Tokyo Psychic

Page 166

Was he really provoked by someone like Haru Okumura?

He silently complained to himself, then followed Okumura Haru onto the rooftop.

"Um?!"

Motis, who was walking beside her, let out a soft gasp of surprise.

But soon, the rich expressions on her face quickly turned indifferent.

Wakaba Muku quietly gazed at the earthenware pots of various sizes piled high with soil in front of him, his eyes sparkling with joy.

Okumura Haru felt Wakaba Mutsu's gaze. Although she found it strange that the girl suddenly seemed like a different person, she patiently explained, "I really like planting flowers and plants here, but the roses I planted last time have all been moved to my garden at home, so there are quite a few empty pots now. Do you have any recommendations, Wakaba-san?"

Wakaba Mutsu nodded, her eyes seemingly sparkling, "Cucumber."

"Hmm... cucumbers are very resilient plants, with a flowering period of about two weeks, and they're very easy to grow." Okumura Haru actually tried to think about it for a moment. "They're perfect for planting during breaks in campus life."

She looked at Wakaba Mutsu, remembering that the other had a close relationship with the young lady of the Toyokawa family, and suggested, "How about we try planting a few here? We can come and take care of them after club activities."

It's a very simple reasoning problem. If Toyokawa Shoko joined the club founded by Kurusu Akira, then Wakaba Mutsumi, her childhood friend, should also be a member of the club.

But Ruoye Mu's eyes quickly dimmed. She lowered her head and said, seemingly very frustrated, "No...no. It will cause trouble for you, senpai."

"Is it because there are no seeds?" Haru Okumura said. "Don't worry, I'll call my staff right now and ask them to help me select some good cucumber seeds."

Ruo Yemu quickly shook her head, the silhouette of the setting sun sinking into her light golden eyes, like a pool of blood blown open by the wind, those who see it are afraid of being hurt by the past once again.

They fell silent.

The atmosphere on the rooftop became somewhat awkward.

"Xiao Mu!"

Suddenly, a panting shout came from the entrance to the rooftop, breaking the silence.

The voice was very high-pitched, yet it was filled with a kind of sorrow and regret that shook people.

Okumura Haru, who was about to bring up a new topic to liven up the atmosphere, was clearly taken aback for a moment, then smiled helplessly and walked to a corner of the rooftop to count the flower seeds he had cultivated himself.

I heard a familiar call.

When Ruoye Mu subconsciously turned around, she found that the phantom thief who had been standing behind her had already disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, a slender figure rushed up and hugged her tightly.

Then came the wailing and sobbing.

......

The afternoon sun casts its orange glow across the towering buildings, and the steps at the edge of the rooftop, like a ravenous beast, swallow the last rays of the setting sun whole.

Ruo Ye Mu instinctively hugged the girl in front of her. Her previously indifferent expression was being overwhelmed by an unprecedented wavering, and her voice trembled slightly, "Su Shi..."

Nagasaki Motoyo hugged her friend tightly, tears of regret and pain streaming down her face. "I'm sorry! Mutsu, I'm so sorry!"

"Suyo... why are you apologizing?" Wakaba Mutsu looked around helplessly, trying to seek help from Kurusu Akira or Toyokawa Shoko.

But all that came to Mutsu's eye was a cute plush toy sitting on Nagasaki Sose's head, waving its tiny hands and slapping her forehead repeatedly while shouting, "Sose is a bad woman, Mutsu, let's ignore her!"

If Ye Mu tried to ignore the doll's shouts, the wet feeling that quickly came from her shoulder brought her back to reality.

Nagasaki Motoyo clearly heard Wakaba Mutsu say she was a "bad woman" in a completely different voice, and she also saw Wakaba Mutsu's undisguised disgust and rejection. She thought of the diagnosis report that Kurusu Akira sent to her phone, and she cried even more sadly.

"It's all...it's all because I misunderstood Xiaomu's words, and I even...I took my anger out on Xiaomu..." Nagasaki Motoyo cried so hard she could barely speak, a thousand words stuck in her throat, turning into choked sobs and intermittent utterances.

Wakaba Mutsu hugged Nagasaki Motoyo, bewildered and confused, listening to her stammering, tearful explanation of the past misunderstandings and anger in her ear. She wanted to say something comforting, but her vision suddenly blurred, and then tears slid down her cheeks.

"How long has she been crying?" Akira Kurusu asked Shoko Toyokawa, who was standing beside her with a complicated expression.

Shoko Toyokawa whispered, "She started crying immediately when she saw me, even though I was going to explain the relationship between 'us' to her first."

Lai Qixiao shook her head, "Let's clear up the misunderstanding between her and Xiao Mu first."

