The phenomenon of problematic disaster

[VukPauk]

The world was gray. Not in a metaphorical sense, but in the most literal one. A gray sky, heavy with unseen moisture, pressed down on the gray roofs of high-rises, whose walls, once painted different colors, had long since faded into indistinguishable shades of desolation. Gray asphalt, pockmarked with dark stains of old oil spills, glistened after the morning rain, reflecting the indifferent light of the cloud-veiled sun. Even the people, hurrying about their business, seemed part of this monochrome landscape—their clothes, their faces, their gait merging into a single stream of mundanity.

At the bus stop, under a shelter of yellowed plastic, stood a young man. His figure fit perfectly into the surrounding palette. Simple jeans, a dark hoodie, worn-out sneakers. Light hair, devoid of shine, fell onto his forehead, covering his eyes, but even without that, it was clear—his face was a mask. A mask of total, all-consuming apathy. In his violet eyes, there was no sadness, no joy, no anger. Only emptiness, reflecting the gray world around him. He wasn't waiting for the bus; he was simply existing at a point in space where the bus was scheduled to appear.

With a hiss of pneumatics, an old, rattling bus pulled up. Its sides were caked in a layer of grime, and its windows were covered in a murky film that distorted the already bleak reality. The doors struggled open. The youth, his expression unchanging, stepped inside, his movements mechanical, honed to automaticity by hundreds of identical boardings. He tapped his plastic card against the validator, waited for the short beep—the only bright sound in this gray symphony—and moved into the cabin.

The smell was familiar: a mix of dampness, cheap plastic, and something elusively human. He scanned the few passengers—an old woman hunched over a book, a tired worker in overalls dozing by the window, a young mother trying to quiet a fussy child. Nothing interesting. Just background. He took an empty seat by the window, in the middle of the bus. He took worn-out earbuds from his pocket, put them in. Music flowed—an indistinct, melancholic ambient, the perfect soundtrack for disconnecting from the outside world. He leaned his head against the cold, vibrating glass and closed his eyes. The bus moved off, carrying him away through the gray city, toward nowhere.

Time flowed. Or it stood still. Behind his closed eyelids, there was nothing but darkness, and in his ears, only the hum of a synthesizer. He had almost fallen asleep, sinking into his usual state of semi-oblivion, when a distant, muffled sound broke through the music. A scream. Piercing, full of terror. He didn't have time to process it, not even time to be afraid. Only instinctively, for a fraction of a second, did he half-open his eyes.

The world outside the window had become a blur. The last thing he saw was the huge, relentlessly approaching radiator grille of a truck. It filled the entire window, his entire world. And then there was only a blinding flash of pain and darkness.

He did not wake at once. The awakening was like a slow ascent from bottomless, viscous depths of water. There was no pain, no memory of the crash. There was nothing. Just the awareness of his own existence. He opened his eyes, but around him was only an endless, blinding whiteness.

He was sitting. A figure, lacking clear outlines, an almost transparent silhouette woven from nothing. Beneath him was sand. White, fine as salt, it stretched in all directions to the very horizon, merging with the equally white, empty sky. But the sky was not empty. High above, where the stratosphere should have been, a gigantic, living web spread across the white dome. Violet lightning, silent and cold, ran incessantly across it, weaving into a complex, constantly changing pattern, like the giant nervous system of the universe.

And there, far beyond the horizon, gaped a darkness. A huge, perfect black hole with a thin, blindingly white contour. It didn't just hang in space—it lived. It seemed to be drawing the very fabric of this world into itself: the white sand flowed slowly, almost imperceptibly, toward it, and the violet lightning in the sky bent, striving toward its insatiable maw.

The figure sat motionless. Inside it, it was as empty as the world around it. There was no fear, no surprise, no curiosity. Only an incredible, all-consuming lethargy. It didn't want to move. Didn't want to think. Didn't even want to exist. It wanted only to sit and watch as the black hole slowly consumed this world, and then itself.

