Tenkou-Saki no Seiso Karen na Bishoujo ga Mukashi Danshi to Omotte Issho ni Asonda Osananajimi Datta Ken [WN] - Chapter 149 - English

byReeze27 •June 11, 2026

0

[Warning 15+]

Part Four
"―From Now On, You Better Treat Me with That Same Energy, Too!"
Chapter 149
The Makin' of a Smilin' Mask
The sun sittin' in the eastern sky was slowly-ss gettin' swallowed up by thin clouds.
The wind blastin' against 'em was straight-up gettin' stronger and stronger by the second.
Within a matter of a few hours, this whole area was probably gonna get hit with a nasty storm.
"Y'know, nowadays you casually-ss hear a lot about the whole abandoned house problem in the countryside."
"This place is…"
"Yeah, this used to be My Grandpappy's place."
The spot Haruki'd rolled up to alongside Hayato was the house of Her Grandparents, where Haruki used to live back in the day.
Even for Tsukinose, it was straight-up massive and looked old as heck.
Some of the window glass was busted wide open, whistlin' a creepy-ss tune whenever the draft swept through the cracks.
It was so dmn ruined you could straight-up call it a dead house, and the weeds in the yard were growin' completely-ss wild.
Even now, it occasionally caught the wind, shakin' and creakin' like crazy, lookin' so sketchy it made you anxious as heck wonderin' what would happen if a typhoon straight-up made a direct hit on it.
"…"
"…"
Haruki squeezed her grip tight around the edge of her shirt.
Haruki didn't have a single-ss good memory in this house.
But even-ss so, facin' the sight of it lookin' way more pathetic and run-down compared to what was inside Haruki's memories, a surge of crazy emotion she couldn't fully-ss process started creepin' up from her chest.
Haruki didn't even-ss fully know why she felt like comin' here in the first place.
The only dmn thing for sure was, if Haruki was all by herself, she would've never-ss thought about pullin' up to this place in a million years.
But it was also a straight-up fact that the present only existed because the past went down.
With a look on Haruki's face that was hard as heck to describe, sigh, she let out a heavy breath.
Right then, a loud clank echoed from right beside Haruki.
Snappin' her eyes over, Haruki saw Hayato kickin' down the bike stand, and while keepin' his gaze locked on the distant mountains―the exact spot they used to call the 'Iwatohashira Battlefield' back when they played together, a place where development was led by the Nikaidō Family but straight-up fell through and got wrecked in the middle―he muttered in a dead-ss serious tone.
"I wanna know about how you were back in those days, Haruki."
"Haya-to…"
Haruki's heart straight-up skipped a heavy beat, makin' her catch her breath.
Haruki yanked down on the edge of the shirt she was still holdin' onto tight as heck.
Haruki was completely-ss lost for words.
Haruki didn't even-ss know what to say.
In the first place, that was a part of her past that Haruki herself had straight-up been turnin' a blind eye to.
Bein' fully-ss aware of the tangled mess inside her chest, Haruki desperately squeezed the words out.
"Honestly, even if you hear it, I'm pretty-ss sure it's not gonna be an interestin' story at all."
"Even-ss so, it's because it's about you, Haruki. I wanna... ...straight-up become someone truly special to you too…"
"…?!"
For a split second, Haruki's brain went completely-ss blank. Her shoulders gave a sudden-ss jolt.
Those were the exact same words that Haruki had once thrown at Hayato in the past.
Lookin' back at him, Hayato was lockin' his eyes dead-on Haruki, hittin' her with a gaze that was straight-up honest and direct as heck. Their eyes were completely-ss locked together.
That right there was a clear-ss declaration that Hayato was crossin' a definitive line, steppin' right into the parts they'd been keepin' all vague and blurry until now.
"...Ahaha, pullin' that line on me is straight-up playing dirty, y'know."
"That's exactly-ss why I want to properly know everything."
"…"
"…"
In her head, Haruki fully-ss understood that sooner or later, she had to face this crp down to move forward.
Sigh. Haruki let out a single-ss heavy breath like she was totally giving in.
"Come with me."
And with that, Haruki stepped right onto the property.
From behind, Hayato followed along in dead silence. Walkin' past the entrance of the main house, they made their way over to the front of the earthen storehouse attached next to it.
It was a storehouse with a design that looked straight-up older and junkier than the main house.
The tree growin' right beside it was also crazy-ss old and massive, heavily showin' its age.
Because of that, both of 'em looked totally ruined.
The plaster on the storehouse had straight-up peeled off ages ago, and in some spots, even the round bamboo framework was completely-ss bare to the world.
The tiny window on the second floor had its bars and glass totally wrecked and gone, leavin' it wide open to the wind.
Exactly-ss because it was built big and heavy back in the day, seein' it completely rotted out here and there felt low-key depressin' as heck.
"Hmm, wonder if it's okay? …Up we go!"
"?! Oh, yo, Haruki!"
Sayin' that, right after Haruki glanced around to check her own size against the tree next to the storehouse, she straight-up started scramblin' up the tree with crazy-ss practiced moves in a split second, completely ignorin' Hayato's shocked voice tryin' to stop her from behind.
With perfectly-ss smooth movements, Haruki grabbed onto the busted window. Her motion froze for a split second like she low-key caught her clothes on somethin', but then she smoothly slid her whole body inside.
The whole-ss thing went down in the blink of an eye.
While Hayato just stood there totally blanked out on the spot, a wild-ss scream of 'Nowa―?!' from Haruki echoed from inside the storehouse, followed by a crazy loud crashing and banging sound as she straight-up knocked somethin' massive over.
