Who could possibly be looking for her at this hour?
As she watched her older cousin's retreating figure disappear toward the genkan, Takahashi Mio's mind raced through possibilities. The list of people who knew her home address was pitifully short—she could count them all on one hand with fingers to spare.
Her parents were obviously out of the question. If they could actually make the trip themselves, they never would have dispatched Miki-nee as their reconnaissance agent in the first place.
Haruno Reika worked the evening shift at a convenience store and guarded her paycheck like a dragon hoarding gold; she'd never skip work on a whim. Besides, Reika always, always messaged ahead before showing up anywhere. It was practically a sacred ritual.
Which left only...
The realization struck like a bolt of lightning. Mio's beautiful eyes flew wide open. She scrambled up from the tatami, her socked feet slipping slightly in her haste, and hurried toward the front of the apartment. But by the time she rounded the corner, Takahashi Miki had already pulled the door wide open.
Mio's lips parted. She peered past her cousin's bony shoulder, her gaze landing on the young man standing in the dim corridor beyond. His familiar silhouette. That calm, unreadable expression. Her voice slipped out before her brain could catch up, soft and startled.
"Seiya...?"
What she actually wanted to say was something closer to: 'Why on earth are you here?!'
After all, even during those rare occasions when he'd walked her home after late training sessions, he had never once come upstairs. He always lingered at the building entrance, waiting until she'd disappeared safely inside before turning away. This was uncharted territory. This was an anomaly.
But the words stalled on the tip of her tongue, blocked by the sudden awareness of her cousin's presence. Asking so bluntly—"What are you doing here?"—would make it sound like they were distant. Like he wasn't welcome. Like he had no right to show up at her door unannounced. And that was absolutely not the impression she wanted to give.
Her open mouth closed again, leaving her frozen in an awkward tableau of hesitation and confusion.
Shiratori Seiya read the unspoken question flickering in her eyes with perfect clarity. Without preamble, he raised his phone, the screen still glowing with evidence.
"Check your phone."
"Huh? My phone?"
Mio blinked, momentarily thrown. Then her gaze darted instinctively toward the low table in the bedroom—empty. She spun on her heel and dove back into the room, her search growing increasingly frantic with each passing second.
She checked under the bed. Nothing. She swept her arm beneath the desk. Just dust bunnies. She even grabbed the discarded clothes still lying in a heap on the tatami and shook them out violently—as if her phone might have somehow burrowed into the fabric like a frightened hamster. Still nothing.
A cold tendril of panic began curling in her stomach. Where? Where did I put it? She mentally retraced her steps—the frantic tidying spree, the cardboard boxes, the desperate kick that had sent everything sliding into the shadows. Kuso. Don't tell me I accidentally stuffed it into one of those boxes...
Out in the hallway, watching her younger cousin's increasingly flustered, chaotic search pattern, Takahashi Miki couldn't suppress a thread of genuine amusement. A wry, knowing smile tugged at her lips. She turned her attention back to the young man still standing patiently at the threshold, her gaze openly appraising.
"I'm Mio's older cousin. Takahashi Miki."
She extended her hand with a smooth, practiced motion—the gesture of someone accustomed to professional introductions.
Shiratori Seiya's gaze flickered momentarily. Internally, a note of mild surprise registered. Mio had never once mentioned having an older cousin—let alone one who looked like she'd stepped out of a high-fashion editorial, all sharp angles and hollow cheeks. But his expression remained perfectly composed, betraying nothing. He accepted her hand with a brief, firm clasp before releasing it.
"Shiratori Seiya. It's a pleasure to meet you. Please take care of me."
His manner was crisp. Polite. Utterly unruffled.
Takahashi Miki observed his reaction closely, and something quietly shifted in her perception. She had deliberately emphasized her identity just now—her role as family, as someone close enough to be considered Mio's guardian for all practical purposes.
Even if this wasn't quite a formal "meeting the parents" scenario, it was close enough. For any normal university student suddenly confronted with their girlfriend's older relative without warning, there should have been some sign of discomfort. Some nervous tic. A bead of sweat. A flicker of panic in the eyes.
She'd dated enough people herself. She'd heard countless friends recount hilarious horror stories about their boyfriends freezing up, stammering, or accidentally insulting the family patriarch during first introductions. It was perfectly normal. Practically expected.
But she detected absolutely nothing from Shiratori Seiya.
A person's expression could be controlled. Their actions could be rehearsed. But the eyes—the eyes never lied. And his gaze was utterly still. Calm as a deep mountain lake at dawn, without a single ripple of timidity or fluster disturbing its surface.
