"No matter what you do in life, a strong body is essential!"
That's how Kyousuke ended his statement—and coming from someone with his achievements, it carried serious weight.
If he'd already taken the final step to becoming a bestselling author, health supplement companies would probably be lining up to have him endorse their products.
Not that he'd ever say yes—
Unless, of course, they offered enough money to buy Kyu-Furukawa Gardens.
"I see! So, the secret to becoming a great writer is having a healthy body!"
Kawakuchi Jouichi, a reporter from Yomiuri Shimbun, bowed respectfully before taking his seat.
————————————————————————
"Did you hear that, Kenichi? Starting next week, I'm signing you up for a soccer club. Once you're in high school, you can join the team."
In front of her TV, a middle-aged woman nodded repeatedly.
She felt that Hojou Kyousuke who is—so young, yet already so successful—was someone who really understood life.
After all, without a healthy body, how could you work overtime?
And without overtime, your boss would hate you, your coworkers would mock you, and even getting squeezed onto the evening train would require assistance from the station staff.
Not to mention the 8:30 PM supermarket discount bento battles…
One moment of weakness, and you'd be devoured whole.
"Huh?! But I'm already going to cram school!"
That was Kenichi—the boy who clearly saw through Hojou's success as nothing more than raw intelligence.
He didn't read manga, didn't care for novels, and had zero interest in Kyousuke himself.
Now, he was grumbling internally.
'That Hojou bastard, just spouting nonsense because he's a little smart.'
'Seriously, I'm going online later to flame him.'
"Back when I was in school, boys who joined the soccer club in high school always got their lockers stuffed with pink envelopes every morning…
and homemade lunches from girls at noon."
The woman, eyes glued to the TV, casually let the words slip out.
'P-pink envelopes? Love letter bento?!'
Kenichi's radar picked that up like a heat-seeking missile.
His mental screen turned deep red, and his brain nearly crashed from the overload.
"Girls are so annoying," he muttered, trying to regain his junior high boy pride.
"But getting a spot in a national tournament would help a lot with college applications," the woman added.
"Seriously, why only invite Hojou-sensei to the stage? They should've brought up his parents too! Let them share some child-raising tips and help move society forward!"
She sneered, ignoring her sulking teenage son and eyeing the TV reporters with irritation.
————————————————————————
Ironically, the same frustration was bubbling inside Hojou Kyousuke himself.
'Come on, I'm already doing my best to be modest—why are they still laying it on so thick?'
What do they want him to say? That genius is 99% sweat?
Or maybe bring out the old "squeezing water from a sponge" metaphor?
And worst of all—
'If you're going to praise me, at least send a female reporter!'
You know, hands clasped to her chest, starry-eyed, saying: "Hojou-sensei, you're so amazing~"
Now that would make someone feel like talking.
"Next up, we have Ms. Hiraga from Mainichi Shimbun."
Almost like someone heard his thoughts, Amamiya Miki called on a woman reporter.
She wasn't exactly stunning, but in her business suit, she looked… passable.
Kyousuke straightened up and offered a polite smile, ready for the question.
After the usual thanks and congratulations, Hiraga Sumiko raised the mic with a gentle smile.
"To achieve such golden success during your beautiful high school years… I imagine a boy like you must be quite popular at school, Hojou-sensei?"
'See? Female reporters just have better delivery.' Kyousuke then gave a modest smile to her.
"I'm sure everyone's wondering… do you have a girlfriend?"
That word—girlfriend.
[TL Note – this boy is cook]
For a long, long time, waking up under sunlight, Kyousuke would touch his chest and mutter it softly.
'Did I… enter her body again?'
The moment that word reached his ears, his sixth sense flared.
From the lower-left of the audience, a burning gaze locked onto him.
There she was—his girlfriend, the one he had literally entered: Miyamizu Mitsuha.
Hahaha…
Next to her, his childhood friend girlfriend, Yamauchi Sakura.
Ha… hahaha…
Beside her, the girl he patiently taught to speak—Nishimiya Shouko.
Ha—…
And that wasn't even all of them.
On the other side of the audience, an even more intense stare was burning into him.
He could already picture his mother's amused "can't wait to watch this trainwreck" expression.
Even if the other girls weren't as sensitive as Mitsuha to that particular word, there was no way someone like Yamauchi Sakura would let this question slide.
