Chapter 053 Chapter 53

Shinro Okita asked Hideto Aburano, "What happened to you after you separated from us?"

Aburano Hideto's expression changed into one of fear. Even though the person asking the question was several years younger than him, Aburano Hideto didn't dare to look him in the eye. His eyes were evasive and he looked at the ground.

Those are not good memories, but they are also not something I can talk about.

Saito was instantly annoyed. He didn't have the patience of Okita Shinro, so he grabbed Aburano Hideto by the collar and said, "Hey, tell me the truth, this concerns all of our lives!"

This place is very strange. If you are not careful, you may not survive until tomorrow.

"I..." Yuuno Hideto's lips trembled. He turned his head to the side and saw Yanagida Maiko. The thin and short girl was looking at him pleadingly, hoping that he could provide the information he knew.

Perhaps it was the expectant look of the little girl that gave him courage. This office worker, who had been timid from beginning to end, finally plucked up the courage and told them what happened after he separated from them.

I didn't know how I escaped to the fried food shop, I met a man who claimed that he also entered the town from Kisaragi Station, I knew that if I ordered at this shop, I had to bring my own 'ingredients', and I was allowed to 'treat'.

At this point, Aburano Hideto hesitated for a moment, but still managed to counterattack the opponent and then run away.

"I didn't stab him in the vitals, I just wanted to escape! He was the one who betrayed me first!" Aburano Hideto kept emphasizing, and it was unclear whether he was trying to convince the people in front of him or to convince himself and justify his actions.

"I know." Okita Shinro comforted him, "You did nothing wrong."

If it were him, he wouldn't be as panicked as Aburano Hideto, but he would definitely make the same choice.

After all, it was the other party who started the fight first, wasn't it?

After getting recognition from others, Hideto Aburano's face looked much more relaxed, and he told others what happened to him afterwards.

After escaping from the fried food shop, the owner of the fried food shop did not chase him, nor did he see the man running out. At that time, Aburano Hideto knew that the man was caught by the owner of the fried food shop and was being used to cook ingredients. Because he was afraid of being caught and forced to eat food fried with the man's flesh, Aburano Hideto did not dare to stop. He could not tell the direction, so he could only try to stay away from the fried food shop.

Then halfway, he saw someone who looked exactly like him.

That was his doppelganger, another Aburano Hideto.

Hideto Aburano knows the urban legend of the doppelganger. It is said that after the doppelganger sees the existence of the original body, it will do whatever it takes to wipe out the original body and replace it.

The moment he saw the other person, Aburano Hideto was so frightened that his mind went blank, but the man didn't seem to see him at all, he just passed by. So Aburano Hideto immediately hid behind a floor-standing sign on the roadside, carefully hiding himself there.

He didn't even dare to breathe, he curled up into a ball, hiding behind a sign holding his briefcase, his eyes full of fear.

The man was wearing a suit and leather shoes like himself, and the sound of the hard soles of his shoes hitting the ground was very obvious.

Tick, tick, tick.

The sound was getting closer.

If you pass by the sign and look to the left, you can see Aburano Hideto.

But apart from here, there is no other place to hide, unless... enter the store.

Having just experienced that, Hideto Aburano didn't dare to enter any store and could only hope that the footsteps would not come closer.

He was lucky, just as the footsteps were about to approach Aburano Hideto, the doppelganger seemed to have discovered something and stopped. Then he turned around, and the footsteps gradually faded away and disappeared.

Hideto Aburano hid behind the sign for a long time, not daring to turn his head, for fear that if he turned his head he would see a face exactly like his own, and then the other person would say: I found you.

So Aburano Hideto closed his eyes, and both his posture and mentality looked like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

But when an ostrich buries its head in the sand, it is actually swallowing sand and stones to aid digestion. If it encounters real danger, it will still run away. Aburano Hideto's way of escaping by praying to God for help is not even as good as that of an ostrich.

Fortunately, he was very lucky and nothing happened in the end. When Hideto Aburano saw that there was no one around and he didn't see another version of himself, he stood up and prepared to leave. Before he walked far, he saw Okita Shinro and the others.

After hearing this, Saito Shun couldn't help but admire the other party's luck.

Whether it was entering a fried food shop or encountering a doppelganger, both were extremely dangerous places. Most people would be doomed if they encountered them, but this person was able to escape all the way to the present.

But it was not intact, there were still wounds on Hideto Aburano's arm.

Maiko Yanagida and Shinro Okita helped to tear open his suit sleeve, revealing the vicious wound, which looked very long but not deep, and did not bleed much. Maiko Yanagida then tore off the lower half of the suit sleeve, cut the slit into thin strips with a pair of fingernail scissors, and hastily bandaged Aburano Hideto.

"This suit costs 20,000 yen..." said Aburano Hideto with a tearful face.

Maiko Yanagida had a displeased look on her face as she tore off the sleeves of her suit. She put a little force into her hands as she bandaged and buttoned it: "It's useless now that it's so tattered! I'll just throw it away when I get back alive."

Aburano Hideto twitched in pain and cried.

