On the other side, on the gourmet street, Miyazawa Yu clenched two half-eaten grilled squids in his hands, eating with a contorted expression.
Although they were eaten by Azusa-senpai and Nanaka-nee, and it technically counted as an indirect kiss, everything needed to be done in moderation!
As a 100% pure human, his appetite was only four or five times that of a normal person!
Even if they ate half and then gave the rest to him, wasn't it a bit lacking in humanitarian spirit to only take a bite of the purchased food and then throw it in the trash!
"Wuu—! Delicious! This candied apple uses local Fuji apples!"
"Exactly~"
His teeth broke the candy coating, and a gush of juice burst out. The sweet flavor spread across his tongue, and at the same time, the warm temperature of his mouth pulled long strands of candy from his lips.
"It's just a little too sweet~"
Hamaoka Azusa drew her small pink tongue across her lips, her eyes twinkling as she looked mischievously at Yu, who had two squids stuck in his mouth, with seven or eight tentacles hanging out, cosplaying an Elder God.
"Yu~ I can't eat any more~"
"It's okay. A gorilla at the zoo would probably be very happy with this quality of food~!"
A vein popped out on his forehead. Miyazawa Yu slurped the squid tentacles into his mouth and made a huge "X" with his hands across his chest: "But I'm sorry! I'm a pure human, so no more spoiling!"
"Eh~"
Pouting her cat-like mouth, Hamaoka Azusa approached, kissed the candied apple, wrapped her arms around Yu's neck, and stood on her tiptoes. The sweet exchange made Kotegawa Nanaka's hand tremble as she held her own candied apple.
"What about now?"
"Well~ actually, supplementing some vitamins is pretty good, but there's no next time!"
Complaining with his words but agreeing with his body, Miyazawa Yu then tilted his head and looked at Nanaka-nee, the meaning of encouragement clearly written all over his eyes.
"Ugh..."
Nanaka Kotegawa glanced pitifully at Yu's lips, then touched her slightly distended stomach. To be honest, she still had the strength to take one bite, but to eat the whole thing...
Raising the fan in her hand to block Hamaoka Azusa's curious gaze, she gave the former a reproachful look, then closed her eyes and leaned toward Yu.
The next second, her lips touched something soft. Yu's unique flavor, mixed with the sweetness of maple syrup, pried open her pearly white teeth and lingered on the territory of her tongue for a long time before leaving.
"Smooch~~!"
"Heh heh~ Thanks to Yu, the food at the festival was especially enjoyable this time~ right, Nanaka?"
"Hoo~ Y-yes, and we don't have to worry about wasting food..."
Leaning on Yu and breathing softly, Nanaka Kotegawa's red lips were slightly parted, her eyes hazy. Her gentle smile now carried a hint of dazedness.
It couldn't be helped. All her strength was currently being used to drive the roaring Emperor Engine in her chest.
As for her brain, an unimportant thinking tool, she reluctantly had to strategically abandon it.
"Now, now~ Azusa-senpai, stop teasing Nanaka-nee."
Reaching out and holding Nanaka on his side to prevent her from collapsing on the ground due to wobbly legs, Miyazawa Yu licked his lips reminiscently and stated righteously: "In short, you can't eat anything else starting now! Or you'll get fat!"
"Yes, yes! Then let's go play over there!"
Yu, this little rascal, still wouldn't let up after she had already conceded so much. Helpless, Hamaoka Azusa turned her head, scanned the area, and excitedly pointed to the other side of the intersection.
"Oh! No problem, this way is... festival games! Super classic~"
Following Azusa-senpai navigation to the other side of the crowd, Miyazawa Yu felt a sense of nostalgia looking at the festival stalls that suddenly switched from food and drink to entertainment.
Tracing his memory back, the last time he came to a festival should have been when he just started high school, before he was entangled by this unfortunate system.
Back then, he was a good, model student who didn't smoke, didn't drink, and didn't randomly take off his clothes.
Who could have imagined that the innocent good boy back then would now become a Pab club pervert who runs around in his underwear and will die without a drinking party? Time truly makes one sigh!
"Hmm... ah! Yu, I want that!"
