Chapter 22: The End of a First Love
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 22: The End of a First Love
A single strike.
For me, the limit of what the police would call self-defense was a single strike.
Any more than that would be excessive force, so I had to settle it with just one punch.
Hit by my counter, the guy with the slicked-back hair flew through the air like a toy.
His white teeth scattered like flower petals.
CRASH!!
Spewing blood from his mouth and nose, he flew back until he slammed into a vending machine three meters away, finally coming to a stop.
"Boss!"
"Boss Hayashi!"
The delinquents rushed over to the fallen man, horrified.
Clenching and unclenching my right hand, still feeling the heavy impact, I stood behind the two who were shaking the unconscious man, trying to wake him.
"You messed with my friends. You're prepared for the consequences, right?"
At that, the two guys, one with a cast on his neck and the other on his hand, yelped, "Hiek!" and fell backward, shouting desperately.
"I-If you touch me, I'll call the police! My dad knows people at the Metropolitan Police Department!"
"My father is a police executive! You know what'll happen if you mess with me, right?!"
Such a textbook threat.
Don't these guys know the saying, 'The law is far, but the fist is near'?
I grabbed each of their faces with my hands.
"I'll fix that rotten mentality of yours."
The Iron Claw, a move often used in pro wrestling.
The advantage of this technique is that it can inflict immense pain by pressing on the temples with one hand, yet with controlled force, it leaves no visible marks.
"Aargh! Aaaaaargh! It hurts! It hurts! I think I'm gonna die!"
"Please, save me! Somebody, please! I was wrong!"
Lifted into the air, their vision completely blocked by my palms, the two of them flailed their arms and legs, tears and snot streaming down their faces from the immense pressure and pain on their temples.
After holding them like that for about thirty seconds, I let them go. They had wet their pants and, with faces still pale with terror, they rubbed their hands together, begging for their lives.
I looked down at them with cold eyes and said.
"Get lost. And don't ever show your faces in front of Tojo and Sakamoto again."
The delinquents nodded frantically, then helped up the guy they called Boss Hayashi—the one I'd knocked out—and hastily left the park.
"Hoo…."
In the end, I ended up seeing blood on a perfectly good day.
If the same thing happens again, I won't hesitate to use my strength for my friends, but I couldn't help feeling a bitter taste in my mouth, as if I were straying further from the bounds of humanity.
Is this the fate of a muscle-bound gag character...?
As I was staring down at my palms with a strange lingering feeling, Kishimoto, who had been watching the fight from a distance, came running over, waving her hand.
"Ryu-chan! Are you okay?!"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Aside from a few light scratches, I'm not hurt."
I said that to reassure Kishimoto, but she still looked alarmed as she pointed a finger at my forehead.
"But blood is still streaming down your forehead!"
Only then did I remember my forehead had been cut. I took a handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it firmly against the wound.
"A wound like this will heal if you just put some spit on it."
At that, Rika pulled on my arm with a rare, angry expression.
"Stop talking nonsense and let's get to a pharmacy, now!"
In the end, unable to refuse her insistence, I headed to a small pharmacy near the park.
*
Only after applying the ointment I bought at the pharmacy to my forehead and sticking on a square bandage was I able to return to where we were.
While I was dealing with the delinquents, Tojo had carried the fallen Sakamoto and laid him down on a nearby bench. It seemed he had recovered some of his strength.
I wanted to ask if they were okay, but there was a strange atmosphere between them, so Kishimoto and I watched from a short distance instead of approaching.
Finally, Tojo was the first to speak.
"I'm sorry, Sakamoto. You got hit because of me."
Sakamoto, sitting next to Tojo, shook his head and replied, "Nn-nnh."
"If anything, I should be the one apologizing. They came after me because they had a grudge."
A momentary silence fell between them.
After a moment, Tojo, who had been looking down and fidgeting with her hands, bravely spoke up.
"Sakamoto! I like you! Please, go out with me!"
Sakamoto's eyes widened slightly, but he soon gave a bitter smile and said.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can give you the answer you're hoping for."
"Why! Is it because I'm like a tomboy? If that's it, from now on I'll...!"
Sakamoto quickly waved his hands.
"No, it's not that. You're more than I deserve, Tojo-san. But I have my own circumstances."
"Circumstances?"
"There's a girl I promised to marry when we were kids. At least until I meet her again, I don't plan on dating anyone."
Tojo turned her head forward and asked.
"Do you still like her a lot?"
"That... I'm not sure myself. But I remember that I liked her a lot. I cried my eyes out the day she moved away."
"Was she your first love?"
"Yeah. You could put it that way. She was my first love."
"...I see."
Tojo said, nodding, then stood up from the bench with a bright smile.
"If you're really not interested, then I can't force you. I'll give up gracefully. Today was really fun! See you at school next week, Sakamoto!"
With those words, she left Sakamoto sitting on the bench and ran out of the park without looking back.
Sakamoto watched her retreating back with a wistful look, but he didn't chase after her.
I guess he was serious about not wanting to date her.
"What do we do..."
Kishimoto muttered, covering her mouth with her hand, her eyes filled with a heavy feeling.
I watched Tojo's retreating figure for a moment, then turned to Kishimoto beside me.
"Rika, you should head home for today. I'll go after Tojo."
"Will you be okay by yourself?"
