Playing Pranks

With Shirona Yui now thoroughly terrified out of her mind, practically questioning her life choices up until this point, Wang Xu allowed his predatory-like stare to fade away, relieving the pressure that was weighing down on the clueless Department Head. With the removal of the pressure on her, Shirona Yui slowly awoke from that spiral of negative thoughts going on in her mind.

After a few minutes of sobering up, she was now able to work up the courage to stare at the man sitting across from her. In her eyes, all she was was a simple man who was now emptying the remainder of the contents within the glass from earlier. In her mind, however, the image of a beast kept forming and dissipating as she stared at Wang Xu.

Ignoring the current expression on her face, Wang Xu spoke up with a light tone in his voice, "Now that you have confirmed your thoughts, what plans do you have now, Department Head Shirona?"

This was the second time that Wang Xu was asking this question but unlike earlier where he decided to play a prank(*) on her just as she was ready to answer, this time he allowed her thoughts to remain clear as he stared into her eyes. From his perspective, the glasses did great in highlighting her hazel eyes.

Slightly traumatized by the previous prank, this time Shirona Yui took her time in coming up with an answer. A few minutes had passed in silence as she took her time to gather her thoughts while Wang Xu patiently waited.

By the time she had finalized her thoughts on the matter, roughly fifteen minutes had passed in silence between the two. With resolution visible in her eyes and her back now straightened, which prompted a certain two orbs to jiggle slightly in response, Shirona Yui spoke up in a half steady, half cracking voice, "I would like to know how you were able to pull that trick off and if you were willing to teach me how to do the same. At least, that was what I had intended in the beginning. Right now, I'll be satisfied just being able to leave here in one piece."

The longer Shirona Yui spoke, the steadier her voice got. Conversely, her words grew quieter as well. Near the end, Wang Xu almost had to strain his ears to hear what was said. Regardless, after she finished speaking, while Shirona Yui was now staring at the table before her, a smile formed on Wang Xu's face.

After wrapping his knuckles a bit on the table to get her attention, Wang Xu spoke up with a casual tone, "I don't mind answering your questions since there isn't really much to tell. As for you being able to leave in one piece, what made you think I would have done anything to suggest otherwise?" There was a somewhat innocent expression on his face as he said that last part.

Maybe it was the casual tone in Wang Xu's voice or the fact that he said he would answer her questions that prompted relief to wash over Shirona Yui. All of this vanished and her mind went blank after she looked up and saw that 'innocent' expression on his face and heard his last sentence.

Now, this is usually the part where a man who's seen enough 'cultured' literature to know that he should either run or do his best to adopt a defensive stance. Since Wang Xu is an old man in a young adult's body who originated from another planet and has been occupied by various things after waking up here, he hasn't had the time to go over said literature. At the very least, he hasn't gone over that literature unique to his current surroundings.

That being said, the moment he saw Shirona Yui stand up from her chair, something went off in his mind. It's not the alarm bells that usually trigger whenever his life is in danger but something triggered alarms in his mind. Looking at her current expression and going over the experiences of both his and the original Wang Xu's, a certain theory jumped out and gave him an answer to his current situation.

This answer, however, made Wang Xu visibly pale. This paleness grew even more pronounced when he saw that Shirona Yui was now moving exactly as he predicted, prompting Wang Xu to immediately abandon his seat and slowly back away from her.

"Calm down, Department Head Shirona. We can talk about this."

Sadly, the woman was not listening to anything he had to say at the moment and Wang Xu was running out of room to back away. As if on cue, the moment Wang Xu's back touched the wall, Shirona Yui immediately pounced.

Wang Xu dodged and rolled on instinct, only to immediately whip his head around in time to see Shirona Yui use the wall as a springboard to pounce on him once more. This time, however, Wang Xu did not attempt to dodge as he watched Shirona Yui's figure get closer to him, as if in slow motion.

While Wang Xu could easily dodge her with barely any effort on his part, he had a few reasons to avoid such an action. The first being that she probably wouldn't stop pouncing at him until she got tired, or until he forcefully pin her down and he got the feeling that such actions would make this situation worse. The second reason was that he felt slightly guilty about pranking her as that was technically what led to this reaction.

As for the third reason, and probably the most important one for Wang Xu himself, the bespectacled lady exuded a certain charm in her current state. With all these thoughts in mind, Wang Xu allowed Shirona Yui to pounce on him, resulting in a crashing sound going off in the private booth.

While the majority of the sound had stayed within the private booth, a part of the sound had traveled just beyond the door.

