Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 24

Movie

Morning.

In front of the supermarket, there was a man wearing suit even though  it was holiday. He was walking toward the station at a quick pace.

A truck stopped on the road. Cardboard boxes were being piled up in front of the supermarket.

The surrounding was a residential area, but the number of passerby was fewer than the weekdays, perhaps because it was Sunday.

Sometimes there was car filled with family passing by in front of the supermarket. Seeing that made Akito thought.

(Are they going on a trip to have fun as family?)

He was carrying the cardboard boxes into the supermarket and placed them in the back.

Yakumo was checking the goods together with the fulltime employee Kurita.

「……Kurita-san, do we really need so many of this?」

「Eh? Is there a mistake somewhere?」

They were checking the boxes that were brought in, but it seemed that Kurita was making a blunder with the order.

「No, it’s much more than usual, this one is fewer than usual. Did their number get swapped with each other?」

It seemed to be a small mistake but Kurita laughed it off.

「That’s not a problem. More importantly, you can take a rest at the  back office after we finished. No customer will come this early in the  morning anyway.」

Akito thought.

(Is it okay for a fulltimer to say something like that?)

It seemed Yakumo was also exasperated by Kurita’s attitude. She  checked the other items, then talked to the male driver who had finished  unloading the order.

The driver also seemed to prefer to talk to Yakumo even though she  was just a part-timer. He might have reservations with Kurita.

After that the truck left the front of the supermarket. All the boxes had also been placed in the back, so Akito stretched.

「Thanks for the hard work. Now let’s put the items on the shelves. We’re going to get busy after this.」

This was Akito’s first time working first thing in the morning. He  followed Yakumo’s instruction and refilled the shelves with products.

「It feels like your atmosphere is different from usual senpai.」

Akito entered inside the supermarket together with Yakumo and brought that up. She agreed with him.

She was unusually smiling.

「I guess. I felt a bit irritated but, I have a good mood somehow. Ah, Kurita-san――」

Yakumo was familiar with the work. She was working even more than the full-timer.

(Amazing. I don’t know which one is actually the full-timer.)

Akito watched Yakumo giving instruction to Kurita while checking the shelves and refilling them.

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Noon.

The two took a break at the back. They were eating lunch.

Akito bought bento and tea that were sold in the supermarket for his lunch, but Yakumo seemed to bring handmade food.

She had prepared sandwiches. Akito thought that it was really girly of her.

(Sandwich……I just overeat them.)

He recalled the mountain of sandwich that he ate in the game world.

The full-timer Kurita was out at the store while the two part-timers  were having lunch break. Yakumo who kept getting pestered by Kurita  during the work and also during the break finally looked relieved here.

「Haa, so tiresome. Why do I have to be tired like this from keeping the full-timer company.」

Akito also smiled wryly.

「He really took a liking with Senpai. Well, my condolence for that.」

Yakumo glared at Akito.

「Take my place if you feel condolence like that. No, as I thought  it’s alright. When I imagined Naruse and Kurita flirting here……」

She made a really disgusted face, but Akito also looked the same.

「What are you imagining? Spare me from the image.」

As the two had friendly chat, the small monitor that was placed at the back was playing the afternoon news.

『This week I come to a spot that is popular among the youths!』

In the news, the presenter was doing a corner that introduced shops by ranking in a place that was aimed at the youths.

Yakumo casually watched the news, but then she suddenly stood up.

「Wait!」

「W-what is it!?」

Akito was surprised by the abrupt change in Yakumo’s expression. He  was so surprised he almost dropped the trash that he had cleaned up  after he finished eating.

When he looked at the monitor, there was a group waving their hand toward the television…….

「……Ah, those two」

Looking there, their looks were a lot different but, they were the  two girls who were the cause of Akito and Yakumo needing to work at  their day off like this. They were being caught in television together  with their friends and boys.

『Where did everyone come from? ――Eh? That’s really far away. That’s just show how popular this place is!』

The female reporter said that and pointed her mike to the problematic girl.

Yakumo quietly prepared to record the news. She was fully intending to record the evidence.

『Do you have fun today?』

『It’s lotsa’ fun~. Actually I should be working part-time right now,  but I pushed it off to this coworker who I don’t like, it’s the bee~st!』

The girls were making noises *kyapi kyapi* cheerfully. The boys who  were with them were laughing together while saying things like 「You two  are pretty horrible」.

