Chapter 11: I Only Have One Childhood Friend (The Proper One), but There are Others Who are Just Childhood Friends. And There are Even Better Ones

Note: Hikari sometimes uses third person speech.

I Only Have One Childhood Friend (The Proper One), but There are Others Who are Just Childhood Friends. And There are Even Better Ones

A while later, I received a message from the curious buyer who had purchased my 30 points item. It seems they arrived safely, and I'm relieved.

The buyer, angry that the price increase request is rejected, reported me, but my account was briefly suspended and nothing else happened.

What an interesting person to freeze me.

If you just look at what they're doing, you could suspect a scheme of money laundering, so it's only natural for a person of good conscience like me to report them.

Hikari is so naughty!

I regret that I should have refused the price increase from the beginning, but since it didn't cause any particular problems, I don't regret it much.

In fact, I'm glad I found out at such an inconsequential time.

They say you should go through hardships while you're young, so well, this was just my mistake.

Resolving to never make the same mistake again, I put the past behind me and focused on studying.

Thanks to my high-spec body, I've already finished my summer homework. I've already done everything I needed to do, so I just need to do the things I don't need to do.

In this world, you can find plenty of things to study if you look around a little.

Life is learning, and learning is life.

The more knowledge you gain, the more value you receive.

Since I'm trying to become that sparkling talent that's disappearing, I don't mind studying. Increase my market value.

That's why I started studying for qualifications whenever I could.

With this high-spec body, I can easily obtain qualifications with just a little study. Of course, I can't get the ones that require a certain number of years of work experience, but for other qualifications, I can just memorize the textbook and get it right away.

Thank you, Mama-sama.

Thanks to you, I won't have any trouble finding something to use as an appealing point in job hunting. I guess I can call myself a qualification collector as a hobby I can tell others about. Well, I can't even imagine a future where I work like a normal person. I can make money just by making random things and selling the failed products.

It can't be helped, you know.

Suppressing a small yawn, I peer at an I-CAN magazine, wondering what I should study next. Balancing the upcoming exam date with the cost of textbooks and exam fees. I could solve my financial problems if I begged Daddy-san, but at this point, I'm beginning to lose interest in relying on him.

When I told him I wanted to get a qualification, Daddy-san seemed happy that he'd finally be able to spend money on me.

Then the dejected look on his face when I told him I'd earned my own money was addictive. Maybe Mama-sama chose Daddy-san because she wanted to see that expression. 

Nah, there's no way Mama-sama would ever think such a wicked thing. Don't be ridiculous.

I'm sure his desire to spend money on his daughter will be satisfied when Akari-chan, who will be entering the same middle school as me as a regular student, enters the same school as me, so I work hard to raise the money right in front of Daddy-san.

Money making, daddy's puppy-like expression, and clouding the beautiful stones.

Woodworking is the best, it's three times the fun. If there's one drawback, it's that I can't hammer it in too hard to maintain my smooth hands.

Woodworking is the worst, ruining my self-worth.

Leaving Daddy-san, who is simmering with desire and spending money, to look for my little sister.

In order to release his pent-up desires, my little sister needs to work hard.

I'm sorry Daddy-san, but I can't make you feel good. But Akari probably will make you feel good instead.

This phrase gives the impression that Daddy-san is trying to vent his sexual desires to his daughter.

Words are really interesting.

If you just hear this, Daddy-san, who works hard for his family every day, sounds like a cruel, sleazy guy.

And I didn't lie.

I was just trying to mislead people.

Well, deliberately misleading people is fraud, even if you're not lying.

I searched the whole house but couldn't find my little sister, so I asked my dad if he knew where she had gone, and he said she had gone out to play with friends.

No wonder she wasn't in the shoe closet or the bathtub. I've never found her in those places before though. She's not a cat.

My little sister left me behind to go play. Unlike me, who rarely plays with friends, she's a sociable girl who's usually hanging out with someone else when she's not with me.

But still, she is a siscon who prioritizes me over her friends!

Unlike my little sister, I'm usually at home most of the time, so I get a little lonely and leave the house.

It's not like Hikari doesn't have friends either!

It's just that she always prioritizes other things over her friends and isn't good at socializing!

She's bad at socializing, her hobbies and sexual preferences are all pointless, and she has no plans to work in the future. She's a terrible social misfit.

Should I change my laugh to something like "shishishi" next time?

No, I can't do that with the body Mama gave me.

But just because a rebel like me just randomly dashes out of the house doesn't mean it's a wonderful holiday!

Of course. The only people who would be out for no reason on a ridiculously hot summer day like this are wonderful people whose heads are warmer than the outside temperature.

Maybe they should introduce themselves to doctor?

The moment I left the house, I wanted to go back home already, but since I had nothing to do, I went into a convenience store.

My underwear, stuck to my body with sweat, was chilled by the air conditioning, which felt both gross and refreshing.

Using my budget, which is more than enough for a middle schooler, I bought some ice cream and juice and resumed my carefree stroll. But it's too hot, so I'll call it a day. I'll go to the air-conditioned library. It's a nice building, a little old, but they even have textbooks for qualifications.

