Chapter 73: CH 73

The Unaware Stalker, Kanashiro-san

Translated by HamletJr

Edited by

Several days have passed since Shiorin and her friends’ concert.

The classroom before morning homeroom was still lively with Shiorin at its center.

Their conversations were filled with nothing but questions related to Shion.

Even though they’ve been asking her the same things over and over again, she didn’t seem all too annoyed to answer them.

“Asamiya-san, you’ve become a huge celebrity!”

“You’re getting offers from lots of companies to appear in commercials and dramas, right?!”

“Eh? So, are you going to stop coming to school?!”

“No, I do still want to go to school properly, so I’ll only take on jobs to a reasonable extent.”

“Oh~, thank goodness~. So, even if you get a job where you can perform with Shion, you’ll turn it down if you have school?”

When another classmate asked her with a mischievous expression on their face, Shiorin hurriedly shook her head to the side.

“T-That’s a different matter! If it was Shion-sama, then I’d take the job even if I had to take a day off school, regardless of whether there was a test or whatnot!”

“Ahaha, well obviously that’d be the case, huh~.”

Shiorin… You shouldn’t skip tests…

Well, she’ll be okay anyways since I won’t put in any sort of work request for her on test days.

But she has gotten this famous, so there certainly is a chance we might be working together in some way in the future.

“But being famous does have its concerns, huh.”

“Yeah, lots of them! Are you okay? There isn’t any weird creep stalking you or anything, right?”

“N-No, there isn’t! You’re exaggerating things~.”

“You can’t let your guard down! Shiorin and the other girls are too air-headed, after all!”

“That’s right! Like how they can’t read between the lines, or how they don’t know when to be suspicious of others…”

“Yep, yep. They take people’s words at face value and follow anything they’re told to do.”

“Ahaha, what kind of shady, ill-natured person would try to deceive me―”

Shiorin then glanced at me as I was doing some self-studying at my desk.

“―W-Well… there certainly may be some weird, shady people out there so I’ll try and be a bit more careful myself.”

Sorry for being a pervert.

That being said, however, it might be a good thing that I’m playing a role in making Shiorin aware of how she must protect herself.

That was what I tried to somehow tell myself.

The boys in the class right beside my desk looked at Shiorin and started whispering about something.

“Hey, isn’t Shiorin too unguarded?”

“Yeah, it seems like it’d be easy to find out where she lives if you follow her on her way home from school.”

“I-I want to know that! If I know where she lives, I could go and see her after my part-time job or something…”

“If I can see the lights in her room on at night, I can make good progress with my delusions!”

The boys were saying totally stalker-like things.

If pure and innocent Shiorin and her friends heard this, their faces would pale and they would probably collapse in shock.

I glared with all my might at the perverted boys, trying to tell them, “Stop it! Stop it!”

But with these thick glasses of mine, my glare didn’t work at all, and it made it seem as if I was just staring at them.

“Oi, Kitarou seems to be looking at us.”

“What is it, Kitarou? Got a problem?”

“―N-N-N-Nothing at all!”

Fuuh, well, I guess I’ll just leave it at that.

After all, I’d feel sorry if I scared them too much.

I left the classroom and sighed as I took out my cell phone.

◇◇◇

Later that night――

“Good evening, Akane-san. Is your Onii-sama at home?”

“Ah, Miko-san! Onii-chan~! Kanashiro-san is here~.”

I left my room and headed downstairs at Akane’s shout.

At the front door stood a young woman around 20 years old with medium length blue hair and a neat suit, Kanashiro Miko-san.

“Ritsuki-sama, thank you very much for all your help. As promised, I’ve come to discuss work details.”

“Geez~, Miko-san! It’s okay for you to be polite and all, but can’t you be a little more frank and outgoing~?”

Akane puffed out her cheeks and glared at Kanashiro-san, who had a resolute attitude.

However, Kanashiro-san shook her head with an indifferent expression.

“I’m sorry, but I try to keep my personal life out of my work at all times.”

“What a workaholic~. But I love that seriousness of yours! I can be at peace knowing that my brother’s work is in your hands!”

“Dear sister of mine, is your older brother that unreliable in your eyes…?”

As usual, Akane was making fun of me as I showed Kanashiro-san the way to my room.

Akane seems to think that Kanashiro-san is a serious and reliable person.

