“All right, all right, stop dragging it out. Get up quickly and let the Leader have a good look at you.”
The girl called Ahui wore a smile that was almost boastful yet deliberately ingratiating, completely ignoring the terrified and silently pleading eyes her boyfriend cast at her.
She roughly shoved the delicate, curled-up boy in her arms out, causing him to stagger and nearly lose his footing.
Ahui then firmly grasped his thin, trembling shoulders with both hands, almost forcing him to stand facing Kawasaki Rika’s sofa, exposed under the harsh living room ceiling light and before the curious and amused gazes of everyone around.
Then, as if displaying a rare treasure, Ahui bent slightly forward, her face adorned with an obvious flattering smile as she said to the languidly reclining Kawasaki Rika:
“Leader, with your status, you definitely can’t play with what the rest of us have used, right? That’s too dirty.”
She patted the boy’s stiff back, her tone carrying an unpleasant sense of “generosity”:
“Leader, look at this one. How about it? I haven’t touched him; he’s clean, still a virgin!”
The boy, whose appearance was indeed delicate and even retained a hint of childish innocence, was completely stunned by this sudden turn of events.
His originally clear eyes now widened, filled with shock and disbelief, his face instantly turning pale. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
He could never have imagined that the girl who had sweet-talked him just days ago, who was in the throes of a passionate romance, would now so ruthlessly discard him like an old piece of clothing and shove him into another woman’s arms—in such a humiliating way, no less.
In that instant, something he had carefully guarded in his heart—the pure and beautiful ideal of love—shattered with a cracking sound.
He was a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy whose most sincere and purest hopes and fantasies about love were mercilessly crushed by reality, leaving only cold despair and betrayal.
“Ugh…”
Overwhelmed by intense grievance, fear, and sadness, he finally broke down, letting out a low sob from his throat as crystal-clear tears uncontrollably spilled from his eyes and slid down his pale cheeks.
“Stop crying!”
Seeing this, Ahui’s face immediately fell; she felt humiliated in front of the Leader and the other girls.
She furrowed her brows, reached out, and twisted the boy’s arm hard, lowering her voice into a fierce threat:
“Hold those tears back! If you dare to spoil the Leader’s mood, just wait and see how I deal with you later!”
“Enough!”
Kawasaki Rika’s ears were filled with the annoying sounds of the boy’s crying and Ahui’s sharp scolding. A surge of nameless anger mixed with irritation flared up in her head.
She abruptly lifted her eyes; her gray pupils glinted coldly as her low, sharp voice cut through the noise with an undeniable authority.
The living room immediately fell into a deathly silence; even the music had quietly been turned off at some unknown time.
Rika’s piercing gaze swept over the trembling, tear-streaked boy, then coldly glanced at a nervously quiet Ahui before waving her hand impatiently, her tone carrying an unquestionable decree:
“Let him go.”
Her gaze then turned to the other girls present, her voice laced with a clear warning:
“Do whatever you want with men, I don’t care. But keep your methods clean—no force, no low tactics like Boys Forced Into Prostitution. I don’t want any trouble coming from this!”
The delicate boy, who had already sunk into despair thinking his fate was sealed, could hardly believe his ears when Kawasaki Rika actually said she was willing to let him leave.
He abruptly raised his tearful eyes to look at the woman, and a huge wave of relief swept through his cold limbs like a warm current, nearly making him collapse.
At that moment, looking at the athletic woman sitting on the sofa before him, his feelings subtly shifted.
Amid the chaos, fear, and fresh betrayal, her coldness—which was different from all the other gangsters he had met—carried a certain bottom line that evoked in him a strange mix of gratitude and curiosity.
There was no helping it; at that age, a boy’s heart was simply innocent and tinged with a certain “clear foolishness.”
They instinctively yearned for some dramatic, out-of-the-ordinary romantic fantasy and were easily attracted to figures with a streak of “bad boy,” “domineering,” or “redemptive” charisma—even if those figures lived in darkness.
At that moment, in this delicate boy’s simplified perspective, the story was rewoven:
It was Kawasaki Rika—the seemingly cold and ruthless gang leader—who had “rescued” him from the betrayal of his girlfriend and the humiliation he might have suffered.
Of course, it couldn’t be denied that this “rescuer” was also stunningly beautiful, her wild, untamed charm and powerful aura completely unlike the girls he usually encountered…
Kawasaki Rika, naturally, had no idea and couldn’t be bothered to guess what kind of “hero saves beauty” romantic drama this boy was now directing in his mind.
To her, the whole thing was just tedious and troublesome.
Just then, her phone buzzed inside her pocket, ringing with the ringtone she had set.
Without even looking at the boy, she stood up from the sofa, strode away from all the gazes, and walked into a relatively quiet room in the villa. She closed the door and pressed the answer button.
“Hello, Grandfather. What’s the matter?”
“Mm, understood. I’ll come help.”
“All right, I’m hanging up.”
The call was from Kawasaki Rika’s grandfather, who wanted her to come help out at the Restaurant in the evening if she had time.
Compared to her parents—who only provided money, had almost no emotional connection with her, and with whom she had a frosty relationship—Rika was quite close to her grandparents, who ran the small izakaya.
She usually wouldn’t refuse any request from them.
After hanging up, she gave a few more instructions, then grabbed her Helmet, opened the villa door, and stepped into the night.
The cool evening breeze immediately stirred the few strands of unruly blonde hair at her forehead.
She walked over to her sleek Heavy Motorcycle, swung her long legs over it, and skillfully sat down.
Just as she fastened her Helmet’s buckle, gripped the throttle with her right hand, and was about to roar away from this foul-smelling place, a hesitant, timid voice came from behind.
“Th-That… about what happened just now… I want to thank you…”
It was the delicate boy from before. He had just stepped out of the villa, his face still marked with wet tears and a pale, shaken look.
Seeing Kawasaki Rika preparing to leave, either mustering all his courage or driven by a newly kindled, unrealistic fantasy, he hurriedly caught up with her, trying to speak.
He stood a few steps away, nervously twisting the hem of his School Uniform, eyes full of a certain hopeful expectation.
But Kawasaki Rika only glanced back once before twisting the throttle.
The Heavy Motorcycle’s engine instantly roared to life.
She vanished into the night, leaving the boy in his School Uniform standing there, utterly at a loss.