Chapter 176: Hayasaka Ai: Last Night Was Wild (Patreon)

"A day's plan starts in the morning, huh."

Hayasaka Ai's expression twisted oddly, the corners of her mouth curling up before she forced them flat again, as if she were holding something back.

"Let's eat breakfast first," Isac said, deciding to head her off, and ladled a full bowl of oatmeal from the pot for her.

Hayasaka Ai didn't reach for it. Instead she pointed toward the bathroom. "I'll wash up first. I'll eat after..."

With that, she picked up a thermos and walked into the bathroom. The moment the door clicked shut, the three left in the living room let out a breath in unison.

"Creak."

The bathroom door had barely closed before it was suddenly pushed open again.

All three of them flinched at once, six eyes locking onto the bathroom.

Hayasaka Ai poked her head out, pointing back inside. "Where did the clothes I changed out of yesterday go?" she asked.

"They've been washed and hung up to dry in the second-floor storage room," Yukinoshita Yukino answered truthfully. "Did you have laundry you didn't put in?"

Hayasaka Ai shook her head, her tone loaded with meaning. "No, nothing like that. I just thought you all got up awfully early."

Isac, Kaguya, and Yukinoshita Yukino: ...

Hayasaka Ai smiled at the three of them and slipped back into the bathroom, leaving Isac to suffer alone in the living room. The two long-haired girls beside him, as if reading each other's minds, launched their attack on him at the same moment.

Given how Hayasaka Ai had just acted, there was no way she didn't know what had happened last night — and for Kaguya and Yukinoshita Yukino, that was tantamount to social death.

After all, neither of them had anywhere near Hayasaka Ai's nerve, the kind that let her act like nothing happened even if caught red-handed, or even turn around and invite someone to join in.

But since Hayasaka Ai hadn't called them out directly, there was no way Kaguya and Yukinoshita Yukino would bring it up themselves. Their mindset right now was basically ostrich logic: if nobody said it out loud, it hadn't happened.

And even if it were said out loud, they could still pretend it hadn't.

Before long, Hayasaka Ai came out of the bathroom.

To avoid her, Kaguya and Yukinoshita Yukino had already finished breakfast and taken their bowls to the kitchen to wash.

Isac had wanted to finish quickly too, but with his bigger appetite he'd served himself a large bowl of oatmeal, and no matter how fast he ate, by the time Hayasaka Ai finished washing up and came out, there was still plenty left in his bowl.

Seeing that Isac was the only one left in the living room, Hayasaka Ai plopped down right beside him, nudged his arm with her elbow, glanced toward the kitchen, and said in a low voice, "You really went all out yesterday, huh."

She meant it sincerely — even she hadn't expected Isac to have the nerve to take on two at once, in the same bed no less, with neither of them even knowing about the other at first.

She'd originally planned to play the sleeping wife for a while and let Kaguya have her turn before finding a chance to join in herself. But once she realized Yukinoshita Yukino had apparently already jumped into the game ahead of her, she dropped the idea.

The reason was simple: the window of opportunity was fleeting, and the moment things came out into the open, the mood was gone.

Even if she'd tried to join in at that point, Isac wouldn't have agreed to it, so Hayasaka Ai never did 'wake up.'

"That was an accident," Isac said, his face darkening.

"Mm-hmm, an accident," Hayasaka Ai said, nodding, though it was hard to tell if she actually believed it.

Hands had gone in there, and he was calling it an accident.

Then again... who could say? What if Bro Isac really was a good boy?

Still, Hayasaka Ai chose to believe him — he didn't have the nerve for something like that. If it had been her, now that would make more sense.

Isac: ...

Being believed felt strangely unwelcome. What was that about?

He wolfed down the rest of the oatmeal in a few bites and made to get up, planning to carry his bowl and chopsticks into the kitchen and pull the same dish-washing escape Yukinoshita Yukino and the others had used.

But before he could stand, Hayasaka Ai pushed him back down with one hand.

"You spent so long with them last night, isn't it my turn now?" Hayasaka Ai said. "Just leave the bowl there. I'll take it with mine to wash once I'm done eating."

"...Wouldn't that be too much trouble for you?"