Inside the private booth, Wang Xu was currently on the floor, next to a chair. As for Shirona Yui, she was currently straddling him at the waist, throwing punches at Wang Xu's torso. These punches, however, were so light that Wang Xu just ignored them as he took in the bespectacled lady currently on him.

This continued for a few moments until the duo's waiter entered the room with their bill for the evening. As soon as the waiter entered, what appeared in his eyes was Wang Xu being pinned down on the floor with Shirona Yui on top of him. Of course, since the door to the booth was facing Shirona Yui's back, the waiter wasn't privy to seeing Wang Xu getting beat up, and his mind just filled in the rest of the missing information.

Wang Xu had noticed the waiter just as he was ready to open the door so he wasn't all that surprised at the waiter's entrance. As for Shirona Yui, it took her a few seconds to process the current series of events. By the end of this, her face now sported a deep blush but she made no motion of getting off. As for Wang Xu, he was enjoying the view before him with a wry smile on his face.

The waiter coughed a few times, looking at the duo on the floor before him before he spoke up, "My apologies for disturbing you. I'll give you a minute or two to make yourselves presentable." Following this, the waiter left the room and swiftly closed the door, as if embarrassed at interrupting the couple mid-action.

After the waiter left and the duo was now alone, they spent a few moments in silence before Wang Xu started chuckling. This chuckle turned into hushed laughter as Shirona Yui started hitting him with soft punches. While dishing out these soft punches, there was a light blush on her face.

Eventually, Shirona Yui got off of Wang Xu and allowed him to get up. Wang Xu was still chuckling, which made it hard for her to calm down. The chuckling eventually died down and was replaced with a simple smile. Seeing this, Shirona Yui also managed to calm down as both returned to their respective seats.

At this point in time, the door to the private booth was opened once more with the waiter walking inside. There was a peculiar expression on the waiter's face, which Wang Xu ignored as he maintained his usual smile while a light blush threatened to return to Shirona Yui's face.

With everyone now looking good and proper, the waiter walked up to the table and spoke, "Ahem. Here is the bill for this evening's dinner. Would you two like anything else, dear customers?" The waiter placed the bill on the table as he said this, looking at the duo with the same peculiar expression.

"No, thank you. This will be all." Shirona Yui had noticed that Wang Xu was about to say something so she spoke up quickly. This was further exasperated by the fact that there was an amused expression on his face.

After taking up the bill, Shirona Yui quickly stood up and gathered her things before leaving the private booth. She was heading towards the restaurant's payment area with brisk steps. Whether or not this was due to embarrassment or due to fear of what Wang Xu was going to do, no one but her would be able to answer that question at the moment.

As for Wang Xu, he just grabbed his own gear and walked out of the private room after bidding farewell to the waiter. Just as he made it to the door, Wang Xu heard a voice behind him, "My apologies once more for earlier, dear customer. Although these private booths weren't made for such purposes, I can provide you with a few recommendations in case you are interested."

These words made Wang Xu pause for a moment before shaking his head. He continued to walk away as he waved his hand back at the waiter as he spoke, "No worries. It was just a misunderstanding due to a prank gone wrong."

Having said his piece, Wang Xu left the area, leaving a slightly confused waiter behind. Since he never bothered to give the waiter any more details, whether or not the waiter decided to believe or if he truly figured out what happened no longer had anything to do with Wang Xu.

*******

Wang Xu and Shirona Yui were currently sitting next to each other on the subway train going home. Since she didn't react when he just sat next to her, Wang Xu no longer paid any attention to her on that matter. Instead, right now he was currently observing the other persons within the train car.

Going back ten minutes earlier when the duo had left the somewhat fancy restaurant, Wang Xu had noticed that both he and Shirona Yui were being watched. As someone who's very sensitive to the gazes of others, especially those filled with bad intentions, Wang Xu noticed those gazes as soon as they landed on him.

Unfortunately, due to the number of people in the area at the time, he was unable to pinpoint the owners of those stares so he could only keep his guard up while pretending to be ignorant of those gazes. It was only when the duo had gotten on the subway that he was able to single out those individuals. Besides that, he was also able to notice that although those gazes were aimed in his direction, the hostility within them spiked whenever they landed on the bespectacled lady beside him.

That had admittedly confused Wang Xu for a moment or two before he just shrugged it off. Regardless of whether their hostility was mainly aimed at Shirona Yui or not, just the fact that such gazes had landed on him warrants a bit of punishment and he's not one to shy away from dealing out punishments.