房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

After the movie was over, the two of them went to an arcade still holding hands.

"...Ah...!"

As they were passing the wall of crane games, one particular one got a gasp of interest out of Yuusha.

It was one with the plushies from the Kampf um die liebe – in particular with two versions of Surou.

"Hey now, you want to make me jealous already~?"

"N-no~of course not! But..."

Zoemi joked but the Burushi-like girl became flustered and blushed from embarrassment.

"Don\'t make that face~! Hmm? I\'m actually surprised that you still like him after everything. I kind of thought that you got over him..."

The boy muttered looking at the box containing the winking chibi Surou.

"H-hey now... you are getting ahead of yourself... I am not that easy, you know...?"

Yuusha lowered her head and sulked over Zoemi\'s words.

"I\'m kidding. I am the last person to tell others who they should like~! As an apology, I will try to get him for you. Which version do you want?"

Zoemi assured her, apologetically caressing the top of her hand with his thumb.

"You would?! No. Hold on. It\'s time for me to shine! I am actually quite good at this!"

at first, Yuusha perked up and her eyes glistened but then her pride took over and she declared puffing out her... nonexistent... chest and letting go of Zoemi\'s hand, approaching the claw machine while taking out her purse...

"I am good at those games... I am...!"

A couple of minutes later Yuusha cried out, lowering her head to hide her teary-eyed while clenching the plushie that she... won...

After spending almost all of her money and having the arcade\'s employee help her several times, all while refusing Zoemi\'s offer to try it out for himself, the girl ended up receiving the toy as watching her struggle was simply too much to bear.

"If you ask me, it was because you tried to make it work with him even though there is someone else there better suited for you."

"...eh...?"

Zoemi shrugged his shoulders moving his waist and nudging her to the side, causing the devastated girl to let out a small gasp and look up at him with those big sparkling eyes of hers.

"Yah, sure...! B-big words... if you are saying that I couldn\'t win him just because we aren\'t a match, why don\'t you t-try it yourself! I\'m telling you this claw machine is just rigged!"

Zoemi met her gaze and smiled reassuringly but that seemed to get Yuusha\'s spirits up, only not in a way that the black-haired boy intended...

"Okay."

Zoemi took the challenge, pulling out a single coin and approaching the supposedly rigged machine.

"You have to wink one so I\'ll get the other variant."

"You mean you will try."

The boy said making the girl pout...

…

"..."

Sometime later both of them were sitting at a table in a family restaurant waiting for their orders. Zoemi was trying to make small talk a few times but it all failed, so all that time he was simply staring at the three chibi Surou plushies - two winkings and one with a mysterious smile – that the girl was hiding her embarrassed face behind.

One would say that their date went off the track.

It was something that could happen normally not just on the pretend date so Zoemi wasn\'t too worried about it being something that Cherro would find suspicious, but still, it was getting ridiculous.

She talked to the server but not to him.

It didn\'t even look as if she was trying to stage a situation in which she would be able to share the information that she had with him! They were already friends in the past timeline, what was the deal with her odd behavior now?

"..."

"...!"

Zoemi stood up from his seat, causing Yusha to flinch. Her shoulders trembled and dropped as if she was acknowledging a defeat, which confused the boy a bit more, but didn\'t stop him from walking around the table and sitting side by side with her.

"!?!?!"

...which made Yuusha jump in her seat not knowing what to do...!

Zoemi leaned down, resting his right cheek on the table and looking up at the girl shielded by two plushies...

"Yuu... I will be honest, okay? Nuzzling against the butt of another man on our date is making me upset."

"Whapashispohdadsp...?!"

...he said making a sulking expression and causing Yuusha to lose whatever was left of her cool and drop one of the plushies...

...that got caught mid-air by Zoemi...

"Even though you said it wasn\'t your intention, I am getting jealous."

"..."

He added moving the plushie to his face and looking the winking Surou in the eye before glancing back at the deeply embarrassed Yuusha with part of her crimson face showing off from behind the other two toys.

She still seemed to be eager to keep up the pretense but the black-haired boy grew impatient.

"Do you still have doubts about me? By this point, I expected you to call me Zoemi at least once."

Zoemi groaned seeing that his approach did nothing so he leaned back into the seat and said plainly.

"Eh...?"

That finally made Yuusha react... with confusion...

"Don\'t worry, I am proficient with various star powers this building is filled with my law of Sagittarius basically blocking us off from the outside world by this point. You can be honest with me, Burushi. What do you know about this timeline."

Zoemi asked, opening his mouth and breathing out a puff of thin silver mist that swirled over their table.

"...umm...? Yah... say... did we meet on an online forum or something...?"

But Yuusha\'s reaction was not at all what the boy had expected...