Time passed. How much? A second? An eternity? It didn't matter here. The figure didn't move, submerged in an eternal half-slumber. The landscape didn't change, only the violet lightning continued its silent dance in the sky. But something had changed. The black hole on the horizon had gotten closer. Just a tiny bit, but its white contour had become sharper, and its pull more tangible. The figure noted this languidly, without any emotion. Just a fact.

Another lapse of time, perhaps millennia long. The hole had grown noticeably larger. It was no longer just a point on the horizon. It had become the dominant feature of the landscape, a massive black sun devouring the light. The figure, still sitting motionless on the white sand, began to notice the very space around it distorting, stretching toward the giant. In its thoughts, slow and viscous as tar, a shadow of realization flickered.

"So, this is it..."

A simple, emotionless acceptance. He didn't know what it was—death, transition, nonexistence. He just understood that sooner or later, he would be pulled into this wormhole, and he would disappear. And this seemed... right. A logical conclusion to his meaningless existence.

Another eternity passed. Now, even the landscape began to change under the gravity. The white sand around the figure rose in small vortices, streaming toward the horizon. The web of violet lightning overhead crackled and bent, like a string pulled to its breaking point. The hole was so close now that its white contour was blinding, and the blackness at its center seemed absolute. And at that moment, on the figure, on its ghostly, immaterial surface, a barely perceptible tremor appeared.

The soul thought it was ready. That it was tired. That it wanted to disappear. But something inside, a tiny, almost extinguished spark, an instinct embedded in the foundation of all living things—still resisted. This was not a conscious desire to live. It was a primal, animalistic fear of complete, final nonexistence. The tremor intensified. It was the agony of a choice the soul wasn't even aware it was making. Give in and be consumed? Or…

And at some point, obeying this last, desperate impulse, the figure slowly, with incredible effort, turned away from the wormhole. It looked in the opposite direction, into the endless white emptiness. And slowly, it began to move.

A long time later, the soul was still moving through space. Now its movements were more jerky, ragged. It was tired. Tired in a way it had never been in its past, physical life. This was not muscular fatigue. It was an exhaustion of the will itself. Every movement was accompanied by invisible spasms; every effort to take a step on the viscous white sand resonated as pain in its very essence. It wanted to stop. Wanted to give up. To lie down on this sand and let the pull of the black hole, still yawning behind it, do its work. But something, that same tiny spark, that same irrational fear, pushed it forward, not letting it stop.

It walked, stumbling, falling, rising. It walked until it felt it could go no further. That the next step would be its last. That it would simply... dissipate from exhaustion. And in that moment, just as it was ready to surrender, it noticed it.

Ahead, in the perfectly flat white sand, was something alien. A hatch. It led down. The hatch itself was made of a strange, pearlescendent wood, its surface shimmering with a soft, mother-of-pearl light, contrasting with the blinding whiteness around it. The sand seemed to flow around it, not daring to touch, as if the hatch existed in another reality, merely brushing against this one.

The soul stopped, staring at it. What was this? A trap? Salvation? Another illusion of this insane world? After brief deliberation, which boiled down to one simple thought—"it can't get any worse"—it approached and, gathering its last strength, opened the heavy lid. Darkness led downward. Not the threatening blackness of the hole, but simply... an absence of light. Taking a final step, the soul entered the hatch.

It found itself in another space. Completely white, but entirely different. It was an office. The walls, floor, and ceiling all seemed to be carved from a single piece of flawless white marble, smooth and cold. In the middle of the room stood a matching white marble desk, and behind it, in an elegant white armchair, sat a man.

He was stately, with perfectly coiffed snow-white hair and aristocratic features. He wore an impeccably tailored white suit. In his hand, he held a white porcelain cup, from which he was drinking dark, almost black coffee.

He raised his eyes to the soul that had entered. There was no surprise in his gaze, no interest. Only a universal, boundless fatigue and a faint boredom. He took a final sip, placed the cup on the desk, and, leaning back in his chair, let out a quiet, drawn-out, lazy sigh.

