My youth story cannot be a knight war

Zaimokuza looked at "Kousaka Kyosuke" who fell to the ground in the light curtain, and subconsciously cried out in surprise, while the girls around him almost screamed, and the boys' expressions were not much better.

"That Kousaka—in just a split second!?"

Hikigaya looked at this scene in disbelief, and then looked at Baruba in the light curtain with horror.

This guy is actually this powerful???

Baruba calmly brushed off the blood on her hands. She walked over to the fallen Kousaka Kyosuke, lowering her gaze to meet his eyes, which were straining to raise their heads, their pupils almost completely dilated.

[“This has nothing to do with you anymore. You don’t need to know any more, Daguber.”]

【“…”】

Kousaka Kyosuke's mouth opened and closed, blood still oozing from the corners of his lips. A bone-chilling coldness spread from his limbs to his entire body, and even his consciousness slowly faded away with the coldness.

The face of Baruba in my sight blurs from the edges, and a black shadow slowly covers my vision.

[For the first time, Kousaka Kyosuke felt that death was so close to him, as if he could touch it with his hand.]

[So... is this what death is? So cold, so... lonely.]

[Did you... feel the same way... back then?]

【…Dad.】

[In the final moment as his consciousness fell into darkness, Baruba's words, which were already blurred in his ears, became the last sound that Kousaka Kyosuke heard.]

[“One last piece of advice for you.”]

“Cherish the remaining days with Kuuga, the time you can spend together…”

【“Not much left.”】

[Then Kousaka Kyosuke completely lost consciousness. In his hazy state, he seemed to hear someone calling him.]

……

Zaimokuza, having returned to his original form, quickly ran into the factory with the roof blown off, panting and glancing around.

When his sight caught sight of the figure lying in a pool of blood in the distance, Zaimokuza felt as if his heart had stopped beating and his mind had gone blank.

["Mr. Kousaka!!!?"]

He ran to Kousaka Kyosuke in fear, squatted down and picked him up, and when he saw his missing right arm and the big hole in his chest, his breathing almost stopped.

His fingers moved to the tip of Kousaka Kyosuke's nose with some trembling. When his skin felt the faint sound of breathing, Zaimokuza suddenly gasped for air, and a strong sense of relief surged from his heart. Kousaka Kyosuke was still alive!

"Hold on! Mr. Kosaka, I'll take you to the hospital right away!"

[“Nice to meet you—this time, it’s KUUGA.”]

Just as Zaimokuza was about to pick up the unconscious Kousaka Kyosuke and leave, a calm voice behind him made him stop abruptly, and he turned around suddenly.

Baruba, wearing a pure white dress stained mostly with blood, appeared behind the two of them. Or perhaps she had always been there, but Zaimokuza only noticed her now.

She looked at Zaimokuza Yoshiteru calmly, without any awareness that she was the culprit responsible for the serious injury to Kousaka Kyousuke in his arms.

【"Who are you--"】

The moment he saw Baruba, Zaimokuza's heart tightened. The information Kousaka Kyousuke had given him privately flashed through his mind, allowing him to immediately recognize Baruba's true identity. His expression then turned to shock and anger at the sight of Baruba's blood-stained clothes.

"BI! It was you who gave Mr. Kousaka to—"

"My name is Ra-Baruba-De."

Baruba interrupted Zaimokuza and spoke calmly.

"Perhaps we can talk."

35. Predictive Dreams (5K)

The sun blazed brightly in the sky, and the temperature this summer was so high it didn't feel like Chiba, which is usually cool. Instead, it felt more like Hawaii, where summer is always here. The air itself was even slightly distorted by the steaming heat.

In such a hot weather, Kousaka Kyosuke, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, rode his bicycle on the road with a sweat on his forehead.

[“Huh… there are still three more.”]

When he reached a shady tree, Kousaka Kyosuke stopped riding, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and breathed a sigh of relief.

But as he turned to look at the bag behind him and saw the takeout boxes inside, his expression suddenly fell.

There are only three types of people who leave their air-conditioned rooms in this kind of hot weather: those who want to have fun, those who are mentally ill, and those who have work to do. There's nothing else to think about.

【Kousaka Kyosuke belongs to the third type of people, people who have work to do.】

It's summer vacation now, and students from wealthy families are all hunkered down in their air-conditioned rooms, enjoying their wonderful vacation. Students from more modest families are working part-time to supplement their family income. While Kousaka Kyousuke's family isn't exactly wealthy, they're certainly middle class, so he doesn't need to work part-time to supplement his income.

He works part-time to earn some pocket money. Unlike his sister, who is held in her parents' arms for fear of dropping her and held in their mouths for fear of melting, Kousaka Kyousuke is in a position at home where even the dog can ride on his head...if there is a dog at home.

