Chapter 93: It was a tit-for-tat flow, but no matter how you look at it I said way too many cruel things

Night wind blew and the branches and leaves of the trees rustled.

Many oak trees stood there, but it was not a forest. It was inside a park at night.

The park grounds were large enough that three soccer fields could easily fit, and most of that land had trees planted and had become a grove.

Streetlights were installed on the walking path circling the grove, so brightness about the same as a night road was maintained.

Around the center of the park was a pond about the size of a tennis court, and the area around it was a plaza.

Benches were placed at various spots in the plaza so people could sit and rest while looking at the pond.

During the day it was a place of rest for people of the south district, but now at night it was lonely and there were almost no people.

The few who were there were a few pairs of men and women who seemed to be couples enjoying a night date, and Kazui, who had come to sober up.

(There’s an entertainment district nearby. They don’t have to date in a lonely park like this.)

Sitting on one of the benches and sobering up, Kazui muttered in his heart.

While looking at a couple leaning on the fence around the pond, bringing their faces close and chatting.

The couple embraced and started kissing openly, so feeling awkward he moved his gaze to the center of the pond.

In the center of the pond something like a large stone dome was visible.

Only half of it showed above the water, so it looked dome-shaped, but it was a complete sphere.

A white stone sphere three meters in diameter... the Aquila Stone Sphere existed in the center of the pond, half submerged.

Because the Aquila Stone Sphere was there, this park was named Stone Sphere Park.

Unlike the pillar in Aquila Park, the Aquila Stone Sphere was not an unidentified existence.

It had been determined to be a magic machine used by the ancient magic civilization for adjusting the natural environment.

It was a distant past, but there had been an era when Earth’s natural environment worsened, and ancient documents recorded that magic machines like the Aquila Stone Sphere had been used to purify the Earth.

After the purification ended most of them had broken, but a few continued to function without breaking.

One of those was the Aquila Stone Sphere, and it was now used for environmental adjustment of Stone Sphere Park, which was a forest park.

The Aquila Stone Sphere was a rare thing, so Kazui had visited Stone Sphere Park several times with Yuri to see it.

That was why Stone Sphere Park near Tax Street seemed just right as a place to sober up, and Kazui, who had left Church House as if fleeing Monica, was here.

He had already been sitting on the bench spacing out for about thirty minutes, so his drunkenness was fading.

The night wind was a pleasant coolness and cooled his head.

As a result he had become able to look back calmly at what he had done to Monica.

He was also no longer in a state where what rose in his mind came straight out of his mouth.

From around the time he left the shop he had felt he said too much to Monica.

That feeling was even stronger now.

(It was a tit-for-tat flow, but no matter how you look at it I said way too many cruel things.)

He remembered how flustered Monica had looked when he teased her about being a virgin.

(Unlike me, who turned the virginity material into self-deprecation and kept saying it myself, she seemed to be hiding that she was a virgin, so she probably cared more than I did about being inexperienced.)

He himself had been hung up on being a virgin until a little while ago, so he understood the impatience that came from being inexperienced.

And still being underage, Kazui had had the leeway to turn being inexperienced into joke material himself.

"Me, a virgin... I’m a twenty-one-year-old adult, there’s no way..."

The words Monica had said bashfully in a voice that seemed about to vanish came back to him.

(Unlike me she’s an adult, so she probably has more experienced friends than I do, and she was impatient and hung up on it. I did something bad...)

The words he himself had declared to Monica came back to him.

"If you want to lose your virginity and you want a man, I can do you. You... leaving personality aside, your looks are good, so I don’t mind taking you on."

Remembering that made him feel ashamed of himself.

(I said something like a sexual-harassment old man in a drama. There’s a limit to how pathetic that is.)

Playing with a lock of wavy hair like a cat ear, he let out a deep sigh.

(If I get a chance to see her next, I should apologize properly. If possible I don’t want to see her face for a while.)

Martial artists easily ran into each other at the unarmed combat gym.

Not so much during work, but for training they ended up using the same unarmed combat gym.

(Well, I plan to work from tomorrow, so I can probably go a few days without seeing her, and by the next time we meet the heat might have cooled.)

Right after muttering that in his heart, he somehow looked diagonally forward to the right.

He felt like he had sensed a person’s presence and heard footsteps.

A single woman’s figure walking about ten-odd meters diagonally forward to the right came into his view.

A tall woman in a leather jacket and pants.

The figure of a woman he clearly recognized, and would rather not see if possible, coming closer to where he was came into his view.

(W-wh... why is Monica here?)

Monica, currently number one on the ranking of people he did not want to see, suddenly appearing made him surprised, panicked, and flustered.

(No, the reason doesn’t matter! I have to run right away! It looks like she still hasn’t noticed me.)

Monica was looking not toward Kazui but toward a man and woman couple near the fence around the pond.

It was not quite glaring, more like walking while looking with half-lidded, complicated eyes.

Kazui noticed that Monica’s gaze was on the couple rather than him, so he judged she had not noticed him.

(I’ll run while I can. I’ll apologize a few days later, after the heat cools.)

Standing up from the bench, he started walking quickly in the opposite direction from the one Monica was walking from.

(If I stay in the plaza around the pond she’ll find me easily, so I want to get onto the walking path...)

While walking he looked around and searched for an entrance to the walking path, but there was none nearby.

(No choice. I’ll hide in the grove.)

With no walking path in sight, for now he decided to hide in the grove and let Monica pass.

The grove was not off-limits and not surrounded by a fence, so if you wanted to go in you could easily go in.

Around the border of the plaza and the grove there was a curb of stacked bricks.

This curb was to prevent soil from washing away in rain and the like, not to keep people from entering.

Walking up to a nearby grove, he stepped over the curb and set foot in the grove.

Because of the branches and leaves of the trees, neither the light of the lamps nor moonlight reached, so compared to the plaza and walking path the grove was quite dark.

After walking a few meters through the dark grove, Kazui noticed someone was in the grove.

The grove was dark, so it was not that he clearly saw a person’s figure.

But he could make out two human shadows writhing in the darkness, and because he had gotten closer he could hear a man and woman’s breathing.

(Huh? This breathing?)

He mainly recognized the woman’s breathing.

It was the lewd breathing of a woman he had heard when Vice violated him and when he held Lumia.

And because his eyes had gotten used to the dark, the human shadows he had not been able to see clearly right after entering the grove became visible to him.

Using a bench placed in the grove, facing his way, a man and woman half-naked enjoying reverse sitting.

They seemed to be in their twenties, and the woman had the front of her blouse open, her breasts exposed, and was being kneaded from behind by the man.