What Kanashiro-san will talk about, Personia’s work, is top secret, so even a family member isn’t allowed to hear what she has to say.

That’s what it looks like on the surface―

“Now, I will start my report.”

Kanashiro-san sat upright on a cushion in my room and began to talk.

“As you requested, we have assigned guards to Asamiya Shiori, Himesato Akari, and Arimura Miho. Our female staff will be watching over them when they leave for school and when they go to and from work.”

That’s right, Kanashiro-san isn’t actually a work associate of mine from Personia.

This is also being kept secret from Akane, but she is in fact an officer from a security company called “Guardian.”

In other words, a bodyguard.

Despite her slender figure, she has actually mastered all kinds of martial arts and is extremely strong.

And as you’ve just heard, I’ve asked her to dispatch bodyguards to protect some people.

“…And, what about what we talked about on the phone?”

“Yes, a group of four high school boys from Shirahoshi High were following Asamiya Shiori. A few of them were also following Miho Arimura. Per your request on the phone, Ritsuki-sama, we did not take any rough actions and merely gave them a stern warning. The girls in question have not noticed any of this, either.”

“Hooh, thank goodness… It looks like it’d be best to have your bodyguards to continue watching over them for a while longer.”

I sighed at the hopeless boys who, in the end, decided to stalk the girls home.

Having finished her report, Kanashiro-san took out some documents from the bag she had brought with her.

“―And so, here is the invoice for the fee. One escort per day is 30,000 yen, and since you have chosen a monthly renewal for 4 escorts, this month’s fee comes to a total of 2,700,000 yen.” (30,000 yen ≈ $300 and 2,700,000 yen ≈ $30,000)

“Okay, thank you very mu―W-Wait, hold on a second, please! 2,700,000 yen?!”

Hearing the billed price made me raise my voice in surprise.

“That’s too cheap! There’s 1 person’s worth of salary missing from the total!”

“…Akane-san’s protection is something I personally decided to do. I won’t be charging any fee for that.”

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“No, no, wasn’t I the one who requested that? Your prices were cheaper than I expected, so I thought I might as well give it a try for Akane too.”

When she heard my words, Kanashiro-san furrowed her brows.

“I do not want to make this a ‘job’… Is that wrong of me to do? It’s just my own personal feelings making me want to protect the little sister of an important person to me.”

“What are you saying when you’re the one who’s always been so persistent about ‘keeping your personal feelings out of your work’?”

“E-Even I find this to be a first…”

Also, if you’re going to say that, then you should’ve just said “your little sister who I treasure dearly,” instead.

If you say “the little sister of an important person to me,” then that would make it seem like I’m that important person of yours.

Well, I am a major client of hers, so me being an important person isn’t completely wrong.

She was only using the expression in a professional context, but I still couldn’t help but feel embarrassed when I heard it from such a beautiful woman.

“W-Well then, could you at least pay me back with your body?”

“P-Pay you back with my body…?! I’m sorry, but even if I sold my organs, there probably wouldn’t be any buyers…”

“I-It would! Like your hair, for instance; if you sold it, then I would buy it… W-Wait, no, that’s not what I mean! What I want to say is, umm―”

Kanashiro-san turned her gaze diagonally downwards and began fidgeting in place.

More importantly, she said she’d buy my hair?

Is it because she’d want to make a wig for a disguise or something?

“Could you please permit me to pat your… h-head, Ritsuki-sama? That will be my payment for this month…”

“Excuse me?”

Her completely incomprehensible proposition made me leak out a strange noise.

Kanashiro-san hurriedly flailed her arms about and shook her head side to side.

“Ah, no! I’m sorry, that’s too much to ask, isn’t it?! I don’t know how to appropriately judge my sense of distance with others because of the kind of work I do! I’ve been living my whole life following in the footsteps of my ancestors and training to be a bodyguard to protect important people, you see!”

“Ah, it’s not that. I just didn’t expect you to say that … I mean, why did you?”

At my question, Kanashiro-san looked at me with some sort of conflicted expression, then looked me in the eye.

“Ritsuki-sama… You did such a thing that day to protect Hasumi Renka, causing you to be resented by Asamiya Shiori and her friends. That’s why I thought that your heart might be hurting unbeknownst to everyone else… I’m a clumsy person, so the only way I could think of to encourage you was to pat you on the head.”

