"The rest of what he said was, 'Xiangzi, your biggest problem is that you are always easily agitated. Unless you are a big-hearted person like me, you will hurt others.'"

"Thinking about it carefully, it really is true. I always put myself first, and once something happens, I just charge forward alone without caring about anyone else."

"And that's why I always end up hurting the people who love me."

"So you don't need to feel guilty because of my reaction just now. It was just a personality flaw of Toyokawa Shoko."

"On the contrary, I should apologize for giving you the cold shoulder without thinking."

"..."

Kusano Akira glanced at Toyokawa Shoko, frowned slightly in annoyance, and then, ignoring Toyokawa Shoko's surprised gaze, took her hand.

"Toyokawa-kun, although I don't know your friend and don't know much about him, I can at least be sure of one thing."

“You absolutely misunderstood what he said. In my eyes, you are not the kind of person you think you are.”

Volume 1: Chapter 133. The Horror Cinema (2k)

"As he said, you are indeed too assertive, and sometimes that can hurt others."

"But you're definitely not as bad as you think. At least you know where you went wrong."

"And even what happened just now doesn't count as a 'character flaw' of yours. At least the Toyokawa Shoko I see right now is definitely not the type to get angry over a simple joke. Something I said must have touched a nerve with you."

"..."

"Kusano-kun, don't think that just because you suddenly grab a girl's hand and say a bunch of things like this, I'll fall for you."

With a slight twitch of her fingertips, Toyokawa Shoko withdrew her hand from Kusano Akira's grasp. She tilted her head slightly, narrowed her eyes, and chuckled softly. (驷)

"...Hiss, I didn't even notice until you said so." (Sugi)

Upon hearing Toyokawa Shoko's words, Kusano Akira realized that he had once again unconsciously done something that could be misunderstood, and quickly withdrew his hand, laughing awkwardly.

"I'm so sorry, I'm just used to doing this to everyone. Even if I realize it's not good, I just can't seem to change it unless someone corrects me." Ling

"But I still want to say something, Toyokawa-kun, you don't need to think so low of yourself. You're much better than you think, otherwise why would you take the initiative to apologize to me?"

"Ah, speaking of which, I was just about to tell you something about Toyokawa-kun."

“If it’s a matter of harmony, I will not agree.”

"Of course not, I meant to talk about the lights."

"lamp?"

"That's right, a lamp."

Kusano Akira nodded and continued.

"That's actually the case. She actually cares about you, Toyokawa-kun. You may not have noticed, but she sometimes looks towards your class."

"What happened when Crychic disbanded seems to have hurt her quite a bit—so I was wondering if you could ask Toyokawa-kun to have a proper talk with her?"

Seemingly fearing that Toyokawa Shoko would disagree, Kusano Akira quickly added.

"Of course, you don't need to say much. Even just lying to her will be fine. If she can make up with you again, she should be very happy."

"Well..."

Shoko Toyokawa hesitated for a moment, her eyes fixed on the approaching movie theater ahead, and asked softly.

"Your hands are all messed up from playing with the lamp, and you're still worried about whether she's happy or not?"

"I'm her friend, so making her happy is what I should do."

"And what are you saying, Toyokawa-kun? My hand has nothing to do with the light. Besides, look, isn't it much better now?"

Kusano Akira raised his hand and placed it in front of Toyokawa Shoko, so that she could see clearly how his hand had healed. In less than two days, his hand was almost completely healed.

"...Sigh, this is really difficult."

"Huh? What?"

"It's alright, Kusano-kun. I have a special reason for the request regarding the light, so I'm sorry, I still can't grant your request."

"Instead of talking about this, we should think about what's next. We've arrived at the movie theater."

Toyokawa Shoko pointed ahead, and Kusano Akira followed her finger, only to find that they had somehow ended up at the back of the building.

"Have we really arrived? But I can't see the entrance."

Kusano Akira opened his eyes wide and leaned out again, searching for the entrance to the movie theater.

This time, not only could I not find the movie theater, but I couldn't even see a decent shop. All I could vaguely see were a few dilapidated iron gates and a lonely telephone pole standing there.

"it's here."

Shoko Toyokawa deftly brushed aside her falling blue hair, walked to one of the iron gates, gripped the latch on the gate with her fingertips, and with a slight exertion, a 'creak' sound of metal scraping was heard as she pried the dilapidated gate aside.

Kusano Akira looked into the doorway and saw a series of downward-facing staircases. The light bulbs inside flickered occasionally, and at the end of the staircase, a wooden door could be vaguely seen.

"..."

"what happened?"

Seeing the somewhat shocked expression on Kusano Akira's face, Toyokawa Shoko asked calmly, but a smile appeared at the corner of her eyes.

She had been eagerly anticipating Kusano Akira's expression all along.

When she was first brought here, she looked almost exactly like him now. Back then, Kusano Akira was still mocking her with an infuriating expression, saying she was making a fuss over nothing.

Now she could finally see the other person's shocked expression. Although Kusano Akira was quickly punished with a set of large cross locks by her in a fit of rage, she could not get true happiness from violence alone. She was only happy when she saw that the other person was just like her back then.

Of course, she wouldn't do something as tasteless as mocking someone for being ignorant; only Kusano Akira would do something like that.

"...Hey, Toyokawa-kun?"

"uh-huh?"

"How come there's a room like this here?"

"After all, it's an old house from the last century, so it's not surprising that it was built like this."

"No, even if it's an old house from the last century... I'd believe you if you said this was a survival house built to prevent the end of the world."

