Chapter 72

Day Off (休日) is the seventy-second chapter of AidaIro's Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun.

Summary
The story continues on summer vacation. Yashiro Nene reflects on how her daily life had changed ever since the supernaturals were severed from the world, since most of her time was spent on interacting with supernaturals. Aoi Akane tiredly stares at the empty balcony across his window, presumably it belongs to Akane Aoi's household. Both of them receive an invitation from Minamoto Teru at their door asking them to hangout.

The three then went on to an amusement arcade. Teru gazes at the arcade games with excitement. When Nene asks him why he chose the arcade, he explains that as a member of an exorcist family, he works all day and all year to do his job. He says that this is the first time he ever took a day off, since all the supernaturals had completely disappeared. The mention of this triggered some memories of Hanako during the severance within Nene, she hesitatingly offers to explain to Akane about Hanako and the supernaturals. Akane declines this offer, saying that he already knows what happened and whatever Nene knew he probably already had a general idea of it.

Teru looms his stuffed toy over to the two, frightening Nene. He suggests that that the two should play too and says he surprisingly finds crane games fun. He then tosses a bunch of stuffed toys he gained from the crane games over to them, which irritated Akane.

They then went to a karaoke bar. Akane shows Teru a device where he could enter the songs. They discover a food menu within the device and Teru went on to order a Jasmine Tea for Nene, a Mango Float for himself, and a Vegetable Boba Crush for Akane. Teru also orders a super-mega-sized Sugar Honey Toast.

Nene reflects, telling herself that she finally got on an outing with Teru, and that when everything goes back to normal, she would tell it to Aoi and brag about it to Hanako. She thinks of what they would say. She smiles, and then crumbles. Teru notices this and excuses himself out of the room, telling Akane to look after Nene. Nene begins to cry. Akane asks her what's wrong. She apologizes for crying and confesses that she didn't know what to do about Aoi and Hanako. Akane tries to come up with words to say, but fails. He sits down and reveals to Nene that he made a promise to Aoi that they would do a lot of things in the future, such as going to the zoo and playing games together, so he won't cease any effort to bring them back. He asks Nene for her cooperation to extract some information from Teru, expressing that they share similar goals, and that Nene is someone he could trust. Nene asks if there is anything she could do. He replies with "Who knows?" and rhetorically asks that even she would be angry if things ended up just like this.

The delivery for the food arrived, and Akane ponders on what they are going to do with the massive sugar toast. Nene lifts the spoon and starts chomping on the food, while doing so she agrees to cooperate with Akane. Teru returns and comments on how he came back and sees that Nene became a hamster. Akane pins it on Teru for making an outrageous order. Teru asks if Nene is feeling any better, she nods. He then asks if she is free for the evening, she replies with "More or less." He suggests that the two has something they wished to talk to him about, he then invites the both of them to his place.

Characters in Order of Appearance

 * Yashiro Nene
 * Fuji Suzuto
 * Yamabuki Lemon
 * Aoi Akane
 * Minamoto Teru
 * Hanako
 * Akane Aoi

Events

 * Nene hangs out with Teru and Akane at the Arcade. They later went to a karaoke bar.
 * Nene and Akane agrees to work together to extract some information from Teru regarding the supernaturals, but in spite of this, Teru was already willing to answer their questions anyway.

Trivia

 * A hanako-themed Sugoroku board was included in the issue's extras, including cut-out pictures of Hanako, Nene, Kou, Mitsuba, Tsukasa, Teru, Aoi, Akane, Sakura, and Natsuhiko.
 * The Houkago Shounen Hanako-kun (or After School-boy Hanako-kun) series was announced to continue on November 26, 2020.