"A kiss?"
The word hung in the air between them, fragile and electric. As the girl's softly spoken request reached his ears, Shiratori Seiya found himself staring into the twin pools of her eyes—catching his own reflection there, suspended like a ghost in amber. For a long, suspended heartbeat, he was utterly stunned.
Of all the scenarios he had mentally prepared for tonight—questions about the script, confusion about the audition process, even another spiral of self-doubt about her cousin's fate—this particular development had never once crossed his mind. A request like this, coming from Takahashi Mio of all people, felt like a glitch in reality. A scene inserted from an entirely different genre.
No matter how many academic prefixes she tried to attach to the request, no matter how elaborately she decorated it with acting theory and character immersion methodology and Araki-sensei's professional advice... the fundamental nature of what she was asking remained stubbornly, indisputably transparent. A confession wrapped in the thinnest possible layer of pretense. The essence couldn't be hidden, no matter how skillfully she dressed it up.
Before him, Takahashi Mio had never been in love. Not once. She was inexperienced, unguarded, a complete novice in the treacherous waters of romance. So she certainly couldn't be called a frivolous or casual person—this wasn't some game she played with any handsome face that crossed her path.
He didn't have the mental bandwidth to trace back through every interaction, every conversation, every small moment to pinpoint exactly where the shift had occurred. Which specific instance had tipped the scales from "this is a purely transactional arrangement" to... this.
Shiratori Seiya's mind snapped back to the present. His brows furrowed deeply. Moving with deliberate, careful intent, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around Mio's slender wrist—the one still clutching his sleeve like a lifeline. Gently but firmly, he pulled her hand away, detaching her grip.
Feeling the unmistakable rejection in his touch, Takahashi Mio's pupils constricted to pinpricks. She unconsciously held her breath, every muscle in her body going taut with dreadful anticipation. A cold, sinking premonition bloomed in the pit of her stomach, spreading its dark tendrils outward. She pressed her lips into a tight, bloodless line and said nothing. Waiting.
Shiratori Seiya stared at her face—at the brave facade she was barely holding together, at the telltale glimmer of fear swimming beneath her determined expression. His mind flickered back to earlier that day. To Hojo Shione's pointed, loaded question: 'Does Takahashi Mio know?'
Then, like a tide pulling back to reveal jagged rocks, the memory of his promise to Saori surged forward. "Three years. If in three years, or after three years, you still like me, I will marry you." The words echoed in his skull. He felt something twist painfully in his chest—a sharp, complicated ache. After a long, heavy silence, he made his decision. He would tell her the truth. Directly. Without evasion.
"I promised Saori... that I would marry her."
"..."
In the space of a single heartbeat, Takahashi Mio felt as though a bomb had detonated directly inside her ribcage. The explosion was silent, but the shockwave obliterated everything.
A shrill, droning buzz filled her ears—the kind of white noise that consumes the world after a concussion. She couldn't hear anything beyond that internal ringing. The hum of the refrigerator. The distant traffic. Her own breathing. All of it swallowed.
She opened her mouth. She wanted to say something—anything—to break the suffocating silence. But her throat felt as though it had been glued shut, the words trapped and dying behind an impassable barrier. Nothing came out. Not even a whisper.
It was as if a void had torn open in the center of her heart. A cold, voracious emptiness that was actively, relentlessly sucking her soul inward, devouring her from the inside out. She felt hollow. Drained. Like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly, carelessly severed by its puppeteer.
She stared blankly at the young man before her, her vision losing focus around the edges. And in the echoing chamber of her memory, Hojo Shione's voice from that terrible dream rose up with cruel, impeccable clarity:
"He never liked you. Everything was nothing more than your own wishful thinking."
The dream had become prophecy. The nightmare had bled through into reality.
A hot, acidic, unbearably sour sensation surged behind her eyes. In an instant—shorter than a breath—her vision blurred beneath a film of gathering tears. The image of Shiratori Seiya's face fractured into a watery, indistinct smear.
Unwilling.
I'm so unwilling. So fiercely, desperately unwilling.
Why? Why, after all this time—after finally, finally meeting someone who made her heart race and her dreams feel possible—why was he being snatched away? Why was she always the one left standing on the sidelines, watching happiness happen to other people?
