"As a reward for finding your lost property, shouldn't you treat me to a drink?" Asakura said to her, his playful side taking over.

An "I don't want to" expression appeared very blatantly on the girl's face, but it quickly vanished, returning to that gloomy and depressed look.

"Is Hajime okay?" she asked in a small voice.

"Is that something you can drink?" Asakura was stunned-did she mean she was going to blend it into juice?

"Do... do you not like it? The honey specialty drink."

"Oh, a honey specialty drink... then never mind." Asakura snapped back to reality. "I mean, that's fine. I don't mind."

"Then..."

The girl turned and walked with small steps toward a milk tea shop nearby. Her voice was so low that Asakura didn't even hear clearly what she said afterward.

However, he still followed her closely.

It wasn't that Asakura had any designs on this girl who looked like a weak-willed version of Sadako; it was simply because when he was flipping through that stack of manuscripts earlier, he had seen another name on that page besides "Kasumi."

Pen Name: Kasumi

Name: Kasumigaoka Utaha

Asakura didn't know Kasumigaoka Utaha. If she had appeared ten days or half a month later, he might not have had any impression of the name, but the problem now was that Asakura had just heard this name from someone yesterday.

That's right, she was the girl whose personality had changed drastically, the one Eriri had specifically come to beg Asakura to help with exorcism (or something else).

From their meeting just now, Asakura found it hard to imagine that this weak-willed girl had been a willful and headstrong character not long ago.

Generally speaking, shouldn't a willful and headstrong young lady have blonde hair? Wait, thinking about it that way, Eriri herself actually fit that image perfectly...

Asakura shifted his gaze back to the girl's back. Aside from the fact that her hip shape was quite perfect—an "easy labor" type that was not inferior to Eriri's—he found nothing unusual at all.

There was no feeling of being cursed. Although she had magic power in her body, it was at most at the level of Kajiki. Similarly, there were no signs of magical rampages; everything looked completely normal.

At the milk tea shop, Kasumigaoka Utaha ordered a honey specialty drink for Asakura and a regular pearl milk tea for herself.

"Do you want to sit inside the shop?" Asakura asked her.

"No, no need." The girl shook her head frantically. This feeling made Asakura feel inexplicably nostalgic.

Then he realized where this sense of nostalgia came from—it felt similar to when he spent time with Hitori.

"Since we're not sitting inside, let's take the outdoor seating."

As he spoke, Asakura took the lead and sat in a seat under a parasol.

A flustered expression appeared on the girl's face that said, "My point was that I don't want to sit with a stranger!"

But just like Hitori, Kasumigaoka Utaha didn't seem good at refusing people. In the end, she had no choice but to sit opposite Asakura, silently sucking on her milk tea straw.

Unlike Hitori, however, Kasumigaoka Utaha still expressed her unhappiness to some extent—she sucked on the straw so hard it made a loud slurping sound.

How should he put it... it felt like the kind of situation that would make a boy with ulterior motives even more excited...

Asakura took a sip of the honey specialty drink first. He felt it was a bit too sweet, but it was quite good for soothing the throat. Then he spoke up: "So, your manuscript was rejected?"

"Pfft... cough cough!" The girl's reaction was so large it startled Asakura. He felt that if she used any more force, she might cough a pearl out of her nose. "Wh-why do you know?!"

"Whoa, how messy..." Asakura shifted his seat first to avoid the girl's spray of milk tea, then answered composedly: "Didn't you say it yourself? That the manuscript was toilet paper or something."

"You actually heard that!" The girl was so embarrassed she almost wanted to crawl under the table.

"My hearing is pretty good." Asakura dug at his ear. "So, what's the story?"

"...It has nothing to do with you, right?" the girl tried to resist.

"Actually, I'm quite curious about the light novel industry. If possible, I'd like to learn a thing or two from you." Asakura casually crushed the girl's resistance. "Surely you wouldn't refuse to help with such a small favor?"

"Ugh..."

Prompted by Asakura's words, the girl was like a white rabbit cornered in a wall. She could only nod unwillingly. "I... I understand... but don't have too many expectations... I'm just... a newcomer..."

"Then let's talk about the 'toilet paper' first."

Asakura then asked with satisfaction: "Did your manuscript not pass?"

"Machida... ah, she's my editor... she said the style of this volume is completely different from before..."

Kasumigaoka Utaha muttered to herself: "I just wanted it to be more lighthearted and pleasant..."

"Was your previous writing style not very lighthearted?" Asakura asked curiously.

"It... it was a youth romance story with a sli-i-ight bit of entanglement." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"..."

Although the girl didn't explain very clearly, Asakura could roughly guess what she used to write.

"If you don't mind, can you tell me the name of the light novel you wrote?"

"...'Koisuru Metronome'."

The girl hesitated for a moment, then answered in an extremely small voice.

"Wait for me here a moment."

Asakura left those words and hurried away, leaving Kasumigaoka Utaha staring blankly at the suddenly empty seat and the honey specialty drink that was barely touched.

The girl sat there struggling for a long time, not knowing if she should take this opportunity to slip away quietly.

Just as she was about 30% away from making up her mind, Asakura returned calmly.

First, he stuffed a box of cupcakes into Kasumigaoka Utaha's hands, signaling her to eat.

At the same time, he held a brand-new light novel that hadn't even had its plastic wrap removed.

The familiar cover made Kasumigaoka Utaha realize instantly that he had left just now to buy a copy of the light novel she wrote, making her feel embarrassed all over again.

Asakura didn't care whether she was embarrassed or not. He immediately tore open the packaging and began reading rapidly, scanning ten lines at a glance.

To be fair, Koisuru Metronome was written quite interestingly. The characterization of the main characters was on point, and the entanglements between the male and female leads could be seen as small flirtations between a couple. Unfortunately, the back-and-forth between the two made Asakura feel a bit tired.

As a romance novel, the plot of this book was barely passable. The writing and character building added points, making it about a 7.5 to 8 overall.

Next, Asakura took the kraft paper bag from the girl's hands (Kasumigaoka Utaha, who was eating cake and didn't react at all: "Abba abba?!") and took out the draft for the second volume inside, reading it just as rapidly.