[Book of Eros] Chapter 43 - A group of delinquents. (Patreon)

Well, Leonardo figured if they tried anything, he could start running again. If there was a way for him to avoid a fight, it was better to take it. He stopped running, turning to look at the corner as the four guys tiredly approached him.

There was the first guy Angela beat up, the dude with the short black hair. Then there was the one with the bleached hair. Another one, the guy Leo remembered as the one using the chain, had a small scar across his left eyebrow he hadn’t noticed before. And finally, Leo’s eyes fell on the dude with the pompadour. Since all Leo ever did was lazily comb his hair every morning, he couldn’t imagine having to go through the trouble for a hairdo like that. All four of them looked out of breath, so it hadn’t been an act.

“Hello,” Leo waved at them without any particular expression on his face, wanting to show he wasn’t the least bit tired after all that. It worked, and the four guys looked at him with wide eyes.

“H-Hello,” though stiff and awkward, the guy with the pompadour bowed as politely as he could. “Y-You’re… Contreras Leonardo-san, right?” They knew him? Well, his name was probably going around school due to being the foreign student who hung out with Reiko and Angela, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

“That’s me,” he answered. “Keep sentences short, please. My Japanese is basic.”

Slowly, the pompadour-man nodded. “I’m M-Miura Suzuki. We…” he looked back at his friends and they all bowed deeply as they screamed in unison. “WE WANTED TO APOLOGIZE, SIR!”

Eh?

“WE’RE SORRY WE TRIED TO HARM YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS, SIR!” they said again. D-Did they practice this? Well, they seem honest about it, at the very least.

Leo didn’t quite remember how to say ‘forgive’ so he just nodded and said, “Sure. But not again.”

Their eyes wide and smiles on their faces, they bowed again, now saying “THANK YOU, SIR!”

What was with the ‘Sir’!? It was starting to get on his nerves. They obviously knew he was in school, so were they doing it to annoy him? Unlikely, but that was what was happening.

“We want to apologize to Straight-san, Contreras-Aniki!”

Aniki!? Didn’t that mean something like ‘big brother’ or something!? What’s going on here!?

“Uh… sure? I’ll tell her. You can apologize at school,” Leo told them.

“Thank you, Aniki!”

Something told Leo that he had taken a step inside wholly different world than his own, and he felt like a fish out of water. These four guys were suddenly treating him with… It WAS respect, right? Well, they probably had their own baggage to carry, so he decided not to let it bother him anymore. If it meant he didn’t have to worry about these guys, then he guessed it was welcomed. Pompadour-man’s name was Miura Suzuki, right? Or Suzuki Miura if he put it the western way. Leo made his way back home after making sure they weren’t following him anymore. Good thing it was resolved peacefully, but it seemed there was still so much about Japan he didn’t understand. That interaction was also more proof that his Japanese wasn’t as good as it should be if he couldn’t have a normal conversation.

When he arrived home, he took off his shoes at the entrance, announced his presence out loud and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. He heard heavy steps coming from the west wing. Angela slid open the door, and the sight made him actually drop the pan in his hands.

“Why are you so late? I’m starving!” she complained, but Leo didn’t give a damn about her tone.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, his voice shamefully cracking a bit at the end there.

“What?” Angela asked defensively, hands on her hips. She was wearing a sky-blue bikini. The fabric had a faint glitter to it, the top held her breasts and gave them a little push up to demand attention went to them, and a little spin she did let him see that the fabric of her bottoms didn’t completely cover her behind. It was a very simple, standard swimsuit that let Angela’s marvelous figure itself shine. But why on earth was she wearing that now? “Didn’t you get Reiko’s message?” she asked, tilting her head in adorably and totally fake innocent confusion that just looked eerie on her.

“Message?” he asked and took his hand to his pocket to get his phone. Indeed, there were a couple of unread messages from Reiko, sent at the same time he was running from the delinquents. He tapped the screen and read them.

‘Hello! Are you busy now?’

‘Why don’t we go to the beach tomorrow? It’s right next to us and the weather’s already too hot. I invited Angela as well and she agreed.’

The beach? They were in the middle of spring, but yes, the weather in this island was still pretty hot, and being around the Okinawa prefecture meant the waters were pretty warm, unlike the bone-chilling beaches of his home country. Add to that the blessing of seeing Angela and Reiko in swimsuits and Leo already found himself typing his agreement.

“We’re going to the beach tomorrow, then,” he nodded to himself. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re wearing a swimsuit now.”

“I needed to see if it still fit,” Angela said, fixing the straps of her top and the sides of her bottoms. “And like I thought, I haven’t gone up a single pound.”

“Good for you, now go get changed,” he told her.

“Why? You don’t like how I look?” she asked teasingly.

“The opposite. I like it too much. Now go change,” he said, trying to keep his tone aloof as he turned his back to her and started getting dinner ready. Man, that was a dangerous sight! A small tent was starting to gown in his pants, and images of Angela clouded his increasingly dirty mind. Pouting, Angela did as he asked. Preparing the food helped calm Leo down and the two ate dinner as usual.

“By the way,” he said after swallowing some rice. “I ran into your friends today.”

“Ah?” Angela raised an eyebrow. “I have no friends here other than you and Reiko. Not like I have a proper conversation with anyone else.”

“What about those delinquents you played with the other day?”

“Oh!” She narrowed her eyes, looking at Leo with worry. “Did they try something on you?”

“I thought that was what they wanted, but they actually wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?”

“Yep. They bowed and all. Seemed genuine to me. They want to apologize to you too, so I told them I’d pass on the message and that you might see them at school.”

“I see. Well, it’s not like I’m mad at them.” Angela shrugged. “They let me let off some steam, so I guess we’re even.”

Angela wasn’t particularly interested, so they left the matter at that. They hung out watching TV for a while more before they retired to their bedrooms. Once alone, Leo took out his phone and called his girlfriend, just like every night they didn’t see each other.

“Hello!” Reiko answered the phone after only a few beeps.

“Hey. How are you doing?”

“Well enough. I finished my assignments, so I can help you and Angela with yours on Monday.”

“What are you doing now? Drawing?”

“That’s what I’ll do after I finish what I’m actually doing now.”

“Which is?”

“Picking a swimsuit for tomorrow,” she answered with a lightly sultry tone. “Want to help me?”

“Ugh, that’s tempting,” Leo groaned. “I don’t know if I want to see it now or if I want it to be a surprise.”

“It’s not like I have that many swimsuit to choose from,” she laughed. “Just tell me one thing. Would you rather I wear a one piece or a bikini?”

“Uh… I think I want to see you in a bikini,” Leo admitted with a bit of shame.

“Figured,” she giggled. “Alright. I’ll hang up, but wait a second.”

Reiko hung up, leaving Leo kind of confused until his phone vibrated with a message from Reiko. There was a picture attached, one of his girlfriend with her phone in front of the mirror in her room, wearing a tight-fitting dark blue one piece that didn’t show any cleavage, but still managed to look really sexy on her.

‘This is what you’re missing *wink*,’ her message read. A few second later came another picture, this one a selfie of Reiko on her bed, completely naked as she played with one of her breasts and gave the camera a needy look. ‘And this one because I bet Angela showed off her swimsuit already.’

…It was like these girls could read each other perfectly. But the fact that neither of them got mad about it was, admittedly, very reassuring.

With a resigned sigh, Leo texted his girlfriend goodnight and unzipped his pants. Reiko couldn’t send him pictures like that and expect him to do nothing about it, right? Images of Angela in her own swimsuit mixed in as well, but he didn’t feel guilty about it anymore. In his mind, at least, he could indulge as much as he wanted.