Was she truly that undesirable? That unworthy? That easy to discard?
She had been trying. She had been trying so hard. Training until her body screamed. Studying until her eyes burned. Pushing herself past every limit she'd ever known. And still, it wasn't enough. Still, she wasn't enough.
And then—like a massive, invisible hand reaching down and seizing her by the collar—a surge of pure, incandescent jealousy yanked her soul back from the edge of that consuming void. The possessiveness. The fierce, primal refusal to surrender without a fight.
Extreme jealousy. The kind that rewrites the rules. The kind that doesn't need a proper title or permission to exist.
Takahashi Mio bit down on her lip—hard. Hard enough to taste the faint, metallic tang of blood. Her beautiful, glistening eyes locked onto Shiratori Seiya's with a new, blazing intensity. Before he could react, before he could even register the shift in her expression, her hands shot out. She grabbed fistfuls of his collar, her knuckles white with desperate strength. And in one fluid, reckless, defiant motion, she pushed herself upward and crushed her lips against his.
Forcefully. Unapologetically. A declaration of war sealed with a kiss.
Under the soft yellow glow of the ceiling light, a single crystalline tear slipped from the corner of the girl's tightly shut eye. It traced a slow, glimmering path down her cheek, catching the lamplight like a falling star.
In that electric, heart-stopping moment, Takahashi Mio finally, viscerally understood. She understood the feeling Hasegawa Saori must have experienced when she'd cornered her in the kendo dojo's changing room and driven that bamboo sword forward. That wild, irrational, all-consuming possessiveness.
It felt as though the great vinegar jar of jealousy had been overturned directly above her head. She was drenched in it. Steeped in bitter, acidic envy until her skin ached from the saturation, until her very bones felt softened and eroded by the corrosive intensity of the emotion.
A shocking, foreign warmth spread across her lips. It was chased immediately by a tingling, electric sensation that shot from the tips of her curled toes, racing up her spine, and exploded somewhere behind her brow. Her toes—encased in plain white cotton socks—curled unconsciously against the tatami, gripping the woven straw as if anchoring herself against a storm. Her thighs pressed tightly together, every muscle in her body pulled taut as a bowstring. A soft, aching, indescribably complex sensation radiated from the tip of her tongue and spread, slowly, maddeningly, to every square inch of her flushed skin.
The flavors of the moment swirled together into an incomprehensible cocktail. Sweet. Bitter. Painful. Exhilarating. The complex emotions crashed against each other like waves during a typhoon, churning in her heart.
And then, from deep within the chaos, her inherent, unshakeable pride reasserted itself. Rose up like a phoenix from the ashes of her doubt.
Even jealousy requires a proper title. No matter what promises were made, no matter what history exists between them—right now, in this moment, in the eyes of the world... I am his official girlfriend. I am. Not Hojo Shione. Not Hasegawa Saori. ME.
Neither those sisters nor that sword-swinging lunatic should stand in my way. I won't let them. I refuse.
Suddenly, a sharp, urgent signal cut through her racing thoughts.
Air. I need air.
Takahashi Mio realized, with distant, clinical detachment, that she was running out of oxygen. Her lungs burned. The edges of her vision started to swim. Her delicate brows furrowed unconsciously, and in a moment of panicked, instinctive reaction—
She bit down. Hard.
'Tss—!'
Shiratori Seiya felt a flash of sharp, startling pain bloom across his tongue. The shock jolted through him, and he quickly pulled his face back, breaking the seal of the kiss with a wet, breathless sound.
Takahashi Mio recovered in the same instant. Her hands, still gripping his collar, shifted their intention. She planted her palms flat against his chest and pushed with all her strength. Caught off-guard and still reeling, Shiratori Seiya stumbled backward, his shoulder blades hitting the edge of the low table with a dull thud.
The girl's chest heaved with ragged, uneven breaths. Her eyes were rimmed with red, still glistening with unshed tears. She glared at him with a fury that burned pure and incandescent, and her voice emerged as an indignant, accusatory scolding:
"How—how are you so skilled at this?!"