With that decided, I finished my ice cream and headed to the library with my head cleared.

Compared to before, I feel much better.

Perhaps it's because my body is colder, or perhaps because I've hydrated. Come to think of it, I hadn't had any water since lunch today, so maybe I was dehydrated.

Because my body can't handle even a little bit of dehydration, I often forget to hydrate.

I'm so forgetful. Do I want to die?

I gulp down my sports drink, my stomach churning, and enter the library.

This building, kept at the perfect temperature year-round for the sake of its book collection, is not filled with thrifty university students or those under pressure to meet report deadlines, but rather with middle and high school students who've been kicked out and told to not stay home all day.

Most thrifty university students living alone live near the university, and the university library is closer, so it's no wonder there aren't many of them here.

Ignoring the old folks who are there all year, I think, "Oh, hello, neighborhood lady! Can I have some candy? Thank you. Eh, you can't eat sweets in the library!? Why?"  

...I ignore them and head towards the older textbooks. Even if they're a little older, there's almost no difference in the content. Newer ones probably have more research done on trends and such, but with my body, there's no need to go to that extent.

So, hiding the brown sugar candy in my pocket, I choose a textbook, wondering which one to choose. Something relatively new, or something that looks obviously old. It might be interesting to start studying from scratch with a thick, expensive one like the ones used as textbooks in universities.

It doesn't really matter, but brown sugar leaves a sticky feeling on the tongue. It really doesn't matter.

"...What are you doing here?"

As I moved about, thinking this is good, that is good, the embodiment of indecision, a pair of eyes looked at me as if they were seeing something strange. It wasn't like two one-eyed people had appeared, so it's just one person.

The man who said 'here' in a rude manner toward the library was my classmate, Satoshi-kun. He's one of the sparkling candidates, a familiar face from elementary school. It's been about 30 days since the closing ceremony. If you calculate the exact time, it's 18 hours and...

"31 days, 18 hours, and 32 minutes, 15 seconds, right? It's been a while, Mashiro. What are you doing out here on such a hot day?"

Satoshi-kun glances at his watch, quickly calculates the time, and pushes his glasses back on.

Gross, why do you remember down to the second? And all the words he says are like a boomerang.

Unless I'm lonely without my little sister at home, any normal middle school student would be relaxing and cooling off at home on a day like this. But he's gone out of his way to come to the library as a summer retreat, so perhaps he doesn't have air conditioning in his house.

"Hey, stop looking at me like I'm some poor kid who doesn't have air conditioner. We have enough money to get one at home. What we don't have is enough money to buy as many books as we want."

Perhaps my sympathy was conveyed to Sato, as he was able to carry on the conversation without me even saying a word.

So unfair!

A naturally gifted person with mind-reading skills?! 

.... If you think about it, non-verbal communication makes you a Newtype, not a Coordinator. It's unfair, but I'll forgive you.

"Haha, it's been a while since the closing ceremony, Satoshi-kun. But unfortunately, you don't look like a kid without air conditioner, you look like a kid who can't afford a drink."

I'm able to hide my inner squalor from people who communicate with me non-verbally, so maybe I must be a genius at mimicry.

As I was thinking about this, Satoshi-kun looked at me with a look on his face that seemed to want to say something.

"What's wrong? 'You don't even have that much money?'... No, it's not that. You're staring at me like, 'How did you make that much?'"

Based on the flow of the conversation and Satoshi-kun's thought pattern, there's one thing he'd probably think about.

Partway through, I repeated my statement, thinking that he'd probably think a little further ahead, but Satoshi-kun blinked as if he'd been hit by a peashooter.

Ha! My eyes are bigger than yours!

"How do you know so much... I'm scared of you."

You might ask why, but it's just that wonderful brain I inherited from Mama is predicting his thought patterns.

The more we talk regularly, the more accurate I become, so with my little sister, I'm 95% sure, with Tomohiro-kun, 85% sure, and with Satoshi-kun, a little over 60% sure. Other than that, I can bluff, or prepare two patterns at once, and one of them will hit the target.

It's not that hard to act like you're doing it, but... no, it's difficult.

It wasn't until I put it into words that I finally realized I was doing something disgusting. Putting it into words is important.

"By the way, I'm sorry to bother you, but my method of making money is a secret. Here's a hint: it's legal and morally sound. If you guess right, I'll give you a reward."

I smiled at Satoshi-kun, and his cheeks flushed slightly. The smile of a beautiful, high-spec TS girl is truly captivating.

She inherited it from her Mama, after all.

By the way, that reminded me: my beloved Mama was a bit of a wimp. So, where did my wonderful, wrinkled brain come from?

It's definitely higher spec than before, so it's strange.

A mutation, perhaps?  

...Don't say things like, "Well, it may be a mutation, but it looks like a cancer cell, which is a tumor of the human race, so it's perfect!" I'll just cry.

When I suddenly burst into tears, showing my emotionally unstable side, Satoshi-kun, as if he misunderstood something, panicked and bought me a drink. I'm so grateful that he took the time to do it out of his meager pocket money. I'll buy you some takoyaki as a thank you.