"Fine then, once I'm done eating, you can take my bowl and wash it along with yours."

"..."

Isac knew there was no escaping now. Yukinoshita Yukino and Kaguya had been in the kitchen for a while and still hadn't come out — it wasn't hard to guess they wouldn't be emerging anytime soon.

Rather than face the awkwardness of dealing with Hayasaka Ai themselves, they'd decided to leave Isac to her and come out once she'd had her fill of teasing him.

The idea was simple: once Hayasaka Ai finished teasing Isac, she wouldn't have any teasing left over for them.

Some kind of appeasement strategy.

Of course, both Kaguya and Yukinoshita Yukino knew perfectly well that even if they hadn't left Isac behind, Hayasaka Ai wouldn't have really teased them either.

With Hayasaka Ai having said as much, there was no way Isac could pull the dish-washing escape now. He had no choice but to sit obediently back down and wait for her to finish eating.

Having kept Isac there, Hayasaka Ai didn't keep teasing him after all. Instead, she turned her full attention to the bowl of oatmeal in front of her.

Left sitting there with nothing to do, Isac just stayed beside her and watched her eat breakfast.

Say what you want, but a beautiful face really did make everything look good. Even a bowl of oatmeal made from nothing but hot water somehow looked classy paired with Hayasaka Ai's exquisite face.

The kind of scene you could film with zero effort and use straight up as a commercial.

"Do I look good?"

Hayasaka Ai asked out of nowhere.

"You do," Isac said — he always preferred to speak the truth. "Before I met you all, I always thought 'a feast for the eyes' was just an exaggerated figure of speech. After meeting you, I learned it was completely literal."

"Such a smooth talker?" Hayasaka Ai's lips curled. Everyone likes hearing nice things, especially when it's Isac saying them.

"Just telling the truth," Isac said earnestly, pointing to the corner of his own mouth. "You've got a bit of oatmeal right here."

Hayasaka Ai didn't reach up to wipe it off. Instead she tilted her head back. "You do it for me."

Isac had no objection, but the moment he raised his hand, Hayasaka Ai leaned back, dodging it.

"No hands allowed."

Got it — a gentleman uses his mouth, not his hands.

Hearing that, Isac could hardly fail to guess what she was after — she was just using it as an excuse to kiss him. For all he knew, she'd stuck that bit of oatmeal on her lip on purpose.

So, while Kaguya and Yukinoshita Yukino were still stuck in the kitchen, Hayasaka Ai thoroughly made up for having played the helpless wife the night before.

After a heated exchange of lips and tongues, Hayasaka Ai finally let Isac off, satisfied, and declared the matter of last night officially closed.

…

After breakfast, they discovered it had started snowing moderately outside, with a fair bit of wind.

They decided to skip going out today and stay home instead to sort through everything they'd gotten from the dam trip.

Overall, the dam trip had been a huge win — and not just a small one either. Not only had they found two rifles, they'd also triggered a special event and unlocked a whole new feature of the Survival Game.

On top of that, they'd gathered plenty of other supplies, the biggest hauls being the steel handcart and a desktop computer with all its accessories, along with a decent stock of nails, cables, and nylon rope.

To Isac and the others, all of this counted as non-renewable resources — the more they could stockpile, the better.

But the question facing the four of them now was where to put it all.

They'd been living in this two-story cottage for a month and a half now. Compared to when they'd first moved in, when the living room held only the barest furniture, the survival home was now packed with all sorts of collected items.

Add to that the fuel they needed to stockpile for winter, and the space at home had grown more and more cramped.

"While we're sorting through the haul, might as well go through everything else in the house too," Isac suggested. "Otherwise, before long there won't even be room to stand."

"Sounds good. We can pick out the surplus stuff we don't use and move it next door — no need to pile it all here. Also, that idea about growing edible plants at home — we should get started on that too."

Once the conversation turned to practical matters, Yukinoshita Yukino stopped playing dumb and answered Isac in earnest.

"Should we bring back some more clothes and blankets from the other houses? It's getting colder, and one blanket at night might not be enough," Kaguya suggested as well.

