Chapter 4: Dinner
The sound of the front door clicking shut felt like the locking mechanism of a high-security vault. I leaned my back against the heavy wood, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. The penthouse apartment was warm, illuminated by the soft amber glow of the kitchen track lights, but the air inside carried a very different kind of pressure from the rainy streets below.
Karen Kirishima stood by the dining table, her hands smoothing down her pristine white apron. Her dark eyes, usually so heavy with the exhaustion of her past illness, were now wide and vibrant, locked onto me with a reverence that made my skin prickle.
"The rice is perfectly steamed, Ren-sama," she murmured, her voice returning to that soft, rhythmic cadence that sounded like a lullaby. "I also prepared the cold barley tea. Please, sit down before everything loses its temperature."
"Thank you, Karen," I said, stepping out of my shoes and walking toward the table.
I didn’t act weak or terrified. I didn’t shake. I kept my movements completely calm and natural, pulling out the heavy mahogany chair with the effortless grace of a wealthy student. But my absolute sensory control was working overtime. I could hear the faint, high-pitched electronic hum of the smart-television in the living room—the one Chloe had just forced into standby mode after her digital intrusion. I could also smell the faint trace of ozone still lingering on my skin from when Kaguya had slipped into my backseat, mixed with the sweet scent of the green-earth petition flyers Mia had been holding at the gate.
I was a walking cocktail of stalker scents, and I was about to sit down with a girl who handled a chef’s knife like a seasoned surgeon.
Karen set the bowl of hot miso soup in front of me, her fingers lingering near the edge of the ceramic tray. "Haruto called me today," she said casually, sitting down across from me with her own smaller portion. "He asked if I was staying at the university library to study late again. He sounded... lonely."
"You should probably go home tomorrow, Karen," I said, picking up my chopsticks. "Your brother is oblivious, but he isn’t stupid. If he finds out you’ve been using your recovery time to clean my apartment and cook my meals, he’s going to feel incredibly pathetic."
"He is pathetic," Karen replied instantly. Her voice didn’t rise in anger; it remained completely flat, completely serene, which made the statement ten times worse. She picked up a small piece of grilled mackerel with her chopsticks. "He spent three hours today trying to patch a hole in his left sneaker with supermarket superglue because he didn’t want to trouble his classmates. He is the original protagonist of his own little world, yet he cannot even afford proper footwear. Why should I waste my time taking care of a brother who relies on the anonymous charity of a stranger?"
I chewed my fish in silence. The irony was almost comical. Haruto Kirishima was supposed to be the shining star of "Unveiling the Neon Hearts." He was supposed to have the ’Protagonist Charm’ that made every broken girl in the city crawl toward him for comfort. Instead, because I couldn’t bear to watch Karen suffer from a terminal heart condition during the prologue, I used my secret wealth to pay for her multi-million-yen surgery through a hidden proxy foundation.
I thought I was just doing a quick author edit to save a life. Instead, I accidentally ripped Karen’s loyalty completely away from her brother and glued it permanently to myself.
"Ren-sama," Karen spoke up, her eyes dropping down to the small, black velvet box sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter—the one containing Kaguya’s silver cufflink. "The man who dropped that box off at the service entrance... he wore a traditional dark kimono with a stitched spider-lily crest. That is the mark of the Hayashi shadow clan. Why are they leaving delivery boxes at your door?"
"It’s just a lost item from the university martial arts club," I lied smoothly, my pulse remaining at a perfectly steady sixty beats per minute. "I dropped a cufflink near the gymnasium last week. Hayashi-san was just returning it."
"With a traditional parchment note?" Karen tilted her head, her dark bangs shifting slightly. Her eyes grew incredibly cold, the pupils shrinking to tiny black pinpricks. "I checked the paper before you arrived, Ren-sama. The ink carries a high concentration of iron-based binding agents. It’s the specific formula used by underworld families to write execution contracts. Or... love letters. If that assassin girl is trying to poison your environment, I can add a specialized digital filter to the apartment’s air vents. I know how to handle toxic compounds from my time in the ICU."
suppressed the urge to rub my temples. A high school student who knows underworld ink formulas because she spent too much time in a hospital bed. Brilliant writing, Leo. You’re a genius author.
Before I could answer, my phone on the table vibrated. The screen flickered, bypassing my lock screen entirely as Chloe’s signature black-and-green command lines scrolled down the display.