[Similarly, compared to his sister who never stopped receiving pocket money, Kousaka Kyousuke only received two sentences from his parents:]

"As a man of the Kosaka family, how can you expect to receive money from your parents without any effort? You must learn to be self-reliant!"

"Sorry, Kyousuke, Mom wants to buy a bag recently, so your pocket money... Sorry, I will definitely give it to you next time!"

As a filial son, Kousaka Kyosuke deeply felt his father's hope for his success and his mother's guilt over his inability to achieve wealth and fame. He was deeply moved and realized that if he didn't want to starve to death after entering society, he had better learn to save money now to leave himself a way out, so as not to end up starving.

[In his youth and innocence, Kousaka Kyosuke had dreamed of using his good looks to win the support of a wealthy woman and live a life of luxury. However, his life, from birth to now, with no romantic experience, cruelly taught him a lesson: stop daydreaming.]

The difference between a dreamer and a doer is that one is idealistic, the other materialistic. It's embarrassing to say that even as an idealist, Kousaka Kyousuke still retains his precious virginity. Compared to the male and female classmates who have already achieved the feat of slaying 100 people, it's unbearable to look at him. And if this plain-looking guy actually applied the 'love experience' he learned from those adult video games to real life, he'd probably be arrested for hooliganism, and his own father might even lead the charge.

[Under the harsh reality of this situation, Kousaka Kyosuke abandoned his fantasies much earlier than his peers and learned to bow to reality early on.]

Knowing he wouldn't get any help from his parents, Kousaka Kyosuke threw himself into a superb summer job to buy the upcoming Monster Hunter game, Monster Hunter 3G, and its accompanying console.

[Delivering food was just one of his part-time jobs. He also applied for a job as a convenience store cashier and a waiter at a high-end restaurant. He worked three jobs non-stop in one day, making him a true force among summer workers. He was probably second only to the legendary Toyonosaki, a bespectacled otaku in Chiba Prefecture, who worked at least six jobs a day to preach about buying 2D RPGs.]

"Kousaka-kun... Although I've never met you in real life, I suddenly feel that we might become good friends who can talk about anything."

When Hikigaya Hachiman, who was outside the light curtain, saw this scene, he suddenly felt deeply touched in his heart, and he directly addressed Kousaka Kyosuke as "Jun", whom he had never met before.

You are not wrong. This feeling is what only a loser who is not valued by his family, is at the bottom of the family, has no chance of falling in love, and wants to be kept by a rich woman but cannot get her can feel. This is a feeling that those current people will never understand.

This is the breath of homosexuality!

...Wait, Hikigaya, who was overwhelmed with emotion, suddenly discovered a blind spot.

Becoming handsome and eye-catching, then being secretly loved by countless people, and even being kept by a beautiful JK girl and a rich woman... In the future, hasn't he completely become the kind of person he once imagined he would be?!

Damn it! How can this guy be called a comrade?! This guy is a traitor to his former class! I actually felt close to such a traitor. It's shameful!

After reacting, Hachiman Hikigaya's eyes changed drastically. He looked at "Kousaka Kyosuke" in the light curtain as if he were an enemy. The DHA content in his dead fish eyes almost overflowed from the eyeballs and turned into substance. He kept muttering "explode now, explode now...", which made the girls next to him subconsciously show disgust.

"Why do you suddenly make me feel so disgusted, Xiaoqi..."

"Please don't be surprised, Yuigahama-san. This is the normal Yuigahama-san... If he ever really becomes serious, I'd rather believe that the end of the world will come first."

Yuigahama hugged Yukinoshita's arm with disgust, while Yukinoshita glanced at Hikigaya speechlessly, made a sharp complaint, and quietly moved away from his position with his friend.

"But why did the light screen suddenly switch to this scene? Wasn't Mr. Kousaka seriously injured by B1 just now? And it looks like this should be when he was in high school, right?"

Tobe Sho scratched his hair and said in confusion.

"This must be a dream, just like before... huh?"

Ye Shan held his chin in thought, and the eyes that were looking at the light curtain suddenly became dazed, and he saw something beyond his expectations.

"Wait, this place Mr. Kousaka passed by on his bicycle is..."

[“Hey—whoosh~”]

[Kousaka Kyosuke rode hard over a high slope, a relaxed smile on his sweat-stained face, because before him was a long downhill slope, at the end of which was a V-shaped fork in the road.]

He only had one takeaway left in his car pocket. As long as he delivered this newspaper to the customer's home, he could go home and rest!

"Charge! Tyrannosaurus Rex!"

Excitedly shouting the name he'd given his bicycle during his chuunibyou days, Kousaka Kyousuke sprinted down the slope, his right thumb frantically tapping the bell. The crisp ringing echoed throughout the entire descent. The cold wind blowing across his skin at the extreme speed made his smile even more rampant. Men always let themselves go in strange places.