"Ahhh…"

 

[VukPauk]

Whiteness. Absolute, sterile, oppressive. The soul, still a formless clot of consciousness, stood silently in the middle of the marble office, staring at the man behind the desk. The man, in turn, stared back at it. His gaze was devoid of emotion, empty and weary, like that of a bureaucrat at the end of a limitless workday. Seconds dripped by in the viscous silence, not measured by the ticking of a clock, but felt as a mounting pressure.

At last, a shadow of irritation flickered across the man's flawless face. A thin line creased between his snow-white eyebrows, and the corner of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

"Are you going to stand there long?"

The voice was smooth, almost melodic, but it held a note of chronic boredom, as if he had asked this question a million times before. The soul flinched, its nebulous form rippling in surprise, like the surface of water disturbed by a stone. It was the first sound to break the silence of this place. It hadn't known it could move of its own will. Slowly, with an effort that felt titanic, it took a step, then another, approaching the desk.

The man watched, perfectly aware of the waves of surprise and caution emanating from the indistinct figure. He waited until the soul had settled onto a matching white marble chair that had silently appeared before his desk, and only then continued. His movements were professional, honed to automaticity. He smoothly opened the top drawer of the desk—a normal, unremarkable drawer. But then, instead of pulling something out of it, he sharply pulled the open drawer upward.

The soul watched in astonishment at the impossible sight. The drawer did not end. It continued to extend up, transforming into a gigantic tower that receded into the infinite white height. It was a card catalog. A construct of pearlescent wood, consisting of millions, billions of cells, it grew and grew, piercing the white nothingness for what seemed like miles. At a certain point, the tower's growth stopped. The man, without even looking, reached for a specific, nondescript drawer somewhere in the dizzying heights, and it slid out smoothly. He retrieved a single document from it, a thin card, and slapped it down on the desk. Simultaneously with this gesture, the entire grandiose structure silently vanished back into the desk, as if it had never been.

He silently opened the card. His eyes quickly scanned the lines, which were invisible to the soul. After a few seconds, he closed it with a soft click and shifted his gaze to the figure, which was holding its breath.

"Well, well, well," he began his monologue, his voice just as colorless. "Here you are. I must admit, I'm surprised. According to all calculations, your trajectory should have ended in 'The Purifier' several eons ago. You almost made it, didn't you? Felt the pull, the warmth of nonexistence. Most in your position gladly dive right in, just to end this comedy sooner. But you… you turned around and crawled back." He paused, tilting his head slightly, as if listening to the soul's emotions. "Interesting. A very rare case. Almost unprecedented."

He glanced at the card again. "Let's see… Life… gray. No highs, no lows. School, home, internet. No friends, no enemies, no hobbies. Just existence. A passive observation of others living. You were a spectator in your own movie, one you didn't even bother to make. You voluntarily locked yourself in a box, and then complained it was cramped. A pathetic sight." He had expected to see a wave of regret, remorse, pain. But instead, he sensed only… embarrassment and tense attention. The soul wasn't mourning its past life. It was ashamed of it.

The man sighed again, this time more deeply, with a hint of almost human fatigue. "Alright. It seems you're not entirely hopeless, if you're capable of shame, at least. That changes things. A little."

He reached into the drawer again, this time without the theatrics, and took out another sheet, a simple form, and placed it in front of the soul. "Figure it out yourself," he tossed out dryly, noticing the question in its aura.

The soul shifted its gaze to the sheet. It was covered in myriad words in a completely unfamiliar, ornate language, composed of symbols that looked like a cross between runes and hieroglyphs. But the moment it focused, the meaning of the text began to appear directly in its thoughts, clear and precise, as if it were reading its native tongue.

It was a contract. "The Final Chance Contract."

