Yukino cautiously opened the bag, treating it with the same careful precision as a bomb disposal expert. Inside, she found… Panda Pan merchandise.
Her expression froze.
Checking her bag, she realized that her Panda Pan item was missing.
So the dog had picked it up and returned it to her?
A dog that understands human speech?
How adorable—no, wait, that's terrifying!
Wait a minute, someone who can understand dog language is even more unbelievable. Yukinoshita suspected that in his past life, he might have been a dog.
"What's with that look?"
Yazuki raised an eyebrow. The look Yukinoshita gave him was full of malice.
"What look? It's just a normal way of looking at living beings. Speaking of which, why are you so concerned about my gaze? You're paying way too much attention to me. Haven't given up yet? Our lives will never intersect in any way!"
Yukinoshita's voice was calm and indifferent as she spoke, and at the end, she even seriously advised him to stop daydreaming.
"You're really full of yourself!"
Yazuki mocked with a slight sneer. Did she already forget how much he disliked her just now?
"Full of myself? Wrong. I am simply a perfect person by nature."
With delicate fingers, she brushed away the black strands of hair that had been blown against her face by the breeze.
From Yukinoshita Yukino's small, cherry-colored lips came such an utterly justified statement. However, there was a barely noticeable hesitation and pause when she said the word perfect.
"Oh? Perfect, huh~~~"
A voice tinged with amusement stretched out the words, and Yazuki's peripheral vision deliberately swept over the one imperfection on the otherwise flawless girl before him.
Such an aggravating gaze made Yukinoshita's expression darken slightly. Her blue eyes emitted an almost tangible pressure, like a cat trying to intimidate its enemy, glaring at him with a gaze full of threat.
Then, in response to this intimidating glare, Yazuki did something childish, he used his fingers to stretch his mouth into a ridiculous face!
However, before Yukino could even see this childish act—
A girl with long, flowing black hair, wearing a white headband, suddenly intervened between them. Though her face was obscured by a pair of large sunglasses, the glimpse of her exposed fair and delicate features suggested an undeniably stunning beauty. She wore a light blue dress, and beneath it, her voluptuous curves could not be hidden. Her long, shapely legs were wrapped in black stockings, exuding an undeniable allure.
This black-haired girl unexpectedly sat in the empty seat between the two of them.
"Uh—"
Now, it looked as if Yazuki had been making an inappropriate gesture toward this girl, leaving him momentarily awkward. He sheepishly let go of his fingers, while the girl, after a brief moment of surprise, curved her lips into a soft smile, making the situation less embarrassing.
In the blink of an eye, the train arrived, and the three of them boarded. Coincidentally, there were exactly three empty seats together, and they sat down again.
However, their seating arrangement had changed—Yukinoshita was now the one in the middle.
Yazuki opened his laptop, planning to browse the latest anime news.
Hmm? There were quite a few unread emails.
Opening them, most were invitation requests for commissioned work. In the past, he would have just deleted them, but now, he had no choice but to check them—he was seriously short on money.
"This one, this one, and this one,"
He accepted quite a few offers directly. Looks like he was going to have to work like crazy.
"Oh?"
While browsing the news, Yazuki came across an announcement that made him pause for a moment—"Love Metronome" Offline Signing Event.
"Today? That sow's offline signing event?"
Muttering to himself, he checked the time, it had already ended. What a shame. Otherwise, he could've gone to see what that sow looked like in person.
He opened his personal blog—99+ new messages.
Clicking on it, he skimmed through the comments, raising an eyebrow. Most were messages from that sow and her fans, and they were certainly not friendly.
His entire blog's comment section had turned into a battlefield, as he still had supporters of his own.
Time to go to her Twitter and roast her—Super Black Fan Mode, engaged!
Meanwhile, Yukino, sitting beside him, had been quietly reading a book. However, upon hearing the muttered word sow, she glanced over unintentionally before returning her gaze to her book, choosing to ignore him.
On the other hand, the busty, sunglasses-wearing girl on his other side also opened a laptop.
"The scumbag is online?"
Yukinoshita caught the faint whisper from the woman beside her, and her lips curled into an amused crescent moon shape. Then, her delicate fingers swiftly typed away on the keyboard, sending out a message.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yukinoshita accidentally saw that the woman had also logged into Twitter.
Tap tap tap tap— The sound of another keyboard echoed from the other side—that masochistic bastard.
[Sow, you actually had an offline signing event today? Didn't your fans get scared away? (Image: A pig's autograph session)]
[Oh my? You didn't come? Well, of course, how could you possibly appear in broad daylight? After all, you live among (cockroach image), only able to survive in damp, dark, smelly places.]
[As for whether my fans got scared away, sorry to disappoint you. Oh, wait—I get it now. You're still hoping to trick me into posting a photo of myself, aren't you?]
[Sorry, but I won't fall for that. If you saw my beauty, you'd probably do something indecent with my picture. (Image: A disgusted anime girl)]
[Who the hell would get aroused by a pig?! (Emoji: Vomiting)]
[I seriously don't understand what meaning your existence has in this world. If…]
[Sigh, honestly…]
[...]
The following messages were nothing but an endless stream of single-sided, unfiltered insults from one person. The other party didn't seem to be responding, making it look like they had been utterly defeated.
No response?
No—it was simply that the other person was typing too fast.
They sent message after message, leaving him unable to even finish typing his own responses. Every time he tried, it felt pointless. He revised his message repeatedly but couldn't keep up with the stream of new taunts.
In the end, after carefully crafting a perfect comeback and pressing send—
A pop-up appeared: "The user has blocked you!"
Yazuki's face twitched.
She roasted him to her heart's content and then blocked him.
By the way, all of her insults had been sent via private messages—so she could maintain her ladylike image on Twitter.
He considered making a new account just to stir up drama on her Twitter timeline—
After thinking it over, he decided to let it go.
"Chiba Station…"
They had arrived. The black-haired girl who had originally boarded the train with them had also left at some unknown station. He hadn't paid attention and had no reason to.
Speaking of which, when that person had been cursing at him online just now, it was almost as if he could hear her voice whispering those insults directly into his ear.
With that strange thought lingering in his mind, Yazuki raised an eyebrow.
Yukinoshita seemed to have noticed something odd too, hesitating as if debating whether to say something. But in the end, she simply found it amusing and chose to remain silent.
For some reason, he suddenly felt like going home and hatching an egg—no, was it boiling, roasting, or frying it?
Whatever.
All he knew was that the ingredients stored in his Demon King's Ring were guaranteed to be delicious.