“Hmm…” Toyokawa Shoko bit her lip, looking at Nagasaki Motoyo’s trembling shoulders, her heart-wrenching cries echoing in her ears, and her heart ached more and more. “Motoyo, she… is actually a girl who cherishes feelings very much.”

"No wonder you could forgive her for following me like that."

“Momoko just cherishes friendship too much, so she’s afraid I’ll get hurt because of you.” As she’s grown up over this period, Toyokawa Shoko has tried to re-examine her experiences in junior high school and has finally come to understand what place she holds in Momoko’s heart.

So although she felt angry and embarrassed, she understood Nagasaki Motoyo's excessive behavior and forgave her.

Akira Kurusu looked at the paper bag in Shoko Toyokawa's hand. "What's this?"

“When we were going upstairs, Su Shi almost tripped and fell to the ground…” Toyokawa Shoko opened the paper bag to show him, inside were a few shriveled cucumbers. “These were planted by Su Shi and Mutsu in the Moon Forest during CRYCHIC.”

She closed the paper bag. "It took so much effort to sprout, bloom, and bear fruit. I carefully picked the fruit as a gift for my friend, but it was rejected..." Her expression was particularly complicated, as if she wanted to blame Nagasaki Motoyo.

"Although I want to say that Xiao Mu's current state is partly related to Su Shi, when I think about it carefully, as a fellow 'sinner,' I have no right to blame Su Shi. After all, we both abandoned Xiao Mu in that terrible place when she was most helpless."

Shoko Toyokawa took a deep breath and mustered her courage to say to the two girls who were crying, "Su-se, you forgot your things here!"

Nagasaki Motoyo then let go of Wakaba Mutsu and tried to go back to get the paper bag, but her steps were a little unsteady. She was crying so hard that no matter how much she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, she couldn't stop the tears.

“Cucumber…” Wakaba Mutsu saw the familiar paper bag and clearly remembered the day Nagasaki Motoyo rejected her.

The inner Metis screamed, "Don't forgive her!" but the tears streaming down her face betrayed everything.

It seems that Ruoye Mutsu has suddenly found himself in a dilemma.

Meanwhile, Okumura Haru, who had overheard everyone's conversation, had roughly guessed the cause and effect of the whole incident. So she stood up, feeling it was time to show the reliability of a senior as an older student.

So he interrupted the girls' affected conversation with a cough.

Haru Okumura strode closer and stood before them. "Since the symbol of friendship was once rejected, friendship has almost withered away—"

She leaned closer and looked down at the shriveled cucumbers in the paper bag. "Hmm... why don't you try replanting them? We have all the gardening tools you need here."

Haru Okumura smiled and pointed to the unused flowerpots behind him, saying, "No matter what regrets or remorse we have left behind, or what harm we have caused each other, actions are far more useful than tears and apologies."

Toyokawa Shoko handed the paper bag to Nagasaki Motoyo. Nagasaki Motoyo looked down at the paper bag, still sobbing, but her tears suddenly stopped. She wiped the tears from her face, then held the paper bag containing cucumbers to her heart and bowed deeply to the girl she was meeting for the first time.

Thank you for your guidance.

Haru Okumura waved her hand to decline the thanks, then gracefully walked past the crowd and left the rooftop, intending to leave her time and space to these lovely juniors.

Akira Kurusu approached and wiped away the tears of Mutsu Wakaba, who was standing motionless and stunned in place.

At this moment, Nagasaki Motoyo looked at Wakaba Mutsumi with her red and swollen eyes from crying. "Mutsumi... I will plant the cucumbers right here. When they bear fruit, I will give you the newly grown cucumbers as an apology gift... When that time comes, please forgive me."

As she spoke, it seemed like she was about to cry again.

Suddenly, Akira Kurusu snatched the paper bag from Nagasaki Motoyo's hand, then took out a shriveled cucumber and handed it to Wakaba Mutsu, then took out another one for her. "I've been listening to this since just now, it's really annoying. Do you have to make such a big deal out of something so simple?" He lectured the girl in front of him in a very blunt tone. "You two plant the cucumbers together, and make up now."

Nagasaki Motoyo was startled by Kurusu Akira's stern tone, and all the tears that were about to well up in her eyes stopped.

Toyokawa Shoko covered her face, feeling both annoyed and amused.

But soon, another cucumber was offered to Toyokawa Shoko.

Akira Lai said, "You go and plant cucumbers for me too."

Then he found a small shovel on the shelf next to him and handed it to the girls. He watched as they squatted next to the flowerpots, obediently following orders to take out the cucumber seeds and sift out the mature and well-preserved ones.

"Aren't we going to do a germination test?" Nagasaki Motoyo asked the boy supervising her from behind, looking at the seed in her palm with a very timid expression.