It stated that the soul was receiving the opportunity to live one more life. This life would be the final test, the results of which would determine its ultimate fate. That wormhole outside, as it turned out, wasn't just a black hole, but the embodiment of the eternal cycle of rebirth. Everything that fell into it was completely cleansed of memory, personality, of its very essence, and the soul took on a completely different, new form. A complete reboot. The death of the ego.

The gist of the contract was simple: it was being given one more chance. But if, at the conclusion of this new life, the results remained the same—the same apathy, the same passivity, the same flight from the world—it would face final oblivion. Not rebirth, but a complete, absolute erasure from the fabric of existence.

As an additional support—so the soul couldn't later complain about an unfair world or unfortunate circumstances—it was offered the chance to choose a so-called "cheat." Any power, any ability that would help it in its new life. Below was a blank space where it was to describe its wish.

The soul stared at the empty field for a long time. Options swirled through its consciousness. Limitless magic? Unbelievable physical strength? The ability to control time? Money? Power? The possibilities were endless. It thrashed about, not knowing what to choose. What could guarantee it wouldn't repeat its mistakes?

And at some point, it stopped abruptly and thought. It wasn't skills it had lacked. It wasn't power. Its entire past life, it had done exactly what it had decided to do. And it was its choice—or rather, its refusal to choose—that had led it to all this. The problem wasn't the world. The problem was itself. And it made a decision.

Its ghostly hand reached for the form. It didn't know how it would write, but the desire was so strong that a dark pigment, like ink, began to concentrate at its fingertips. It began to describe its wish. At first, it was just words: "strength," "speed," "endurance." But then the description became more and more detailed. "The ability to analyze and destroy supernatural phenomena," "a body that knows no fatigue," "reflexes that outpace thought." And at some point, it became clear it wasn't describing an abstract ability. It was describing a character.

The very character it had admired so much during its past, gray life. The hero from an old novel, whose strength, audacity, and disdain for boredom had seemed to it the embodiment of true freedom.

Sakamaki Izayoi.

Finished, the soul passed the sheet back to the man. He took it lazily, his eyes scanning what was written. A crooked, cynical smirk slowly spread across his lips.

"Well then. Live your life worthily. However, remember,"—he raised his tired eyes to it, eyes holding not a single drop of sympathy—"that trash will always be trash."

He snapped his fingers.

The world around the soul exploded in a blinding flash and disappeared.

The man was left alone in the silence of his white office. He looked at the sheet in his hand, smirked one more time, and then opened the drawer again. The gigantic card catalog soared upward. He found the right cell, and the sheet the soul had just held was sent to its place. The name of the section where it now rested glowed for a moment, and the old, forgotten name of the protagonist was replaced by a new one.

Izayoi Jin.

 

[VukPauk]

Kuoh Town was waking to the gentle touch of the morning sun. The warm, almost summer-like air was filled with the aroma of fresh pastries from small bakeries, the bitter scent of coffee from open cafes, and the sweet fragrance of sakura, whose last petals lazily twirled in the morning breeze. It was a city of contrasts, where modern buildings of glass and concrete stood alongside traditional houses with tiled roofs, and bustling, lively shopping streets gave way to quiet, tranquil alleys leading to ancient Shinto shrines.

Life here flowed at a measured and predictable pace. In the morning—streams of schoolchildren in neat uniforms and office workers in sharp suits, hurrying to the station. In the afternoon—the carefree laughter of students strolling in the park by the lake, and melodic announcements from the speakers in the shopping arcade. In the evening—the warm light of lanterns reflecting in shop windows, and the cozy hum of restaurants and izakayas. Kuoh was an exemplary Japanese city—clean, safe, and mind-numbingly calm. The perfect place for a quiet, peaceful life. ...

Consciousness returned with a sharp, painful jolt, tearing him from oblivion. The first thing he felt was the hard floor against his cheek and the taste of dust in his mouth. He opened his eyes. A ceiling. Low, with age-yellowed stains. He slowly sat up, looking around with a dull, ringing bewilderment.

