Chương 176: 67.An Unexplainable Stirring 1

After Maki's single "make way" cut through that entire lineup of Kushima corporate faces outside the display center, I finally got to breathe something resembling human air again. Because that scene had been genuinely disgusting.

Kushima Land Holdings, Kushima Trading, Kushima-Rengo Bank, port authority liaisons, and a whole collection of suit-wearing creatures whose shoe polish alone indicated professional expertise in upward management—all lined up outside like high-grade predators that automatically gathered at the scent of power. Except their prey wasn't meat. It was favors, names, and visibility. And Maki had just stood in front of me and blocked all of it.

The thought made me uncomfortably warm, so I looked down at the delivery paperwork in my hands and pretended to be deeply invested in warranty terms.

"So," I said as we walked, clearing my throat.

"What now?" Maki didn't look at me.

"Leave here."

"I figured that part. I meant where are we going next?" She paused briefly and glanced over.

"Do you want to go to the port district?" She asked it casually. I still felt like someone who'd been caught with a secret itinerary already sketched out in my head.

"... It's not like I have to go right this second."

"Then we don't go."

"Wait—""See the Snowwind after you actually have the bike," she said evenly.

"Going today leaves the sequence incomplete." I stared at her for two seconds, nearly laughing.

"Sequence incomplete is what kind of excuse?"

"Not an excuse. A fact." She delivered this with the composure of someone issuing regulatory amendments.

"Today was only placing the order. That doesn't count as operational deployment. Once delivery happens, arranging test the bike, see the ship, and mountain route on the way back as a complete itinerary would be more like a proper—" She stopped. I jumped in immediately.

"More like a proper what?" Maki gave me a perfectly flat look.

"... An efficient outing." I nearly died on the spot. An efficient outing. Right. In Maki's personal dictionary, even if two people spent an entire afternoon alone together, as long as the schedule was organized enough, it could still be filed under productivity management.

"Fine." I suppressed everything and nodded with complete seriousness.

"Then, Kushima, where does this highly efficient outing go next?" This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Half a second of silence.

"Helmet first."

"... Oh."

"Also gloves, a lock, rain gear, and a basic maintenance kit."

"Wait—did you already plan out the next five years of my life around this bike?"

"Not five years," she said.

"Three months to start." Brutally honest. Sometimes I wished she'd soften things slightly, just to make deflection easier. But I followed her anyway. The commercial district along East Port was livelier than I'd expected. Proximity to logistics and port operations had attracted not just showrooms and service centers, but a cluster of vehicle accessory shops, outdoor gear stores, a few chain restaurants, and a retail strip that seemed engineered to convert just browsing into somehow carrying multiple bags home.

I looked at the row of signs.

"So what are we now?"

"Post-purchase preparation."

"That sounds like pre-departure logistics for a family trip."

"Your associations are dangerous."

"Your planning is dangerous." Maki ignored me and walked into the first gear shop. The moment we stepped inside, it was obvious she was here to accomplish something. She wasn't the type to say this color is nice or that design is cute. She went straight to materials, then specifications, then construction quality—aesthetics got consideration last, and grudgingly.

"Not this one." She picked up a grey-black full-face helmet, examined it briefly, and set it back.

"Interior padding is too soft. Comfortable initially, but it'll collapse with extended use."

"You've worn it before?"

"I can tell."

"So today I'm not accompanied by a person—I'm accompanied by a walking Kushima Technical Research quality assurance module." She glanced at me.

"If you'd prefer to personally test inadequate impact protection with your own skull, that's also an option."

"... I'll be quiet." The next half hour became: Maki picks something up. Maki analyzes. I nod. I try it on. Maki frowns. Maki says no. I try the next one. The process had the rigor of a pilot equipment compatibility assessment. The problem was that I'd started out just finding it annoying, but somewhere in the middle of being annoyed, I'd slowly realized: this level of attention wasn't normal.

Nobody goes this deep for helping a friend pick riding gear—down to helmet weight distribution, visor light transmission, and glove finger joint mobility—unless they genuinely care. A lot. Or worse: unless they haven't noticed how much they care. I was standing in front of the mirror wearing the third helmet, checking whether I looked like a law-abiding citizen or someone about to commit a tasteful crime, when Maki reached over from the side and tightened the chin strap one notch.

Her movement was gentle, but the proximity was not. Close enough that I could see the curve of her lowered lashes and the way her mouth had gone slightly firm with concentration.

"Too loose," she said.

"... Oh."

"Any hard braking and there'll be significant movement."

"... Right."

"Are you listening?"

"Yes." I wasn't, really. My entire attention had been hijacked by the moment her fingers brushed the side of my jaw. Damn her. She finished the adjustment, stepped back half a pace, and looked at me in the mirror for two seconds. Final assessment.

"This one works."

"You sound like you're running an approval process."

"Because you are going through an approval process."

"Whose?" Maki said, without hesitation: "Mine." I nearly died on the spot, helmet and all. Right. This was no longer ordinary dangerous. This was the advanced variety where she probably hadn't registered what she'd just said, leaving me to manage the resulting cardiovascular crisis alone. We walked out with a matte dark grey full-face helmet, black gloves, a basic maintenance kit, and a rain shell she insisted I'd thank her for eventually. I looked at the growing collection of bags in my hands.

"Maki."

"Mm?"

"Have you noticed that we currently look like..."

"Like what?"

"Like people pre-equipping for some kind of shared living situation." Her steps faltered slightly. Then, with complete composure: "Your metaphor skills are occasionally quite poor." I laughed.

"So not because I'm wrong—because I'm too accurate?" The tips of her ears went visibly pink, and she walked faster. Good. Another point in today's running tally.