"Mom?!"
At that cry, Fang Li, who had been walking ahead, stopped once more and muttered softly as though troubled.
"What a cursed fate..."
It had been like this since long ago. Every time, he ran into Tokiwadai's Electric Princess when there was no need to, leading to months of chasing each other around.
Could this really be some kind of ill-fated bond?
While Fang Li was nursing this headache, Misaka Mirei beside him brightened instead. She raised a hand and waved energetically at Misaka Mikoto, who stood on the other side in shock.
"Mikoto! Over here!"
Seeing her mother standing there, waving with the energy of a young girl, while Fang Li beside her did not even glance over and merely rubbed his brow with a pained expression, Misaka Mikoto felt her anger rise.
"Why..."
Unable to endure it any longer, Misaka Mikoto shouted at Fang Li.
"Why are you chatting so happily with my mom?!"
Her shout rang loudly through the area, drawing the puzzled and surprised gazes of every passerby nearby.
"I say, little Mikoto, that's very rude." Misaka Mirei reproached her. "Shouting in the street will trouble other people."
"Uh..." Only then did Misaka Mikoto realize what she had done. Looking at the puzzled and surprised pedestrians around her, she lowered her head, her face turning red.
Shirai Kuroko, meanwhile, finally snapped back to her senses at that moment.
"M-Mom?" Shirai Kuroko looked at Misaka Mirei, her youthful pretty face filled with astonishment. After hesitating, she still asked in disbelief, "Th-this young lady is Onee-sama's mother?"
It was no wonder Shirai Kuroko reacted that way.
Misaka Mirei looked like a woman in her twenties, in the prime of youth. She did not resemble someone with a teenage daughter in the slightest.
If Misaka Mirei's apparent age