The female reporter smiled wryly.

『I-I wonder about that? But, I can see just how much fun you all are  having. That’s the end of my reporting. Everyone in the studio, you  should try coming here――』

The news ended. Yakumo operated the monitor and checked the recording.

『Do you have fun today?』

『It’s lotsa’ fun~. Actually I should be working part-time right now,  but I pushed it off to this coworker who I don’t like, it’s the bee~st!』

Akito was watching Yakumo from behind without saying anything.

「Yosh. They won’t be able to make any excuse now. Well, I also recorded it in my phone. It’s enough evidence I think.」

Yakumo rejoiced that she was able to record the evidence, and then  she pondered how to send it to the work office and the school.

(Woman is scary.)

Akito thought that while watching Yakumo.

Yakumo seemed to notice that and made justification.

「Ah, do you think I’m horrible? But let me tell you, this part-time  work is a part of social education and authorized by the school. You  should know that acting in unbecoming manner here will affect your  future, right?」

Akito showed his agreement to Yakumo’s tone that brooked no argument by nodding up and down repeatedly.

「Good. Those two are just going to receive the punishment as they  should. From now on it’ll be a lot of harder for them to find job or  good college. That’s the cost of them treating others with contempt.」

Akito thought that was just too much for a payback, but certainly he himself was pretty infuriated by the two girls’ attitude.

(Well, it’s also a part of social education. They’ll just receive a warning for the first time.)

Students originally should split their time for studying or sports,  but they chose the path of learning about society through labor work.

Naturally they got paid for that but, it was also accompanied by responsibility. They had been warned about that beforehand.

Yakumo mailed the report about the two girls with the video attached  to the work office and the school, then she stretched her back.

「Aa~, I feel refreshed. I look forward to tomorrow. Ah, also this is to buy your silence.」

She said that and tossed something into Akito’s mouth. It was sandwich.

「Fuaai?」

Akito reflexively chewed on it and swallowed. Akito himself was also surprised.

「H-how is it?」

Yakumo looked a bit anxious. Akito nodded after he swallowed the sandwich.

「Eh? It’s tasty.」

Yakumo looked happy to hear that.

「I see. So it’s tasty. Great.」

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Their shit was over. The next two who would take over for them had arrived, so both Akito and Yakumo left the supermarket.

Kurita looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end he still had work to take care of and couldn’t call out to them.

Yakumo took out her smartphone and checked the time. Then she invited Akito.

「Hey, do you still have time? Want to see a movie?」

Akito smiled.

「Great idea. Last time we went to see love story so I could be men  repellent for senpai, but what are we going to see this time?」

Akito accepted the invitation while thinking that he was going to act as men repellent too this time.

But, he thought he was fine with that if it allowed him to go out with Yakumo.

(If possible I want to take a photo for bragging to Riku. No, that’s  no good. That guy will definitely check later and then laugh at me.)

He waited for Yakumo to continue while his mind was filled with such boyish shallow thinking and wild fancy.

「Hmm~, I want to have different atmosphere this time.」

「Atmosphere?」

Yakumo laughed.

「Well, no matter, come with me.」

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At the movie theater.

The number of seat was really few, and the audiences were also few. There Akito was holding a bucket filled with popcorn.

He had also juice that he placed at the holder that was attached on the seat.

Yakumo was sitting beside him. She drank her juice through a straw while looking forward.

Projected inside the dark room was a [3D] movie.

The picture packed a punch, along with the sound……but, he didn’t know what to say.

「This is quite a somber choice.」

When he said that, Yakumo’s hand reached toward the popcorn in Akito’s hand and threw it into her mouth.

「Call it old. Even I think so.」

Certainly the movie was interesting but, its picture and sound quality were extremely inferior compared to the modern movie.

Akito recalled the promotional line that he saw before entering the movie theater.

「……Is this movie a discovery from the colony era?」

He felt it was strange to call it a discovery, but that was what the promotional line said.

「It must be one of the works that got brought to the colony. Aa~, I recalled a strange trivia.」

Yakumo covered her face with her hand and said to Akito.

She started it with 「This is a story that Iheard from my slightly selfish acquaintance」.

「When the surface became inhabitable, mankind chose to go underground  or go to the moon……. At that time, people brought as many things as  possible from that era, like films to the underground colony.」

「Aa, I learned from class. They said that people went into cold sleep  at the city on the moon surface or the underground colony.」

There was an era where the surface became inhabitable due to war.

