Kicking the door shut, Konrad slumped on the bed and dropped his textbooks.
Finally Friday.
Or that's what he would've said in his previous life. When it meant he survived yet another week, and had two short days to recharge. Then, the grind would start over and never stop.
But, well, things were different now.
For starters, he was actually working on the weekend.
The rest of his days? All about school and having fun with friends.
Not that he counted the Demon Lord as one. And piling failure on failure wasn't exactly his idea of fun, either. But that's why he wanted to meet up with the gang.
To practice. Like, a lot.
So when Kaede left school early without a word, he could only send her an angry text.
[Konrad H] The hell are you going?!
Pings flooded his phone seconds later.
[R Kaede] What?! Can't skip work.
[R Kaede] Can get u a free karaoke booth for half an hour tho. Kinda bored anyway.
Yeah, no. He's been there once, and that was more than enough. He didn't recover a single mana that evening, but found a new type of anxiety. Not that he wanted to sing, anyway.
But Kaede should have worked on her terrible sense of rhythm.
As if reading his mind, the phone buzzed again.
[R Kaede] No worries, I've my drumsticks. Will practice.
[R Kaede] But if I don't stop texting, the boss will be mad.
Right. Because he must have been fine with her using the entire bar as one big drum set. Her classmates only found it funny at first, too. She was drumming something off-beat every recess.
And she didn't seem to improve at all.
[Konrad H] Why even bother going?
He couldn't help but ask.
[Konrad H] The whole band thing is because of you. To get mana for a return trip to Kasserlane.
Once they were gone, her career on earth would be over anyway. But before he locked the screen, the pings were back. She sure replied fast for someone who wasn't supposed to.
[R Kaede] Yeah. If the spell works.
[R Kaede] If not, who's gonna pay ur rent next month?!
Ouch. Having a little trust would have been nice. But he had no real comeback to that.
Konrad wasn't sure about it, either.
He looked into the spell, but there were still a lot of unknown runes.
Not to mention, he had no guarantees that was the correct syntax in the first place.
The concept was sound, he remembered floating in the time-trap before. But was it created by that exact spell? Or would the Demon Lord finetune his magic later, far into the future?
He had no idea.
Meanwhile, it was only thanks to Kaede that he didn't have to sleep on the streets. The moment she left the hospital, she took on two more jobs to make up for the lost time.
So if Konrad failed—
Yeah, only he could fail. It was he who'd cast that spell anyway. They needed no mana.
And he didn't want to involve Midori-kun from the start. Thinking about him, the Demon Lord also canceled the last minute. Busy experimenting at home, he said.
Not doing research. Experimenting. With these exact words.
That must have meant he got enough essence from the earlier practice to cast spells. And if he figured out teleportation before Konrad did, before teaching him everything—
Okay, he could only blame himself for this tight schedule.
No point getting mad at Kaede. This was his theory, his responsibility.
Plus, had he not used the Isekai Microwave on the Demon Lord during their duel, none of them would have ended up here. Well, they wouldn't have stopped fighting, either, but—
The fact that they even faced each other in the first place, the invasion, and his trials.
No, even his reincarnation. It was all Lucifer's doing.
And if he decided to send his minions after them now, while he was spiraling—
[Unknown] So u come tomorrow as usual?
Konrad almost dropped the phone.
Unknown? The number was familiar, but this was the first message he had ever gotten from it.
[Unknown] Like, I know u have work. But I mean, will ur friends come, too? Or u alone?
Wait, did he ever save Sorakumo-san's contact? He definitely wrote it down somewhere, but—
[Unknown] Kohai-kun? U there??
Yeah, that could only be Yuki-san.
He fumbled to add her name as the phone kept pinging, because someone was impatient.
[Konrad H] Konnichiwa, Yuki-san. Yes, I will attend work tomorrow as scheduled.
Wait, was that too official? He didn't even answer the whole question.
[Konrad H] I will be going alone. My accomplices are busy with work as well.
[Konrad H] May I know why you are asking?
And now she went all silent, of course.
Was it weird writing like that? But even if she didn't act the part, Yuki-san was her boss. He couldn't be too casual, like a teenager texting his crush, which—
Wait. Why was that the first thing to come to mind?
[Yuki] Lol.
[Yuki] Cool. Cool. Oto-san will be out, too.
[Yuki] So only the 2 of us 2morro huh?
She finished with a little heart, and Konrad's sure beat faster seeing that. It was only something kids sent to each other these days, right? He had no idea how to respond, or if he even had to.
He reread every single word she sent instead, at least a hundred times.
The first one meant she was laughing, right? Easy. The rest—cool twice?
Did that mean she looked forward to it, or—
[Yuki] It's fun when we play 2gether. Only us.
Yeah. No little heart this time, but that almost read like a confession. Even the phone's buzzing felt different. And while he was racking his brain over an appropriate answer, she sped up again.
[Yuki] Not that I mind Ryu-chan. She's kinda like me but prettier.
[Konrad H] You're also very pretty, Yuki-san.
Wait. Did he actually send that? How did he undo that?!
He didn't need a sexual harassment case from his only workplace, when—
[Yuki] Aww. If u actually think so, u should say that more often.
A winking face. Whew. Safe.
And for some reason, he could almost see her smirk, too. No blushing, no bashfulness. She reminded him of someone, and to demand more compliments felt only fitting.
Still, flirting over the phone was a terrible, terrible idea.
He already had a wife—even if it was a political marriage from another world.
His harem, too, made life chaotic enough as is.
And yet, his fingers had a will of their own, flying over the screen before he could stop them.
[Konrad H] I will, if I have the opportunity.
Ugh. That seemed super corny, too. He should've put that thing down before he wrote something even dumber. But when his phone pinged again, all common sense left the building.
It wasn't a message, but an attachment.
A selfie.
A close-up on a girl's face with half-lidded eyes, hair fanning out on her bed. Forearm in front of her lips, pale skin almost glowing—with dozens of tiny cuts covering her wrist.
Beautiful. Sad. Broken.
And all Konrad could do was gulp. Hard.