“Kanashiro-san…!”

I stared back at Kanashiro-san’s eyes.

“―How did you know about me lying to Shiorin and the others and them hating me? You even knew about Hasumi.”

“O-Of course you’d want to know about that part, huh…”

Kanashiro-san scratched her cheek, seemingly troubled.

“This is only for the safety of my client that is Ritsuki-sama! It is for your safety, okay?!”

And with that, Kanashiro-san gulped before continuing.

“I attached a wiretap on your uniform, Ritsuki-sama.”

“…Come again?”

Immediately afterwards, Kanashiro-san got down on her knees with great vigor, her head pressing on the floor of the room.

“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! As an apology, you can go ahead and put 24-hour surveillance cameras in my room, bedroom, toilet, and bathroom and watch me!”

“I-It’s okay! I was a bit surprised, but now that I think about it, this is a little similar to how I one-sidedly requested Shiorin and her friends to be watched…”

“T-Then, can I contin―!”

“Please remove it right this instant.”

Kanashiro-san dejectedly removed a small machine from the collar of my uniform.

So that’s a wiretap, huh… It’s so small, I didn’t even realize it was there.

“Ahaha, but I don’t talk to anyone at school, you know? I just sleep at my desk during recess. Wiretapping me seems like it’d be boring.”

When she heard me, Kanashiro-san blushed for some reason and covered her own cheeks with her hands.

“No, well… I’d hear the sound of your clothes rustling, or the sound of your breathing during your sleep, and… being unable to hold myself back… I-I would touch [触って (sawatte) = touch] myself…”

Wait, is my breathing during my sleep so unpleasant to the point where it’d hurt [障る (sawaru) = hurt] her?

And she couldn’t hold back how disgusted she felt at me?

I’m sorry.

Even though I was more of a victim here, I for some reason found myself apologizing to her in my heart.

“B-But! In any case, I still do feel worried for you. There is also the possibility that you might have a stalker on you, Ritsuki-sama.”

“It’s true that having a stalker on me would be scary, but… I’m a gloomy fellow, so I’ll be fine.”

“No, I’m still worried! What if someone is wiretapping you?!”

“True, having someone wiretap me would be… Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

The business-suited blue-haired lady in front of me tilted her head to the side with an innocent expression, not finding anything that she just said to be worth questioning.

“Well, anyways… umm, I’m happy that you’re trying to cheer me up, but having my head patted is―”

“I-Is it a no?”

“Please, by all means, go ahead.”

I straightened my back and bowed my head.

No, anyone would want to be patted on the head by such a beautiful onee-san, wouldn’t they?

If I had to, I would even pay twice the amount billed to me earlier.

“I-Is it okay?! Then, I’ll start patting your head with all my might!”

Kanashiro-san enthusiastically took off the jacket over her suit and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt.

I’m worried she might get too excited and break my neck or something.

Despite my nervousness, Kaneshiro-san gently patted my head as if she was handling a fragile object.

“There, there… You’ve worked very hard, Ritsuki-sama.”

“Ahh―”

Suddenly, tears burst out of my eyes like a dam.

When that happened, Kanashiro-san quickly removed her hand and got on her knees.

“I-I’m sorry! Did I apply too much force?! Did it hurt?! I-I have absurdly huge strength, so―”

“N-No, that’s not it! Umm, this is not what you think―!”

Even I was surprised myself.

Wiping away the tears that were flowing pathetically down my cheek, I told the panicked and worried Kanashiro-san about my condition.

“I-It looks like it was harder on my heart than I thought it would be…”

“Err, which means…?”

“It means, umm, I was so happy I cried tears of joy…”

“S-So that’s how it is! Even though I’m an idiot, I’m glad I tried so hard to think of a way to cheer you up! S-So, it’s okay for me to pat your head a little longer, right…?”

“Ahaha, if it goes on for too long, Akane will think I’m trying to prolong my time with you and make fun of me again, so… just a little more.”

“Understood! I-If it hurts, tell me right away! I’ve already practiced my petting with a doll! At first, I petted it with too much force, it made the neck snap in two, but I’ve now gotten better at it!”

“―Please make sure to go easy on me, okay?”

(I can’t let anyone see me like this, ever…)

With this in mind, I continued to be soothed by Kanashiro-san’s clumsy but warm hands.

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