'Hold on—who gave you permission to speak on behalf of "everyone"?'
Kyousuke's smile didn't falter as he glanced down at the press pass hanging from the reporter's neck.
'Mainichi Shimbun, huh?'
'With a question like that, I thought you were with Shūkan Bunshun.'
'Or maybe this is your trial run for a career switch?'
————————————————————————
Meanwhile, in front of the TV…
Kenichi, who'd just been complaining about how annoying girls were, had started fantasizing about high school lockers hiding love letters under smelly sneakers.
Now, hearing that question, his ears perked up and his eyes gleamed brighter than his mom's.
At her desk, Katou Megumi sat up straighter, tuning out her sister's shouting and her cousin Keiichi's barrage of texts.
————————————————————————
"Haha… a rose-colored high school life, huh…"
Kyousuke laughed brightly, eyes focused on the center of the audience—because he couldn't look left or right, where "death by glares" awaited him.
And just his luck—in the center seat sat Ishida Hidenori, whose hideous face made Kyousuke immediately avert his eyes and look back to the reporter.
"Well, I suppose it depends on how you define girlfriend…"
————————————————————————
"Wait, wait, Yukino! Isn't that the line you always use when trying to hide the fact that you have no friends?!"
Yukinoshita Haruno, who had been laser-focused on the TV, suddenly turned toward her sister, genuinely surprised.
"For your information, verifying the question before answering is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. And I do have friends," Yukino grumbled.
She was growing increasingly irritated at the slick wordplay happening on screen.
'This guy—do these people even function without word games? Even in public interviews?!'
But unlike Yukino, the other reporters and authors watching the broadcast chuckled knowingly at Hojou's response.
'As expected from someone who won a major literary award at such a young age—he's got real writer flair.'
Whether he had professional ethics was debatable, but he definitely fit the image Japanese people had of a novelist.
Still, Kyousuke wasn't the type to dodge responsibility or hide behind clever phrasing.
He wasn't planning to quote some obscure classical Japanese text and deliver a poetic deflection.
Like Yukino said, he was simply clarifying what "Girlfriend" meant.
"If you mean a romantic girlfriend, then no—I don't have one. I believe in marriage.
If I ever do make a public announcement about my relationship, it'll be when I'm getting married."
In an age where many had given up on marriage and raising children, someone like Hojou-sensei—so young, yet holding such old-fashioned views on love—felt like a rare gem.
At home, Katou Megumi, clad in a red-and-white floral nightgown, collapsed onto her bed again.
She brushed off her sister's gossip with a lazy reply, casually throwing in something absurd about a backflipping dog at the Hojou household.
Meanwhile, Kenichi—still sitting in front of the TV—froze.
Just imagining his father trying to bribe him into romance with extra allowance made his spine tingle.
'Pink envelope = death sentence?'
"That's not good at all," his mother declared, arms crossed. "If you marry the first person you date, your life's bound to be a mess.
Kenichi, you'd better date around a few times first."
"Y-Yeah…" Kenichi nodded quickly.
Of course Hojou was crazy.
After playing soccer until you're half-dead, who still has the brainpower to study?
————————————————————————
"What is he thinking? How could he say something like that?" Hojou Ichirou whispered cautiously into his wife's ear.
"I think it's wonderful," replied Mikiko with a soft laugh. "Maybe I'll have over a dozen grandkids before I hit fifty."
When it came to matters like this, Mikiko had absolute confidence in her son.
After all, this was the same kid who, back in sixth grade, had asked if he could bring multiple girlfriends home for the holidays.
Ichirou glanced at his wife, then at the girls surrounding his son.
Just imagining them showing up one day with their parents in tow to confront him made his scalp go numb.
Meanwhile when Mitsuha heard about Kyousuke's declaration, finally let the tension ease from her straight-backed posture.
As someone who knew him as intimately as her own body, she understood all too well that this was just Kyousuke's bold, shameless way of announcing his open-hearted tendencies.
'Of course. This bastard…'
And yet…
'What can I do? I fell in love with him.'
Her body, her life, every part of her had already been marked by him.
Even back in Nara, during that time when her memories were still missing—
Seeing a subway station that didn't even exist in Itomori, she would instinctively pull out her phone to scan through the gate.
Spotting a deer (again, not in Itomori), she'd salivate without thinking.
