"Personal bodyguard?" Jhin looked at Sakaki Yumiko with a puzzled expression. His mind was instantly filled with all sorts of novels he had read before—the ones where a 'king of soldiers' returns to the city, becomes the personal bodyguard of a beautiful woman, and ultimately wins over the rich beauty to reach the pinnacle of his life.
Sakaki Yumiko nodded. For some time, she had felt that someone was watching her. The day she went out alone to buy snacks was precisely to confirm this. Although she didn't know if they were targeting her because of her status as a daughter of the Sakaki family, the fact that she was being watched was undeniable.
Jhin, a boy who exuded mystery from head to toe, coupled with the extraordinary skills he displayed during the attack on him, was a natural choice to hire as her personal bodyguard.
"It's not out of the question, but are you planning to do something so dangerous that you need to hire me as a bodyguard?"
"It's not that I'm going to do something dangerous, but that someone is targeting me."
"Mhm, I'm already aware that you're beautiful. No need to show off in such a roundabout way."
Sakaki Yumiko raised her voice, her face stern and her gaze severe as she told him, "I'm not joking with you!"
"Understood. I'll stick by your side for the time being." Jhin raised his hands in surrender. Stop staring at me with those icy eyes. I'm not a masochist; that kind of look won't work on me.
"As long as you understand. You'll be well-paid." Sakaki Yumiko stood up from her chair. "I'm preparing to go out shortly. Get ready."
"Roger."
Jhin took out his phone. On it was a message Julia had sent him two days ago. Sakaki Michiaki, Sakaki Yumiko's father and the president of the Touhin Electric Railway Group, had contacted their organization, requesting them to stage an attack targeting his own daughter—Sakaki Yumiko.
The goal wasn't to kill his daughter, but to intimidate her into returning to the main family to obediently prepare to inherit the vast family business that Sakaki Michiaki had taken over from his father's generation.
In this attack, Jhin was naturally meant to be an extra insurance policy, used to persuade Sakaki Yumiko to return to the main family. Sakaki Michiaki, unaware of his true identity, simply regarded Jhin as an undercover agent the organization had placed there for the daughter of the Irisu family.
After all, no father would allow someone with the moniker "Devil's Child" to enroll in the school he founded for his daughter.
Jhin picked up his phone and made a call. "Hey, it's me. Could you please prepare the things we talked about before? Yes, for today."
As mentioned before, Jhin had made numerous preparations based on his fragmented memories to deal with the troubles of the problem girls. The most time-consuming of these was building connections within the organization, ensuring that even if he left, he wouldn't be completely without support.
"Let's go." Sakaki Yumiko came out of her bedroom, stuffing a sketchbook into her white shoulder bag. It seemed she was planning to go out and sketch. It was unclear whether she was trying to lure out her stalkers or simply relieve her boredom.
Jhin followed her to a small river not far from the city. Lush green grass swayed in the wind alongside the murmuring stream, and clouds chased each other across the sky, occasionally blocking the scorching sunlight and bringing a hint of coolness to the summer day.
Sakaki Yumiko sat quietly on the grass, sketching the scenery before her eyes.
"You're quite good at drawing."
"How could this level be considered good?"
"Isn't drawing your hobby?"
"It's just a way to pass the time without having to talk."
"You don't want to talk?"
"Because as long as I'm drawing, I don't need to interact with anyone."
"So you're the type who likes to be alone."
"I'm just not good at socializing. I'm a pretty boring woman, right?" As Sakaki Yumiko said this, the movements of her slender hand, holding a colored pencil to sketch lines, became rougher.
"Putting the drawing aside for a moment, someone who calls themselves boring really has no charm to speak of."
Sakaki Yumiko's drawing movements froze abruptly. Hearing Jhin's reply, she felt a wave of irritation. Even though I said it myself, can't you, as a guy, praise a girl at a time like this? Why are you acting like a wooden block that doesn't understand anything?
If Jhin knew, he would probably just utter that classic line: "Drink more hot water."
The weather, much like Sakaki Yumiko's mood, changed in an instant. The white clouds that had been chasing each other moments ago were mercilessly replaced by dark, oppressive thunderclouds, heralding an impending downpour.
"CRACK!" The sudden clap of thunder was like a terrifying scream that pierces your ears in a horror game right when you're concentrating on finding an exit. Sakaki Yumiko flinched, and her paintbrush and craft knife fell out of her shoulder bag, scattering on the ground.
Just as Sakaki Yumiko bent over in the rain to pick up her things, three tall men in black suits and sunglasses—who at a glance were clearly not good people—formed a triangle, surrounding her and Jhin.
