only one person I talk to in that tone, so Iāll leave it at that.ā
Kuroyanagi-kun shook his head with a wry smile, as if he had something on his mind.
I tilted my head, unsure of what he was referring to.
Then, Alice-san started talking to me.
āKuroās partnerā¦ and his fiancĆ©ās cousinā¦ told me that Kuroās tone was roughā¦ā
āEh!? Kuroyanagi-kun has a fiancĆ©!?ā
I reacted more to the fact that Kuroyanagi-kun had a fiancƩ than to the fact that he had a partner.
āOhā¦ I knew it would come to thatā¦ Itās not like that, okay? Sure Iām dating her, but Iām not really her fiancĆ©, okay?ā
Kuroyanagi-kun was embarrassed, holding his head with his left hand and waving his right hand to the side.
I wonder, when I talk to him like this, he seems like a normal high school student.
He doesnāt look like the kind of person who could take on a major corporation.
āSo he has a girlfriend huhā¦ā
I was more concerned about that and muttered to myself enviously. [TLN: Really bruh?]
āAh, well thatās just how it is. But you donāt have to be jealous, okay?ā
I didnāt understand what Kuroyanagi-kun was saying, but he smiled meaningfully at me.
I wondered what he meant.
āKuroā¦ Forget about that, can you pleaseā¦ do what I asked you to doā¦?ā
When Kuroyanagi-kun and I were talking, Alice-san, who seemed to be in a slightly bad mood, asked Kuroyanagi-kun to do something.
Kuroyanagi-kun looked at Alice-san and smiled for a moment, but then nodded his head.
āI understand. However, are you sure you want to talk about it like that?ā
āI seeā¦ To tell you the truth, I donāt feel comfortable bragging about my misfortuneā¦ but I owe Alice-san. Soāā
Itās not for me to say, but I was wondering why Kuroyanagi-kun was talking to Alice-san, whoās the same age as him, in honorific terms, but Kuroyanagi-kun was about to preface his speech with something, so I took a stance to listen.
From thereā Kuroyanagi-kun told me about his past.
The story began with his motherās death when he was a child, which led to his fatherās drinking addiction and abuse against him and his sister.
The father also died when Kuroyanagi was in the third grade due to heavy drinking, and it was discovered that the father was in debt.
When he was troubled by the fact that his father was in deep debt, he was approached by the second daughter of the Shinomiya Conglomerate, who told him that she would wait until he found a job if he accepted her conditions.
The condition was that he must cut ties with all the people involved in his life and return to Shinomiya-san.
In short, he was told to cut ties with his sister, whom he cherished, and his childhood friend, whom he loved.
He wanted his sister to be happy, so he left her in the care of his childhood friendās family and secretly disappeared.
After that, he felt alone and devastated.
Eventually, thanks to her classmates, she was able to recover and was able to enjoy her life while working part-time to pay off her debts.
But it didnāt end there, his younger sister and childhood friend came to the new school looking for him, and there was a bit of trouble.
It seems that it was around that time that his brain disease was discovered.
When he realized that his life would not be long, he began to make adjustments so that his loved ones could be happy without him.
The first thing he did was to clear their debts through a deal with Ai Shinomiya, the eldest daughter of the Shinomiya Conglomerate.
Then, he made the people he cared aboutā the classmates who helped Kuroyanagi-kun get along with the girl he grew up with, and he made Shinomiya-san, whom he had already fallen in love with at the time, get along with someone he trusted.
In the latter case, there was some hesitation and some jumping around in the conversation, so there must have been something he didnāt want to talk about or couldnāt talk about.
But in the end, it seemed that he was just running away.
He turned away from the thoughts of those around him and tried to make himself feel better.
It was the people around him who made him realize his mistake.
After realizing that mistake, he made a reckoning for what he had done, and is now dating the second daughter of the Shinomiya Conglomerate.
It seems that he was able to undergo the surgery because he received the warmth of the Chairman of the Shinomiya Conglomerate when he was cleaning up his wrongs.