Finding a café, she'd instinctively order Kyousuke's favorite: New York cheesecake.
Forget space and time—this love had survived separation and death.
She didn't want to leave. She couldn't leave.
So now, instead of relying on his affection, she could only spoil him in return.
'This bastard!'
Even though she'd long made her decision, hearing him say such a shameless thing out loud still made her want to borrow Eriri's full dictionary of profanity.
And yet…
"Are you really planning to keep going like this?" she whispered to Sakura beside her.
"Huh? What, did you finally get shocked by Kyousuke's shamelessness too?"
Sakura burst out laughing.
"Wait, no—if it's you, you've probably known what kind of guy he is for a long time. Right, Shouko~?"
Nishimiya Shouko simply smiled.
She didn't turn her head—her eyes remained fixed on the stage.
To her, Kyousuke-kun's words felt like a message meant just for her.
A quiet reassurance:
'It's okay. You can stay by my side.'
Ueno Naoka glanced around at the three girls beside her, then let out a deep, defeated sigh.
'Not a single one of them is normal person.'
Whether it was Kasumigaoka or Yukinoshita—someone needed to slap sense into all of them.
Tell them Kyousuke was just a two-timing, scumbag.
And once they all came to their senses and left him…
Then she could finally go back to peacefully sewing her future child's clothes.
Of course, the same line can land very differently depending on who hears it.
————————————————————————
In front of her TV, Yukinoshita Haruno was laughing so hard she nearly fell off the couch.
"Unbelievable. Truly incredible. To be this shameless out in the open… he's like the world champion of playboys!"
Haruno could hardly wait to see how her mother would react.
That ever-composed woman, who didn't so much as frown at the collapse of Japanese civilization—
'Would she finally wrinkle her brows like little Yukino always does?'
Speaking of Yukino, her brows were already knotted.
This time, Hojou hadn't even tried hiding behind wordplay.
This was worse.
————————————————————————
Back at the event, Hiraga Sumiko didn't return to her seat after receiving his answer.
Instead, she followed up with another question.
"I see… That's a very powerful view on love, Hojou-sensei."
"But I recall you previously mentioning someone named Kasumi Utako-sensei—you said she helped you a lot on your writing journey.
I looked her up and found out she's also a high school author, like you. And quite a beautiful one at that."
"May I ask—what's your relationship with her?"
Mainichi Shimbun. Hiraga Sumiko.
Hojou Kyousuke silently noted the name.
He'd make sure to tell Kisaki later to add it to the Hojou Group's blacklist.
Seriously. Female reporters—what happened to professionalism?
This was a literary award ceremony, not a celebrity gossip panel!
Could they please ask something about actual novels?
'Hahaha… you little—!'
He only imagined himself saying that.
The harshest word Kyousuke had ever truly used in his life was "bastard."
And even then, it was usually directed at himself, in a weak attempt to quiet his own conscience.
"When I first decided to pursue writing, I started by studying the craft. The very first book I studied was Love Metronome, written by Kasumi Utako-sensei."
He paused for a moment after saying that, then glanced up at the banner above the stage.
His gaze then drifted down to the lower-right section of the audience—where Kasumigaoka Utaha sat.
Though she wore a black dress, her skin—especially the glowing white curve of her neck—made it easy to spot her.
This was the first time she'd ever heard how she and Kyousuke had first connected.
And to hear it here, now, in this moment…
Spoken aloud by Kyousuke in front of the entire country—
It felt like the most romantic confession in the world.
Her earlier frustrations and all the petty jealousy vanished in an instant.
Her eyes locked onto the stage, brimming with warmth.
And not far away, Eriri's mind also flew back to that day.
'Damn it! If she'd known he was going to say this, she would've told him Love Metronome was so bad even dogs wouldn't read it!'
Yes. Dogs wouldn't read it. That cursed novel.
Fine. That settled it.
In the next volume of her doujin, Sayuka would be defeated by a blonde rich girl who comes out of nowhere and steals the perfect male lead she had painstakingly built up!
That blonde girl would completely ignore the countless nights Eriri had cried over that stupid novel.
She'd forget how if it weren't for that book, she would've never run into Kyousuke at the bookstore that day and fallen head over heels.
Kyousuke's mention of Utaha had already started drawing attention.
But before people could react too much, his voice rang out again from the stage:
"By coincidence, that day, Love Metronome was featured as the store's #1 staff recommendation.