Saito Shun looked at his scratched trouser legs and asked, "How much is this pair of dress pants?"

"Ah? The suit and the top together cost 20,000." said Hideto Aburano.

Saito Shun: "It's not worth the money at all."

Twenty thousand yen is not much, right? After all, I bought a suit.

This is the basic price. If you want something lower, you may have to go to the discount area.

"You bunch of college students have no idea about the hardships of working people." Yuno Hideto muttered in a low voice.

Although he is a college student, Saito Shun has been working part-time and renting his own house: ...

This matter has nothing to do with college students, it has more to do with family background.

"Okay, stop dawdling, we should get going." Saito Shun looked around, "Although this street is bright, it's too deserted, and I always feel like there's a cool breeze blowing from somewhere."

After he said this, the other people also felt a chill.

"Well, let's go."

"Oh, right." Yanagida Maiko suddenly remembered something, "That Aburano Hideto is a doppelganger, so when he offers to leave here, can we still believe him?"

Everyone else was silent, and finally Okita Shinro said, "Let's give it a try."

Okita Shinro believes that it is feasible to wait for the next train to arrive at Kisaragi Station and then take the train to leave. Of course, whether it will work or not can only be tried.

There was nothing else they could do.

Are you really going to fight with monsters?

Among all the urban legends circulating in Japan, there is not a single one in which humans bravely work hard to resolve the bizarre ending.

The ending where good triumphs over evil usually occurs in fairy tales.

This is reality, and they are not the Mario brothers in the game who have so many lives to try and make mistakes.

The only thing to do now is to believe.

The group continued walking along the street. Fearing they would fall into a dead loop again, Saito Shun and the others paid special attention to the characteristics of the shops on both sides. Aburano Hideto didn't know what the dead loop was. He was just afraid of meeting the owner of the fried food shop or other doppelgangers again, so he kept his eyes on other places.

Green lanterns were swaying on the door frame. When he thought about what the green lights represented, Aburano Hideto was filled with fear from the bottom of his heart. He felt that even if he returned to the real world, he would not dare to enter the shops with green lanterns, even if they were legitimate izakayas that used local ingredients.

Coincidentally, as soon as I thought of izakaya, I saw the facade of an izakaya in front of me. The dirty half curtain fluttered in the wind, revealing the layout of the store. There was only one person sitting in front of the long bar, a man in a dark suit.

Seeing the suit, Aburano Hideto subconsciously took a step back, and then realized that the suit the other person was wearing was different from his own, and it was not his doppelganger.

At first glance, you can tell that the suit is high-end. Both the cut and the fabric are several levels better than the one he's wearing.

"At least 100,000 yen or more..." Aburano Hideto muttered to himself.

As an office worker in Japan, it is basic skill to judge a person's wealth by the suit he wears.

Okita Shinro and his companions also saw the customer in the izakaya. The man was facing the bar with his back to the door. Since we couldn't see his front, we didn't know what he looked like or what his expression was, but from his posture we could tell that he was very relaxed.

This is a guest, but I don’t know what kind of guest he is, or... whether he is a human.

Since Okita Shinro and his companions had chosen to go the other way, they would not go up and ask for trouble. They walked straight ahead after passing the izakaya, and then... returned to the door of the izakaya.

Maiko Yanagida's face turned pale all of a sudden, and she grabbed the corner of Shinro Okita's clothes, as if this could give her courage.

"...Change direction." Okita Shinro said in a low voice.

They turned around and after a few steps they were back in front of the pub.

Now even Okita Shinro's expression became very ugly.

Saito Shun lowered his head and said sadly: "Does this mean we have to go into the store?"

There are only two shops on both sides of the street. The one on the right is an izakaya with customers, and the one on the left looks like a drugstore.

The door of the drugstore was closed but not locked, but there was almost no light inside, except for the green lantern hanging on the door that emitted a faint glow.

So does this mean that you have to bring your own materials when you go to the pharmacy?

Which part of the human body can be used as medicine? Is it the kidney?

When thinking of this, Saito Shun felt uncomfortable. He pointed at the pub and said to Okita Shinro, "Let's go in and take a look?"

Okita Shinro thought about it, nodded, and then said to Yanagida Maiko and Aburano Hideto: "Let's go in, you wait outside."

Aburano Hideto nodded repeatedly. After his previous experience, he would never go into such a store again.

Maiko Yanagida showed a worried expression on her face, but said nothing and just nodded.

Okita Shinro took a deep breath, and walked into the store one after another with Saito Shun.

The interior of the izakaya is very clean. There is a bar at the front and two small square tables against the wall inside the store. Behind the bar is a cooking table where you can see the entire process of the chef cooking.

The chef was an old woman with a kind smile on her face, grilling skewers of meat.

"Welcome."

After Okita Shinro and others came in, the old woman said something without raising her head.

Okita Shinro and Saito Shun stared at the old woman and the guests respectively, and then chose a square table a little further away from them.

"You can't drink wine sitting there." Bai Yixin, who was standing at the bar, spoke. He held a small wine glass in his hand and shook it at the two of them. "It tastes good. Do you want to try it?"