She did lower her plushies but instead of getting to the important stuff, she asked the black-haired boy something rather worrisome...

"Burushi, it\'s fine."

Zoemi sighed standing up and moving back to his seat on the opposite side of the table just in case the girl didn\'t want to talk because she felt uncomfortable with his presence for whatever reason.

"I... I am sorry to disappoint you but... I don\'t remember ever chatting with anyone called Zoemi... also, my name is Yuusha. Online I\'m using Surolove... not Burushi..."

"..."

The Burushi-like girl fidgetted and gulped down her saliva as if she was preparing to say something unpleasant – which she did, but not for the reason she thought.

Nonetheless, the effect was the same – Zoemi freezing in place looking at her in utter shock.

"I\'m sorry... that whole star power thing... you must be talking about some other game... I... I knew that you must be mistaking me for someone but I still lead you on like that... I\'m so sorry...!"

Yuusha continued, this time going as far as to apologize, but it seemed as if she was speaking to a wall.

The black-haired boy wasn\'t even blinking, he literally just stopped as if someone flicked the switch in his mind shutting him down.

"...You... don\'t know anything about... Cherro... or... Miriette...?"

After an uncomfortably long silence, Zoemi managed to speak up and asked, feeling as if he would faint any moment now.

"Cherro...? Nah. But... I do know about Slutie... I mean, Miriette. She\'s the obnoxious villainess from Kampf um die liebe, of course, I know that much!"

Yuusha shook her head before picking up the third chibi Surou left by her side by Zoemi and hugging all three plushies.

|Wait... so... all of it was just my... imagination...? Just like that...?|

The black-haired boy thought to himself slumping down in his seat and weakly raising his hand to touch his head.

|Did falling out of bed and hitting my head messed me up enough to believe in a dream...?|

He thought to himself, raising his hand and looking at Yuusha whom he mistook for Burushi for over a month already.

She didn\'t tell him anything because there was nothing to say.

There was no Cherro.

No plan.

No different timeline.

It was just...

"...Yuu... can a head trauma cause hallucinations...? And can hallucinations replace the previous memories...?"

"...eh...?"

Zoemi asked, desperate to hear someone else rejecting the horrifying suspicion that crept its way into his heart.

To laugh at him and call him stupid...

"I... well... amnesia is already a well-known occurrence... I mean, it would be rare to have all of your memories replaced just like that but... I can\'t say that it would be impossible... Why do you ask...?"

But the girl\'s answer did not ease his worries at all, the opposite even.

"MOVE!"

"...?!"

Out of nowhere one of the customers at another table rushed out towards the door, pushing past the server.

"Sir?! Your bill...! IT\'S AN EAT-AND-RUN! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!"

The confused server gasped before realizing what was happening and calling out pointing at the runaway man.

"..."

*WHAM*

"GUH...!"

More than out of reflex than any good intentions Zoemi glared after the escapee and flicked his finger up – as he did, a surge of silver mist materialized out of the restaurant right before the man managed to reach the door and slammed into his abdomen, throwing him up to the ceiling and disappearing letting him slam against the ground with a pained voice.

"?!?!?"

Everyone at the family restaurant froze in place unable to comprehend what just happened while foam was spilling out of the knocked-out eat-and-runner\'s mouth.

|...wait... it could not be a dream...|

While everyone else stood up taking out their phones and filming the knocked-out man and talking about paranormal activity stopping a criminal, Zoemi looked down at his hand in realization.

|If I was in another timeline then even if I could cultivate star power again, I would not have access to all of them at the exactly same level as in the previous timeline...! Why didn\'t I realize how suspicious that was?!|

The boy thought sitting down and covering his face with one hand.

|This is not a new timeline at all...! It is...! ...what is this place then...? What the hell is going on...?!|

He leaned into the seat, lowering his hand and staring at the ceiling while Yuusha rushed to the knocked-out man to assure that his life wasn\'t in danger."

|It could be that I had superpowers, those whole star powers, and my brain just made a convenient story about... wait...|

He started thinking but stopped himself in realization.

The star power... wasn\'t that the key...?

Zoemi felt that he had an answer to that in the back of his mind... a memory from the first timeline he remembered...!

~"And it\'s always something so unexpected with him that it completely shatters my view of the world. Haha... Next thing I\'ll know he will say that he has actually stumbled into this world by crossing the dimensions like some high-level law of Pisces users claim to have done..."~

"!!!" *WHAM*

Words of Alan, a young martial artist from the Great Ram sect resounded in Zoemi\'s head causing him to slam his hands against the table and stand up.

"THAT\'S IT!"

The boy roared as bits and pieces of information he had finally started falling into place.