"So they've finally arrived..." Jhin murmured, reaching out to shield Sakaki Yumiko behind him.
The lead man in the suit and sunglasses lowered his voice and threatened, "Get lost."
Jhin didn't abandon Sakaki Yumiko and flee in a panic as planned, which left the three men stunned.
Why isn't this kid following the script? Don't tell me he's planning to jack up the price at this critical moment and demand more money?
Sure enough, Jhin gave them a smile as refreshing as a spring breeze and said, "Sorry, but this is going to cost you extra."
He dashed forward and landed a powerful punch on the lead man's nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils like a fountain.
"You little brat!"
"Damn it, get him!"
The other two cursed and lunged at Jhin the moment he made his move. It had to be said, Sakaki Michiaki was quite good at picking people. These three were all tall and imposing, with thuggish faces. In suits, they looked like gangsters, the kind that would make an ordinary person's legs turn to jelly.
There were likely more than just the three of them nearby. Jhin decided to end it quickly. Silvery snakes of electricity danced at his fingertips, and the moment they made contact with the two lunging men, their bodies were paralyzed.
Sakaki Yumiko seemed not to have recovered from the shock yet. Jhin pulled her up from the ground and led her under a nearby bridge to take shelter from the rain.
The sudden downpour seemed as if it would never end. Gale-force winds carried rain howling across the bridge, and thunderclaps boomed incessantly, like an angry father scolding his child.
"Aah!" Sakaki Yumiko had lost count of how many times she had thrown herself into Jhin's arms out of fear of the thunder. In the end, she simply decided not to leave his reassuring, warm embrace.
Her delicate body, trembling from cold and fear, gradually calmed under Jhin's gentle reassurance. Sakaki Yumiko couldn't help but ask the boy who seemed unshakeable no matter what happened, "Why are you so strong?"
"I've never thought of myself as strong." Jhin was, at present, just a human with special abilities.
"You are strong. Strong enough to survive on your own like this, completely different from me." Sakaki Yumiko pulled away from the warm embrace she had been momentarily captivated by and began to recount her past.
"My father married my mother because he wanted her to give birth to a boy to be his successor. But I was the one who was born, and my mother, with her frail constitution, was unable to have a second child."
"My father and my mother's family, who received aid from the Sakaki family, both blamed her. Suffering from both physical and mental blows, she eventually fell ill."
"My mother was sent to the hospital by my image-conscious grandparents, and she became all alone. So did I."
"Surrounded by countless stares and whispers, I couldn't even make a single proper friend."
"Even so, I visited my mother every day, hoping she would smile at me like she used to, until..."
Sakaki Yumiko would never forget that day. She had come to the hospital as usual to visit her increasingly thin and taciturn mother. Just as she was about to leave, her mother called out to her in a faint voice.
"Yumiko..."
Her mother turned her head, looking at her with a numb, indifferent gaze. She thought her mother was finally willing to talk to her, but the joyful surprise in her heart didn't even have time to form a smile on her face.
"If only you had been a boy." Her mother's face twisted into a strange, distorted smile, as if she were fantasizing about her daughter being a male, and the happy life she would have had afterward.
Words became the sharpest blades in the world, stabbing into Sakaki Yumiko's heart and leaving a huge, bleeding hole. They also sliced her life up to that point into pieces and tossed it into a trash can labeled "Non-recyclable."
"After that, my father had a son with his mistress. My mother, devastated by this, committed suicide. Even in the second before she died, she was apologizing for not being able to give birth to a boy."
"But that brother of mine also died from an illness. My father took me back, pretending as if nothing had ever happened, and prepared to raise me as his heir."
"That man treated me, my mother, and everything else as nothing more than tools to expand the Touhin Group!"
"This school was only built to hide me away after I hurt a classmate. I went from a bird in a cage to a bird in a wall. It's laughable, isn't it?"
"A bird in a cage or a bird in a wall, both have the ability to fly on their own. What they lack is just the person to give them freedom." Jhin saw the men in suits and sunglasses watching them from a distance on the other side of the river and whispered in Sakaki Yumiko's ear, "Leave the rest to me. Act normal. Let's head back to the dorms first."
Jhin walked out from under the cover of the bridge. The downpour had stopped at some point. Rays of sunlight pierced through the dark clouds, draping themselves over Jhin as he emerged from the bridge's shadow. At that moment, he was like a knight in golden armor. "The sky has cleared. Let's go."
Sakaki Yumiko's heartbeat silently began to quicken. Perhaps... this person really could give her the freedom she longed for.
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