He also got to know Alice-san at that time, but it was just a coincidence.
It seems that Kuroyanagi-kun, who was trying to clear up his mistakes, approached Aria, a member of the Byodoin Conglomerate, which was comparable to the Shinomiya Conglomerate, to make a deal.
And it seems that Alice-san was there with him.
Knowing what I know about Aria, I think that she took Alice-san with her because she was wary of Kuroyanagi-kun.
I donāt know if Kuroyanagi-kun realized how great Alice-san was because of her involvement in the deal, or if he realized how great Alice-san was because of her little actions, because he dared to leave out the details of the deal.
Well, I donāt blame him for leaving out the details of the deal, because itās clearly not something you can just really talk about openly.
What he left out was probably also something that would be detrimental to the Shinomiya Conglomerate.
Thatās why he doesnāt talk about it.
Itās not that he doesnāt trust me, but rather that heās a cautious person.
If he didnāt trust me, he wouldnāt have told me about his past in the first place.
However, it doesnāt seem that he trusts me completely.
At any rate, while we were talking, Kuroyanagi-kun was observing my every move, every single move, every single step.
Iām sure I can trust him, since heās the one that Alice brought in, but I guess heās checking with his own eyes as well.
The great thing about Kuroyanagi-kun is that he doesnāt let the other person know that he is observing.
He is sitting on the bed, and I am sitting on the chair, and there is a good distance between us.
He uses the distance to look at my whole body, even though he is looking right into my eyes.
As for how I was able to notice him when he was trying not to let the other person know that he was observing me, I had been told about it beforehand by Alice-san.
ćKuro is always observing the other person. Even if you think heās looking at you in the eye, if you move your body and his eyes donāt move, think that heās looking at your whole body.ć
In fact, even when I subtly moved my head as Alice-san had told me to, his gaze never paused.
For example, if a person holds up his index finger and focuses his gaze on the tip of that finger, his eyes will move when the index finger moves, right?
But if youāre looking at the other personās whole body, and they move their index finger in front of their body, your eyes shouldnāt get pinched.
In other words, as Alice-san said, Kuroyanagi-kun is not focusing his gaze on a single part of the body, but is widening his field of vision so that he can see the whole body, so even if that person moves a part of their body, his eyes will not budge.
āHey Kai, do you understand what Alice is trying to say?ā
After Kuroyanagi-kun finished speaking, Alice-san, who had changed into a dignified atmosphere, spoke to me.
Kuroyanagi-kun was a little surprised by Aliceās change of appearance.
āErm, Kuroyanagi-kun has such a painful past, so donāt think youāre the only one whoās going through it, okay?ā
Kuroyanagi-kunās past is much heavier than mine.
I thought she was trying to show me that Kuroyanagi-kun had recovered from his past and tell me to realize how insignificant mine was.
But Alice-san slowly shook her head.
āNo, heās not. Itās true that Kai is a miserable man with a troublesome past, butāā
āY-Youāre relentless as alwaysā¦ā
I was stabbed in the chest by Alice-sanās thorny words, and even though Alice-san was still talking, I felt depressed.
Alice-san gently patted me on the head.
āBut you know, the past is something we all carry with us, even Alice still carries it with her, right? So I donāt blame you for that here.ā
When Alice-san said such kind words to me, I thought, āYou were blaming me a lot just now, werenāt you?ā to myself.
But there was no way I could say such a thing in this atmosphere, so I kept quiet and listened to what Alice had to say.
āWhat Alice is trying to say is that even a man like Kuro can make mistakes. Didnāt I tell you about Kuroās greatness before? The mistake Kuro was talking about earlier was a very bad one. Because he betrayed everyone who trusted him.ā
When Alice-san said that, Kuroyanagi-kun looked at Alice-san for a moment and asked, āHow does Alice-san know all this?ā Alice-san also looked at Kuroyanagi-kun for a moment and then nodded.