Especially since the four of them shared a single blanket — fine if everyone slept flat on their backs, but if someone turned on their side, gaps would inevitably open up in the middle, letting body heat escape.

The temperature hadn't dropped too much yet, so the fireplace could just about keep them warm enough. But once winter truly set in, it would be better for everyone to have their own blanket, with a big shared one layered on top.

They had enough blankets for now, but some were thin as a throw — barely made a difference whether you used them or not — so they'd still need to go around the other houses in town and bring back some thicker ones.

Even if they didn't use them as covers, they'd work fine as extra mattress padding.

They could also be hung over the windows to plug gaps and help with insulation.

"We could also dig a small pit by the door just for collecting snow. That way, if we run out of water, we can just go out and scoop up a bucketful instead of having to scrape clean snow off the ground like before," Hayasaka Ai proposed as well.

In just that short span of time, the group realized there was still plenty to do — the survival home had plenty of room for improvement, and things were far from a state they could rest easy about.

Since Isac and the others didn't need to venture out far for now, they'd use this stretch of time to both prepare for Aurora Week a month away and improve the house's facilities, making sure they could get through their first winter since the crash without trouble.

No time like the present — they listed out their tasks in a notebook from most to least urgent, and the survival squad set right to work according to the plan.

First came sorting through the scattered supplies piled up in the living room — organizing them by category, then hauling the excess over to the house next door for storage.

With food, they also needed to sort out anything nearing its expiration date and eat it up quickly to avoid waste — after all, even though they had plenty of food, they weren't at the point where they could afford to waste it.

Funny enough, it wasn't until they actually sorted everything out that Isac realized just how much of what they had was completely unnecessary.

Take the kerosene lamps, for instance. Besides the ones each of them kept for themselves, there turned out to be over a dozen more scattered around the house — they'd been sitting in various corners all along, never gathered together in one place.

It was only after sorting and counting them that Isac realized just how many kerosene lamps the house actually had.

There was no way they'd ever use that many. In fact, even during the period when their lamp usage was highest — while doing all that reading — they'd never lit more than four at once.

On an ordinary day, they'd light at most one or two for lighting. A dozen-plus kerosene lamps was a serious excess.

Isac decided on the spot that, aside from the lamps each of them already kept, they'd hold onto four of the best-condition ones as backups and move the rest next door, so they wouldn't waste any more of the house's precious space.

Cases like the kerosene lamps turned out to be common around the house — the pots and pans and dishware in the kitchen, the assortment of shoes by the entryway, and more. Isac packed all of it up to send next door.

After a round of clearing out, the living room instantly felt much more spacious, and everything bound for next door had been gathered together near the handcart, ready to be hauled over once the snow outside let up a bit.

The whole morning passed in a flurry of activity.

Maybe it was because they'd been working together, but Yukinoshita Yukino and Kaguya — who'd barely had a real conversation since the fight over the 'joystick' the night before — started slipping back into their usual dynamic.

If anything, they seemed even friendlier than before.

After all, the two of them sometimes ended up sniping at each other mid-conversation without meaning to.

But now... probably because they'd both shown their embarrassing side to each other the night before, they were holding back a little instead.

If there was any edge to their words at all, most of it was aimed squarely at Isac now.

They'd both realized it felt a lot more satisfying to gang up on Isac, the real culprit, than to snipe at each other.

After all, the awkwardness between them was, in large part, because of Isac's anonymous 'dual-boxing' the night before.

Isac desperately wanted to protest his innocence, but he doubted anyone would buy it.

Looking at the outcome, he was clearly the biggest winner here. Say what you will, but once is never enough — if anonymous 'dual-boxing' had already happened, could open 'dual-boxing' really be far behind?

And once they got used to dual-boxing, wouldn't 'triple-boxing' just be the natural next step?

As for how he'd manage triple-boxing with only two hands — don't worry about that part. There'd definitely be a solution when the time came. For now, just trust the process.

While Isac was thinking this over, he heard someone calling him from upstairs.

"Isac, come up here for a sec."

By the voice, it had to be Hayasaka Ai.

Isac didn't think twice and followed the voice upstairs — where he was met with a sight that set his blood on fire...