However, it is a pity that this was not followed by any romantic development such as "Sakiko Toyokawa instantly falling head over heels for the great St. Kashiwagi." Over the next few days, Miki Kashiwagi spent his time in quite a tranquil atmosphere. Sakiko came to the school infirmary every day at lunch to say hello, and then devoted herself heart and soul to the great enterprise of studying, working part-time, and making money—bouncing steadily between the classroom, the infirmary, and Rising Café.
Miki Kashiwagi had a strong intuition that he had somehow inexplicably taken over the ecological niche of Father Sakiko, transforming into the role that bestowed paternal love upon her.
In this timeline, Sakiko had not yet heard Haruhikage, nor had she sought out Misumi Uika to help her forget everything and form a galactic dreadnought band. Miki Kashiwagi had made his entrance just in time before Sakiko could morph into Dark Sakiko, thereby averting that dark transformation.
One could only say that the sheer weight of a thousand Galio games accumulated across two lifetimes was truly formidable. When the hero enters the stage, the greatness speaks for itself.
Gotoh Hitori really did move into Miki Kashiwagi's dispensary with her guitar. Although she only occupied a tiny corner, the reclusive Hitori-chan was so happy and even terrified that every single word she spoke to Miki Kashiwagi carried the utmost respect of a subordinate toward a superior.
To this, Miki Kashiwagi could only note that even Cao Cao had done that.
Miki Kashiwagi also wanted to do a violin and guitar duet with Hitori to satisfy her pleasant fantasies about high school band life, but because his and Hitori's repertoires were practically two mutually external circles, the scenes inside the dispensary mostly consisted of:
Miki Kashiwagi could only sit back and listen to Hitori's guitar solos, and then, during Hitori's breaks, show off by playing a piece from a popular anime from his past life—neither making any mistakes nor standing out in any particular way, keeping things utterly formulaic. The two of them exchanged businesslike flattery, which could only be described as bone-dry.
Sometimes Tomori Takamatsu would also visit the infirmary, either alone or with her new friend—a bright pink-haired, always smiling and cheerful girl, Anon Chihaya, the greatest existence in CRYCHIC. "Nice to meet you, I'm Anon Chihaya, Tomorin's good friend~"
Since she was Tomori Takamatsu's good friend, Miki Kashiwagi very generously presented her with a custom-made bronze cross necklace, set right in the middle with a tiny synthetic sapphire. It wasn't expensive anyway, it just took a bit of time to make. After going through the proper ritual of declining three times before finally accepting, Anon was quite pleased, and her nickname for Miki Kashiwagi leaped instantly from "Dr. Kashiwagi" to "Kashiwagi Mitsuki." The three of them enjoyed a harmonious and joyful time together, leaving only Hitori—who had been forcibly dragged out by Miki Kashiwagi to socialize—to quietly melt away.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, quitting time had arrived. The Friday afternoon trains would be as crowded as a can of sardines, so Miki Kashiwagi prepared to see his guests out, tidy up his things, and head home early.
"Bye-bye, Kashiwagi Mitsuki, bye-bye, Bocchi-chan~" Holding Tomori Takamatsu's hand and preparing to leave, the pink-haired large dog waved a sunny farewell.
"Eh? Bocchi-chan? Who is that? Me?" Gotoh Hitori cowered gloomily in the corner, trying to achieve resonance with infrasound waves.
"A nickname I made up for Hitori-chan, you don't like it, Hitori-chan?"
Bocchi-chan, Bocchi-chan, Bocchi-chan, Bocchi-chan...
How wonderful. In middle school, everyone just called me "Hey" and "that guy," but upon reaching high school, someone actually gave me a nickname. High school life really is too wonderful, hehehehehehe...
"No, not at all... I love it so much..." Gotoh Hitori melted into a puddle, trying to swim in magma.
"Tomorrow is Saturday, the aquarium. Don't worry, we're going!" Tomori Takamatsu said earnestly to Miki Kashiwagi, her sparkling eyes truly impossible to refuse.
"See you there, Tomori-chan... Hurry up and get up, Hitori-chan. Help me sweep the floor, and then everyone can head back home."
...
Another quiet night, curled up alone in the mansion surfing the internet.
Miki Kashiwagi lay leisurely on the sofa, soaking his feet while staring at his phone. The screen played mindless live streams, switching endlessly from sticks to big yellow to horse faces, yet Miki Kashiwagi kept changing channels while remaining somewhat unenthusiastic.
Whenever the weekend comes around, I never know what to do. Tomorrow morning I'll wander around the aquarium with Tomori, in the afternoon I'll go to Rising for a coffee and check in on Sakiko, and for the night shift I'll head next door to OnlyWines for a little drink and play the violin as a guest resident performer at the bar...
Eh? It seems every weekend before coming to Haneoka was spent just like this: wandering around in the morning, whiling away the time at Rising in the afternoon, and drinking and playing the violin at night.
Should I go visit Sakiko while she's working part-time on Sunday?
While his mind was wandering, Li Xiao suddenly called. The moment the connection went through, it was a string of highly excited gibberish: "Maya, Maya, Maya Maya!" followed by several more nonsensical "Mayas."
Whenever Li Xiao got excited, she would endlessly repeat some baseless interjection to indicate her immense excitement and shock.
"Stop squawking, beer hag, my ears are ringing. What on earth has you this worked up?"
"Maya, this Sakiko—Maya, I'm telling you..."
After listening to a long-winded explanation diluted with plenty of water, Miki Kashiwagi more or less understood: "You mean to say that Sakiko took the initiative to find you and said she wanted to be your resident performer to help you pull in customers?"
"Yeah! I'm telling you, Sakiko's keyboard skills are supe——r amazing, leaving the keyboardists I used to hire in the dust by miles. Anyway, you need to come over right now. Just listen to it and you'll understand."
"Big sis, it's the middle of the night. The trains have stopped running."
"Then I'll send you a video. Tomorrow you absolutely must find time to come over and witness it, and we'll have a hotpot by the way—no bailing out!"
The phone hung up. Soon, Li Xiao sent a video over via WeChat. Sakiko, wearing her Haneoka uniform, sat poised on a dimly lit stage, her ten fingers dancing lightly across the keys as wonderful notes poured forth, accompanied by the soothing performance of another saxophone player. As the piece concluded, the audience erupted into continuous applause.
Well, though it felt like the applause was more of an encouragement for Sakiko's debut performance—after all, she was still a bit rusty from lack of practice—at least it could be concluded that Sakiko was fully up to the standard of performing on stage.
How nostalgic. Back in his freshman year of university, in order to catch people's eyes at the school anniversary party, he practiced the keyboard frantically day and night for a full month, skipping most of his classes and barely sleeping. Yet the band blew up just the day before the show, leaving the Kashiwagi Mitsuki of that time with no choice but to beg the academy to change his act to a solo piano performance. When the piece ended, most of the audience was playing on their phones, and there was almost no applause. The moment his tears fell, his legs refused to obey him and bolted away.
That freshman year, a legend had circulated through the academy: there was a guy who ran away because he played the piano badly. He failed eight courses that year, and the members of the anime club bestowed upon him the nickname "Gender-bent Sakiko," which spread far and wide.
At the time, he didn't understand what it meant, but thinking back now, it was truly nostalgic.
"Ah, could it be that running away is the destiny of keyboardists?"
Looking at the focused and passionate gaze of Sakiko in the video, Miki Kashiwagi couldn't help sighing with emotion.