Chloe: [Aria Shirayuki’s private security detail has officially parked three blocks away from your residential sector. They are cross-referencing the registration numbers of every matte-black vehicle in this postal code. Estimated time until they match your plate: 14 minutes. I am currently feeding their database a corrupted registry loop, but the corporate mainframe is fighting back. You owe me an explanation, Ren. Who is the girl with the knife sitting across from you?]
I stared at the screen, then looked up at Karen, who was now staring at my phone with a dark, intense curiosity.
"Is that the tech club girl again?" Karen asked, her grip on her chopsticks tightening until the bamboo groaned slightly. "The one who hacked the television? She has very bad manners. A digital stalker shouldn’t be interrupting a quiet dinner."
"She’s just... helping me with a finance project," I muttered, quickly picking up my phone and typing a rapid response using my author’s knowledge of Chloe’s specific encryption overrides.
Ren: [Keep the loop running for twenty minutes. I’ll handle Aria’s detail tomorrow at the campus gala. And stop looking through my smart-fridge camera, Chloe. It’s creepy.]
A second later, the response popped up.
Chloe: [I’m not looking through the fridge anymore. I moved to the living room air-purifier lens. The resolution is better. Eat your fish, Ren. You’re ignoring your vegetables.]
I slowly lowered the phone, looking toward the small, sleek air purifier sitting in the corner of the living room. The tiny blue LED light was blinking in a weird, irregular pattern. She wasn’t lying. She was literally watching me eat right now.
This was getting completely out of hand. I was a man who possessed god-like physical power. I could move faster than the speed of sound, crush steel with my bare hands, and flatten an entire mercenary squad without breaking a sweat. If any villain or enemy syndicate attacked this apartment right now, I could throw them out of the window before Karen could even blink.
But my supernatural strength was completely useless against a digital ghost in my air purifier, a corporate heiress tracking my car, a shadow assassin smelling my leather seats, and a quiet girl sitting across from me who looked like she wanted to turn my phone into a pile of melted plastic.
"Ren-sama," Karen said, her voice softening back into that sweet, docile tone as she reached over to refill my tea. "You shouldn’t worry about the outside world. As long as you are inside this room, I will make sure everything is perfect for you. No one else needs to enter your life. Just me."
"I have to go to the university gala tomorrow, Karen," I said, taking a sip of the cold tea. "Aria Shirayuki expects the student council treasurer to be present for the opening remarks."
"Then I will go with you," Karen said with a bright, beautiful smile that didn’t match the absolute lack of light in her eyes. "I will wear my school uniform and stand right behind you. If any of those corporate women or assassin girls try to touch your sleeve, I’ll make sure they trip over the electrical cables near the main stage."
"No," I said firmly, using a drop of my true, authoritative tone to settle her down. "You stay here and study. I’ll handle the gala myself."
Karen’s smile faltered for a brief second, a flash of deep, agonizing insecurity crossing her face before she bowed her head obediently. "Yes, Ren-sama. If that is what you wish, I will wait for you here. Forever, if I have to."
I finished my dinner in a heavy, complicated silence. The food was incredible, but every bite felt like a tactical decision in a high-stakes survival game.
After Karen cleared the table and retreated to the guest room to "study," I walked over to the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the city. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle, the neon billboards of the downtown district reflecting off the wet pavement below like pools of spilled ink.
Down on the street corner, three blocks away, the hazard lights of a silver luxury sedan were blinking slowly through the fog. Aria’s hounds were already sniffing the perimeter.
I pulled out my phone one last time and opened the chat log with Haruto. The original protagonist had sent me another message five minutes ago.
Haruto: [Hey Ren! Just wanted to say thanks again for offering to look at the club budget tomorrow. By the way, have you seen Karen? She said she was going to the library, but the campus closed two hours ago and she isn’t answering her phone. I’m a bit worried lol.]
I stared at the "lol" at the end of his text. The guy was completely clueless. His sister was currently in my kitchen, meticulously boiling my tea leaves for tomorrow morning and sharpening the chef’s knives to a razor edge, while his entire destined harem was deploying military-grade tech and underworld scouts to locate a background character.
"You’re a lucky bastard, Haruto," I whispered to the empty living room, locking my phone and throwing it onto the sofa. "You get to be worried about a pair of torn sneakers, while I have to survive a university gala with four yanderes who think I’m their personal property."
I closed my eyes, adjusting the internal flow of my sensory control, letting the quiet of the penthouse wash over me before the storm hit tomorrow. My disappearing acts were running out of alibis, and tomorrow night, under the bright neon lights of the campus gala, the ghost was finally going to be dragged into the light.