Allergies

Suguru Geto stood at the rooftop entrance and stared at the man for several seconds before suddenly realizing how rude it was to stare so openly at a stranger.

Back where he had attended middle school, that would have looked a lot like a challenge.

Eye contact was the most naked challenge any living creature could issue.

He looked away, a little embarrassed, though a gentle smile remained on his face.

The distinctive, odd fringe over his forehead swayed slightly.

"Sorry for staring."

He walked over, sat on the concrete platform beside Yan Si, and accepted the plastic container Yan Si offered him, taking a piece of tempura from it.

"Thanks."

The tempura had long since gone cold, but it was still crisp when he bit into it.

After chewing twice, Suguru Geto remembered that he had yet to introduce himself. He swallowed and turned toward Yan Si. "I'm Suguru Geto. I just graduated from middle school. What about you?"

As he spoke, his gaze involuntarily settled on the reddened patches of Yan Si's skin.

He had not noticed from a distance, but now that they were sitting side by side, the lingering light in the sky let him see clearly.

Yan Si's neck, wrists, and every other patch of exposed skin were abnormally red, as though he had broken out in a rash.

An allergic reaction.

He recognized it immediately.

Suguru Geto looked down at the half-eaten piece of tempura in his hand. A shrimp tail still poked out, fried golden and curled.

He took another bite. The shrimp was sweet and fresh, the batter crisp. Whoever had made it certainly knew what they were doing.

Shrimp.

A seafood allergy.

His mind worked quickly, and the two pieces of information clicked together almost at once.

He glanced at Yan Si's hand-which was about to reach into the plastic container again, aiming for one of the two remaining pieces of tempura.

Suguru Geto: "..."

What a legend. Still eating something he's allergic to. Really in a hurry to get reincarnated.

Suguru Geto said nothing. He simply shifted the tempura into his left hand and rummaged through the pocket of his black clothes with his right.

He made a habit of carrying something to eat when he went out. Sometimes, dealing with cursed spirits meant staking out a place for half a day, and going hungry was miserable.

As luck would have it, he had bought a bread roll that afternoon and put it in his pocket.

His fingers brushed the corner of a plastic bag, and he pulled it out.

It was an ordinary convenience-store bread roll in soft plastic packaging, slightly flattened from being stuffed into his pocket, but still properly sealed, with no leaks or tears.

Still edible.

He just did not know whether the man in front of him would accept it if he offered.

He probably would. Anyone who persisted in eating tempura despite an allergic reaction was probably not a picky eater.

Yan Si's hand was halfway to the container when something soft was pressed into his palm.

He looked down. It was a bread roll.

He froze for a moment and glanced at Suguru Geto.

This stuff has no flavor. I don't like it. Can I give it back?

Give me back my tempura.

Why are you even guarding my food?

Suguru Geto did not look at him. He was focused on biting into the tempura, his expression perfectly natural, as though shoving bread into someone else's hand required no explanation whatsoever-and neither did eating their tempura.

Yan Si glanced at him a few times, saw that little Geto had no intention of acknowledging him, and turned his attention back to the bread.

He tore open the wrapper and took a bite.

Bland. Awful.

The bread was soft, and tasted far worse than it had looked sitting on the convenience-store shelf.

Chewing the bread, he withdrew his outstretched hand and left the plastic container alone.

Seriously.

From reading the manga and watching the anime, he had only known that Suguru Geto liked soba and that his parents were ordinary people.

He had never expected him to like tempura too, or to be so rude when it came to food.

Out of the corner of his eye, Suguru Geto saw him start eating the bread. His lips moved almost imperceptibly, lifting into a slight smile.

Then, naturally-very naturally-he picked up the remaining pieces of tempura one by one and leisurely finished them off.

The whole process was seamless. Not a single "You can't eat seafood," or "Let me swap that for you." Without saying anything at all, he quietly completed the exchange.

As though the tempura had belonged to him all along, and the bread had always belonged to Yan Si.