More than that, Takahashi Miki sensed something else emanating from him. A quiet, grounded steadiness that felt almost... heavy. Like the weight of a mountain behind his words. It was the kind of presence she only ever felt when facing industry superiors—directors, veteran producers, people with genuine authority and years of hard-won experience.
Suddenly, her mouth felt inexplicably dry. The slight, pleasant buzz from the beer she'd consumed earlier evaporated in an instant, replaced by sharp, sober clarity.
But then she looked at his face again—really looked. And doubt crept in. He was so young. Practically a child by industry standards. Maybe she was overthinking this. Maybe the fatigue and stress were making her imagine things.
After all, failing to appear flustered in front of a lover's family didn't necessarily indicate extraordinary character. It could also mean something simpler. Something colder. Something like... a lack of genuine emotional investment.
Yet, recalling the look she'd glimpsed in his eyes the moment she'd first swung open the door—that flash of sharp, almost protective alertness...
Takahashi Miki let out a soft, self-deprecating chuckle.
"Ah, what timing. I was just interrogating Mio about you earlier. She never breathed a single word about dating anyone—kept it completely secret. I even asked her when I might get to meet this mysterious boyfriend, and here you are. Like magic."
"A fortunate coincidence indeed."
Shiratori Seiya returned her smile with a polite, measured one of his own. Then he raised his phone again, deliberately angling the screen so she could see the call log displayed there. A long, damning column of red [Missed Calls].
"I tried reaching her multiple times with no response. When she didn't pick up... I grew concerned something might have happened. She lives alone. So I came to check in person."
Miki's gaze drifted across the screen, absorbing the evidence. Her expression softened with understanding.
"I see. That's... kind of you. And honestly? Very relatable. Mio's always had that kind of personality—the sort that makes it impossible not to worry about her. She spaces out. She forgets things. She gets tangled up in her own head."
She glanced back over her shoulder toward the bedroom, where the sounds of frantic searching—drawers opening, fabric rustling—continued unabated. A fond, exasperated smile crossed her gaunt features. Then she stepped aside, clearing the threshold, and gestured inward.
"Well, don't just stand in the hallway like a stranger. Come in, come in."
Hearing the invitation, Shiratori Seiya hesitated for the briefest fraction of a second. His gaze flicked toward the interior of the apartment—a space he had never entered before. But before he could formulate a polite deflection, Takahashi Mio's triumphant voice rang out from the bedroom.
"Found it! It was here the whole time!"
—
"So, Mio... let me get this straight."
The three of them had settled around the low table in the modest bedroom, an improvised dinner gathering that felt both impossibly intimate and slightly surreal. Takahashi Miki rested her chopsticks thoughtfully against her lower lip, her eyes dancing with barely suppressed mirth.
"What was so incredibly urgent that you flung your bag into the crack between the desk and the wall—and then immediately erased all memory of having done so?"
Hearing her cousin's teasing lilt, Mio felt her cheeks flush with renewed heat. Still fresh from her bath, her skin had the dewy, translucent quality of a perfectly peeled hard-boiled egg. The blush spreading across it was unmistakable.
"It's because... Mom told me you were coming, Miki-nee. I wanted to get home early. To tidy up. Otherwise the place would've been way too embarrassing for guests..."
She trailed off, her voice growing smaller with each word.
"Oh?"
Takahashi Miki's gaze sharpened with a knowing, almost predatory glint. Her eyes flicked meaningfully toward Shiratori Seiya—the other guest—but she mercifully chose not to pursue the obvious line of questioning. Instead, she simply smiled.
"Well, it's a good thing Shiratori-kun was so worried about you that he came racing over. Maybe next time... don't keep your phone permanently glued to silent mode? Makes it awfully difficult for people to check if you're still alive."
"I... I know..."
Mio opened her mouth, a half-formed defense on her tongue. She wanted to explain that her phone had always been on ringtone before. She'd only switched it to silent recently—ever since she'd started her daily study sessions at the library, determined not to disturb the hallowed quiet with accidental notification pings. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
But the thought of Shiratori Seiya... calling her so many times... growing so genuinely concerned that he'd physically come to her apartment to check on her well-being...
A wave of warmth spread through her chest, sweet and effervescent, like honey dissolved in warm milk. The sensation was so overwhelming that she couldn't help but squeeze her thighs together beneath the table, a small, involuntary gesture of barely contained emotion.
He was really that worried? About me?
