CH 101

Translator: AJ1703

Editor: Matsu

(**Kaito’s POV**)

“I’m Kaito Kanzaki, nice to meet you.”

In response to Kuro’s call, I introduced myself and bowed my head.

After that, Kuro gave me a smile in return.

“Please, it’s fine to talk casually to me. I’m a second-year high school student, too.”

“Well, I’ll take your word for it… Nice to meet you again, Kuroyanagi-kun.” [TLN: The first greeting was more formal/speaking to higher-ups but you can’t 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.

“Yeah, then again, I’m Ryu Kuroyanagi. Nice to meet you, Kanzaki-kun.”

Kuroyanagi-kun introduced himself in the same way I did.

Kuroyanagi-kun is very easy to talk to.

It’s no wonder.

He didn’t give me an unpleasant look even when he saw me with my bangs covering my eyes.

That’s why he’s easy to talk to.

“Kuro is… also reserved… You can just… talk like usual…”

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.

“Hmm, but you just refer to yourself as me, the rest is the same as usual, right?”

“No… that’s not the case… I’ve heard that your tone is… rough though…?”　

“……….Who the hell said that? Oh, no, wait, there’s only one person I talk to in that tone, so I’ll leave it at that.”

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.

“Kuro’s partner… and his fiancé’s cousin… told me that Kuro’s tone was rough…”

“Eh!? Kuroyanagi-kun has a fiancé!?”

I reacted more to the fact that Kuroyanagi-kun had a fiancé than to the fact that he had a partner.

“Oh… I knew it would come to that… It’s not like that, okay? Sure I’m dating her, but I’m not really her fiancé, okay?”

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 doesn’t look like the kind of person who could take on a major corporation.

“So he has a girlfriend huh…”

I was more concerned about that and muttered to myself enviously. [TLN: Really bruh?]

“Ah, well that’s just how it is. But you don’t have to be jealous, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

I didn’t understand what Kuroyanagi-kun was saying, but he smiled meaningfully at me.

I wondered what he meant.

“Kuro… Forget about that, can you please… do what I asked you to do…?”

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.

“I understand. However, are you sure you want to talk about it like that?”

“Yes… Please…”

“I see… To tell you the truth, I don’t feel comfortable bragging about my misfortune… but I owe Alice-san. So―”

It’s not for me to say, but I was wondering why Kuroyanagi-kun was talking to Alice-san, who’s 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 there― Kuroyanagi-kun told me about his past.

The story began with his mother’s death when he was a child, which led to his father’s 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 friend’s 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 didn’t 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 about― 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 didn’t want to talk about or couldn’t 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 don’t 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 don’t blame him for leaving out the details of the deal, because it’s 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.

That’s why he doesn’t talk about it.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust me, but rather that he’s a cautious person.

If he didn’t trust me, he wouldn’t have told me about his past in the first place.

However, it doesn’t 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.　

I’m sure I can trust him, since he’s the one that Alice brought in, but I guess he’s checking with his own eyes as well.

The great thing about Kuroyanagi-kun is that he doesn’t 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.

『Kuro is always observing the other person. Even if you think he’s looking at you in the eye, if you move your body and his eyes don’t move, think that he’s looking at your whole body.』

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 you’re looking at the other person’s whole body, and they move their index finger in front of their body, your eyes shouldn’t 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.

“Hey Kai, do you understand what Alice is trying to say?”

After Kuroyanagi-kun finished speaking, Alice-san, who had changed into a dignified atmosphere, spoke to me.

Kuroyanagi-kun was a little surprised by Alice’s change of appearance.

“Erm, Kuroyanagi-kun has such a painful past, so don’t think you’re the only one who’s going through it, okay?”

Kuroyanagi-kun’s 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.

“No, he’s not. It’s true that Kai is a miserable man with a troublesome past, but―”

“Y-You’re relentless as always…”

I was stabbed in the chest by Alice-san’s thorny words, and even though Alice-san was still talking, I felt depressed.

Alice-san gently patted me on the head.

“But you know, the past is something we all carry with us, even Alice still carries it with her, right? So I don’t blame you for that here.”

When Alice-san said such kind words to me, I thought, “You were blaming me a lot just now, weren’t you?” 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.

“What Alice is trying to say is that even a man like Kuro can make mistakes. Didn’t I tell you about Kuro’s greatness before? The mistake Kuro was talking about earlier was a very bad one. Because he betrayed everyone who trusted him.”

When Alice-san said that, Kuroyanagi-kun looked at Alice-san for a moment and asked, “How does Alice-san know all this?” 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 him― and I think that’s a terrible thing to do.

Alice-san dared to say that and seemed to want to tell me something.

“But, 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 someone’s life. But thanks to your little sister, you still haven’t made any of those mistakes. So you can still make amends. What you’ll need to do right now is not to feel sorry for what you’ve done, but to figure out how to make up for it, okay?”

Alice-san said to me in a gentle voice, as if she was talking to a child.

“Clearing up the past…”

“Yes, that’s what you were going to do originally, right? Then don’t let this set you back.”

I hadn’t 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 couldn’t 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 don’t know how to make amends.

So I couldn’t nod at Alice-san’s words.

“I don’t know what Kanzaki-kun did to deserve this…”

As I turned my head, I heard Kuroyanagi-kun’s voice.

When I looked at his face in response to Kuroyanagi-kun’s voice, he smiled and started talking.

“If you don’t 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 didn’t tell you to take action yet. Also, if you can’t 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.”

“Kuro is right. If you still can’t find an answer, Alice will work with you until you die, so don’t feel sorry or depressed anymore.”

“Kuroyanagi-kun… Alice-san…”

I nodded slowly at their words.

They were right.

In the end, regretting what you’ve done will get you nowhere.

Instead, we should think about how we can clear up our mistakes.

“Thank you, both of you. I’m fine now.”

When I announced that I was back on my feet, they replied with smiles.

I thanked them again in my heart.

“―Well then, let’s go out, Kuro can you come too?”

As soon as I had thanked them, Alice-san suggested that we go outside the hospital.

“Yes, though, I can’t stay out too long, but I have permission to go out.”

“I see, let’s go then. It would be a pity to spend all this time in the hospital when we are in America.”

“Hahaha, yes. To be honest, I never thought of going out alone, but if it means going out with everyone, then I’m looking forward to it.”

“Thank you, that’s very nice of you to say… There’s one kid who doesn’t like men, so be careful not to get hit on the head with her naginata (wooden sword), okay?”

“Eh!?”

Kuroyanagi-kun was very surprised by Alice-san’s sudden warning.

Well, it’s normal to be surprised.

If we were going to meet up with them, shouldn’t we have asked them to wait outside the hospital room?

When I asked Alice-san about it, she only shook her head.

“For some reason, the Nekomimi-bomb doesn’t like hospitals. That’s why I couldn’t bring her in. We couldn’t let her get too close or associate with them, so we kept her away.”

“I see… But isn’t it dangerous to bring Kuroyanagi-kun together with that girl?”

“I know that. But I don’t want to take my eyes off Nekomimi-bomb for too long. That’s why Alice has been letting her stay with me these days.”

That was all Alice-san said, and then, as if she wasn’t 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 didn’t know what she meant by that, so I tilted my head and thought about it―.

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Translator’s 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 I’m working on~!