Walking excitedly ahead with her hands behind her back, looking left and right, Hamaoka Azusa soon fell in love with a cushion from the prizes of one of the stalls.
However, unlike ordinary big bear or rabbit dolls, this store actually designed the prize cushion to look like a wine vat. It could only be said that the aesthetics highly overlapped with the Pab club's.
"Hooray! Miss has great taste. This is a Miyako Island specialty—the Round Drinking Cushion!"
"Round drinking... is it? That's really unique."
"Would girls who normally like dolls actually buy that? Is the owner purely paying for his own sentimentality this time..."
Looking speechlessly at Hamaoka Azusa, whose eyes were sparkling with little stars, Nanaka Kotegawa and Miyazawa Yu simultaneously questioned the store owner's business philosophy.
After all, for something like a cushion, whose decorative value far exceeds its practical value, if it doesn't align with girls' aesthetics, can it really attract customers?
"Ah? No, it's fine."
The store owner, finding change for the impatient Hamaoka Azusa, turned his head innocently when he heard their confusion. He smiled with a mouthful of healthy white teeth and gave a thumbs-up.
"Although it's my first time setting up a stall, everyone has been very supportive!"
"Eh~ really?"
Still feeling something was fishy, could it be that this uncle's sales weren't good, but he was too embarrassed to admit it, so he was just talking tough?
Thinking this, Miyazawa Yu tilted his head and looked toward the stall, and then he saw...
"Ugh... I spent all my money and didn't even win a prize..."
"This is such a failure. Why won't those stupid cans fall over!"
"I've already... it doesn't matter. These muscles are truly useless..."
Sitting by the stall with a look of utter disappointment and self-pity, the Pab club seniors collectively turned gray and looked up at the sky at a 45-degree angle, trying to prevent their tears from falling.
"Seniors!!!"
Two-thirds of his soul was startled out of his mouth. Miyazawa Yu widened his eyes and rushed to Ryujiro Kotobuki, who was clutching his biceps and looked like he was barely breathing, frantically pressing on his chest.
This was an extremely standard CPR motion, but unfortunately, the store owner waited for a long time and didn't see the exciting part.
"I said, young man... aren't you missing something? And he's still alive!"
"It's just an illusion! And you, you evil store owner! What did you do to my companions!"
"I was merely providing a service..."
Looking at Miyazawa Yu, who had completely gotten into character, acting like he was confronting the arch-villain who killed his companions, a drop of cold sweat ran down the store owner's forehead—
It must be said that they were friends. This newcomer was as abstract as the grayed-out Pab club muscleman!
He even showed a tendency to surpass his elders. Such a handsome young man, truly looks can be deceiving.
Meanwhile, on the other side...
"Throw the basketball from here. Knock down all ten cans for the first-place prize, the Round Drinking Cushion."
"Understood~! Little sister, are you helping out at the store?"
"Mhm. Because my dad said he needed to make up for the losses from not hosting round drinking these past few days, he insisted on setting up a stall here."
The junior high school girl in her school-issued one-piece swimsuit sighed helplessly. Glancing at the grayed-out Pab club seniors outside the stall, she kindly warned the super-pretty older sister in front of her.
"Please don't get carried away and invest all your money. The cans are actually filled with pebbles. They are definitely not as easy to knock down as they look!"
"Eh? Is it okay to tell me that directly?"
Holding the ball and aiming at the target, Hamaoka Azusa was slightly surprised, looking at the overly mature little girl. Her throw went slightly off, and the basketball scraped the edge of the can.
"It's fine. Thanks to the tourists and these big brothers, my dad will make a profit even if all the prizes are won now."
Running over to set up the cans with great service spirit, the junior high school girl vividly embodied what being genuinely kuudere looks like!
In fact, when her dad told her to wear her school swimsuit instead of buying her a new one for watching the store, she already had the idea of giving all the prizes away.
If the former hadn't promised to buy her ice cream when they went home, she absolutely wouldn't be forced to work here.
"Mhm~ Is that so, Yu!"
"Coming! Can-smashing?"