He was in a tiny, old apartment. A small living room seamlessly flowed into a kitchen nook, where a single-burner stove and a small refrigerator huddled on a modest counter. In the corner, a low kotatsu table. By the wall, an old wardrobe, from whose slightly open door a thick, heavy blanket was awkwardly spilling out. He realized he hadn't been lying on a bed, but directly on the floor, on woven mats. Tatami.

The word surfaced in his mind on its own, foreign, yet achingly familiar. And in that same instant, an unbearable pain pierced his skull. It was like a lightning strike. The world before his eyes exploded into a myriad of white sparks, and a flood poured into his head. No, not a flood—a tsunami. A gigantic, all-consuming wave of information, of alien knowledge, of alien memories.

The Japanese language, which he had never known, now sounded as natural in his thoughts as his native tongue—grammar, thousands of kanji, colloquialisms, polite forms. The history of Japan—from the Jomon period to the post-war economic miracle. The geography of Kuoh Town—every street, every shop, the bus schedules. The pain intensified, turning into an unbearable pulsation that felt as if it would tear his head apart from the inside. He gripped his temples, trying to contain this insane onslaught, but the information continued to pour in, filling every corner of his consciousness, displacing, overwriting his own "I." At a certain point, at the peak of the agony, his body couldn't take it. The world went dark, and he collapsed onto the floor, losing consciousness.

The day was ending. The orange rays of the setting sun painted the room in warm, melancholic tones. Jin's eyes snapped open. The pain was gone. But there was another, far more vile sensation. His stomach twisted in a brutal spasm, and nausea rose in his throat.

Without thinking, obeying a primal instinct, he scrambled to his feet. Stumbling over his own legs, he bolted for the small door in the corner. The toilet. Barely making it to the bowl, he collapsed to his knees as his body convulsed. He was vomiting violently. Bile and acid burned his throat, tears streamed from his eyes, his abdominal muscles seizing from the strain. This wasn't just vomiting. It was a purge, an exorcism. His body, his new vessel, was rejecting the remnants of the old world, the old life, spewing them out along with the acrid bile.

After what felt like an eternity, when the spasms subsided and only clear, bitter mucus came up from his stomach, he slumped back weakly, his back against the cold wall. Cold sweat ran down his entire body, his head was spinning. He crawled out of the toilet on all fours, made it to the kitchen, and, as if he had done it a thousand times, opened a cabinet, took out a glass, and filled it with water from the tap. His hands moved on their own, guided by an alien memory that had already been absorbed. He downed the glass in one gulp, feeling the cool water extinguish the fire in his throat. And then his strength failed him again, and he collapsed to the floor, sinking into a merciful oblivion.

The next time he woke, he was standing. In the middle of a small, cramped shower stall, covered in old tile. Streams of warm water ran down his body, washing away the sweat and the sticky terror of the last few hours. He lifted his head, and his gaze fell on the fogged-up mirror on the wall. He ran a hand over it, wiping away the damp film. And he saw himself. The new him.

A stranger looked back at him from the mirror. A youth with light, slightly water-tousled hair and piercing violet eyes. A strong, perfectly built body, where every muscle was sculpted with almost unnatural perfection, like a statue of an ancient god. This was not his appearance. This was not his body. This was the vessel he had chosen. The vessel of Sakamaki Izayoi.

And then, looking at this foreign, but now his own, reflection, he remembered everything. Not just the new information about Japan, but what came before it. The white office. The tired man in white. The contract. And his choice.

He had made it. Made it into another world. And the memories that had flooded his head left no doubt as to which one. Kuoh Academy, attended by beautiful girls, one of whom was the crimson-haired heiress of a demonic clan. The perverted guy who became a pawn and the wielder of the Red Dragon's power. Fallen angels, exorcists, Sacred Gears…

He had landed in an anime. In High School DxD.

According to his newly acquired memories, he was now Izayoi Jin, an orphan and a transfer student, recently enrolled in Kuoh Academy. A convenient legend. A blank slate that could be filled with anything.