Kusano Akira's lips twitched twice, and his eyes were filled with shock as he looked at the 'movie theater'.

"It's even a basement structure. These kinds of houses are either for survival or for watching horror movies. You think there would be a movie theater here?"

"Toyokawa-kun, how did you find this place? Are you the kind of person who really enjoys finding so-called cultural and historical shops? But even so, isn't finding this place a bit too impressive?"

Kusano Meiji carefully stepped onto the steps leading down from the fourth floor, looking around. He couldn't help but wonder if a zombie crawling on the ground might suddenly appear and, taking advantage of the darkness, rush up to him and give him a snake-like kiss.

"It was just a chance discovery."

Toyokawa Shoko gently patted the dust off her skirt, feeling a pang of regret.

Because this was a rare 'date'-like event, she got carried away with excitement and ran back to the Toyokawa family home to get a beautiful dress.

As a result, I forgot that the road to this movie theater was actually quite dirty. After walking down, my dress was covered in dust, and since it was a white dress, the dust was especially noticeable.

Thankfully, it wasn't a rainy day, so I didn't get muddy or anything.

"I heard that the old man who opened this shop was a doctor when he was young. He had some spare money and his only dream was to let others see the movies he liked, so he built a movie theater here."

"Then at least find a better place. How could anyone possibly find us here..."

"This place used to be quite popular, after all, back then the old man's movie theater was the cheapest."

"Oh, I get it. The reason it's so sluggish now is because it's been overwhelmed by the times and defeated by the emergence of all sorts of grand theaters, right?"

"No, it's just that the old man's taste is so bad that no one can stand it."

"?"

Kusano Akira instinctively felt that something was wrong.

Volume 1: Chapter 134. Terrible Taste (2k)

"This place is truly a hidden paradise..."

With a creak, the wooden door at the end of the stairs was pushed open by Toyokawa Shoko, and Kusano Akira followed her inside, exclaiming in amazement at the drastically changed room.

Unlike the dilapidated, post-apocalyptic atmosphere outside, the interior of the room was decorated in a very modern style. From the white marble floors to the snow-white walls, everything was beyond Kusano Akira's expectations. (Seven)

The only things that matched his imagination were a struggling-looking fan spinning on the ceiling, an old man sitting on a stool with his arms crossed, snoring, and a bookshelf full of CDs behind him.

When he heard Toyokawa Shoko say that there was only an old man looking after it, he thought it would be an old-fashioned Japanese detached house, but it turned out to be a more modern apartment.

"Hang—Ang?"

The snoring, like the beating of drums, came out intermittently for the last two moments before suddenly stopping. The old man, who had been fast asleep in the chair, seemed to be awakened by the arrival of the two people and opened his eyes groggily.

"Ah...is someone there?"

With his cloudy eyes half-open, the old man looked at the two illusory figures in front of him, picked up his reading glasses placed to the side, and squinted.

"Just two young people... here to watch a movie?" Y

"Yes."

Toyokawa Shoko crossed her arms over her lower abdomen and bowed slightly to the old man with a graceful demeanor.

"Thank you for your help."

"I never expected that young people would still like to watch my movies at this time of year. I always said those old folks have no taste; they don't like the things that young people like."

The old man snorted, then got up and walked into a small room at the back, gesturing with his finger to the cabinet behind him.

"Take whatever you want from there. It's 20 yen per person. After you're done, just come into this room and hand it to me."

Having said that, he went into the small room first, and you could faintly hear him humming a cheerful tune.

"Wow, 20 yen a movie? Is this old man doing charity? The electricity bill for showing the movie probably costs more than that."

After the old man's figure disappeared, Kusano Akira approached Toyokawa Shoko and sighed softly.

The old man's features resembled those of the ramen shop owner. The moment he saw the old man's face clearly, he held his breath and almost ran away on instinct.

"If I had known about this great place, I would never have gone to the big movie theater again. It's even closer to my home."

"Hum..."

Toyokawa Shoko gently raised her chin, hummed twice, glanced at Kusano Akira with her golden eyes, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

The poor boy had no idea what terrifying thing was about to happen to him.

Thinking that Kusano Akira would soon show the kind of expression she wanted to see, Toyokawa Shoko's mood became somewhat pleasant. She reached out to the cabinet and precisely selected a few movies that were relatively low in impact.

Taking revenge on Kusano Akira... Making Kusano Akira recall his past memories is a long process, she has to do it step by step, and not scare him all at once.

Let's show him the truly distorted things when his threshold is higher.

"Let me see what kind of taste Toyokawa-kun has..."

Kusano Meihachi followed the direction of Toyokawa Shoko's arm and looked down. When he saw the name printed on the disc at the end of the arm, his heart skipped a beat, and he quickly pressed down on Toyokawa Shoko's hand, which was about to pull back.

"Wait a moment."

Kusano Akira swallowed hard and forced a somewhat strained smile as he looked at Toyokawa Shoko.

"What's wrong?"

Toyokawa Shoko calmly turned around.

"Toyokawa-kun, did you accidentally take the wrong movie?"

"Why do you say that?"

"After all, the movie 'Buck-toothed Girl and Bald Guy' doesn't seem like the kind of movie you would watch, Toyokawa-kun."

"No."

With a little effort, Toyokawa Shoko broke free from Kusano Akira's grasp, and waved the box containing the discs at him.

"This is what we're looking at today."

"...Toyokawa-san, you're really letting down the person you said you were a literary girl."

"That's what my friend said."

"..."

"Actually, it's just that the name is a bit strange, but it's a very refreshing and artistic romance film?"

"It's an action movie."

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