The next morning.

Chiaki’s cell phone alarm rang. She groggily fumbled for her cell phone. When she found it, she turned off the alarm and casually tossed her cell phone aside.

She wanted to sleep more... sleep...

*Woos.h.!.+*

She suddenly realized something and instantly sat up and opened her eyes.

Last night... her memories were a little hazy, but she still remembered the gist of what happened, and what she said. Her face was flooded with a sudden rush of color.

‘Just why did I say that to Seiji!? Ahh, it’s so embarra.s.sing that I want to die!’

Chiaki kept rolling around on her bed, and it took a few minutes of rolling for her to regain her senses and check the condition of her clothes.

She was wearing the same clothes as last night; only her jacket and socks had been removed. Her body felt perfectly normal.

She heaved a sigh of relief at this discovery, before realizing she felt slightly conflicted. When she looked around, she noticed a note addressed to her on her bedstand.

She opened it with a feeling of tingling antic.i.p.ation. A handsome muscular boy with a serious expression and folded arms was drawn on it. He exuded an aura of light, and a large speech bubble was drawn by his mouth. It read:

From now on, you’re forbidden from secretly drinking by yourself! If you really want to drink again, you can invite me. Of course, I’m placing a severe restriction on the number of times you can do this. If you violate this, you’ll face the wrath of my iron fist!

P.s.: No being tardy to school.

Chiaki looked at the drawing and these words for a long moment, before bursting into laughter.

She covered her face with the note, her lips pressed against the drawing of the handsome boy.

"Idiot..." she mumbled.

The so-called idiot was currently in the midst of preparing breakfast.

Yesterday night, when he returned home while smelling of alcohol, s.h.i.+ka’s expression had been rather...

Seiji was unable to face his adopted sister’s expression. Even though he explained and s.h.i.+ka said she understood, he still felt that he should do something to mitigate her displeasure.

He got up extra early to make a nice and abundant breakfast as his way of making it up to her.

"Brother..."

"Good morning, s.h.i.+ka-chan," he said with a smile.

s.h.i.+ka paused for a moment before returning his greeting. "Good morning."

s.h.i.+ka was slightly dazed when she saw the generous amount of food laid out, which made Seiji grin in delight.

This was exactly the effect that he'd wanted.

"Breakfast is just about ready; go wash up."

s.h.i.+ka nodded silently.

Seiji finished cooking, but he didn’t realize that his adopted sister was still standing there, watching him cook, her cheeks reddening by the second.

‘He’s so cool! It’s amazing to watch him cook seriously while wearing an ap.r.o.n! It's too great to see his handsome face and for him to greet me gently and say good morning!’

This scene struck s.h.i.+ka's heart chords; she was charmed by it.

Her face was heating up, and she found it difficult to move away from her brother.

Only after her eyes had drunk their fill did she finally walk to the restroom and wash up. The fire in her cheeks was finally quenched by the cool water.

Afterwards, the two of them ate their breakfast together. Then, Seiji prepared himself for school.

"s.h.i.+ka-chan, do you want to go back to school again?" he asked at the doorway.

s.h.i.+ka shook her head.

Seiji expected this reaction from her, but he felt that having her always stay home by herself was a little...

"No need to mind me, Brother." s.h.i.+ka knew what he was thinking and smiled. "I like staying at home."

This wasn’t a lie. She had no preferences regarding school either way. Just quietly staying in this home was her primary source of joy.

Seiji smiled helplessly as he looked at her. "I’m going to school."

"Be careful on your way," she cautioned.

Just like usual, Seiji walked to school accompanied by Mika and Kaede.

They chatted casually on their way to school and met Chiaki when they arrived. The tomboy acted just like normal: she smiled and greeted them, cracking a few jokes as always while they made their way to their cla.s.sroom.

They entered the cla.s.sroom (without Kaede) and nodded amicably to their cla.s.smates. A brand-new day had begun.

The school festival was now over. The next and final major event of the school year that the students had to deal with were the final exams.

There were three weeks remaining until these critically important exams.

