"Here, Makoto. I fried this tempura myself. Though I suppose it might be a bit heavy for breakfast? Just tell me what you'd like tomorrow and I'll make it for you..."
Two hours later, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Yukinoshita's chopsticks hadn't stopped moving once. Not toward her own mouth, mind you. Every piece found its way into Makoto Nishikado's bowl in a steady, unbroken stream.
Seated nearby, the Yukinoshita patriarch and Haruno stared with eyes growing wider by the second.
Yesterday it had been "Mr. Nishikado." Today, "Makoto."
That was a rather dramatic overnight shift.
Haruno felt a strange chill crawl up her spine. Mom's not trying to find me a young step-dad, is she?
But then her gaze drifted past the window to the courtyard.
It looked like the aftermath of a typhoon. Trees snapped, ground torn up, debris everywhere.
She pieced it together quickly enough, and shot her father a look that said don't do anything stupid.
Not that it mattered. Mr. Yukinoshita could feel the invisible weight pressing down on his skull, but he didn't dare open his mouth.
The real power in this household had always belonged to his wife. She'd had him trained since their school days, and that fear was coded into his DNA at this point.
He was the kind of man who, even if his wife brought someone else home, would just stand behind a closed door wiping his tears in silence.
Nishikado, for his part, didn't bother with false modesty. He never once picked up his own chopsticks through the entire meal, content to let Mrs. Yukinoshita serve him piece by piece.
When breakfast ended, the patriarch stood first. "Well then, I'll be heading to the office."
He tried very hard to project the air of a man for whom nothing was wrong.
Nishikado couldn't help studying him for a moment longer.
Born to suffer. A natural-born cuckold if ever there was one.
"I should also get go..."
Haruno saw her opening and moved to escape, but Nishikado was scrolling through the news on Mrs. Yukinoshita's phone and cut her off without looking up.
"Go buy me some water balloons and rubber balls."
"Huh?"
She froze.
"'Huh' what? Get moving!" Mrs. Yukinoshita's glare could have cut glass.
Haruno's expression twisted with disbelief. One night. It took one night for Mom to switch sides completely?
She had no choice but to comply.
Once husband and daughter were both gone, only Nishikado and Mrs. Yukinoshita remained in the living room.
She noticed him still tapping away at her phone with intense focus and leaned in, curious what had captured his attention.
The next second, the words Rent-A-Girlfriend filled the screen.
Mrs. Yukinoshita blinked. "Makoto, what are you...?"
"Looking for a hooker."
Short. Direct.
Ever since he'd ramped up his training beyond anything he'd attempted before, certain... urges had been growing proportionally harder to ignore.
He'd spotted the app in a news feed push notification and downloaded it on impulse.
The top-ranked girl on the popularity list was someone named Mizuhara Chizuru.
Compared to Ichinose Chizuru, the girl he'd met during his trip into the Naruto world, there was a vague resemblance if you looked closely. But this face was more mature. More alluring.
Even someone who knew both would struggle to connect them at first glance.
He caught Mrs. Yukinoshita's startled look from the corner of his eye and let one side of his mouth curl upward.
"What's wrong? Care to volunteer instead? I wouldn't mind."
Her heart lurched. Color rose unbidden to her cheeks.
Before all this, if any man had dared say something like that to her, she'd have had him sealed in concrete and dropped into Tokyo Bay.
But now, facing this man... she didn't dare.
And for reasons she couldn't quite explain, somewhere in the deepest corner of her chest, a tiny spark of thrill flickered to life.
She was forty, after all.
She knew she still had her charm, but Nishikado was the genuine article. A real esper. How could any of the useless men from her past compare?
Being "wanted" by a man with that kind of power stirred something in her. A strange, quiet sense of superiority she hadn't expected.
Meanwhile, on another street, outside a coffee shop.
Kinoshita Kazuya stood fidgeting by the entrance, waiting.
Waiting for the rental girlfriend he'd just booked on his phone.
His parents had given him a lump sum of one million yen to cover living expenses for all three years of high school.
It had been his proudest asset when he first enrolled. A million yen in his pocket? Finding a girlfriend should be easy, right?
Unfortunately, Shuchiin Academy was crawling with kids from real money. His million was pocket change to most of them.
And the students from ordinary backgrounds had talents and achievements of their own, so they weren't exactly lining up for someone whose only skill was being mediocre.
Kinoshita Kazuya had struck out at every turn. Not a single girl gave him the time of day.
Then one day, a push notification for the rental girlfriend app popped up on his phone.
He downloaded it. One look at the girl called "Mizuhara Chizuru," and he was sold.
Ten thousand yen for two hours.
The app made it very clear: emotional companionship only, no physical contact. But for a virgin, that was more than enough.
"Please don't be catfishing me..."
He muttered the prayer under his breath.
The Mizuhara Chizuru in the photos was absurdly gorgeous. On par with girls like Akizuki Airi and Ichinose Chizuru from his own class, easy.
For ten thousand yen and two hours with someone like that? Absolute steal.
He'd happily keep renting forever.
Such were the simple joys of a virgin's heart.
"Sorry, have you been waiting long?"
A warm, gentle voice broke his spiraling thoughts.
Kazuya turned. A fashionably dressed young woman with an air distinctly more refined than any high schooler was walking toward him.
He went completely still.
She... wasn't a catfish?
At the same time, Ichinose Chizuru... no, Mizuhara Chizuru now... paused for a beat herself.
She hadn't expected her very first client to be a classmate.
But she recovered fast. The transformation jutsu was flawless. There was no way he'd recognize her.
Noticing the painfully obvious, cowardly virgin demeanor plastered across Kazuya's face, Mizuhara offered a small smile and gestured toward the coffee shop door.
"Let's go inside and chat first. It's part of the date experience."
Several seconds crawled by before his brain rebooted. "Oh... oh! Right!" He nodded frantically.
They'd barely sat down, hadn't even managed a word, when her phone rang.
"Excuse me." She gave Kazuya an apologetic nod and answered. "Hello?"
"Chizuru, drop whatever booking you're on right now." The voice on the other end belonged to the agency manager.
"What?"
"A client just called in willing to pay fifty thousand an hour for you. I already sent him your location. He should be there soon."
Fifty thousand... per hour?
Mizuhara's mind blanked.
Standard rate was five thousand an hour.
This was ten times that.
"B-but..."
She glanced at Kazuya sitting across from her, face bright with anticipation, and hesitated.
She was here to sell... well, no, to rent herself out, but professional ethics still meant something, didn't they?
Before she could decide, the door swung open.
A figure walked straight to their table.
"Your agency already assigned you to me."
Both of them turned at once.
Standing there was an elegant woman in a lavish kimono, her presence sharp enough to silence a room.