As Alice-san said, Kuroyanagi-kun must have betrayed all the people who trusted him.
He betrayed the people who trusted himā and I think thatās a terrible thing to do.
Alice-san dared to say that and seemed to want to tell me something.
āBut, as Kuro said earlier, he has paid it all off. So what Alice is trying to say is that people can make up for their mistakes. Of course, there are some sins that cannot be cleared up. Such as murder and taking someoneās life. But thanks to your little sister, you still havenāt made any of those mistakes. So you can still make amends. What youāll need to do right now is not to feel sorry for what youāve done, but to figure out how to make up for it, okay?ā
Alice-san said to me in a gentle voice, as if she was talking to a child.
āClearing up the pastā¦ā
āYes, thatās what you were going to do originally, right? Then donāt let this set you back.ā
I hadnāt told Alice-san that I was going to use my life to make amends with the people who would be by my side.
But I guess she knew about it already.
I really thought she was amazing, but I couldnāt swallow the words easily.
After all, I had been trying to make amends with my life for letting Kiriyama die, and now I had made another mistake.
Because of that, I donāt know how to make amends.
So I couldnāt nod at Alice-sanās words.
āI donāt know what Kanzaki-kun did to deserve thisā¦ā
As I turned my head, I heard Kuroyanagi-kunās voice.
When I looked at his face in response to Kuroyanagi-kunās voice, he smiled and started talking.
āIf you donāt know how to settle the matter, I guess you should think about it from now on, because Alice-san only said that you should think about it, but she didnāt tell you to take action yet. Also, if you canāt figure it out on your own, talk to the people around you, okay? If you do that, they might be able to figure it out for you.ā
āKuro is right. If you still canāt find an answer, Alice will work with you until you die, so donāt feel sorry or depressed anymore.ā
āKuroyanagi-kunā¦ Alice-sanā¦ā
I nodded slowly at their words.
In the end, regretting what youāve done will get you nowhere.
Instead, we should think about how we can clear up our mistakes.
āThank you, both of you. Iām fine now.ā
When I announced that I was back on my feet, they replied with smiles.
I thanked them again in my heart.
āāWell then, letās go out, Kuro can you come too?ā
As soon as I had thanked them, Alice-san suggested that we go outside the hospital.
āYes, though, I canāt stay out too long, but I have permission to go out.ā
āI see, letās go then. It would be a pity to spend all this time in the hospital when we are in America.ā
āHahaha, yes. To be honest, I never thought of going out alone, but if it means going out with everyone, then Iām looking forward to it.ā
āThank you, thatās very nice of you to sayā¦ Thereās one kid who doesnāt like men, so be careful not to get hit on the head with her naginata (wooden sword), okay?ā
Kuroyanagi-kun was very surprised by Alice-sanās sudden warning.
Well, itās normal to be surprised.
If we were going to meet up with them, shouldnāt we have asked them to wait outside the hospital room?
When I asked Alice-san about it, she only shook her head.
āFor some reason, the Nekomimi-bomb doesnāt like hospitals. Thatās why I couldnāt bring her in. We couldnāt let her get too close or associate with them, so we kept her away.ā
āI seeā¦ But isnāt it dangerous to bring Kuroyanagi-kun together with that girl?ā
āI know that. But I donāt want to take my eyes off Nekomimi-bomb for too long. Thatās why Alice has been letting her stay with me these days.ā
That was all Alice-san said, and then, as if she wasnāt going to speak any more, she walked out of the hospital room, taking care of Kuroyanagi-kun who was still trying to change his clothes.
I didnāt know what she meant by that, so I tilted my head and thought about itā.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Translatorās Afterword: Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few days, I have been busy with a lot of irl stuff and we also went out on expeditions to find a suitable laptop with the budget we have but it seems that all those laptops around my budget have been phased out or out of stock. All laptops available are at least $1000 now, so I need $400 to reach that. Please help me reach it, any amount would do! Thanks again for the support with all the series Iām working on~!