But Seiji didn’t mind; he felt that with his current level, he could deal with them easily, even if he had missed many days of cla.s.s recently.

He didn’t need to worry about his grades, and he had other things on his mind.

Naturally, he was concerned about Yui Haruta, as well as Cat-loving Flying Fish.

He'd already sent his older sister Yui a message; now all that was left to do was to wait. As for Flying Fish... he supposed that he could send her a message over the internet.

But if he did that, what should he say in the message?

Did you recognize me? Could you tell me who you are? Something like that, perhaps?

It didn’t feel right to him. But doing nothing felt wrong somehow.

He hid his cell phone from his teacher’s sight and secretly logged in to his chatting app. He typed and sent a message to Cat-loving Flying Fish:

I’m waiting for you.

‘No matter if you are or aren’t the person I think you are, I’m waiting for you to contact me.’

He only sent those four words... and, message sent. Now, he could only wait for her.

After that, he needed to learn [Astral Vision] as quickly as possible while cultivating his powers and writing his novel.

[Astral Vision] was critically important for him to learn as quickly as possible, otherwise he wouldn’t even be able to take good care of Mika and her new Spiritual Creature. Cultivating wasn’t nearly as important to him.

As for writing the novel... he wanted to finish "Brother Monogatari" as soon as he could, so that he could show it to Editor Yos.h.i.+zawa and get it published quickly.

This was both Seiji and s.h.i.+ka’s dream, and he really wanted to realize it!

So, he decided to focus on learning [Astral Vision] and writing "Brother Monogatari." These were his current most important duties.

He decided to begin immediately.

Seiji ignored the fact that he was in cla.s.s as he opened up his notebook and began writing the novel.

He spent all his time during the entire school day on his novel without paying attention to a single cla.s.s.

During lunch break, he called Natsuya and asked to borrow a little something.

After cla.s.ses.

Seiji walked to the president’s residence and met Mai, who was waiting for him, there.

"This is the manual on Astral Vision that you requested to borrow." The maid, who wasn’t currently wearing her maid uniform, handed him the information.

"Thank you." Seiji received it gratefully.

Mai smiled. "On the day before yesterday, you did a great job in that laser tag game," she praised.

"It was thanks to Senpai going easy on me," Seiji said humbly. "With Senpai’s abilities, if you played it more cautiously, we wouldn’t have been able to win at all."

"Indeed," Mai agreed, unabashed.

 Seiji’s lips twitched. ‘Haha, you’re not humble at all, my dear maid.’

"I just entered with the intention of having fun, but you won in the end," she continued. "You definitely did a good job, Junior."

"I only defeated Senpai with everyone’s a.s.sistance," Seiji said. "I couldn’t have done it by myself."

"Indeed," Mai conceded. "But you were irreplaceable," she added. "If it wasn’t for the fact that you were the one facing me to begin with, the others couldn’t possibly have completed their encirclement."

‘I can take care of any normal person in an instant!’ Mai emitted an imposing aura which left these words all but unspoken.

"It’s truly... frightening to face Senpai in battle," Seiji said, sighing. A strange light flashed in his eyes. "Could I possibly ask, Senpai, are you..."

Before he could finish his question, Mai placed her index finger on his lips and shushed him.

"Girls have many secrets, you know," she whispered. "There are some questions that are better not to ask~"

Mai’s smile seemingly became very gentle.

Seiji was rendered speechless.

That feeling of terror reappeared. And this time the feeling was even stronger than before!

He decided not to ask. Just like last time, it was probably better not to think too deeply about it. All he had to do was appreciate her beautiful smile.

Mai retracted her finger. "Junior, when do you intend to use that free hotel voucher that your team won?"

"We haven’t decided yet," Seiji said. "My team... everyone from that time decided that we would go together, but we haven’t decided on a specific date yet."

"Oh... well, when you guys decide on one, let me know."

Seiji blinked in surprise. "How come?"

"Because I’m going as well." Mai smiled, an enigmatic light flitting through her eyes.