Tokyo: Idol Girls have absolutely no bad intentions!

Opening the refrigerator, all I could see was emptiness, a sight even more shocking than if a mouse had gnawed on it.

Close it.

Open it again.

It's still empty; it's not my own illusion.

"Was this place raided by bandits?" Ito's voice wasn't loud, but it brought Asada's thoughts back to reality.

"I'll go prepare right away! It'll be quick!" She suddenly woke up and hurriedly rushed to the kitchen.

But in the next instant, her single-core processor-like brain only allowed her to remember one thing, so she forgot about the chair.

Her little feet bumped against the stool leg. Just as she was about to cry out, she covered her mouth with her hand, tears welling up in her eyes, and bit her lower lip tightly with her teeth.

"What's wrong?" Ito checked every corner of the refrigerator, trying to find any usable ingredients.

He only heard the noise behind him, and because Asada deliberately concealed it, he had no idea what had happened.

"N-nothing," Asada gasped, trying to ease the pain with her breathing.

The red marks on his fair calves were particularly noticeable.

He limped over to Ito and saw the scene inside the refrigerator.

"Huh?" Asada forgot to blink. If it weren't for the pain in her calf constantly reminding her that she was in reality, she would have thought she was dreaming.

And it was a nightmare.

"My pudding!"

I don't know where the strength came from, but she pushed Ito aside and reached into the refrigerator to try to find the thing that should be there.

Thus, the case was born: "The Mysterious Disappearance of Pudding!"

"My pudding, the caramel pudding I bought, the limited edition pudding from Higashino-do!"

Asada became more and more agitated as she spoke, her voice even trembling with emotion.

How much will it cost?

“8000 yen.” Asada answered subconsciously, her mind filled with the news of Pudding’s disappearance.

"So... Asada, you still have money."

"Huh?" Asada Sakura was suddenly jolted awake from her grief over Pudding's disappearance. When she met Ito's all-knowing gaze, her face turned deathly pale.

Her brain raced, trying to find a plausible explanation before the CPU burned out.

"Y-Y-It was given to me by Nagano Sae!" Asada blurted out, her voice rising with guilt. "I-I didn't eat it, I was waiting for Ito to come back so we could share it!"

She spoke with such sincerity, as if the pudding carried such profound affection.

Ito looked at her expressionlessly: "Oh? Is that so? Then where did you hide before?"

“Wrap the package up with… with seaweed,” Asada tried to recall her carefully planned hiding place, pointing to the depths of the refrigerator, “I secretly hid it behind that winter melon! Now it’s gone!”

She became more and more aggrieved as she spoke, as if what she had lost was not a pudding, but a priceless treasure.

"So," Ito's voice carried a barely perceptible hint of probing, "why hide it?"

"Uh..." Asada was momentarily speechless, his eyes widened, and his mouth opened but no sound came out.

Yeah, why hide it? Why hide good things that you're sharing?

This logical flaw instantly swallowed up all the excuses she had made up on the spot.

One lie leads to another, and more lies are needed to cover it up...

It's still too difficult to fool people on short notice.

Seeing Asada's "CPU overload and about to crash" expression, Ito sighed and decided to temporarily let go of this obvious lie.

“Never mind. The point is, Asada Sakura,” he emphasized, “I remember saying this many times: control your sweets intake. Especially this kind of limited edition pudding that’s high in sugar and calories.”

"Hmm..." Asada immediately lowered her head, twisting the hem of her clothes with her fingers, her voice barely audible, "I-I know... just this once... and... and you didn't even get to eat it..."

She raised her big, wet eyes, trying to fool people with the most innocent and pitiful look.

"So please forgive me, Ito."

They are pitiful, innocent, and equally useless.

His temples throbbed. Although Ito was completely unaffected by Asada's act of feigning helplessness, he knew that reasoning with her while she was "acting cute" was futile.

He rubbed his temples and turned his attention back to the "unsolved case" in front of him.

"Alright, the question now is, who touched the refrigerator?"

This requires almost no thought.

There were only three people in the apartment. He had just returned, and Asada looked like a victim whose world had collapsed. So...

In finding the murderer, Detective Asada was very quick-witted, and he came up with the culprit almost at the same time as Itoh.

They all turned around and saw Miki Hayakawa tiptoeing towards the entrance like a cat sneaking away, her hand already on the doorknob.

It felt like a stealth attack; I almost let her escape.

"Hayakawa," Ito called out the other person's name.

"..." Hayakawa froze.

She slowly turned around, and the guilty look on her face instantly switched to a confident one after meeting the scrutinizing gazes of the two men.