And I thought to myself… 'If I could write a book like this—one that gets placed in such a prominent spot by the staff—that would be amazing.'"
That simple sentiment hit home for many in the audience.
It wasn't quite the right moment to applaud, but even so, a wave of quiet laughter and warm clapping rippled through the room.
"So I bought the book. A friend of mine told me I made the right choice—it really was an outstanding work."
Utaha glanced sideways at Eriri, who was still pouting, and allowed herself a small, victorious smile.
"In that sense, Kasumi Utako-sensei was my guiding light on the path to becoming a writer.
Even when I was working on The Devotion of Suspect X, she provided me with significant help."
Hearing that, Kenichi—watching from home—immediately pulled out his phone and typed "Kasumi Utako" into the search bar.
And there she was: long, sleek black hair draped over her shoulders, a graceful white fitted dress hugging her figure, and elegant calves wrapped in black stockings from a book signing event photo.
In that moment, Kenichi fully accepted Hojou-sensei's view on love.
'If it's a girl like her… I'm willing to be sentenced to death.'
"So, does that mean she's the one you plan to marry?"
Hiraga Sumiko pressed on.
'Is this ever going to end?'
'What, do you want me dead or something?'
'And the rest of you reporters—don't you have questions? The clock's ticking.'
'What are you, all salary thieves? Not afraid I'll send you all to Hokkaido to farm cattle?'
Kyousuke glanced around the room, only to see every journalist holding up their recorders and staring at him with glittering eyes.
'Clearly, they were all thoroughly enjoying Hiraga's performance.'
'Seriously? You all think you're working for gossip rags now?'
'Or are you just that fascinated by a writer's love life?'
Wait… could that actually be it?
A cold realization hit him.
These vultures didn't care about his wholesome, humble-boy genius persona.
What they really wanted was a story titled "Rising Star Novelist and His Many Lovers."
"She's family."
He paused deliberately, then delivered the line with a calm smile—eyes locking straight onto the live broadcast camera.
"I see. Thank you for your answer, Hojou-sensei."
Hiraga Sumiko finally sat down, clearly satisfied.
He called her "family"—what else could that mean but "future bride"?
She wasn't the only one who was pleased.
Utaha's already beautiful face lit up even more when she heard the word "family."
She looked like a lotus blooming after the rain—serene, dazzling, and stunning.
'Perfect timing,' she thought.
'Aunt Mikiko is in town. I'll ask her to stay in Tokyo a bit longer—this is the perfect chance to learn how she raised Kyousuke so well.'
Yes, yes.
She could just say a publisher had contacted her and begged her to get parenting advice from Mikiko.
Worst-case scenario? She'd self-publish the book and include it as a bonus item for book buyers.
'No, wait—anything with Kyousuke's name on it is guaranteed to be a bestseller.'
Utaha's mind was already spinning.
She could see herself teaching their future children, following Aunt Mikiko's parenting methods to the letter.
Though every reporter had their recorders running, they were also furiously scribbling in their notebooks.
Thanks to Kyousuke's superhuman hearing, he could even hear the scritch-scratch of 0.5mm pencil leads gliding across paper.
He could already guess what they were writing.
No doubt they're all crafting lines like: "His eyes softened noticeably when he mentioned Kasumi Utako-sensei," or "Clearly envisioning a blissful married life."
Idiots.
If their writing were even slightly better, he'd be seriously considering whether to fake an emergency tomorrow.
Maybe he'd have Grandma call and say old man Yagi from next door fell ill so he needed to rush home.
The next few interviews, thankfully, returned to a more professional tone.
Some asked about his thoughts on future literary awards like the Mystery Writers Association Prize or the Naoki Prize.
Others asked about his upcoming works or whether he agreed with the romantic ideology of Ishigami, the main character in The Devotion of Suspect X.
'Finally,' Kyousuke thought.
'Questions real readers would actually care about.'
'Why do they always have to obsess over scandalous nonsense?'
Eventually, the Q&A session came to a close, and the press conference itself wrapped up.
"Thank you for your time, Hojou-san. We're very grateful~" The host smiled as she gave the closing remarks.
Kyousuke finally let out a breath of relief.
'At last. Now I can move on to the next battlefield.'
Bowing politely to the stage and the audience, he handed his mic to the staff and stepped down from the platform.
———————————————————————
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