Akira Kurusu's tone became even sterner, "Does your friendship also need to undergo a germination test to confirm the possibility of success before you can sow the seeds?"

"Yes...yes!!!" Nagasaki Motoyo almost burst into tears again.

The girls unconsciously quickened their pace, digging up the soil and burying the seeds inside.

Akira Kurusu didn't know why he suddenly had to play the role of a "strict father".

However, Okumura Haru's kind and approachable demeanor, like that of the "Empress" in Tarot cards, gave him a strange intuition that if he deliberately adopted such a stern and lecturing tone, he might be able to make these troublesome girls obey him.

so......

He looked at the girls who were honestly following his orders, and his eyes subtly changed.

Does your family completely lack the role of a "father"?

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(Tomorrow's update will be at least a "five-in-one" update.)

(I will also be updating the second phase of Toyokawa Shoko's COOP and the first phase of Wakaba Mutsu/Mattress's COOP later. These will be free chapters, so feel free to check them out if you're interested.)

(By the way, I'd like to ask for a monthly pass~)

140. Yoro Nai and the Phantom Thief of the Mind (Two-in-One)

The orange light from the izakaya spilled across the firebreak alley, flowing like a river onto the truck driver's helmet. The iron roller shutter of the secondhand bookstore reflected the deep red lanterns of the love hotel across the street, and the faded kana danced a broken dance on the glass.

A black cat that escaped from STARRY carries a convenience store rice ball through a no-entry roadblock.

It has been five hours since it escaped from STARRY.

Morgana jumped onto the sink in the tram stop's public restroom, quickly chewed up the rice ball, and started chewing. Feeling a bit thirsty, he turned on the tap, twisted his head, and took a hearty sip.

comfortable.

It let out a very human-like burp, and then a distinct hint of melancholy immediately flickered in its pair of bright blue eyes.

Not long ago, we were the messengers of the Velvet Room, the apostles of Lord Igor—who knew that suddenly a group of self-proclaimed "gods" would appear out of nowhere, not only seizing the Velvet Room but also...

It's as if my memories after that were erased by some unknown force; I can't recall them no matter what I do.

Morgana picked up the plastic bag, threw it into the nearby trash can, and then slowly left the tram station.

Although its creator has vanished without a trace, as an apostle, it has had a noble mission since its inception.

That is to help the contemporary contractors of Velvet Room achieve their destined greatness.

As for what kind of grand image that great undertaking actually was, it had no way of knowing.

After leaving the tram station, Morgana sniffed to confirm the direction where Akira Kurusu was.

The next step is to start from the Space of Impressions and find the Phantom Thief.

The black cat shook its body and disappeared into the bushes near the tram station in the blink of an eye.

About fifteen minutes later...

Morgana appeared out of nowhere from an open-air parking lot.

The parking lot was dark, and weeds and vines climbed the walls. A little further away, a blurry sign could be seen with the word "SPACE" written on it.

It's supposed to be a parking lot, but there aren't any cars parked here.

Just as it began to wonder why it had ended up in this strange place despite following the scent of the "contractor," two small, white hands descended from the sky and grabbed its waist.

"Black Cat..." came the voice, tinged with surprise.

Morgana's thoughts came to an abrupt halt at that moment.

Then it suddenly turned around, "Who is playing tricks on us?!"

A pair of heterochromatic eyes, yellow and blue, came into Morgana's view.

The parking lot was quiet until suddenly a piercing meow was heard.

If we were to rank all the humans Morgana encounters in reality by their level of danger, this "Yaorena" would undoubtedly be at the top of the list.

My encounter with her began this evening—

During STARRY's opening hours, Morgana, as always, squatted on the counter, looking down on the people coming and going, until a white-haired girl carrying a guitar was led into the stairwell by another girl who looked very assertive.

Seemingly to prevent the white-haired girl from getting lost, a leash was tied to her wrist.

"Nina~Nina, are you there?" The girl had just entered the store when she called out in a light, airy voice, as if calling her pet cat.

“That guy should be at his tutoring class right now. You’ve come at the wrong time.” Morgana scratched his beard and casually answered the girl’s call—she couldn’t understand him anyway.

That's what it was thinking, but then it saw the white-haired girl rushing towards it, her leather boots clicking.

She looked at Morgana with a curious gaze. "Tutoring class?"

Morgana's pupils instantly contracted to the size of pinpoints.

Oh no, what's wrong with this woman? Alarm bells immediately went off in its mind.

"Kaname!" The leash was pulled taut, and Shiina Riki, who was behind Kaname, caught up anxiously, trying to control the girl who was running around everywhere.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Morgana quickly jumped off the counter, ran up the stairs, and escaped from STARRY.