Aftereffects (Early New Year Greetings to All Readers on the First Day of the Lunar New Year)

For everyone else, life went on as usual.

Only Riko and Kurumi knew about the accident between Fang Zheng and Kuroko this time, but Fang Zheng was not worried that Riko would spread it around. As Riko herself had said, if Fang Zheng had not told her personally, she would not have believed it either. After all, everyone could see that Kuroko was Misaka Mikoto's biggest fangirl. If anyone claimed that Kuroko had gotten together with Fang Zheng, everyone would take it as a joke.

As for Kurumi... Fang Zheng had merely informed her. Naturally, she did not care.

Fang Zheng had originally wondered how he should talk to Kuroko about it, but after thinking it over carefully, he realized there was no way to bring it up.

What was he supposed to say?

"Sorry I slept with you?"

...Yeah, he had a feeling she would beat him to death with a stick.

Or should he praise her good points?

"Your figure isn't exactly great, but you're very cute, and you're wonderfully tight. It felt amazing?"

...That would probably make Kuroko drag him down with her.

So after much consideration, Fang Zheng decisively chose to play dead.

At least for the time being... yes, he would just pretend nothing had happened.

As for Kuroko, she had not appeared at the research institute during this period either. Of course, her explanation was that with the Daiha Seisai Festival approaching, the Kazekage Committee's workload had become heavier. That was not exactly a lie, so no one found it suspicious.

But for Kuroko... things were not that simple.

"All right, patrol of Area Thirteen is complete. Uiharu, is the report over there ready?"

"Um... Shirai, don't you think you should take a break?"

Watching Shirai Kuroko bustle about, Uiharu kindly reminded her.

"You