But just as he was about to reach the fork in the road at the bottom of the slope, two male voices rang out from the fork in the road, causing his excited expression to suddenly change, and his face instantly turned green.

“Zaimokuza! Hurry up! If we don’t hurry over, Hiratsuka-sensei will make us run to the camp on foot!”

"Don't rush me! Hachiman! I'm already fast!"

"Then hurry up! Didn't you say you were so fast you could write 100,000 words in a single night?!"

"That's only possible with my right hand, which has undergone years of training! But my feet can't do that! My knees are crying out!!!"

[“——Make way!!!”]

A boy with short black hair suddenly rushed out from the right fork. Terrified, Kousaka Kyosuke forgot to press the left brake. He screamed and pressed the bell faster, causing it to ring rapidly and chaotically.

"Hurry—wait! Zaimokuza!"

The boy looked up after hearing the sound and saw a black shadow swooping down the slope, accompanied by the sound of ghosts howling and wolves howling. His eyes widened immediately, and he turned around and shouted at the white-haired boy chasing after him.

[“Ah—Puwa!?”]

The white-haired boy, who was running, was startled when he heard his friend's call, but his overweight and inertia made it impossible for him to stop. He immediately bumped into the black-haired boy in front of him who was looking back. The two of them were pressed together and rolled towards the center of the fork in the road like a football.

【Oops! 】

Seeing this scene, Kousaka Kyosuke felt his heart almost stop beating. When the bicycle wheel was about to run over the two boys rolling together, he subconsciously pressed the bicycle brake valve hard without caring about anything else.

The bicycle wheels suddenly stopped, rubbing against the slope at high speed, producing a sharp sound and white smoke. The powerful inertia generated by the momentary pause "pulled" Kousaka Kyousuke off the bicycle seat. Screaming and waving his arms, he flew over the two fallen boys in front of him.

The two boys lying on their backs stared blankly at Kousaka Kyosuke as he flew past them like a trapeze artist, a takeout box trailing behind him. Their gazes crossed for a moment.

Time seemed to stop at this moment. The two people on the ground clearly saw Kousaka Kyousuke's eyes overflowing with tears and his open mouth, saliva flowing from the corners of his mouth under the blowing wind, and - his eyes were filled with deep resentment.

The moment their eyes met, Kousaka Kyosuke and the takeout box following closely behind flew out of the two boys' sight.

【boom--】

[The next moment, a deafening crash sounded above their heads, and then a shoe flew down, and the white-haired boy subconsciously reached out to catch it.]

【“…”】

【“…”】

The two people lying on the ground first fixed their gaze on the shoes in the white-haired boy's arms, then, in unison, looked forward. In their inverted vision, a pair of feet, one shoe missing, stretched out from an open trash can, twitching from time to time.

"Hachiman, we..."

[“…Yeah, I got into trouble.”]

The white-haired boy turned to look at his friend with a dull expression. The black-haired boy's eye twitched, and he nodded gravely.

“Ahhhhh!!!”

After the two finished speaking in unison, a shrill wail echoed through the fork in the road. The screams were more like desperate cries from the loss of something precious than physical trauma.

The white-haired boy hurriedly stood up, and when he turned around, he saw an overturned trash can and Kousaka Kyosuke, who was covered in trash and howling while holding a takeout box.

【In fact, Kousaka Kyosuke did lose his precious thing. 】

"My takeout!!!"

[Kousaka Kyosuke, with a watermelon rind on his head, was crying bitterly while hugging his takeout box. Dark, thick soup was constantly leaking out from the zipper. It was hard to imagine what kind of miserable situation was inside.]

[Kousaka Kyosuke still understands his boss well, so he will definitely blame him for every penny of the loss from the takeaway, which also means one thing:]

【He worked for nothing today.】

“—My salary! My salary! Aa ...

“Uh, um, I, I, I—”

The white-haired boy, holding his shoes in his hands, sweated profusely as he looked at the weeping Kousaka Kyosuke. He frantically turned his head to ask his friend for his opinion.

"Hachiman! What's going on now?"

A cold wind blew past, carrying fallen leaves. The white-haired boy stared blankly at the empty space beside him. The friend who had been standing there had disappeared without a trace.

He turned to look at the fork in the road on the other side. A familiar figure was running at the speed of a 100-meter sprint, gradually disappearing from his sight. His running posture was so perfect that the physical education teacher would admire him and write a big "Excellent" on the report card.

[That figure behind him said nothing, yet seemed to have said everything.]

The white-haired boy's expression was dazed, and then cold sweat oozed from his forehead like a floodgate, and his legs immediately began to shake.

After a three-second mental struggle, the white-haired boy suddenly bowed vigorously to Kousaka Kyosuke, who had his back to him, and shouted loudly.