Honestly, Kuroba Akira had felt this way for a while now.
Tashiro Benika most likely had two personalities—her before-and-after changes were just too dramatic.
The Benika-san who was shy, avoided Akira, and seemed afraid of strangers was probably the "original" Benika of this world. She must have some kind of social anxiety, which was why she'd chosen such a special job as an embalmer, one that didn't require much contact with the living.
Let's just call her "Socially-Anxious Benika."
Then, that time she got drunk and ended up clinging to Akira in her sleep, she'd probably still been Socially-Anxious Benika—the things she mumbled in her sleep were all complaints and sobbing. But when she woke up, she switched to the gentle onee-san personality: the real "Tian Hongxiang" from another world.
For clarity, let's call her "Onee-san Benika."
Between the two personalities, there seemed to be a clear hierarchy. Akira guessed Onee-san Benika was the sub-personality, and Socially-Anxious Benika was the original.
After all, the transmigrators like them had crossed over from another world, but the real Tashiro Benika was a local, born and raised here.
And after that drunken incident, Onee-san Benika started appearing more often—maybe because Socially-Anxious Benika saw her "other self" getting along so well with the other transmigrators, so she started handing over the body more frequently.
Also, the reason Onee-san Benika never gave a direct answer about becoming Shion's manager was because she needed Socially-Anxious Benika's permission—after all, the original was still the host.
Thinking back, this explained a lot of the things that had felt off before.
But even now, Akira still couldn't understand Socially-Anxious Benika's actions—why did she lock him up?
And then, after locking him in, why agree to become Shion's manager…?
He couldn't wrap his head around it.
Feels like I'm missing a key piece of information.
And the only way to find that out was to ask her directly. So Akira picked his way through the "mountain of trash" at his feet, ran to the window, yanked open the curtains, opened the window, and shouted downstairs.
"Shion! Stop Benika for me—!"
But it was already too late.
Akira saw Socially-Anxious Benika, in bathroom slippers, dashing out of the Kobayashi House yard—for some reason, carrying two bath towels.
Maybe Shion had tried to stop her, so she hadn't taken the front door, but escaped through the sliding doors to the yard—the same way Kuroo the cat always sneaked in.
Akira could only watch her running into the sunset, wrapped in those bath towels…
Even though he hadn't figured out what was going on, a sense of dread was already creeping into his heart.
So he immediately shouted downstairs,
"Shion! Go call Kobayashi-obaasan! Tell her to come unlock the door for me! Benika-san locked me in her room!"
Shion, who'd just chased after Benika, looked up and answered, "Okay!" Then hurried back inside to find Kobayashi-obaasan.
Luckily, today Kobayashi-obaasan had lost at mahjong and was in a foul mood, so she hadn't bothered going to the supermarket and was still home.
A little while later, Kobayashi-obaasan came up with the key and let Akira out.
She opened the door, scowling.
"What are you kids making a racket for? Didn't I tell you before—no fighting in my house, or I'll throw you all out!"
Akira managed a wry smile.
"We weren't fighting…"
"Then why did Benika run out crying? What did you do to her?"
"…Huh?"
Socially-Anxious Benika was crying?
What for?
She's the one who locked me up—I'm the victim here…
Akira was at a loss. He honestly didn't get it, but to avoid getting scolded, he hurried to explain.
"I really didn't do anything! I just wanted to ask her about what we talked about before! You can ask Shion!"
Shion nodded, backing him up.
"Obaasan, Akira-kun's telling the truth. It's just that Benika-san has been avoiding him for some reason lately, so he went up to confront her… But other than that, he really didn't do anything bad."
After all, whenever he's home, he's always with me—I'd never let him ogle Benika-san's chest… Shion muttered inwardly.
Kobayashi-obaasan mostly trusted Akira, and didn't really think he'd bullied Benika-san into running out. She just waved it off.
"Fine… Anyway, whatever mess you make, you'd better clean it up yourselves."
"We will, we will. I'll handle it."
Kobayashi-obaasan didn't want to deal with their drama, so she just left, hands behind her back.
And as soon as she'd gone downstairs, another door swung open.
"So noisy… What the hell are you people doing?"
Hijikata Isamu, just woken up, frowned and scratched his head at the commotion. This was usually his nap time, so getting woken up put him in a foul mood.
When Akira saw him, a light bulb went off.
"Hijikata-san! I need to ask you something!"
"Huh?"
Hijikata looked completely confused, but Akira just pushed him back into his room and followed him in.
Shion didn't really want to go into another man's room, but seeing Akira head in, she was tempted to follow—only for Akira to block her at the door.
"This is just a conversation for us guys, Shion, so I'll have to ask you to wait outside for a bit."
Of course that was nonsense—Akira wanted to talk about transmigration, so it wasn't something Shion could hear.
"Um… okay, I'll wait for you downstairs."
"Yeah, go on."
After sending Shion off, Akira closed the door behind him.
Hijikata Isamu, seeing Akira's grim expression, suddenly got nervous and muttered,
"Uh, Akira, I don't swing that way, man… I mean, you already have Shion, and she's super cute…"
"Shut up! That's not it—I just need to confirm something!"
"What is it…?"
Akira pointed at him dramatically, as if he were accusing a criminal.
"Hijikata-san! Your name in your previous life was 'Fang Yong,' wasn't it!"
"Uh? Uh, uh, uh…"
Suddenly hearing his old name, Hijikata was completely stunned. His sleepy brain woke up in an instant—it was like being doxxed online.
"H-how did you know?!"
"Because there's a pattern with transmigrator names! My name was Bai Yu Ming, Benika-san's was Tian Hongxiang, and I'm guessing even the late Kobayashi-oyaji was originally surnamed Lin. Our given names stayed the same, but our surnames shifted slightly, so I figured you'd be the same."
"Is that how it works…? Oh, I get it! No wonder Kobayashi-obaasan sometimes calls you 'Shirako'… It's because your old surname was Bai, so you're Shirako—'white kid'! Genius!"
Hijikata's reaction was just like Benika-san's when she figured out Akira's nickname.
Akira had brought up names to get right to the point—he wanted to know if Benika-san's split personality was unique, or if all transmigrators had the same issue.
"Hijikata-san… Actually, let's just call you Uncle Yong—Uncle Yong, do you have a second personality?"
"Hah? What second personality…? Oh, I get it. You mean, what happened to the version of me from this world, right?"
Hijikata instantly understood what Akira was getting at.
"Exactly!"
Hijikata scratched his head and started grumbling.
"Why is everyone suddenly interested in this lately? Shouldn't this have been the first thing you checked after transmigrating? How do you guys not know this…"
Akira's eyes widened. He'd picked the right person to ask!
"You guys? So Benika-san asked you too!"
"Yeah, she came to ask me if I had the memories of the 'other me' in this world…"
Akira was drawn in by the topic—and from Hijikata's expression, he'd already guessed the answer.
"Wait! Uncle Yong, you do have the memories of the local version of you?!"
Hijikata made a face, like he was saying, Isn't that obvious?
"Of course I do, Akira. What, did you think I could speak Japanese this well otherwise? How could anyone survive here if they couldn't even talk?"
"F—... F—!!"
Akira was about to cough up blood, screaming internally.
That's me! I'm the one who couldn't speak and had to learn the language from scratch!
And I spent half a year at it, too!
So other transmigrators just come with the language pack?!
Why is it different for me?!
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T/N: LMAOOOOOOOO BROS UNLUCKYYYYYYYYYYYYYY