"Ahem," she cleared her throat, straightened her back, as if she hadn't been acting suspiciously just now, "It was me who did it. What's wrong?"

"My pudding!" Asada protested.

“And the other things in the refrigerator,” Ito added, his gaze sweeping over the empty freezer compartment.

“Cooking doesn’t require any food waste!” Hayakawa said, hands on her hips, with conviction. “Besides, I have to put in a lot of effort every day to manage the fragile and complicated emotional relationship between you two. It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”

"Shouldn't this be considered part of my salary? Consider the pudding a reward for my hard work! Besides, I thought it was seaweed, which is why I opened it to eat."

Ito frowned. He couldn't quite understand this twisted logic.

Could that plate of rotten vegetable salad and half-cooked cocoa steak on the table have used up the entire refrigerator's worth of ingredients?

It's already quite rare to make a salad with rotten vegetable leaves, right? Could the waste be so severe that not even a single scallion is left?

"I... I gave Hayakawa-nee 4000 yen!" Asada huffed, like a squirrel whose pine cone had been stolen. "That was the money I asked you to prepare dinner for! Hayakawa-nee, you're so mean! Not only did you not cook dinner, but you also stole my pudding and emptied the refrigerator."

Upon hearing this, Ito subconsciously looked at Asada again.

4000 yen? How much more secret savings does this guy have? Is his slush fund a bottomless pit?

“That’s not enough!” Hayakawa retorted immediately, raising her voice. “Sakura, you need to know that being with me requires much more money! Maintaining my beauty and elegance is very expensive.”

“My market is vast, and this little expense is enough to keep me by your side. You two should be content.”

What is all this nonsense?! Asada Sakura felt like she was about to go crazy.

She clearly paid the other party to prepare a dinner.

How did the topic veer off to "being together" and "maintaining beauty"?

But seeing Hayakawa's "I'm right" expression, she didn't dare to lash out and could only puff out her cheeks in frustration.

Ito ignored Hayakawa's nonsense and stared into her eyes, getting straight to the point.

"Hayakawa, you couldn't have 'wasted' all that food on that salad and that piece of raw meat. What did you do with these ingredients? Or rather,"

He paused, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "You're so poor that you have to swindle money from idiots to make a living?"

"Yes, yes!"

Asada nodded vigorously in agreement, completely unaware that the "fool" Ito was referring to was herself.

Hayakawa's self-righteousness finally began to falter.

There was a few seconds of silence.

Only the faint hum of the refrigerator compressor remained in the living room.

Finally, her shoulders slumped slightly, a deliberately feigned dejection appeared on her face, and her voice lowered.

"Actually... I owe a lot of money... and I can't pay it back anymore..."

After she finished speaking, she raised her eyes and secretly observed Ito's reaction.

However, Ito simply looked at her expressionlessly, without a trace of emotion in his eyes.

Asada blinked, looking at Hayakawa and then at Ito. Her face showed only heartache for the pudding and shock at the empty refrigerator, but not the "concern" Hayakawa had expected.

"Hey!" Hayakawa couldn't hold back any longer, his voice tinged with genuine annoyance. "You... shouldn't you be asking me why I owe so much money? Or at least... showing some sympathy?"

Asada Sakura and Ito exchanged a glance.

Then, the two shook their heads simultaneously, as if in perfect unison.

Their movements were perfectly synchronized, and their eyes remained calm and undisturbed.

Miki Hayakawa: "..."

Her carefully prepared "melodrama" script was completely ruined by these two heartless guys in the most concise way before it even got started.

“You have three minutes to think,” Ito said, pulling open the cupboard to take out a cup of instant noodles. “Once this bowl of noodles is ready, please begin your sophistry.”

Chapter 210 "The Temporary Band Part 1"

"I-Ito, although I don't dislike him and even like him a little, shouldn't the first time be reserved for Manager Saionji?"

Asada clutched Ito's clothes, looking at the stairs leading to the basement, where a neon sign that read "Night Star Concert Hall" hung on the door.

The two had been standing on the steps for almost five minutes, something that required some mental preparation.

If it weren't for Hayakawa, Ito wouldn't be here.

A live house performance will be held at a concert hall in the Shimokitazawa area.

Although it was called a live house performance, it was really just a musical performance to create an atmosphere in a restaurant. There was no advance publicity and no need to share the cost of tickets.

Recalling the scene of Hayakawa kneeling on the tatami yesterday, Ito felt a headache coming on, and his temples were still throbbing.

"I don't want to do something meaningless."