Then, after a few seconds of dead silence, a heavy creak rang out as one of the storehouse doors slowly swang open from the inside.
Haruki, straight-up covered in cobwebs and wearin' a face caked in layers of ancient-ss dust, poked her head out lookin' completely-ss embarrassed.
"Eh, well... ...turns out the lock was straight-up open…"
"…Pffft! Ahahahahahahaha!"
"Hey, stop laughin' at me!"
Haruki pouted her lips all annoyed-ss and snapped her face away.
Seein' that, the second Hayato tried to play it cool and coddle Haruki with a "My bad, my bad," she let out a soft breath. Throwin' the storehouse doors wide open, she invited him inside.
"Welcome to what used to be my room."
"You call this a room…?"
"Man, this place straight-up hasn't changed much at all."
"…!"
Gettin' hit with the scenery that suddenly-ss jumped into his line of sight, Hayato couldn't even help but straight-up scowl.
The sharp, damp, moldy-ss stench stingin' his nose—was that because the window upstairs was completely wrecked?
The inside was dim as heck, and dust particles were dancin' around inside the beams of light peeking through, which whatever, you could low-key pass on that part.
But the support beams looked like they were gonna collapse any second, and the mud walls had their framework completely bare to the world, just like the outside.
Left and right, there were dressers, desks, and other furniture that you could tell were totally broken in a single-ss glance.
Shattered dishes, and wooden farming tools that looked so dmn ancient they belonged in a history textbook diagram.
It was a storehouse that clearly-ss told a story of bein' a dumping ground where junk nobody needed was forced into.
Lookin' up, there was a loft-like second floor, with light leakin' through in random-ss spots. It was brainless to visualize what would happen to this place if it started rainin'.
There was no way in heck this was a place meant for a human being to live in.
And if it was a little-ss kid forced into it, it was a million times worse.
Deliberately-ss ignorin' Hayato who was just standin' there totally paralyzed in shock, Haruki let out a bitter smile with a face as flat and expressionless as a noh mask, noddin' her chin toward a certain corner of the room.
"Over there, that was my bed. Well, though it might straight-up be better to call it a den or a literal nest, I guess."
"…"
What sat right there was just a few old tatami mats stacked on top of each other.
The surface was completely-ss shredded and splintered, covered in sunspots and stains all over the place.
Lyin' nearby was a bunch of worn-out, ripped-up towels, probably-ss used as a makeshift futon mattress back then.
Besides that, compared to the rest of the wreckage around, there were a few household items in slightly better shape and a folding screen set up as a divider, straight-up tryin' to rig the spot up to look like a room.
"For the record, this place is actually-ss connected to the main house too, y'know."
"…But, look at that."
"…Yeah."
"…"
Hayato swallowed his words with a dark-ss scowl on his face.
Hayato's hands were clenched so dmn tight they were low-key turning white from blood loss. He bit down hard on his back teeth, his expression completely-ss twisting with rage.
Sure enough, just like Haruki said, you could see the door leadin' straight into the main house.
But the vast majority of it was blocked off by a massive-ss dresser, the kind of size a little kid couldn't move in a million years.
Lookin' at the tiny gap left over, maybe a kid could squeeze through, but it'd be a nightmare for an adult to pass.
That right there straight-up exposed the brutal reality of the relationship between Haruki and her Grandparents.
Yet, Haruki kept spinnin' her words all casual-ss, actin' like it wasn't even a big deal.
"Y'know, I used to always-ss smile and laugh whenever I was in front of both Grandpa and Grandma."
"…Huh?"
"I mean, one way or another, I didn't straight-up struggle with eatin', sleepin', takin' baths, or havin' clothes to wear. Though I low-key feel like I ate enough sweet pastries to last a literal-ss lifetime, though."
Pausing right there, Haruki picked up a knocked-over cylindrical plastic trash can and flipped it over. A few dingy-ss plastic bags came rollin' out from inside.
And then, Haruki kept spinnin' her words in a self-deprecating tone.
"Mind you, they straight-up told me I was creepy for doin' nothin' but smilin' all the time. Well, thinkin' about it now, they weren't even wrong, honestly."
"That's total-ss…"
Hayato started to cut in to say somethin', but as if to block him off, Haruki swang around, wearin' a troubled-ss smile.
"Because as long as I kept smilin' no matter what went down, nothin' bad ever-ss happened to me. That's why, even after I packed up and moved to the city, I made sure to always-ss smile all bright and happy. In front of Mom, in front of everyone at school, and obviously-ss around the neighbors too."
"Haruki, that straight-up means…"
"Yeah, exactly. Tryin' so dmn hard to be the good kid that everybody likes, I started doin' nothing but puttin' on a calculated-ss act, and that's how 'I' turned into 'myself', and straight-up became Nikaidō Haruki."
Sayin' that, Haruki let out an awkward-ss grin, as if to signal that the story was officially over.
Crushin' her own true feelings, makin' a mask (a smile) just to smoothly-ss ride out the painful stuff―the literal roots that shaped the Haruki of today.
That right there was the survival strategy that a little-ss kid hammered out to get by.
Author's Notes:
The latest Tenbin Volume 3 officially-ss drops today!
I really-ss wanna clear the wall of Volume 3 and get Volume 4 out there!
Please show some love and support, for real!
Honestly-ss, you don't even have to just buy 1 copy per person—you're totally-ss allowed to grab as many copies as you want!

TL: Reeze27
ED: Reeze27
PR: Reeze27
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