Chapter Twelve: I Have a Story and a Drink to Go with It / Chapter Thirteen: The Past Was a Needle Caught in My Throat

At last, all that nonsense was finally taken care of. Now I could get some proper rest... Hmm?

Hoya had just been about to say he could finally get some rest when he spotted the supermarket. His mouth started itching to buy something.

Hmm... There shouldn't be any harm in buying a bottle of yogurt, right? Oh, right, there were still lots of things I needed for the dorm. I should get the essentials first.

Thinking this, Hoya went into the supermarket.

To be honest, he really did need to buy things like towels, bath towels, shampoo, body wash, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and all sorts of other stuff. He'd even made a list for it.

He opened his phone, looked at the note he'd written, and started buying everything on the list.

He also needed things like a kettle, pots, bowls, and utensils.

The school had done a pretty thoughtful job. Even the small dorm rooms had a little kitchen, which was nice if you wanted to cook something for yourself.

Back when Hoya was in college, he'd liked cooking for himself. There was no other reason—he was just broke. He'd been obsessed with spending money on games, but his allowance was limited, so he naturally had to spend some time cooking his own meals.

Even something as simple as instant noodles with cilantro and an egg tasted great. Every so often, he'd treat himself to a solo hot pot, and he'd often made his roommates jealous back then.

Thinking about it now filled him with nostalgia.

Hmm? What was going on over there?

As Hoya reminisced about the good old days, he noticed a girl sneaking around... stealing something?

"Ahem."

Hoya couldn't help coughing twice, startling the girl.

Why are you so jumpy? You're stealing right next to me. Do you really think I wouldn't notice?

And now you're putting a finger to your lips and shushing me? Do you think I'm going to tell on you?

"Over there."

Hoya pointed to a spot not far away. Following his finger, the girl spotted a security camera.

It seemed to be staring right at them.

"Hey, if you're going to steal something, at least check your surroundings first. You're really not worried about that thing?"

Chapter Twelve: I Have a Story and a Drink to Go with It

A tiny security camera stood quietly in the corner, its head pointed straight at Hoya. In other words, everything the girl had done so far had been caught on camera.

"You should at least avoid the cameras. You're being way too careless."

Hoya shrugged. He picked up the item and examined it closely for a while. "Oh, it's beer, too. Asahi, huh? That your thing?"

"What I like is none of your business, is it?"

The girl, blushing, snatched the beer away and set it aside. "I was only going to try it."

"Tell me, is this your first time?"

"My first time doing what?"

She stared at Hoya blankly, not understanding what he meant or what he was thinking.

"Do you think this is easy to steal? Do I need to explain what'll happen if you walk out of here with that beer? Little thief?"

"You..."

To her, Hoya calling her a "little thief" was a huge insult. What did he mean, thief? She'd nearly been caught just now.

"Whatever. Are you free? I'm bored right now. Want me to explain what's going to happen to you?"

As he spoke, Hoya picked up the can of beer and grabbed two more bottles. After thinking it over, he put several of them back and picked up a bag instead. "Let me think. What would a villain say at a time like this... Hmm... Classmate, you wouldn't want the school to find out about your little theft, would you?"

"Could you tone down the creepiness, please? So what are you trying to do?"

"Have a drink with me?"

"?"

The girl had no idea what Hoya was thinking. Was this some new kind of pickup line?

But either way, he'd stopped her from stealing. And if she refused, he was planning to spread the story around.

She didn't think she could keep this under wraps. Just as he'd said, the camera over there had already recorded everything. If he wanted to, he could pull up the footage anytime and see exactly what had happened.

So she had no choice but to pay for the beer with him and leave the supermarket.

"Come on. Let's go have a drink in my dorm."

"Are you some kind of creep?"

The girl wanted to leave, but Hoya grabbed her. "Don't run off now~ Otherwise, I'll tell everyone what happened."

"Go ahead. What's the problem...?"

"Oh, you're right. Then go ahead and leave. If you think it's no big deal, then it's no big deal."

"?"

The girl understood Hoya even less now. She'd decided the guy in front of her was a complete lunatic.

"Which class are you in? Class D?"

"Why would I be in Class D?"

She clearly looked down on Class D students.

"Then you're in Class B? That can't be right. I know Class B, and nobody there would do this. So... Class A?"

Did Hoya know who the girl was? Of course he did.

A character repeatedly used as a plot device in fanfiction: our little master thief, Kamuro Masumi.

"Why don't you think I'm in Class C? So you're in Class C?"

"Yeah. Disappointed? Honestly, watching my underclassman fumble around so clumsily is a little dull."

"Underclassman?"

Kamuro Masumi looked confused. "So you're a second-year?"

"No, I'm a first-year. But when I said 'underclassman,' I meant experience, not grade level."

As Hoya spoke, he tossed a bag of beer to Kamuro Masumi. "My hands are full. Hold this for me."

"Hey, I'm not playing around with you."

"Then you can throw the beer on the ground or walk away with it. You have no idea how a little thing like this can blow up into a huge problem, do you, my underclassman? All right, I'm not going to eat you. Your behavior just reminded me of the old days. I have a story and a drink to go with it. How about keeping me company for a while?"

After saying this, Hoya simply strolled toward the dorm. Watching him, Kamuro Masumi muttered, "Lunatic," and followed him anyway.

She couldn't deny that she was curious about what he'd said. She'd hear him out, at least.

"Go on in. I'll make us some snacks to go with the beer."

"Snacks?"

"You're going to drink, aren't you? You can't drink without something to snack on. Don't worry, I'm a decent cook."

