Whenever Kaoru Hoshitani unintentionally recalled the heart-stopping scene from that time, he couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine, his fingertips turning slightly cold.
So, tonight, he was even more determined to pretend he hadn’t seen—or simply couldn’t understand—those attempts at communication in Rika Kawasaki’s meaningful glances.
Throughout the entire shift, he maintained a high level of vigilance.
At the slightest hint that she was about to approach, he would immediately find an excuse—delivering dishes, clearing tables, anything—to nimbly move elsewhere, avoiding her as much as possible and giving her no chance for a private conversation.
As time quietly slipped by and it neared ten o’clock in the evening, the peak flow of customers in the Restaurant had passed.
It was no longer as busy and noisy as before, and Kaoru Hoshitani could finally seize the moment to relax, letting his tightly wound nerves loosen for a brief respite.
After a hectic evening, most of the Napkins set out for customers in the Dining Area had been used up and needed replenishing.
Upon seeing this, Kaoru Hoshitani naturally took up the task, planning to go to the small room at the back that also served as the Warehouse to fetch a new supply.
He walked familiarly to the very back of the shop, to the dimly lit end of the Corridor, and stopped in front of the Old Wooden Door that served as the entrance to the Warehouse.
He reached out, grasped the groove by the side of the door, and gently slid it open. The hinges made a faint creaking sound.
Since this Warehouse was converted from an Old House, its design was rather antiquated, and the light switch was not set by the door like in modern buildings.
Kaoru Hoshitani was long accustomed to this.
He steadied himself against the cold, rough wall, squinting slightly in the half-darkness, using the faint light from the Corridor to carefully grope forward for a while.
His fingers soon touched that familiar, somewhat old Switch.
He gave the cord a gentle pull, and with a soft “click,” the low-wattage Light Bulb overhead flickered twice before settling into a steady, warm yellow glow that illuminated the entire small Warehouse.
However, just as he finished switching on the light and instinctively turned his head, preparing to head toward the shelf stacked with Napkins, his gaze was suddenly, unexpectedly, met head-on by a pair of gray eyes—made even more haunting in the dim light—locked tightly onto him.
The owner of those eyes had, at some unknown point, already entered the Warehouse without a sound, now standing so close to him…
—————
Ever since that day in the dim Warehouse alcove, when she had not only gotten a full, unfiltered view of Kaoru Hoshitani’s fair, supple body—like the finest white jade—but had almost greedily tasted the man’s soft, rosy lips, fragrant and sweet—
Rika Kawasaki felt that the primal desires and urges toward the opposite sex, suppressed by reason since puberty, had never surged as powerfully as they did now.
It was like a flood breaking its dam, threatening to wash away the barriers she’d built for years.
That fleeting, breathtaking vision, and the lingering, unique taste and feel of him between her lips and teeth, acted like the strongest catalyst, igniting a fire in her that simply couldn’t be extinguished.
She felt as though a persistent, scorching flame was burning deep in her belly, constantly grilling her senses and reason day and night, leaving her restless, irritable, and easily annoyed by everything she saw.
Naturally, Rika Kawasaki placed all this uncontrollable restlessness and yearning squarely on the “culprit” who had unwittingly lit the fuse—Kaoru Hoshitani.
Her gaze, thick with possessiveness, was like that of a beast locking onto its prey.
She wanted nothing more than to seize him, to hold him firmly within arm’s reach, to have him thoroughly “quench her thirst” and pacify this maddening flame that left her parched and feverish.
But what truly drove her up the wall—as if a cat’s claws were scratching her heart—was that this little man, this seemingly fragile, easy-to-catch thing, had not drawn closer after that unexpected encounter.
Instead, he kept dodging her with even greater care, like a startled rabbit, always plotting his escape!
Was it because of that Girlfriend of his, whom she found unremarkable, even somewhat of an eyesore?
This realization made her even more irked.
After all, Rika Kawasaki’s views on relationships and romance between men and women were mostly shaped by watching the brash, open-minded girls she knew on the street.
So, in her simple and direct worldview, stealing someone’s lover, relying on her own strength to snatch the man she wanted—none of that seemed like a shameful or immoral act.
In fact, it was a sign of Ability and a strong woman’s confidence.
Survival of the fittest is, after all, Nature’s Law.
Isn’t a man’s nature, just like animals in the wild, to naturally be drawn to the strong?
Faced with someone more outstanding, more powerful, shouldn’t he naturally leave his ordinary partner and embrace someone new, someone stronger?
Today, Rika Kawasaki had made up her mind to find the right moment to corner Kaoru Hoshitani in a quiet spot and have a candid “talk,” using a firm or perhaps seductive approach, to see exactly where he stood with her—would he resist, or… yield with only token reluctance?
But unexpectedly, this little man’s vigilance was even higher than she’d anticipated. His senses were especially sharp, and he avoided her with more determination than ever before.
Several times she tried to approach him, but he always slipped away under the pretense of serving food, cleaning tables, or restocking condiments, never letting her get even the corner of his sleeve.
This game of cat and mouse only fueled her temper further, like adding logs to a burning fire.
Yet in the busy Restaurant, with people coming and going, there was nothing she could do but grit her teeth in secret.
After ten o’clock, the izakaya’s peak hours finally passed.
Inside the Kitchen, where it was at least five or six degrees hotter than the main hall and stifling like a steam basket, Rika Kawasaki had spent several hours working non-stop.
Her thin black sports tank top and matching tight shorts had long been soaked through by sweat, clinging to her strong, sculpted body and darkening in color.
With a twist of the hem, she could easily wring out a thin stream of water, dripping onto the already greasy floor.
Sticky and uncomfortable all over, her sweat nearly glued her eyelids shut. She could no longer tolerate the discomfort of her drenched clothes.
Frowning, she strode into the relatively secluded room that doubled as a Warehouse, closed the door behind her, and prepared to quickly strip off her soaked clothes and change into the dry set she’d left here earlier.
But just as she efficiently peeled off her sweat-soaked clothes over her head and tossed them onto an Old Wooden Door, revealing her defined abs and damp skin, the Warehouse’s old, slightly loose door was suddenly “swish”—slid open from the outside.