“…”
His hand stopped rocking the hot pan.
“I was actually jumping between buildings just fine, but in the middle of one leap, I got shot in the back.” The Index girl looked like she was laughing.
“Sorry. It looks like I got caught on your railing while I was falling.”
There was no embarrassment or sarcasm in her voice at all. She smiled at him as if it were perfectly normal.
“You got shot…?”
“Yes? Oh, don’t worry, I’m not hurt. These clothes also have a defensive barrier on them.”
What’s a “defensive barrier”? A bulletproof vest?
The girl spun around to show off her clothes. She certainly didn’t look like she was wounded. Was she actually shot? He found it much more probable that everything she had said was just a pile of lies, half-truths, and delusions.
However…
At the very least, she really had been hanging on his seventh-story balcony.
Hypothetically, if everything this girl was saying was true…
Then who would have shot her?
Kamijou contemplated.
He considered how much resolve it would take to vault across the rooftops of eight-story buildings. How a balcony on the seventh floor had fortunately interrupted her descent. What had she meant by her claim that she’d “collapsed”?
“I was being chased,” she said.
He considered the smile plastered on her face when she’d said that.
He didn’t know what kind of circumstances Index was caught up in, and he didn’t understand much of what she was saying. Even if she’d explained everything to him from start to finish, he probably wouldn’t have understood half of it. He also probably wouldn’t have wanted to bother understanding half of it.
But one thing was true.
She’d been dangling on his balcony on the seventh floor. If she’d taken one wrong step, she could have slammed into the pavement instead. The deadly reality of that fact struck Kamijou so vividly that he felt his chest tighten.
“Food.”
Index suddenly poked her face out from behind him. She can speak Japanese, but…she doesn’t know how to use chopsticks? She was clutching the utensils in her fist like a spoon, her gaze fixed excitedly on the contents of the skillet.
A comparison of her expression to that of a kitten just lifted out of a cardboard box in the rain wouldn’t have been far from the mark.
“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Uhh.”
Something like a (toxic) vegetable stir-fry comprised of compost simmered in the frying pan.
Hmm. Looking at the hungry girl before his eyes, he could feel Angel Kamijou (normally paired with Devil Kamijou) writhing in agony inside him.
“Uhh, ahh! B-but, you know, if you’re that hungry, rather than this gross bachelor chow I threw together, we should do it right and go to a restaurant or order takeout or something!”
“I can’t wait that long, okay?”
“…Uhh, ugh!”
“And besides, it doesn’t look gross at all. You cooked it for me without expecting anything in return. It can’t possibly be bad, okay?”
This time she smiled even more widely and more brightly, in a manner befitting an actual nun.
Kamijou’s stomach felt like it was being wrung out like a mop. Index ignored him, taking the chopsticks in her fist and scooping the contents of the pan into her mouth.
Munch munch.
“See? It’s not bad at all.”
Chew chew.
“…Ah, is that so.”
“I can taste that you gave it a bit of a sour tang to help revitalize me. Well done.”
“Egck! Sour?!”
Gobble gobble.
“Yeah. But I’m fine with sour. Thanks. You know, you’re kind of like a big brother.”
She grinned. She’d been eating so ravenously that she had a bean sprout stuck to her cheek.
“…Uhh…Whooooooaaaaaahhh!”
Vwapp!! He snatched the frying pan out of her hands at supersonic speed, and Index’s expression became the very picture of disappointment. Kamijou made himself a vow. I will be the only one to go to hell for this.
“Were you hungry, too?”
“…Huh?”
“If you’re not, then I think you shouldn’t play games and just let me eat it.”
Index chomped at the tips of her chopsticks and watched him with upturned eyes. Kamijou had a revelation.
God spoke to him: “You must take responsibility and eat this.”
His rotten luck hadn’t been the problem this time. He’d brought this entirely on himself.