Kuroba Akira gritted his teeth in frustration, swearing to himself that he would never feed that little beast again.
On the other side, Shiginomiya Shion finished off the milk, screwed the cap back on, and stood up.
Then—
Guuuuu~
What the hell was that sound?
The question answered itself a moment later.
Shion hunched over slightly, clutching her stomach as her whole body trembled faintly.
For a beautiful girl, having her stomach growl that loudly was mortifying beyond words.
Akira, on the other hand, found it kind of funny. So no matter how gorgeous someone looks, when they're hungry, they're just hungry like anyone else.
"Looks like we've solved the cat's food problem—now it's time to deal with the human's. Let's hurry back. We might still catch dinner."
"At this hour… there's still dinner?"
It was nearly 8 p.m.—most families would've finished dinner long ago.
"Yeah. I usually come home pretty late too, so the old lady's gotten used to cooking later. But if it gets too late, she'll just freeze the food and go to bed. Then we'd have to heat it ourselves—no freshly cooked meal. Kind of a hassle."
"I see…"
The "old lady"… did he mean his mom?
Despite the rude nickname, from Akira's tone, Shion could tell he had a good relationship with his family. There was familiarity and understanding there.
Unlike me and my mom…
Shion couldn't fully hide the shadow that crossed her face. Her eyes dulled as the old ache returned.
That irreconcilable rift with her mother was the main reason she ran away from home.
Which made her all the more hesitant now.
"Akira-kun… you're really going to take me home?"
"What else would I do? I told you from the start, didn't I?"
"Ah…"
Shion recalled the very first words Akira had ever said to her:
"Hey beautiful, wanna come home with me?"
He had been serious about bringing her back from the beginning.
"I meant… would your family be okay with taking me in?"
"You don't have to worry about that. I don't have any family."
"Eh?"
Shion's eyes widened in surprise.
"What do you mean, no family? You just said… the old lady…"
"Oh, she's not my actual family. She's my landlord—Kobayashi Mika. I just call her Kobayashi-obaasan, or the old lady."
"…I'm sorry… I shouldn't have brought that up."
Shion apologized immediately, realizing she'd stumbled into a sensitive subject.
A tragedy, like so many in this world… Her heart clenched. So those words earlier had referred to himself.
She assumed Akira was an orphan who had lost his parents, and the guilt hit her hard.
Akira understood why she apologized. In a way, she wasn't wrong—he had lost his real parents, becoming a kind of orphan in another world.
"It's fine. I don't really mind."
That's what he said aloud, but in truth, Akira did want to reach out to the family of this body.
If his appearance hadn't changed much, then maybe his parents looked the same too.
And if he could contact them, he might finally get the bank card password and fix his cash problems.
But so far, Akira hadn't managed to get in touch with anyone.
Mainly because he had no idea how to reach them.
He did have a phone, but in this world, it was still the flip-phone era—practically a brick. The technology lagged by at least a generation.
And when he checked the contact list, it was completely blank—not even a home number saved.
Of course, maybe the original Akira had memorized all the numbers and didn't need to save them… but the current Akira didn't know a single one!
That's why he couldn't contact his family. But even so—shouldn't they have tried calling him?
Yet in the six months since he transmigrated, his phone had only served as an alarm clock and audio player. It hadn't received a single call.
Saving that much on phone bills, huh?
It was… curious.
Sending a kid to study alone in Tokyo and then going radio silent for half a year—either they trusted him way too much, or they didn't care at all.
Maybe this world's Akira had a bunch of siblings and was the least favored, so they just shipped him off to Tokyo and forgot about him?
But then again, judging by the high school he was attending, the opposite might be true. Maybe his parents had high hopes for him, and sent him to Tokyo to chase success.
Maybe they just couldn't afford to move with him, so he had to strike out on his own… For a regular family, that would make sense.
Until he confirmed things firsthand, Akira had no idea where his "hometown" was or what his "parents" were like.
Still, being able to send a kid to school in Tokyo meant his family probably wasn't too badly off.
The high school he attended had a deviation score of 72, ranking in the top thirty public schools in Tokyo—a true elite institution.
It was called Hibiya High School. The name might make people think of "that teacher", but it actually had nothing to do with him. That teacher went to Sōbu High, which was modeled after Inage High in Chiba. Inage's deviation score was 68… no wonder those kids in the anime were carefree about their studies. That score practically made them geniuses.
Deviation scores could be understood as school rankings. The higher the number, the better the school—and the higher the quality of its students and teachers.
Akira had seen a movie that mentioned the minimum deviation score to get into Keio University was 70, which placed you in the top 2% of all students. A score of 30 put you in the bottom 2%.
Keio was basically on par with Nanjing University—a top ten university in all of Japan.
Maybe not everyone knew the school's name, but everyone would recognize its founder—the man printed on the 10,000 yen bill: Fukuzawa Yukichi.
Funny thing—before Akira transmigrated, there were talks about replacing Fukuzawa with Shibusawa Eiichi. But in this world, that rumor didn't exist at all.
Anyway, Akira's school ranking made it all the more impressive that the class rep had scored first place in the entire year.
To hold the top spot in a school full of elite students—Anri Hitomi really was the best of the best.
And maybe that was why Akira hadn't encountered any delinquents or dramatic bullying here—just the occasional outcast like himself. If that counted as bullying.
But honestly, that was on him. If he acted normal, he probably could've had a normal high school life.
Akira did feel a little bad for the original Kuroba Akira.
That guy must've worked his butt off to get into this school, only for his life to be completely derailed by his arrival and one terrible self-introduction.
Still, Akira didn't think he should shoulder all the blame.
This wouldn't have happened if the original Akira hadn't just vanished without a trace—no memories, no soul, just a frail shell left behind.
Of course, there was always the possibility—like a certain self-proclaimed mad scientist with chuunibyou—that he had some passive skill called "Eye of Fate Perception" that let him retain memories even when the worldline shifted.
That seemed kind of likely, actually. His appearance hadn't changed, so his DNA probably hadn't either. Like Rintaro Okabe, maybe he'd just hopped worldlines, unable to access the original memories of this one.
Wait a second… so maybe I didn't transmigrate. Maybe the worldline just changed?
A sci-fi twist??
No, no, better not dig too deep into that. The more I think about it, the creepier it gets…
Akira walked in silence. Though he was just lost in thought, Shion saw it differently. To her, it looked like she'd stirred up painful memories—and that thought pained her in turn.
Just like his words gave me strength… I want to be there for him too.
We promised to walk this path together, didn't we?
So please… don't be sad anymore.
From now on, I'll always be by your side.
With that thought, Shion inched closer to him. Then, summoning her courage, she gently reached out her left hand and took his right.
"Uh—!"
But Akira immediately pulled his hand away.
It wasn't that he disliked holding hands with a beautiful girl.
It's just… his right hand was currently—
Akira hurriedly checked his palm.
The glowing text, [Academic Ability A], copied from the class rep, was fading away.
No… no no no!
I'm gonna turn into an idiot again!