Chapter 208: So Salty

In the end, Rinji never did find out where Shinomiya Gan'an was hiding.

But he hadn't planned to kill the clan leader anyway. Killing him would trigger a full reset of the family, and with the Shinomiya family deeply tied to Japan's economy, a major shift could spiral out of control.

He had made a deal with a banker named Katahara Metsudo—after the Shinomiya family was attacked, all subsidiaries in a stock crash would be scooped up by him, while IW would short the stocks in advance.

Rinji caused a massacre, but it was all within his calculated limits.

"What a shame, Shinomiya Gan'an. I couldn't give you a proper scare."

Rinji laughed, raised his hand, and made a gesture.

A Hellfire missile locked onto the wooden structure at the center of the estate and fired, its fiery trail blazing across the night sky.

BOOM!

The explosion engulfed the ancestral shrine, a historic centerpiece of the Shinomiya family.

"It's on fire!!"

"Put it out!"

"Wait—someone's still alive in there!"

After Rinji left, the survivors began scrambling to extinguish the fire, and others searched through the corpses for anyone who might still be alive.

Tonight was a nightmare for the entire Shinomiya family.

Hayasaka Ai was running through the estate's scorched grounds. She wanted to find Rinji. There was still something she had to tell him.

Servants rushed around her, handling the fire, treating the injured, and reaching out to members not present at the estate.

Hayasaka searched for Rinji in the chaos but saw only flames and blood-soaked guards.

"Rinji…"

She whispered through tears, staring at the living hell before her.

"That boy… was he the one you told me about, Rinji?"

"Mom…"

The woman resembling Hayasaka stepped forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. It was Hayasaka's mother.

"What a terrifying child. You seem to have gotten involved with someone truly dangerous. He's not the type you should be worrying about."

After this night, the main house's manpower had been halved.

"But thankfully, he didn't lay a finger on you. Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it out," Hayasaka's mother said, gently ruffling her hair. "He must still care about you."

She had just heard about Rinji from Hayasaka today, and all she'd sensed from her daughter's tone was guilt.

Hayasaka had wanted to protect Rinji from the Shinomiya family's meddling. But today, he'd been the one to reduce the entire family to chaos.

She never imagined that the sweet boy Hayasaka once described could do something like this.

"It's my fault… I didn't choose to trust him."

"Do you still love him?"

"…Yes."

Hayasaka nodded.

"Even after what he did today?"

"Yes. I love Rinji. No matter what he's like, I still love him."

"I see. Then it's your turn next," her mother said. "He already confessed to you once. Next time, you'll be the one confessing."

She didn't seem the least bit bothered by the Shinomiya family's devastation.

"If I get the chance…"

A firm light returned to Hayasaka's eyes.

"I'll tell him myself."

Nodding, her mother glanced around and spotted Shinomiya Kaguya still sitting in a daze.

She walked over and gently put a hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Kaguya, you must be terrified. Don't worry, the danger has passed. Let's get up and—"

Halfway through the sentence, she noticed Kaguya's expression.

The usual coldness on her face had twisted into a strange smirk, tinged with something hard to describe—excitement.

"Miss Kaguya?"

"I've found him…"

Kaguya said this with a chilling smile.

---

Rinji walked alone down a dark road illuminated only by streetlights, his face conflicted.

"I guess… Hayasaka probably hates me now. Makes sense… after seeing what I did today, who wouldn't?"

He let out a bitter laugh and kept walking. Behind him, the glow of fire was still faintly visible.

Her rejecting his confession hadn't hurt nearly as much as the idea that she now hated him. The girl who had been so kind when he first came to Japan—if she hated him, that's what hurt most.

"You're the one person I didn't want to hate me, Hayasaka."

Even knowing this, he still chose to do what he did.

Because that's who he really was. The version of himself who lived for love had been someone unfamiliar. He needed to return to his true self.

The mask—he had to be the one to rip it off.

"Love really is scary. Even someone like me—an irredeemable villain—got turned into a coward. How dangerous…"

Rinji muttered to himself as he looked up at the stars in the night sky.

"Love is boring. It messes with my mind. It wastes time… If I ever fall in love again, I'll only pick someone who accepts my darkness. Someone who'll confess to me first. I'm never confessing again."

It had only been a few months since he came to Japan, yet so much had happened.

He wore the mask of a good guy. Tried to live clean. Met Uncle Amano. Watched him kill himself. Fell in love. Got rejected. Tore the mask off with his own hands…

"Guess I won't be coming back to Japan."

He didn't know how far he'd walked, but he eventually reached a garden next to a 24-hour convenience store.

Remembering something, he entered the store and bought a red bean bun. Sitting on a bench, he unwrapped it.

"Thinking back, maybe if I'd told Uncle Amano I could take down the Shinomiya family, he wouldn't have ended his life. And Hayasaka… if only we had trusted each other a little more…"

He had no trust in others—just like how he was afraid others would hate him if he revealed his true self. Someone who always wore a mask could never earn anyone's trust.

"In any case, I'm finally back to who I am. I won't hide my dark side anymore. I hope someday I can find companions who truly trust me."

Rinji smiled happily and bit into the red bean bun.

"…So salty."