There was even a little space in the dorm where students could cook. The school must have been worried they'd starve. Groceries at the market were actually cheaper than food in the cafeteria, and some students did buy them. Some girls, for instance, picked up a tomato or a cucumber to eat back in their rooms. Fruit was expensive in Japan, after all, so vegetables were a nice alternative.

Snacks to go with drinks weren't hard to make. He just had to smash a cucumber and put out some peanuts.

Hoya had eaten a wild-vegetable set meal for dinner, and honestly, it hadn't filled him up. At the supermarket, he'd also bought some chicken feet and other snacks that went well with beer. Within minutes, he'd arranged them on a small table.

"There isn't much to eat, so make do with this. Here, drink up."

Acting completely at home, Hoya opened a beer and handed it to Kamuro Masumi. He opened one for himself as well and took a few gulps.

"Ah, I haven't had this in ages. It still tastes the same."

He picked up some peanuts with his chopsticks and ate a few. When he saw that Kamuro Masumi wasn't drinking and was instead watching him with her head tilted slightly, he asked, "Hey, why aren't you drinking? Don't worry, it's not poisoned."

"It's not about whether it's poisoned. You're just a weird guy."

"Am I?"

Hoya took another sip. He didn't think he was all that strange.

"Yeah. You ask a girl to come back to your dorm late at night, then you go and make some cold side dishes, and now you're drinking. What exactly are you after?"

"Nothing. I just want to talk to you about what happens after someone steals."

At the mention of stealing, Hoya fell silent for a moment.

He took another gulp, picked up a piece of cucumber with his chopsticks, and ate it. Then he continued, "When I was in eighth grade, an employee at a convenience store caught me."

"For stealing?"

"Yeah."

"What did you steal?"

"Rice balls."

"Just rice balls?"

"Two months' worth of rice balls."

"!"

Kamuro Masumi hadn't expected Hoya to answer so directly. His answer left her at a loss for words.

He'd stolen two months' worth of rice balls?

"Surprised? I was, too. After doing it for two months, I got caught red-handed."

Chapter Thirteen: The Past Was a Needle Caught in My Throat

The reason Hoya was acting so strangely that evening was because he'd seen Kamuro Masumi stealing.

She reminded him so much of himself—exactly like he'd been on his first day of stealing.

But he hadn't stolen in Japan. That had been in his previous life, in China.

At a 7-Eleven inside Beijing's Second Ring Road.

As for why... He was hungry, and he didn't have enough money to fill his stomach.

His parents worked inside Beijing's Second Ring Road, but it wasn't all big companies and corporations there. There were small businesses, too, and his mother was a cleaner, earning just over three thousand yuan a month.

She wanted to give her child the best education, so she sent him to Capital No. 5 High School. But tuition was a struggle for her. She had a lot of work every day. Besides working as a cleaner, she'd also washed dishes and cleaned toilets. And his father? He was even busier, working on a construction site where the bricks burned his hands.

Since nobody at home could look after him, he didn't go home after school. Instead, he went with his mother to work at a small business. He got hungry at night, so his mother gave him ten yuan to buy himself a proper meal.

The problem was that ten yuan could buy you several big steamed buns, a boxed meal, or a steaming bowl of noodles in a small county town. But what could you get for it inside Beijing's Second Ring Road?

Right next to the business was a food street, with Japanese cuisine, crayfish, Beijing hot pot, and even some time-honored restaurants.

But there weren't any cheap home-style meals. So he could only take his ten yuan to 7-Eleven and look for something to eat.

What could he get at 7-Eleven? A soy-sauce rice box for three yuan, or fried rice for four yuan. Each portion was barely bigger than his palm. He'd buy two soy-sauce rice boxes and one fried rice. That was all he could get for ten yuan.

But he craved the other food. Looking at the dazzling array of puddings, jellies, sushi, and rice balls, he really wanted some. Every night, he could only eat the unappetizing soy-sauce rice and fried rice with a little bit of peas and corn. He was still hungry afterward, and it didn't taste good, either.

So one day, he committed his first crime—he stole two rice balls.

They were delicious. He'd never known rice could taste that good.

As far as he was concerned, the only difference between rice balls and rice was that the former had a strip of seaweed around them. What was the difference between that and a bowl of rice with toppings?

Once he'd done it the first time, there was a second time. After stealing rice balls, he dared to steal sushi.

Pudding that cost eighteen yuan, drinks that cost four yuan, a bag of candy worth twenty-five yuan—he stole more and more.

Until one day, the usually kind cashier suddenly stopped him and asked him to wait.

He was confused, but he sensed something was wrong. He thought he'd been found out, so he quickly put most of the things he'd hidden in his clothes back where they belonged. But, thinking he might get away with it, he still kept two rice balls hidden.

It didn't help. The cameras had already captured everything.

His mother had to come to the convenience store and found out her child had been stealing things for fifteen days.

Luckily, the store's security footage could only be kept for fifteen days. Even so, that was quite a lot.

Two rice balls a day for fifteen days made thirty rice balls. He insisted he'd only stolen rice balls, and the footage wasn't clear enough to show exactly what else he'd taken. In the end, the store owner could only say he'd stolen thirty rice balls.

One rice ball cost three yuan and fifty cents. Thirty came to one hundred and five yuan. According to the rules at the time, he had to pay ten times the value of what he'd stolen, so his mother had to pay a thousand yuan in compensation.

He was beaten that day. In front of the cashier and the owner, his mother slapped him hard twice. If the cashier hadn't stopped her, he might have been beaten even more.

His mother cried and begged the owner to reduce the compensation. She didn't have that much money. She cried as she hit her child, while the cashier tried to hold back the furious, weeping mother. In the end, the shop owner could only sigh and took two hundred yuan, letting the mother and son go.