Tokyo: Love Begins with Controlling the Rich Girl

The lingering red marks on Chizuru Tenkai's neck prevented him from confidently denying the allegations.

Forcibly denying it only adds to the lies.

Even if we manage to appease the young lady temporarily, many hidden dangers will arise in the future.

Rather than doing that, it's better to just go through the motions.

"...It's alright." That was all he could manage to squeeze out at the end.

After saying that, he turned back without paying attention to the young lady's expression.

The classroom became lively again, with students chatting in twos and threes, as if filling the gap before class with noise.

Shimada Sho sat in his seat, feeling the gaze behind him linger on him for a moment.

The first period is a self-study period, without a teacher.

After it started, Shimada Sho took a moment to look back.

Yukine Kamishiro had already opened her textbook and was staring intently at the pages, her calm expression as if nothing had just happened.

Shimada Sho tried to start a conversation: "Did Yonekura-sensei say something just now?"

“No.” Her answer was brief, without even looking up.

He asked her another question about the sports festival, and her answer was still just a simple monosyllabic.

Reluctantly, Shimada Sho had no choice but to give up.

The young lady probably knows he's logged into another character.

However, it's unclear who logged in.

There's no way to hide it anymore, so let it be.

In the end, Shimada Sho gave up and stopped causing himself trouble.

Halfway through the self-study period, the homeroom teacher, Natsumi Yonekura, came in and asked Sho Shimada to go to the kendo club.

The school attached great importance to this exchange, and even offered to have him participate in training sessions.

Guessing that there might be some kind of arrangement, Shimada Sho got up and left the classroom.

The campus was quiet in the afternoon.

Sho Shimada walked through the atrium and arrived at the event building.

The kendo club's training has been going on for a while now.

When Shimada Sho pushed open the door, he saw Kiryu Ichiyo already standing in the center of the activity room, leading several club members in practicing basic movements.

Her gaze lingered on Shimada Sho for a moment, then she turned and continued to instruct a girl next to her on how to hold a sword.

My mentor is here today too.

Upon seeing Shimada Sho enter, he waved for him to come over.

"Shimada-kun, do you understand the rules for tomorrow's competition?"

Upon approaching, the teacher got straight to the point.

Shimada Sho answered truthfully, "I understand some of it, but not completely."

Kendo is a method of killing, and Shimada Sho, because of his professional-level knowledge of kendo, can master it.

But a kendo match is not about two people going up and slashing each other.

It has many rules, as well as points to pay attention to during the game.

Shimada Sho only searched for this part on his phone and learned a little bit about it, so he doesn't really know much about it.

Hearing his answer, the teacher nodded and gestured to Kiryu Ichiyo, "Kiryu-kun, please explain the key points of the competition to Shimada-kun."

Shimada Sho looked in the direction of the sound and saw that Kiryu Ichiyo had stopped what he was doing and was walking over.

Upon arriving, he casually remarked, "Shimada-kun probably doesn't need my instruction."

"The competition is related to the honor of the entire school, so the competition rules and procedures must be understood. What do you mean by 'it doesn't need to be taught'?" The instructor asked seriously, a rare occurrence.

This was not his arrangement; rather, the board of directors had specifically informed him of it.

We certainly can't stop teaching just because of one sentence.

Seeing that the teacher's attitude was firm, Kiryu Ichiyo could no longer refuse.

She glanced at Shimada Sho, then picked up the wooden sword and said calmly, "The kendo competition uses a three-hand system; the first to get two hands wins."

As she spoke, she brandished her knife, her explanation deepening with each movement:

"There are three scoring areas: face, torso, and hands. An effective strike requires three elements simultaneously: spirit, posture, and residual spirit..."

The rules of kendo competition are actually quite simple: it's about whether you can hit your opponent quickly, accurately, and stylishly.

All rules serve this fundamental condition.

This includes scoring criteria, various fouls, game time limits, and overtime rules.

Kiryu Ichiyo explained everything very carefully, point by point, without omitting anything or saying anything superfluous.

Shimada Sho listened attentively and found that she was indeed speaking very clearly.

It's much more intuitive than the ambiguous explanations I found myself.

Seeing her businesslike demeanor, Shimada Sho couldn't help but say, "You're quite pleasing to the eye when you're not causing trouble."

Chapter Thirty-Three: Extra Work, Extra Pay Needed!

As soon as Shimada Sho finished speaking, he was met with a cold look from Kiryu Ichiyo.

She glanced at him as if he were a bedbug, completely unmoved by his words.

Whether it was genuine praise or sarcastic remarks, she automatically filtered them all out.

The teasing remark went unanswered, and Shimada Sho didn't seem to care.

He knew that this woman looked down on him from the bottom of her heart.

Similarly, he didn't like her either.

The best outcome is that the two can maintain their current state of not interfering with each other.