Yan Si ate a few mouthfuls of bread, decided it tasted awful and he did not want any more, tied the plastic bag shut, and put it in his pocket.

Suddenly, he seemed to remember something amusing. He swallowed what was in his mouth, rubbed his chin, and turned to Suguru Geto, laughter glimmering in his purple eyes.

"Me-"

He drew out the last sound, the languid lilt of his Kansai dialect stretching every syllable long and soft, brazenly flirtatious.

He began introducing himself.

"I'm only a teeny billion times more impressive than you~"

Suguru Geto's chewing paused for a beat.

Yan Si held up one finger, his expression so solemn that he might have been proclaiming a universal truth. "I'm Yan Si, from China. I've already finished high school, and I got accepted into a top university a little while ago."

He paused and leaned his head toward Suguru Geto. The red dot between his brows stood out in the sunset glow, his eyes curved into two crescents, and his smile was pure smugness.

"Pretty impressive, right, Geto~?"

Little Geto, you're such a scrub. A junior college education is all you'll ever have.

Finishing high school at fifteen and getting accepted into a top university-coming from anyone else, that would have sounded rather like bragging.

But coming from Yan Si, with that face, that expression, and that lazy, infuriatingly drawn-out Kansai dialect, it sounded less like showing off and more like something he had said specifically to tease someone.

Suguru Geto: "..."

He looked at Yan Si's face, which practically screamed, "Praise me, praise me!" After two seconds of silence, he obligingly nodded.

As someone who would later manage to befriend a person like Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto was undoubtedly gentle and considerate.

"Very impressive, Yan."

But the way this man talked was so irritating.

Yet it did not quite seem intentional-or perhaps it was, but the point was not to upset him. He just wanted to see him choke on his words and have no idea how to respond.

Suguru Geto mentally checked off his assessment.

Yan Si was clearly not satisfied with that brief compliment, but he did not pursue the subject.

He could hardly actually tease him with, "Buddy~ You'll never get past vocational school your whole life~"

Otherwise, this Suguru Geto, who would "never get past vocational school," would embark on a workout called "high damage with the left hand, and damage that's high with the right."

Yan Si shifted position, dangling one leg over the edge of the rooftop while folding the other beneath him. He leaned back, bracing both hands on the concrete behind him, and looked up at the sky.

The position was a little tiring, so he simply withdrew his hands and lay down.

"Geto, why do you think the sunset clouds are red?"

Suguru Geto had not expected the conversation to jump so quickly. He paused. "...Light scattering, I suppose."

"Wrong."

Yan Si shook his head, looking utterly certain.

Suguru Geto raised an eyebrow slightly. "Then why?"

A new scientific discovery? He had only just graduated from middle school, while Yan Si was already about to become a university student.

He respected educated people. He respected knowledge, too.

"Because the sun blushes all the way down as it sets, and dyes the clouds red."

Yan Si said it with a straight face, as though he had just announced a rigorously proven scientific conclusion.

Hearing someone who had worked in mathematics in his previous life spout such nonsense was funny in itself.

But Suguru Geto did not know that, and he was not quite able to laugh either.

He had waited all that time, only for Yan Si to give him a figure of speech.

"...Isn't that the same thing? You've just personified light."

"It's different. Light doesn't get embarrassed, but the sun does."

"Why would the sun get embarrassed?"

"Because it spent the whole night chasing the moon and still hadn't caught up by dawn. It got embarrassed."

Suguru Geto opened his mouth, realized he had actually spent a moment seriously considering that logic, and quickly gave up.

He decided to stop respecting Yan Si's knowledge.

He had a feeling this man's claims about "skipping grades" and "getting into university" were fake.

Nothing this man said followed any logic. Taking a debate with him seriously meant you had already lost.

He was beginning to understand why some people suddenly posted a string of gibberish in the middle of an online argument.

It was the breakdown of someone thinking, I can't get through to you, but I can't just not reply.

He chose silence and quietly took a bite of tempura.

Yan Si did not care about his silence at all-or rather, he did not need anyone to respond. He could keep the conversation going all by himself.