"Yare yare…" a tired thought flickered through his mind. He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, drying himself with a rough towel. "Of all the possible worlds... why here? Into this theater of the absurd, built on fanservice and power-ups?"

He walked back to the window of his tiny apartment. The night city glittered with a myriad of lights, appearing just as peaceful and calm as it had in the morning. But now, Jin saw it differently. He saw what was hidden behind that serene facade.

The warm light of the shopping street, where couples might be strolling right now, seemed to him just a stage set, behind which, in dark alleys, stray demons could be hunting for lost souls. The majestic building of Kuoh Academy on the hill wasn't just a prestigious school, but the headquarters of the Gremory clan, a nest of demons playing at being human. And that old church on the outskirts, which he remembered from the new city maps, wasn't just an abandoned building, but a potential base for fallen angels, hatching their insidious plans.

All these people bustling below were just unsuspecting extras in a great, hidden war. A war he was now-dragged into. And not just as an observer. But as an active participant with the power to flip the entire board.

Kuoh Town no longer seemed calm and cozy to him. It had become an arena. A vast, beautiful, but deadly arena. And the show was just about to begin.

 

[VukPauk]

Night—the time when the city removes its daytime mask of decency. Jin stood in the middle of his tiny apartment, a single lightbulb snatching the meager furnishings from the gloom: a stack of neatly piled school textbooks on the low table, a lonely futon in the corner, a small refrigerator humming so quietly it seemed afraid to disturb the peace. The air was stale, smelling of dust and old wood.

He had just finished examining the documents found in the desk drawer. Enrollment certificate for Kuoh Academy, health insurance, a resident card—flawless forgeries, creating a personality from nothing. Izayoi Jin. Orphan. Transfer student. A convenient, empty shell.

"And what now?" The thought was lazy, devoid of any panic. He sat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. "Do I even have to?"

The memories poured into his consciousness along with the Japanese language and local geography were clear. The plot of High School DxD. He knew it. He knew about the fallen angels, about the battle for Asia, about Riser, about Kokabiel. He knew that, in the end, Hyoudou Issei, the local protagonist, would manage somehow. Struggling, losing, but winning. Such are the laws of the genre.

"So maybe... just do nothing?" a tempting thought flickered. "Go to school, get my pathetic allowance, watch the story unfold from the sidelines. Be a spectator, just like in my past life. Safe. Simple. Boring."

But immediately, another, more sober thought arose. He was an anomaly. His presence here had already disrupted the original scenario. And what if, because of his interference—or, conversely, his inaction—something went wrong? What if Issei didn't manage? What if one of these wars spilled outside the barriers and caught him, a random bystander? In this world, there were no safe places for those who knew the truth.

He wasn't a spectator. He was a participant, shoved onto the stage without his consent. And if he did nothing... he was finished anyway. Final oblivion, as per the contract with that guy in white.

Irritation rose in his throat, a tight, hot lump. He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers clenching into a fist.

"What a goddamn drag..."

The word that escaped his lips perfectly described his state. Not fear, not despair. But precisely a universal, cosmic drag. He was once again forced into a game he didn't want to play, but couldn't leave.

He stood up. Sitting within these four walls was unbearable. He needed to walk, clear his head, and see this new world with his own eyes, not through the prism of someone else's memories.

The night enveloped Kuoh in a cool, damp blanket. Jin ambled down the quiet streets of the neighborhood he now lived in. His memories helpfully supplied: this was an old, poor, but quiet residential district. Small, two-story houses, pressed tightly together, alternated with apartment buildings like his own, housing a few families. The air smelled of damp earth after a recent lawn watering and something elusively sweet—the scent of night-blooming flowers from someone's tiny garden.

The silence was broken only by the chirping of crickets and the distant hum of trains. The perfect place for a "normal" life. But Jin saw the underside. He knew that behind this sleepy idyll hid territory divided between two powerful demonic clans. That in any of these dark alleys, you could run into not a drunk worker, but a stray demon looking for easy prey. That behind the windows of these cute houses might live not only humans, but reincarnated servants leading double lives. This contrast between the seen and the unseen brought not fear, but only a wry, cynical smirk.