Next, Kiryu Ichiyo went on to explain many key points.

After Shimada Sho roughly understood, she left the area.

In the following time, Shimada Sho practiced alone for a while, during which he completely mastered the competition rules.

After confirming the competition time and schedule with the teacher, I changed my clothes and left the kendo club.

Because the training took a lot of effort, it had been a while since school ended.

It was already quite dark.

The orange-red sunset hung on the horizon of the teaching building, turning the entire playground into a warm hue.

I glanced at the time; it was already past six.

Shimada Sho took a taxi straight to the bar.

Running a distance of several kilometers takes some time, but taking a taxi is just a matter of a blink of an eye.

It had only been eight minutes since Shimada Sho arrived at the location.

He got out of the car, walked to the bar, and hurriedly pushed the door open to go inside.

As soon as they entered, they couldn't help but pause.

Normally at this time, there are only a few scattered customers in the store, but today is different. None of the eight bar stools in front of the bar are empty, and the seats against the wall are also full of people, all of whom are young men in their twenties and thirties. They are dressed in different clothes, but their temperament is surprisingly uniform.

They sat casually, with alert eyes, and spoke in low voices with an unusual sense of propriety.

Shimada Sho's gaze swept around and landed on the innermost part of the bar.

Rena Takikawa sat there, wearing a light dark gray jacket, holding a glass of clear liquid, looking down at her phone.

A middle-aged man with a crew cut was sitting next to her, leaning to the side and talking to her.

Nozomi Sasaki stood inside the bar, holding a tray in her hand. She visibly breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Sho Shimada push the door open and come in.

Her gaze fell on Shimada Sho's face, and she nodded gently at him.

Shimada Sho walked over and stood at the bar, his gaze sweeping over the unfamiliar faces in the store before finally settling on Takikawa Rena.

"Manager."

He gestured to indicate that he had come to work.

Rena Takikawa looked up, saw it was him, and smiled slightly: "Genji-kun, you've come at the right time. Please help me greet these guests."

Shimada Sho glanced at the unfamiliar faces in front of the bar, then at the crew-cut man next to her, and roughly got a sense of what was going on.

He didn't ask any more questions, nodded, walked inside the bar, took the apron from Sasaki Nozomi, and tied it on.

The sounds of people in the shop returned to their low voices, the clinking of glasses against the table and the hushed conversations blending together, creating an eerie tranquility under the warm yellow light.

Shimada Sho stood behind the bar, wiping glasses while glancing at the unfamiliar faces out of the corner of his eye; each one carried a familiar undertone.

It's something only those people I've met at Owada Financial Center possess.

In short, they were all gangsters.

They sat and talked, but their voices were not loud. Because the music was not on, the usually bustling bar was eerily quiet at this moment.

As a result, people will unconsciously feel pressure.

Given this environment, it's no wonder that Nozomi Sasaki felt nervous.

Shimada Sho, on the other hand, seemed quite relaxed.

He was wiping the cups while also keeping an eye on the situation on the field.

The bar was full of seats, and the members seemed to be chatting idly.

But if you look closely, you'll notice that their gazes occasionally rise and look towards the direction of Takikawa Rena's table.

Then they turned back and whispered to each other again.

This situation continued for some time until a burly, bald member stood up.

He sat in a corner of the bar, and when he stood up, all the quiet discussions in the room came to an abrupt halt.

The members watched him leave his seat and walk to Takikawa Rena's table.

Without any exchange, the middle-aged man sitting next to her immediately picked up an expensive bottle of foreign liquor and poured her a glass.

The bald man picked it up, tilted his head back, and drank it down. Then he turned around and glanced at the spot where he had just been sitting.

The five people on the other side immediately stood up and followed with solemn expressions.

The group then left the bar.

In a short time, Shimada Sho couldn't figure out what they were doing.

But once the people left, the atmosphere of discussion vanished.

The members sitting at each table remained silent, their expressions a mixture of anxiety and tension, but without exception, they were all waiting for something.

Twenty minutes later, the bar door was pushed open.

The bald man returned with his men.

The moment they entered, everyone's eyes turned to them.

It's clear that it's the same people who left earlier.

But some subtle changes have occurred in them.

The bald man leading the group had a bruise on his once shiny head, and a henchman behind him had blood flowing from his brow bone, while another man's arm hung limply at his side.

Judging from their appearance, they must have had a conflict with someone.

Seeing their expressions, Shimada Sho turned to look at Takikawa Rena.

She raised her head, but after looking at it, a look of disappointment flashed across her eyes. Then she lowered her head and continued playing on her phone without saying a word.

After the bald man came in, he walked to Takikawa Rena's table, lowered his head and said something.

Rena Takikawa didn't look at him. She ran her fingertips along the rim of the cup and lightly tapped the table.