"Even if I'm not, she'll need someone to follow her and comfort her."
Kishimoto hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay. I'll leave Tojo-san to you, Ryu-chan."
"See you at school next week."
"Yeah. You did great today, Ryu-chan."
After a brief farewell with Kishimoto, I started running with all my might in the direction Tojo had gone.
*
Tojo, who had fled the park as if escaping, thankfully hadn't gotten very far.
It was probably because she was wearing high heels, which she wasn't used to.
She was sitting alone at an empty bus stop, blankly watching the cars go by. When a shadow suddenly fell over her, she looked up at me quietly, her face wet with tears.
"You okay?"
Tojo forced a smile and answered.
"How could I be?"
I was about to offer her my handkerchief to wipe her tears, but then I remembered it was a mess from wiping the blood off my forehead earlier, so I awkwardly stuffed it back in my pocket.
Instead, I took some tissues from my other pocket and wiped her tears for her.
"You're a mess for a girl. Here, blow."
"Hmph!"
As I wiped away the tears and snot covering her face with the tissue, her real face, hidden beneath the makeup, was revealed.
With her makeup gone, she tried to act cheerful and scratched the back of her head.
"This is embarrassing. I've never shown anyone my crying face before."
I looked down at her for a moment, then sat in the empty seat next to her.
"We're friends, so what does it matter?"
"Friends, huh."
Tojo muttered, looking up at the blue sky.
"Actually, I knew for a while that you and Kishimoto were following me."
"...You did?"
That was honestly surprising.
Isn't it an unwritten rule in rom-coms that no matter how obvious the tailing is, the people being followed never notice?
As I awkwardly averted my gaze, a wave of belated shame washing over me, Tojo patted my shoulder and said.
"I'm not trying to give you a hard time about it. It just shows how unreliable I must have seemed, if the guys who gave me advice from A to Z felt they had to follow me around all day to watch over me."
"That's not what we meant..."
"I'm sorry. For failing in the end."
Tojo suddenly said, bowing her head to me.
"I thought if I changed, I could win Sakamoto's heart. But that was just my arrogant delusion. From the very beginning, there was no room for me in his heart."
She said, her voice choked with tears.
"I already knew, but I looked away from the truth. And this is the result."
Tojo Karen clutched her chest in frustration.
Then she pounded on her heart and said.
"It hurts here. It hurts like crazy. But there's no way to fix it. It's a feeling I've never had before in my life."
She vented her anguish, her head bowed.
"I!!"
As if possessed, she screamed with all her might at the bus stop where we were the only two people.
"I really, truly loved him!!"
Gasp... gasp...
I quietly watched the profile of Tojo Karen, who was suffering from the pain of her first rejection.
To be honest, at first, I thought of her as just a character in a manga.
The same went for Kishimoto.
Even when we were laughing together, I had drawn a clear line between her and me.
It was probably because I'm a foreign object that has intruded into the world of this manga, 'Scramble Love'.
But the person in front of me now is not a manga character.
She was a living, breathing human being named 'Tojo Karen'.
Just a fragile girl, agonizing and hurting alone from the pain of a failed first love.
Having realized this belatedly, I decided to act according to my heart from now on.
"Karen, stand up."
"...What?"
Perhaps because I had called her by her first name so suddenly without permission, Karen looked up at me with a startled expression.
"If you scream your head off like that in a place like this, you'll get reported to the police for disturbing the peace."
Karen stared at me blankly for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing with a 'Pfft!'
"You... is that really what you should be saying in a situation like this?"
"Yeah. It's better to laugh. You look much better that way."
Saying that, I forced Karen, who was sitting on the bus stop bench, to her feet.
Though bewildered, Karen stood up and looked at me with eyes as red as a rabbit's, asking.
"I stood up like you said. Now what are you going to do?"
I took off the hoodie I was wearing, put it on her, and pulled up the hood, saying.
"We're going to a karaoke place. You're going to let out all your pent-up frustration there. Then you'll be able to accept the fact that you were rejected."
"...What?"
Ignoring Karen, who raised her voice in disbelief, I searched for a nearby karaoke place on my smartphone.
The closest one was on the second floor of the Sunshine 60 Building.
As expected of a multipurpose cultural center. It has everything.
The hoodie was so big on her it looked like she was wearing a blanket. I gestured for her to follow and started walking ahead.
"Hey! Kim Yoo-Sung! Yah! Wait up!"
I glanced back and saw that her face, which had been as gloomy as a sky full of dark clouds just moments ago, had cleared up.
*
"...That friend, Kim Yoo-Sung, he's a really good kid."
"Sniffle, I'm so glad the young miss has a friend like that."
"This old man hasn't seen something so good in a long time..."
The yakuza members stood up to leave, each muttering their own impressions.
Tojo Naoto watched the retreating figures of Kim Yoo-Sung and his daughter and chuckled, "Hmph."
"A rare kid to find in these tough times."
Jingi (Honor and Duty)!
Tojo Naoto, the 6th chairman of the Toseikai, watched the man named Kim Yoo-Sung and recalled a word long forgotten by time!
Perhaps he could be the one! The one to revive the names of the chivalrous warriors who are becoming ghosts of a bygone era in this country!
"Let's meet again if we get the chance, young friend."
April 22nd (Sat) [PM 3:18]
Date Over