Chapter 84 - A Glare

"Ugh, why did you do this?! Don't you have eyes?!" she asked, sounding as pissed off as she looked.

She simply slapped my stretched hand away, clearly not wanting my help.

"Hey, you don't need to be so rude!" said Rina "It's your fault as well for not paying attention when walking"

"Mind your business" replied the girl.

"Huh?!" groaned Rina.

And just like Rina started to argue with a girl we just met. Honestly, I'm relieved that she didn't get intimidated as easily as before, but she should try to practice a little restraint, especially with someone that might start to use her fists to solve too troublesome situations.

This girl was taller than Rina, practically the same height as mine, and combined with that glare I wouldn't be surprised if most girls her age would back away from her, and maybe some of the boys as well, but Rina wasn't budging an inch, staring at her straight in the eyes without looking intimidate one bit.

As for me, that was not even close to enough to make me shake. Compared to the memories of getting beaten and mistreated in my previous life, to put it in mild terms, the aggressive glare of a likely twelve-year-old girl wouldn't intimidate me so easily, especially when it wasn't someone that I knew.

Sensing that meddling in their argument would be pointless, I decided to do something more productive and started to organize the mangas that they dropped on the ground. The manga cafe had a strict policy about damaging their volumes and, considering there was a camera pointing in our direction, I didn't want to give them an excuse to charge us in case some page was torn or crumpled.

After I the mangas in two piles at the nearby table, I decided to stop their argument. But to my surprise, they were already apologizing to each other.

"I'm sorry, I should be paying more attention to where I was heading" said Rina.

"Yeah fine. I guess it's my bad as well. I got so little time left that I was rushing without thinking" said the other girl.

'...okay, that's surprising. I thought that girl would argue much more, but the situation got defused by itself'

"Well, glad to see that my intervention wasn't necessary" I said as I approached them.

"Hmph, obviously" said Rina, still a little peevishly from our earlier discussion.

"Hm" nodded the other girl, scratching her cheek with an awkward look on her face.

'I guess she can sense the small tension between me and Rina'

"Come on, let's just get going" I said, gesturing to the table where I put the mangas "I put what we let fell there, already separated between our selection and yours"

"O-Oh, than- wait?!" she said, darting to her mangas with surprising speed.

She then took her little pile of manga close to her, like her life depend on it, and looked back at me with that glare from before.

"D-Did you see it?" she asked, her voice small but containing a little bit of the hostility from before.

'...is she ashamed of the titles?'

"Yeah, I did" I said, not bothering in lying about the obvious "But honestly, you don't need to be embarrassed about-"

"Stop stop stop stop stop stop, not another word!" she said, almost shouting like she was trying to drown my words with her own "Thank you for your consideration, and goodbye!"

She darted like she was fleeing from the flames of hell itself.

"Ah wait" said Rina, stretching her own arm like she was trying to reach the other girl, but she was already gone by that point.

We both stayed there rooted in the same spot, a little dumbstruck by how fast the situation had developed.

"...that was odd, right?" asked Rina.

"Well, yeah it was. We didn't even manage to get her name" I answered.

"I know and- wait, why do you want to know her name Onii-chan?" Rina asked me, glaring at me with clear suspicion in her eyes.

I could only sigh at her expression.

"Calm down, it's just a comment. It's not like I would ask her out right after meeting her" I said.

'Well I could, but I won't say it out loud right now'

She continued to glare at me for a few seconds, but eventually, she accepted my words.

"I guess. I mean, i-it's not like I care if you get a g-girlfriend or anything" she said, her cheeks reddening and refusing to look in my eyes again.

She continued to be an example of a tsundere, and I could only smile in amusement at her words.

'If only you knew'

We went to our booth and continued to read our mangas for the rest of the day in silence. She wasn't irritated with me anymore for rejecting her earlier request, something that tended to happen two to three times a week, so right now there was a familiar sense of peacefulness between us.

We went home around the sun was setting, at the end of the afternoon.

I didn't even hesitate to hold her hand like a boyfriend would do, which earned me a weak glare from Rina but she still squeezed my hand affectionately in return.

She was much more used to these small gestures of affection. She didn't even bother to discuss them anymore, simply accepting and reciprocating when she was pleased with them.

We arrived home and there were no shoes at the entrance, making it clear that neither mom nor Anna was at home.

"I guess that they already went shopping, didn't they?" commented Rina.

"It looks like it" I answered.

As we entered our home, the anticipation of what I was about to do was taking over me. Today was the day that I would either finally make every girl in this house a member of my harem.

And for that, I would have to finally use the system more actively.