"Hah? Use me as material for your stupid ritual? What are you fantasizing about?"
Tomie was so furious she looked about ready to pop.
"It's not like I can just grab some random innocent bystander off the street — Rin would be unhappy about that."
Kawakami Tomie blinked and arranged her features into an expression of perfect, guileless innocence.
"So I can only ask a fellow Tomie to make a small sacrifice. It's not like you can actually die — just lend a hand, won't you?"
The words were reasonable enough in their way, but Kawakami Tomie's eyes were brimming with undisguised malice.
"Lend you a hand my foot! You actually want to use me as raw material! Who in their right mind would agree to that?!"
Tomie bared her teeth, looking very much like she wanted to sink them into Kawakami Tomie.
"Hehe, let's go, Rin."
Kawakami Tomie beamed, looped her arm through Amamiya Rin's, and walked out the door with a light, buoyant step.
Amamiya Rin found himself half-dragged and half-pulled out of the apartment building.
The morning street was only just waking up, the pavement still holding the damp chill of the night.
Tomie walked ahead, the hem of her skirt swaying gently with each step — like a white cloud drifting on a breeze. Pedestrians and students coming from the opposite direction couldn't help but follow her with their eyes, and even after passing her by, they turned back to look again.
Tomie's smile grew more radiant by the moment, blossoming like a rose in full flower, her entire being radiating a charm that had nowhere to go but outward.
Such beauty was, naturally, a magnet for unwanted attention.
"Good morning! Miss, might I treat you to a cup of coffee? I know a very nice place just up ahead."
A black sedan pulled up along the curb. A young man in a pressed suit, hair slicked to a gleaming shine, stepped out and positioned himself directly in Tomie's path. A polished, self-satisfied smile spread across his face.
The smile on Tomie's face didn't waver. She tilted her head slightly and turned those seemingly crystalline eyes toward Amamiya Rin beside her.
"Oh my, if you want to invite me anywhere, you'll have to ask my boyfriend first."
Only then did the man notice Amamiya Rin. He looked him up and down with a sweeping glance — and when he spotted the crutch, his expression grew even more arrogant, his tone sliding into open contempt.
"Boyfriend-kun? You don't look very steady on your feet. Care for a ride in my car? Surely you're not going to make a beautiful girl like her slow down to match your pace?"
He raised a hand and gestured casually toward the black sedan parked at the curb.
In the passenger seat of that same car, however, sat a young woman with hair falling to her waist. She was beautiful enough, but her whole bearing radiated a meek, submissive quality — the sort of girl who simply endures. Watching her companion go chat up another woman, she made no scene; she simply sat in the car and cast a wounded, mournful look in Kawakami Tomie's direction.
And yet — to do this openly, right in front of his own girlfriend? That was a bit much, wasn't it?
What terrifying charm. With a fresh layer of skin, the Apology Demon's curse truly did seem to have been wiped clean.
Amamiya Rin let out a barely perceptible sigh and glanced at Kawakami Tomie.
She was watching him with undisguised amusement, a teasing glint in her eyes, clearly curious to see what he would do.
Amamiya Rin turned back to the suited man. His gaze was calm — utterly calm, almost empty of any feeling.
But the instant his eyes locked on, something changed.
The air around him — that faint, weary, slightly loose quality — snapped taut in an instant, sharpening into something honed and still. Something seemed to settle and sink to the bottom of his pupils.
That gaze, stripped of every extraneous thought, landed on the man's eyes. In the space of a heartbeat, the hairs on the back of the man's neck stood straight up for no reason he could name. It was as though something cold had drawn itself across his skin — a bone-deep unease that jammed every practiced word right up in his throat.
A simple application of the Evil Eye technique. Against humans who didn't warrant direct engagement, it was still quite effective.
"No need for the trouble. We have nothing pressing to do — plenty of time for a walk."
Amamiya Rin lowered his eyes and said it mildly.
The moment the gaze broke, the man's rigid body slumped all at once in relief. He took an involuntary step backward, and the look he turned on Amamiya Rin now carried a few new notes — wariness and a trace of unaccountable fear.
"A walk, you say — walking is a great habit. Why not walk together?"
Even so, Tomie's pull was simply not something ordinary. Even after being pinned down by Amamiya Rin's stare, the man couldn't quite bring himself to just leave.
Blinded by desire?
Amamiya Rin found himself reassessing the man with a grudging sort of respect. Was beauty really worth this level of courage?
"Tomie-san, if you have a moment, would you like to walk with us?"
At that point, the long-haired woman from the passenger seat stepped out of the car. Her voice was soft and yielding, her manner thoroughly demure.
"Hm? Do you know me?"
Kawakami Tomie looked over at the long-haired woman, one eyebrow lifting.
"I'm Amano Sei. We're in the same department — you don't remember?"
The woman offered this with an embarrassed little smile, her expression slightly awkward, as if she hadn't anticipated that Kawakami Tomie might not recognise her at all.
"I don't bother learning the names of plain girls."
Kawakami Tomie said it without a shred of hesitation.
Before the words had fully left her mouth, Amamiya Rin's palm came down flat on her back.
"Be civil."
Amamiya Rin's eyes cut to Kawakami Tomie, carrying a clear note of disapproval.
Leaving aside the question of whether the woman was actually plain or not — she couldn't go on behaving with zero manners. Walking alongside Tomie, he'd end up embarrassed himself.
"You hit me! You actually hit me — for her! I can't believe you'd do something like this to me! Waaah!"
Kawakami Tomie's eyes went wide. Her voice cracked with the threat of tears; her eyes shone bright and glassy, as if she were on the verge of actually crying, every inch of her a picture of wounded heartbreak.
And yet — how could Amamiya Rin, connected to Kawakami Tomie at the level of their very minds, be fooled by a performance like that?
This one. Now that her looks were restored, her mental state had tipped into something a bit too excitable.
The man, however, saw Tomie's aggrieved expression and immediately seized on it like a lifeline. His voice climbed several notes as he rounded on Amamiya Rin with righteous indignation.
"Hey! How can you put your hands on a woman like that?! Can't you talk things through like an adult?! Tomie-san is so delicate — how could you do that to her?!"
Without waiting for Amamiya Rin to respond, he wheeled on the flustered Amano Sei, his tone shifting to reproach: "And you, Amano — you're her classmate, so why didn't you make a proper introduction from the start? Putting Tomie-san in an awkward situation, causing friction between her and her friends — isn't that your fault for being rude? I'd say Tomie-san was only so blunt because you failed to handle the introduction properly."
He delivered all this with the air of a man righteously upholding justice, his eyes never failing to flicker back toward Tomie with every other word.
Under this barrage, Amano Sei's face cycled through red and white in quick succession. She bit her lip, bowed her head, and twisted the hem of her clothes between her fingers, looking more flustered than ever.
But Kawakami Tomie's look of tearful devastation had already vanished — at some point during his speech it had simply evaporated — replaced now by something nakedly contemptuous and mocking.
Far from joining the man in blaming Amamiya Rin, she tightened her grip on Amamiya Rin's arm.
"Hah? My boyfriend and I were just being playful with each other. What exactly are you over there rambling on about?"
Those words landed and the man went completely blank. Every flattering thing he'd rehearsed lodged itself in his throat. His expression froze on his face in a way that was, frankly, quite ridiculous.
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