After a few seconds or minutes, the superimposed shadows finally parted, and the moon, peeking out of the clouds, duly spread its light again on the river and among the trees, and illuminated the girl's face.

She quietly lowered her head and took a few steps back.

This reaction was somewhat unexpected by Li Wu.

"I thought Hikari was going to say something like a pact."

In order to break the somewhat stagnant atmosphere, he spoke.

“…… Don't say such embarrassing things now. ”

"You're embarrassed?"

Li Wu teased her, and then got his wish and took a head hammer.

On the branches of the moon, the birds return to their nests, and the light buries its head in the arms of its lovers to hide the uncommon shame.

After both of them returned to normal, she slowly left, and said in a muffled voice, "I want to go home." ”

"Then let's go home."

They did not go up the embankment again, but went straight along the river.

The light, which had just seemed weak, seemed to be short-lived, but soon she was back to normal, devoting herself to kicking every pebble she came across into the bubbling river to see how high the splash was.

Li Wu picked up a thin piece of stone, looked at the angle and threw it, letting it bounce and pick up thin white lines on the water surface at night.

She only had a few jumps before sinking to the bottom.

"Impossible, my twenty-degree perfect maneuver blow will actually lose to Xiao Wu!"

She screamed in disbelief as she saw her opponent screaming at the scene of the Seal God Draw.

"It's the body! This is the decisive performance gap in terms of the body of the stone! ”

Li Wu looked down at the loser under his command, "With this absolutely flat pebble, even the world record of 88 bounces born in 2013 can't stop me!" ”

"Damn...... The gap in stone is not the key to victory, and the rest is made up with technology and muzzle velocity! ”

She launched a challenge as she walked in search of new stone chips, and Li Wu naturally wanted to fight back, so the originally quiet riverside sounded like a cymbal drum tapping on the water.

“…… Why doesn't it feel like anything has changed? ”

As he spoke, he raised the stone in his hand and stopped in mid-air.

She tossed it aside: "I obviously signed a lover contract, but when I was with Xiao Wu, it still seemed to be the same as before." ”

"It's possible to change the way we get along with each other at once."

Li Wu scratched his face, "And, you see, it was impossible to do it before...... That kind of thing. ”

"Huh? Kissing? I've done it, sometimes at night. ”

"You say...... What?! ”

"Xiao Wu, don't react like the hero of the "Grim Reaper" series."

Hikari, who had an expression of "Oops, I missed my mouth", turned her head and tried to change the subject, but it was too late.

She honestly confessed the facts of her crime, and Li Wu also had a deeper understanding of her childhood sweetheart.

"Still, we're in this relationship anyway, so it's okay."

He made magnanimous rulings.

Hikari leaned over dissatisfied, lifted her shoulders and bumped him.

"What kind of relationship?"

"The relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend."

"Wrong."

The girl held out two fingers and put them in front of him, "It's the relationship between a boyfriend and two girlfriends." ”

"Or two girlfriends and boyfriends?"

When a person starts playing with words, it means that he has grown into a cunning adult.

Now, Li Wu, whose skin thickness has risen and the value of discipline has dropped sharply, has undoubtedly stepped on the ladder of adulthood.

"Hmph...... Did Xiao Wu tell Hoshikawa-san about what would happen tonight? ”

Hoshikawa Aoi rarely had the correct name in her mouth again.

"Tell me about it."

Li Wu has a weak heart.

He told her that he would not reject the confession of the light, but he didn't say exactly when he would accept it.

"Have you ever thought about what we're going to do when we meet in the future?"

Bare put his hands behind his back and walked towards the river, "Although it was agreed that we would not really get into a fight until we defeated Lilith and the other me, but after that, maybe we still can't tolerate the existence of the other party, who are you going to help at that time?" ”

She looked at it almost as if she was asking.

"When the time comes...... I'm going to have to stop you by knocking you both down. ”

"What an over-the-top answer."

"There's no way, I can only come up with such an excessive answer, at most let you fight back afterwards."

"Hoshikawa-san's absence now, even if he said that he would be on my side, it wouldn't be good."

"That's deceiving the light."

She took off her shoes and discharged them onto the riverbank, into the shallow water's edge.

The clear water waves do not contain the existence of lies, bringing a touch of coolness in the autumn night.

"If that car accident hadn't happened, I would have handed over the letter to Xiao Wu earlier before you met Hoshikawa-san, and only the two of us would climb the water tower again, go to the school we visited together, return to our secret base, and finally sign a lover contract...... Will it be any different now? ”

"Probably or maybe not, because that's a hypothesis after all."

Even the same interpersonal relationships can change drastically because of the different sequences.

Li Wu traced in his mind what the world given by the light would look like, but he couldn't tell if it would end differently from what he was now.

"Well, that's what I think, too. It's not even a new world line created by a time machine made out of a microwave oven, it's just my own imagination. ”

Hikari sighed and stared at the water reflecting her own reflection.

"However, I understand a little bit of her thoughts, if only I could fight against the world itself and let time start over."

"Because, obviously, I came first."

Li Wu didn't ask who she was talking about, he leaned over and picked up her shoes, and stretched out his hand to the girl standing in the water.

"Let's go."

Instead of grabbing his hand, she kicked a small splash.

"Look at the move!"

"The attacker will be in charge of washing the dishes tomorrow."

"Xiao Wu go wash it."

"Your mother won't let me."

"What if I went to your house to eat?"

"That's ......"

He paused for a moment and looked at him on the riverbank.

Li Wu asked rhetorically: "What's the matter?" As explained in advance, my cooking skills are definitely not as good as Aunt Yuko's. ”

She lifted her heels, took off her soaked white socks, curled them up in a ball, and threw them at him.

"Hey!"

"Hey, what are you doing while others are discussing dinner?!"

"There is one more round of ammunition ......"

"That's not ammunition at all!"

If you let them look at it in the past, they probably still think that the two still maintain the same relationship as in the past.

However, subtle changes have already taken place.

So, Rinko Hori clenched the hand of her childhood friend and headed in the direction of home.

(End of chapter)