His leisurely path led him to an island of light in the night's gloom—a 24-hour convenience store, a kombini. Bright, almost vulgar neon signs promised cheap food, drinks, and salvation from loneliness for night owls. In front of the entrance, a group of high schoolers in the worn-out uniform of another school was squatting. They were smoking, laughing loudly, exchanging crude jokes. Typical punks, petty predators who considered this patch of asphalt their territory. Jin cast a lazy, indifferent glance at them and, without changing his pace, went inside. The automatic doors slid open with a soft chime.

Inside, it was bright and cool. He walked past the racks of magazines and manga, past the coolers of drinks, heading for the prepared food counter. But his gaze caught on his own wallet, which he pulled from his pocket. Almost empty. A couple of crumpled bills and a handful of change. Five hundred yen, no more. The financial resources of an orphan on allowance. He sighed heavily. He'd have to be frugal. From a nearby shelf, he grabbed a pack of the cheapest instant ramen and a can of soda. A luxurious dinner.

A surprise waited for him at the register. Behind the counter stood a girl. Incredibly, almost unnaturally, cute for a night-shift kombini clerk. No older than twenty, with chestnut hair tied in a high ponytail that bounced amusingly with her every move. A neat, delicate face with large, trusting eyes, average height, about half a head shorter than him. The striped store uniform fit her perfectly, emphasizing her slender figure.

"Damn ero-world," a tired thought flickered in Jin's mind. Even the cashier at a regular kombini looked like a character from a dating sim. He silently placed his modest basket on the counter.

The girl took the items and began to scan them. Obeying professional habit, she looked up at the customer to greet him, and... froze. Her fingers hovered over the scanner, and a light blush instantly appeared on her cheeks.

Jin, who had been lazily observing the street through the glass door, shifted his gaze to her. He saw her staring at him, frozen, her lips slightly parted in surprise. He tilted his head slightly, his violet eyes studying her indifferently, but attentively. This simple gesture snapped her out of her stupor. She flinched, blushed deeply, and abruptly looked down, hiding her gaze.

"P-p-pardon me!!!" her voice was thin and strained. "T-that'll be two hundred and thirty yen!"

Jin, paying no attention to her reaction, calmly counted out the exact amount, down to the last coin, and placed it on the counter. While he slowly packed the ramen and soda into a thin plastic bag, he could feel her gaze on him. She kept stealing furtive glances, her cheeks still burning. It seemed she desperately wanted to say something but didn't dare.

Jin huffed inwardly. He didn't understand what had happened to her. He was used to his new appearance attracting attention, but this reaction was... excessive. He took the bag and headed for the exit.

After leaving the store and walking past the punks, who followed him with disdainful looks, he had already gotten a decent distance away when he heard a desperate, almost shouted voice behind him:

"PLEASE COME AGAIN!!!"

He turned around. The same clerk had run out of the store and was standing in the doorway, hands clasped to her chest. She was breathing heavily, as if she'd run a marathon, and her face was a mixture of embarrassment and some kind of puppy-like delight. Jin froze for a moment, then the corners of his lips twitched in a wry smirk. He gave her a lazy wave and, turning, walked on.

The girl, seeing that he had noticed her and even responded, looked as happy as if she'd won the lottery. She let out a quiet, sweet sigh full of happiness and, beet-red, ran back into the store.

However, this scene did not go unnoticed by one of the punks. The guy, clearly the leader of the gang, sat with his face twisted in anger. He stared through the glass at the clerk, who was now joyfully, almost skipping, wiping down the counter, and then transferred his hate-filled gaze to Jin's retreating back.

"That bastard..." he growled through his teeth.

He threw a few short phrases to his buddies. They smirked in understanding, put out their cigarettes, and lazily got to their feet. After exchanging a few words, they moved after Jin, disappearing into the shadows of the night city.