Divine Milking System-Chapter 112 | The Three Percent Shift

I woke up at 4:47 AM feeling like I’d slept twelve hours instead of five.

My eyes snapped open. No grogginess. No fog. Just clarity and energy humming through every muscle.

The Silver essence was doing its job.

I sat up and checked the system interface floating in the corner of my vision.

Lifespan: 8 Days 22 Hours

Points: 1,740

Level: 4

The numbers looked better than they had any right to. I’d started this week with seventy-two hours. Now I had over a week. Real breathing room.

My shoulder still ached from the Crawler bite, but the pain felt distant. Manageable. Like my body was processing recovery faster than normal.

I stood and stretched. My joints popped in four different places.

The uniform hung on my desk chair where I’d left it. I grabbed it and headed to the bathroom for a shower that would hopefully wake me up enough to handle whatever fresh hell Misato had planned.

When I stepped out twenty minutes later, towel around my waist, I heard movement in the living room.

Hikaru.

She stood near the door wearing full gym gear. Black compression shirt. Black shorts. Hair perfect. Posture military-straight. A gym bag slung over one shoulder.

Our eyes met.

Her face went from pale to bright red in under two seconds. The same nuclear-level blush from yesterday morning when she’d walked in on my post-sex celebration dance.

She remembered.

Everything.

Belle leaving at midnight. The sounds through the walls. All thirty minutes of it.

Hikaru grabbed the doorknob like she was about to bolt.

"Wait up."

She froze. Turned her head just slightly. Not fully facing me but acknowledging my existence.

Progress.

"You going to the gym?"

A pause.

Then a single word. "Yes."

"Mind if I tag along? Was heading there anyway."

Hikaru stared at me. Those red eyes boring straight through my skull like she was trying to determine whether this was some elaborate trap or if I was genuinely just asking to walk with her.

The silence stretched long enough that I started mentally preparing my exit strategy.

Then.

"Sure."

I blinked.

Had not expected that.

"Cool. Give me two minutes to get dressed."

I ducked back into my room before she could change her mind.

Threw on gym clothes. Black shorts. Grey shirt. Nothing fancy. Grabbed my student ID and phone.

When I emerged, Hikaru was still standing by the door. Hadn’t moved. Looked like a statue someone carved from ice and awkwardness.

We left the apartment together.

The hallway was empty at five in the morning. Our footsteps echoed off the walls. Neither of us spoke.

The elevator arrived with a soft ding.

We stepped inside.

The doors closed.

I hit the button for the ground floor and the elevator lurched downward.

Total silence except for the mechanical hum of the cables.

Hikaru stood on the opposite side of the elevator. Back straight. Eyes forward. Hands clasped in front of her like she was attending a funeral.

I needed to say something. Anything. This silence was suffocating.

"So. How’d your team do yesterday?"

Her eyes flicked toward me. Then away.

"Adequately."

One word answers. Classic Hikaru.

"Blair’s squad, right? Her, you, Javier, Dante Pope, Charles Leone."

"Yes."

"That’s. A lineup." I leaned against the elevator wall. "How’d you guys clear?"

"Forty-two minutes. Twenty-three cores. B-rank."

"Not bad for first go."

She said nothing.

The elevator continued descending.

I tried again.

"We got an A."

Her head turned. Not much. Just enough that I could see her profile in the dim elevator lighting.

"I’m aware."

"Yeah?"

"Everyone is aware." Her voice remained flat. "Your squad’s performance is being discussed in the group chats."

Interesting.

"People talking about it?"

"Extensively."

The elevator slowed. Stopped. The doors slid open onto the ground floor lobby. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Hikaru stepped out first.

I followed.

We walked through the empty common room toward the exit. Past the stupid fruit bowl I’d been missing for a week. Past the couches where nobody sat this early.

Outside, the California morning felt cool and clean. The kind of morning that made you forget gates existed for about ten seconds before reality kicked you in the teeth.

We headed toward Zone Four together.

The recreation center sat maybe ten minutes away. Hikaru moved with that same economical grace I’d noticed before. Every step exactly as long as it needed to be. No wasted movement.

I walked beside her. Tried not to look like I was struggling to keep pace.

Halfway there, Hikaru spoke unprompted.

"I see another one of your teammates came over last night."

I nearly tripped over my own feet.

Recovered.

Laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah. We did way better than we thought we would on that gate run. Wanted to celebrate the A-rank clear."

She glanced at me.

Those red eyes flickered with something I couldn’t name.

"Hopefully we weren’t too loud? I know the walls aren’t great."

Hikaru’s jaw tightened.

She looked forward again.

Continued walking.

"The walls are sufficient."

Translation: she’d heard everything.

Every.

Single.

Thing.

Belle screaming my name at three different volumes. The bed slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle picture frames. Me telling Belle she tasted perfect. Belle begging me not to stop.

All of it.

And Hikaru had been sitting in the living room on the other side of a single wall, listening to her lottery-kid roommate rail a classmate for half an hour while pretending to be asleep or studying or literally anything except acknowledging the pornographic symphony happening four meters away.

My face heated.

"Right. Well. Sorry if we disturbed your. Evening."

"You did not."

"Cool. Good."

We walked the rest of the way in silence.

The rec center loomed ahead. Glass walls. Modern architecture. Already glowing with interior lights despite the early hour.

We pushed through the entrance together.

The weight room sat to the right. Hikaru headed straight for it without breaking stride.

I followed.

The space was empty except for one guy doing deadlifts in the corner. He had earbuds in. Completely focused on his sets.

Hikaru dropped her bag near the free weight section. Started wrapping her hands with the kind of methodical care that suggested ritual.

I headed for the dumbbell rack.

Grabbed the twenties.

My stats had improved since Wednesday. Strength at D-rank now. Endurance solid. The weights that destroyed me five days ago felt manageable.

I started with curls. Ten reps. Fifteen. Twenty.

The pump felt good. Real. Like my body was finally catching up to where it needed to be.

Across the room, Hikaru moved to the pull-up bar.

Gripped it.

Executed a perfect pull-up. Full range of motion. Chin over the bar. Controlled descent.

Then another.

And another.

She made it look effortless.

I watched between my own sets. Couldn’t help it. The girl moved like water. Every rep identical to the last. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.

She dropped from the bar and landed lightly.

Caught me staring.

Our eyes met in the mirror.

For exactly one second.

Then I looked away first. Focused on my dumbbells. Pretended I’d been checking my form instead of admiring hers.

But in that one second.

Something shifted.

Hikaru’s baseline attraction had been zero percent when I checked it on Tuesday. Complete disinterest. Not even acknowledgment that I existed as a male in her proximity.

But now?

After walking to the gym together. After I’d actually tried having a conversation instead of ignoring her. After five days of us occupying the same space and me never once making her uncomfortable or pushing boundaries or treating her like anything except a roommate who preferred silence.

I pulled up Snake Eyes. Just for a second. Just to check.

◆ HIKARU TANAKA ◆

Bust: 36E

Rank: Gold

Attraction: 3%