People either dived underground to wait until the surface became  habitable again, or escaped to city at the moon’s surface that had just  been in operation for a short while at that time.

The people who escaped to the moon city lived and died for generations, while the underground people were frozen in ice.

「Apparently life was hard for mankind when they were finally freed  from their cold sleep. That was why they put off creating any  entertainment for later. It seemed there were various reasons for that,  like the person in charge of it failed to resurrect from the cold sleep.  It took them half century to finally regain normal life again……the  movement to dig up this kind of entertainment is still recent, around  ten years ago from now. That’s what my acquaintance said.」

Akito looked around. Certainly many of the audiences were the elderly.

The elderly――they were still in their teens before entering the cold  sleep. They were shedding tears while watching the movie. They  frequently wiped their eyes with handkerchief.

They were crying even though it wasn’t a moving scene. Perhaps they were recalling that time.

Yakumo continued.

「Looks like people can finally split focus to many other fields after  our livelihood stabilized. I heard that even now the underground colony  is filled with a lot of machines or incomprehensible things. They’re  now researching the devices that had all its engineers and developers  died.」

Akito nodded frequently.

「She is really knowledgeable, that friend――」

「Aa, she isn’t a friend. She’s an acquaintance, just an acquaintance.」

Yakumo stressed that part, so Akito nodded before he turned his gaze  back to the front. Certainly he thought the movie had horrible picture  and sound but, he got the impression that the production of it cost a  lot of money.

He also didn’t know who the actors were, but their acting was top class.

Certainly he felt it was interesting to watch.

Yakumo seemed to feel the same. She was smiling a little.

「This might be better than the one that we watched together before. Do you want to come again?」

Akito accepted that invitation with a bit of shyness. But, Yakumo  didn’t seem to notice Akito blushing shyly because of the dark room.

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Monday.

Akito was speaking fervently to Riku in the classroom.

「It was really great. The picture and the sound was horrible, so I  didn’t really hold much hope, but the story was interesting. I told you,  you absolutely must watch it!」

During lunch break, there were also other classmates having lunch inside the classroom.

There were also girls chuckling seeing Akito unusually making such a fervent speech.

Riku tried to calm Akito down.

「I get it. I get it already. Well, I often heard that kind of  comment. People said that the technology of projection device right now  is advanced, but it doesn’t have any substance.」

However, Riku’s reaction was dampened no matter how fervent Akito’s speech was.

「It feels like you’re acting cold.」

Akito bit on the sandwich that he bought from the school store. The bread that he wanted was already sold out.

But, he felt something was off while he chewed on the sandwich.

(It feels flavorless somehow. Even though senpai’s sandwich was tasty.)

Riku was eating yakisoba bread while looking disinterested.

「Well, it’s that. I’m really busy with the frontline business right  now. We’re in the preparation stage before starting the city assault.  Things are just so hectic……」

This time it was Akito who became disinterested by the topic of the busy frontline.

「I think we’re still far away from going there. We’re going to challenge Nanako-chan’s quest tomorrow.」

Riku looked exasperated.

「You good-hearted fool. But, I also don’t hate that. Still, I wish you can quickly come over here too if possible.」

Riku said that to Akito with a small smile. Two girls who were eating near them were watching Akito and Riku with blushing face.

It was then, the president――Maya returned to the classroom. She was sending glances to Akito.

「Eh? Did I do something?」

Most of the times he got warned or lectured when Maya talked to him,  so Akito crossed his arms and started worrying if he had done something  or forgot something.

Riku tilted his head.

「It’s that. She would come here if she’s angry, so pay it no mind. Or perhaps she’s smoldering because she want to scold us.」

「What do you mean by that huh.」

The two boys laughed.

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Maya looked at Akito who was making noises inside the classroom about the interesting movie from the past.

(……They’re talking about the excavated items aren’t they? There’s no doubt about it, the title is the same.)

Maya was convinced that Akito was really interested with the movie from how impassioned he was.

When she entered the classroom, she thought it was unusual that Akito  was talking so passionately and listened carefully. Thanks to that she  managed to grasp what he was talking about.

(I also want to talk! But, the image! My image if I do that!)

Maya endured because she couldn’t possibly cut into the two’s conversation. She could only send glances at Akito.

(Talk to me too! No, I know that must be hard to do but……but still!)

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