Catching the basketball Hamaoka Azusa threw to him, Miyazawa Yu pinched the ball twice. Unsurprisingly, it was quite deflated, a common trick in festival stalls.
"Boss, if I knock down multiple can towers at once, or if the basketball bursts, how will you count it?"
"Actually, the air-filled basketball deforms a lot. Unless it's thrown at a sharp point, it usually won't break."
The store owner uncle honestly explained the power of elastic deformation and patted his bulging money bag, his eyes full of pity—
What a pitiful child. The seniors have been completely drained by him, and now he has to struggle under his girlfriend's tyranny. Should I just give him one...
"Then that's OK! No need to compensate, then—"
His finger digging into the surface of the basketball, Miyazawa Yu's lazy demeanor instantly became full of pressure, and his art style took on large patches of Araki patterns—"No problem!"
"Boom—! Bang!!!"
The sound of breaking the sound barrier suddenly erupted, followed by a loud explosion comparable to a Claymore mine.
After the smoke cleared, a remarkably clean area appeared on the cement ground. This was the result of the impact shockwave from the exploding basketball clearing away years of grime.
As for the basketball, the little cleaning expert... after directly flipping over all the cans on the entire stall, it had grown wings and flew into the sky with a smile.
"Ah... ah, this, ah?"
His jaw dropped to the floor, the store owner uncle stiffly turned his head to look at Miyazawa Yu, who looked completely relaxed, as if everything that happened just now was trivial, his eyes filled with confusion.
Is this level of force truly achievable by a human?
No, no, no! To be able to smash a basketball with pure brute force, even if aliens invaded, they would have to kneel and kowtow a few hundred times before escaping!
"Yu is so cool! Store owner uncle, the cushion!"
His mind blank for a few minutes, it wasn't until Hamaoka Azusa hugged Miyazawa Yu and cheered that the store owner uncle suddenly realized that the basketball explosion by hand was not the only unsolved mystery he had encountered.
Rewinding time two days, a group of people who drank alcohol so fiercely that hamsters would be afraid had visited his store.
And the young man in front of him, although his physique had changed a bit, his face looked exactly like the Pab club's ghoul who showed up yesterday!
"Please! These are all the stock I custom-ordered. Take them all!"
"Oh, it's the perverted Onii-chan from yesterday. Good evening~"
"Although seeing the junior high school beauty is nice, can you please remove the 'pervert' before 'Onii-chan'..."
Witnessing the stall in front of him being packed up and loaded onto the car at light speed, Miyazawa Yu didn't even have time to pat the little girl's head for a moment of self-satisfaction before watching the store owner uncle hug the little girl and flee like he was escaping a disaster.
To be honest, this scene felt strangely familiar!
Holding the Round Drinking Cushion, Hamaoka Azusa giggled, rubbed her head under Yu's raised hand, and put on a docile, pleasing smile: "Perverted Onii-chan~ I still want a lot of other prizes~"
"Hiss... Play! We'll play through this entire street from beginning to end!"
Feeling completely satisfied from Azusa-senpai malicious attempt at being cute, Miyazawa Yu grandly threw the spare Round Drinking Cushion to the seniors who were "dead" as a burial item.
Then, without looking back, he hoisted Hamaoka Azusa and charged forward. For a time, wails echoed throughout the entire festival, and the title "Muscle Super-Strength God" quickly spread across Miyako Island.
But just as Yu and Azusa were going wild, Kotegawa Nanaka, who was following behind the two, unsure how to stop the rampage, was drawn to a small shrine stall by the roadside.
"Yu, Azusa, do you want to draw a fortune slip to check your luck?"
"Drawing a slip? Is there a shrine here?"
Temporarily halting his aggressive charge, Miyazawa Yu, who was carrying a plunder of prizes inherited from many stalls, turned to look at Nanaka-nee and simultaneously noticed the shrine stall behind her.
"There really is. How much per slip?"
"500 yen, customer. We are very accurate at predicting romance luck!"
Completely unguarded, Miyazawa Yu took out his wallet and walked over, preparing to draw a slip to check his fortune. He was completely unaware of the sinister cold smile hidden in the darkness under the stall owner's strange pointed black cloak.