But wait—before coming to find her, there had been something else. Some other reason for the calls. Takahashi Mio remembered, with sudden clarity, that when she'd finally unlocked her phone in desperate relief, she'd seen not just the missed call notifications. Shiratori Seiya had also sent her a file via LINE.
She hadn't been able to examine it in detail—not with her cousin's sharp eyes watching her every move—but from the brief glimpse she'd caught, it had looked like... a document. Something dense with text. Something that might have been... a script?
The hesitant, curious expression on her face must have been more obvious than she realized, because Takahashi Miki abruptly shifted conversational gears. She turned away from Mio, directing her attention toward Shiratori Seiya, and began making casual small talk—university life, memories of her own school days, nostalgic reflections.
Seeing this, Mio's heart immediately seized with a fresh wave of anxiety. She secretly drew a deep, steadying breath, desperately trying to project an aura of perfect normalcy even as her heartbeat accelerated into a frantic drumroll against her ribs.
She had imagined this scenario before—bringing Seiya home to meet her family someday. It was a daydream she'd indulged in more than once, usually late at night when sleep refused to come. But she had never, ever expected it to happen so suddenly. Without warning. Without rehearsal. Without even the chance to change into something nicer than cotton pajamas.
And the true nature of their relationship... the complicated, transactional, not-technically-dating-but-also-not-not-dating labyrinth they inhabited... it was absolutely impossible to explain honestly. No one would ever believe it. No one would understand.
"So, Miki-nee, here's the thing—he paid off my massive debt, I'm basically his long-term investment project, and also he might be getting married to his kendo-prodigy ex-girlfriend in three years, but I've decided I'm going to make him fall in love with me before then. Also, his other ex is a famous singer. Anyway, how's your beer?"
Yeah. That conversation would end with her cousin speed-dialing her mother for an emergency intervention.
The girl bit down softly on her pink lips, the blush on her face spreading insidiously downward until even the delicate skin of her neck was tinged with rose. Discreetly, beneath the cover of the low table, she shifted her foot until it rested lightly against Shiratori Seiya's leg. A silent telegraph line. A warning system. If he said anything too dangerous, she could give him a subtle, urgent nudge.
Fortunately, Takahashi Miki didn't launch into the full-scale interrogation Mio had feared. Instead, she chatted idly about campus life, her voice tinged with a wistful, almost melancholic nostalgia for her own university years.
Relief washed over Mio in slow, cooling waves. She watched Shiratori Seiya navigate the conversation with effortless grace—answering questions without revealing too much, deflecting potential pitfalls with polite humor, maintaining perfect composure. The corners of her lips began to curve upward, a helpless, tender smile blooming despite her best efforts to suppress it.
Without conscious thought, her imagination painted a vision of the future. A day when she would bring him home. Properly. To meet her parents. Her mother would fuss over him, pressing food onto his plate. Her father... even her stern, stubborn, impossible-to-please father... surely he would come to like Seiya too? Eventually? How could he not?
She knew, logically, that loving someone and marrying them was ultimately a matter between two people. But to have the family's blessing—to stand before them without secrets, without fear—would make everything feel so much more real. So much more... permanent. The "and they lived happily ever after" kind of permanent.
She needed to work hard, too. Harder than ever. At the very least, she could start practicing today. Preparing herself for the day she would eventually meet Seiya's family. Surely it wouldn't be that different from this, right? A little awkwardness. A little nervousness. But underneath it all, a foundation of genuine care and respect.
It should be fine. It would be fine.
"So, Shiratori-kun..."
The sudden shift in Takahashi Miki's tone snapped Mio out of her romantic reverie like a bucket of ice water. She jolted back to full alertness, her spine straightening instinctively. Why had her cousin's voice changed like that? What was coming?
"...do you live alone right now?"
Mio felt her heart stutter. Why that question? Why is she asking that? What angle is she playing?
Shiratori Seiya, however, answered without hesitation. His voice was calm. Steady. Utterly untroubled.
"Yes. I live alone."
"I see. I see."
Takahashi Miki nodded thoughtfully, the motion slow and deliberate. She tapped her chopstick lightly against her lip, her eyes distant for a moment as if performing complex mental calculations. Then, a smile spread across her angular face—a smile that Mio recognized with dawning horror. It was the same smile Miki-nee used to wear right before suggesting something outrageous. Something rule-breaking. Something that would get them both in trouble.
"In that case..."
Miki bit down gently on the tip of her chopstick, her eyes glinting with mischief and something deeper. Something almost like... encouragement?
"Why don't the two of you just rent a place together? Live together, I mean."
"..."