For a moment I sat there in a daze, but when I suddenly came to my senses I noticed that Fudatsuki had forgotten something on the bench.
His contact lens case.
Which held no ordinary contact lenses, mind you, but those special lenses that allowed him to see the invisibility suit─a dangerous item still in the middle of development and testing.
Fudatsuki had been surprisingly scatterbrained to forget something so important in the midst of his smooth departure─or maybe not.
Maybe he had forgotten them on purpose?
Were they a pretext, or perhaps I should say a seed he had planted in order to arrange another rendezvous with me? It was a fitting promise of a future appointment for a guy who made meeting with people his primary business.
He probably planned to call me up again and say innocently, “Would you mind giving me back those contact lenses? They’re a very important classified item.” How perfectly clever of him.
If that was the case, then the proper response might be to pretend I hadn’t noticed them and simply return home, but a coward like me lacked the guts to leave some secret military-grade gadget lying around at a bus stop─and so while it infuriated me to knowingly step into a trap, I saw no other option than to go along with Fudatsuki’s plan.
I had no choice.
It was my own fault for failing to notice this audaciously forgotten item as Fudatsuki was leaving─although he’d definitely wooed me with that invitation in order to prevent me from noticing.
What had he said? The Heartbreaker Street Irregulars?
I felt like I’d heard that name somewhere before… But anyway, I should probably take his advice seriously.
This time he’d just made a cameo, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case next time around─multifaceted business dealings were his modus operandi, and once he was done tying up the loose ends from his closed casino, there was no telling what he might try to unleash on Yubiwa Academy.
I slipped the “forgotten” contact lenses into the pocket of my blazer and stood up─I lived on a different route, so none of the buses that stopped here would get me home.
But the sky had grown completely dark while I was talking with Fudatsuki, and the nighttime streets are dangerous for a girl walking home alone, even if she is dressed as a boy.
My eyesight renders darkness virtually meaningless, but I could well imagine some ruffians ignorant of that using the night as cover for their bad deeds.
Which is why.
“Sorry to ask when you’re hiding and everything, but would you mind walking me home?”
At this, the delinquent emerged slowly from the bushes behind the bus stop where he’d been crouching.
I’d never seen anyone look grumpier in my life.
“Don’t tell me you saw through the bushes or something. I didn’t see you take off your glasses…”
“Nope, I just figured you were there.”
I’d relied on my intuition, not my vision.
I have to admit I knew that the kiddy phone they’d given me was equipped with a GPS lost-kid-finder function, so they wouldn’t have much trouble locating me no matter where in the world I ran off to.
If I didn’t like it, I could’ve just turned it off, but I didn’t─I wouldn’t tell them this, because by this point I’m sure they’d never believe me, but I had never intended to genuinely give them the slip in the first place.
“Where’s Mr. Bare-Legs?”
“He went to your house. In case something actually happened.”
“Call him then, would you? Tell him his dear friend is alright.”
“Demanding, aren’t we.”
But the delinquent must’ve felt guilty for listening in on my conversation, because he didn’t give me the usual tongue-lashing.
Instead he said, “Next time, I’m gonna make you some killer food, so get ready.”
Harsh punishment.
“So? What did you and the enemy boss talk about? I couldn’t hear much over the sound of the bus there at the end.”
“It’s a secret.”
I can’t imagine such a gentlemanly playboy leaving a girl alone on the streets at night, so he must’ve had an inkling there were other Pretty Boys nearby─which was probably why he’d said the last part under cover of the noise from the bus. With that in mind, I fell into step with the delinquent.
Even now it struck me as strange that I’d felt so embarrassed sitting next to Fudatsuki, but at some point I’d stopped feeling intimidated by being around the outlaw delinquent, who operated on a scale every bit as grand.