/
“Sensei…” Seiji was moved to his core.
He wanted to say something but felt that words were insufficient to describe how moved he was. Instead, he chose to walk over to Mayuzumi and hug her.
“Haruta-kun…” Mayuzumi was obviously surprised by his sudden action.
And then, she slowly closed her eyes and hugged the boy back. After a few moments, she began crying
“Wah… wahh… wahhh…”
She had been stuck here for over five months. Even she herself was unable to put her torturous experience into words.
At this moment, Seiji had finally appeared to save her, and it was Mayuzumi’s first opportunity to vent her emotions since she’d arrived in the soul world.
“Wahh… wahhh…”
Fear, pain, loneliness, discomfort… various emotions finally broke through her numbed emotions and poured out together with her tears.
‘You’ve been so strong, Sensei… Mayuzumi,’ Seiji thought solemnly.
He hugged her tightly and allowed her tears to dampen his shirt.
A long time later.
Mayuzumi finally stopped crying and let go of him. She smiled at Seiji despite her reddened eyes.
Seiji also smiled back at her.
What were they supposed to do next?
The first thing that came to mind was to wait.
Wait and believe that Natsuya Yoruhana would be able to take care of the problem on her side and contact Seiji again, no matter what the problem was.
Seiji trusted the president.
But how long would they have to wait?
One hour in reality was equal to almost half a year here.
With that ratio, even if it took only ten minutes to deal with whatever problem that cropped up, they would have to wait for nearly one month in the soul world.
Optimistically thinking about it, it might take less than ten minutes.
But pessimistically… it would take half a year or even a full year!
Seiji felt that it was best not to run down this avenue of thought anymore.
The most important task they had was finding a way of convincing Reo Tachibana to accept the truth.
They had to tell her that her mother had already passed away, and that Mayuzumi Amami was someone else. They had to help her to truly accept that her mother was no longer in this world, so that she would release Mayuzumi.
This was something that Mayuzumi had tried already. However, she’d failed.
If he tried again… would he be able to succeed?
‘This question is meaningless, as I have yet to try my absolute best!’
He felt that it was pointless to wait without doing anything.
Although it was possible that the president would contact him before he could convince Reo and they would succeed in breaking free, making an effort to do something was always better than standing around and doing nothing.
Perhaps the president would be able to contact him after he convinced Reo. That was why he absolutely had to convince Reo.
And if… he couldn’t convince her, and they waited for too long, what else could they do?
Kill Reo Tachibana?
No! No matter if it was even possible or not, she was only an elementary school girl.
She was just a girl that had lost both of her parents in a traffic accident.
Everything was due to that accident, Hinako Haza’s death, and the mysterious power that she had accidentally summoned ten years ago.
Reo Tachibana was innocent. In fact, she was a victim as well.
To kill such a young and innocent girl… Seiji was unable to do such a thing. So, if it came to it, he would choose to load.
Unless things came to a dead end, he decided to try his very best to do what he should do.
“Sensei, let’s discuss Reo Tachibana…” Seiji said after he had finished contemplating.
Reo Tachibana returned home.
She was rather surprised to see a rather handsome older boy relaxing on her sofa at home.
‘Who is he?’ she thought to herself.
“Hello, little sister Tachibana.” Seiji smiled at her. “Do you still remember me?”
“Hello, big brother.” Reo blinked questioningly. “Who are you?”
She didn’t remember him, just as Peach-sensei had told him.
Reo had forgotten meeting Peach-sensei and him at the school festival.
“It seems that you don’t remember… well, there’s no helping it, since we only met once. It was when you went to go play at Genhana High School’s festival together with your uncle.” Seiji continued to smile.
“My uncle?” Reo echoed, confused. “I haven’t played together with my uncle in a really long time.”
She had forgotten an entire year’s worth of memories together with Shouhei Hirai! In her mind, her parents had never died, and similarly, she had never been adopted by her uncle.
“That’s why you wouldn’t remember me; it’s… been so long.” Seiji maintained his smile as his eyes flashed. “Let’s get to know each other again. My name is Seigo Harano. I’m your mother’s friend.”
“Mother’s… friend?”
At this moment, Mayuzumi entered the living room.
“Mom!” Reo called excitedly.
“Welcome home, Reo,” Mayuzumi said warmly.
“This big brother says that he’s your friend, Mom…”
“Yes, he is.” Mayuzumi smiled as she glanced at Seiji. “He’s your mother’s good friend. Due to some issues, he’s going to start living here from today onwards. Get along well with him, Reo.”
“Eh… live here!?” The little girl’s eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s right. Sorry to bother you with this temporary stay.” Seiji chuckled. “I won’t live here for free. I’ll help your mother out with the chores, and I can even help you with your homework or play games together with you.”
“I… I don’t need you to help me! Nor do I need you to play with me!” The little girl automatically rejected him.
“No need to say that; your mother told us to get along. Let’s be friends, Reo-chan.”
“Don’t call me Reo-chan!” the little girl said, snorting.
“How about little sister Tachibana?”
“That’s no good either!”
“Sister Reo.”
“So disgusting!”
“Little sister Reo~”
“Even worse!” The little girl kept up a stream of forceful retorts.
Seiji enjoyed his playful talk with Reo and cleverly manipulated the topic of conversation so that she imperceptibly started to lose her feelings of rejection towards him.
Mayuzumi smiled as she watched all this.
Actually, she was quite nervous inside, because if Reo didn’t accept him, then…
Fortunately, what she worried about didn’t come to happen.
Although Reo didn’t seem too happy, she accepted this sudden strange big brother and agreed to allow him to live in her home.
That night, Mayuzumi and Seiji cooked a huge feast together.
During dinner, Seiji used appropriate conversation topics to have a fun discussion with the “family” and told them all sorts of interesting stories.
Reo felt that this dinner was a lot livelier than usual, and her mother also smiled a lot more as well. She had lots of fun.
This big brother… didn’t seem bad to her at all.
Later, when she was doing her homework, this big brother really did come and help her.
Under his instruction, she completed all the questions easily, even the ones she felt were difficult. Homework was over with so much faster than was typical!
Afterwards, they played games together.
Reo played together with him on a team against the computer. They had lots of fun and beat a level that she could never beat by herself before. She got to see a new level and boss monster.
After they lost to the new boss monster, the big brother taught her about what went wrong and created a new strategy. After they challenged the boss again, they succeeded in defeating it!
Reo felt like she was having the time of her life. In the past, when she played together with her mother, they weren’t so successful in their games.
When this big brother said that it was getting late and that it was time to sleep, she didn’t even want to go to bed and wanted to play a little longer with him.
“Let’s play tomorrow. Although I want to play the next level together with Reo-chan as well, sleeping too late will be bad for your body,” the big brother said, smiling. “Especially since Reo-chan is currently growing; only by sleeping properly can you grow from a child beauty to an adult beauty.”
The “child beauty” Reo felt rather embarrassed to hear this, and her face started heating up.
“Good night, Reo-chan.”
“G-good night, Brother Harano.”
This was the first time she directly addressed him by his name.
When he heard this, his handsome smile seemed to become even brighter.
Reo became even more embarrassed and daintily ran off.
Seiji’s smile slowly faded as he watched her leave. He felt that his first night had been rather successful.