"..."
The question hung in the air, raw and bleeding. This was her first kiss. Her precious, irreplaceable first kiss—a moment she had secretly, shyly imagined might be clumsy and sweet and magical. But he... he had kissed those other women. Countless times. With experience. With practiced ease. The thought made her want to scream. Made her want to cry. Made her want to bite him again.
She wanted to ask the follow-up question burning on her tongue: Who was your first kiss with? Which one of them got to have that piece of you before I even knew you existed? But the words lodged painfully in her throat, blocked by the absolute certainty that hearing the answer would only shatter her further.
Knowing would only deepen the wound. So she swallowed the question whole and let it cut her from the inside.
Shiratori Seiya hesitated, still recovering from the whiplash sequence of events. Looking at her tear-streaked face, her trembling shoulders, her defiant, blazing eyes, he didn't know what to say. He reached over to the low table, plucked a clean tissue from the box, and extended it toward her. His voice was quiet. Gentle.
"Wipe your face."
The simple, mundane kindness in the gesture made her want to start crying all over again. She snatched two tissues from the box—not the ones he offered, but fresh ones, as if accepting his would mean accepting defeat—and pressed them roughly against her stinging eyes. The corners burned. Everything burned. But staring at him, at his composed, conflicted expression, a fresh surge of anger and affection swirled together into something that felt almost like determination.
Shiratori Seiya looked at the girl before him—really looked at her, at the mess of tears and defiance and vulnerability—and his emotions tangled into a knot too complex to unravel. Softly, he asked the question that had been hovering at the back of his mind.
"When... exactly did you start liking me?"
A long, suspended silence settled over the room. The refrigerator hummed. The traffic whispered in the distance. Somewhere in the building, a door opened and closed.
After what felt like an eternity, Takahashi Mio's eyes gradually, slowly, regained their calm. The storm passed—or at least, retreated to a manageable distance. She let out a small, foolish-sounding chuckle, the kind that carried no humor whatsoever.
"'Liking' or 'not liking'... what does it even matter at this point?" She tilted her head, meeting his gaze directly. "Didn't I already explain myself? It was purely for research purposes. I just wanted to experience what romantic feelings might feel like for a character. Method acting. That's all."
She paused. The thin pretense was barely holding, and they both knew it. She pressed on anyway.
"Besides... even if I did like you right now, what exactly could you do about it? Hm? Haven't you already promised Hasegawa Saori that you'd marry her? A promise like that... it's too late to take it back now, isn't it? A man's word is his bond, or whatever they say."
She sniffled, the sound wet and undignified. She didn't care anymore.
"Don't worry, okay? Even if you date Hasegawa Saori—even if you marry her and have a million sword-swinging babies—I won't say a word. What I told you that night at the restaurant... I meant every syllable. I wasn't lying. I can accept it."
"However..." Her gaze sharpened, a flicker of genuine fear breaking through the bravado. "I am a little curious about the logistics. When exactly are you planning to marry her? And you're still technically dating me right now. Won't she, I don't know, snap one day and just... stab me to death in the middle of the street? Is that how I'm going to go out? 'Takahashi Mio, age 20, cause of death: jealous kendo prodigy'?"
She stared at him with a resentful, almost accusatory expression—as if her very life was balanced precariously in his hands and he was being far too cavalier with it.
Shiratori Seiya shook his head, his voice firm. "No. I've spoken with her extensively. Saori isn't that kind of impulsive, violent person. She understands the situation."
"Hard to say. Really hard to say." Mio pouted, shaking her head with theatrical skepticism. "Thinking back to how she just casually stabbed at me with zero warning last time—no 'hello,' no 'how do you do,' just stab—I'm still genuinely scared. Every day when I walk home alone, I keep looking over my shoulder. I swear I see shadows moving. My heart rate spikes at every corner."
"..."
Hearing this dramatic, exaggerated account of her trauma, Shiratori Seiya wanted to defend Saori again. To explain that she wasn't some unhinged, violence-prone maniac. But as he turned the words over in his mind, a suspicion surfaced that Takahashi Mio's complaints held a secondary, ulterior meaning. A setup. So, cautiously, he followed her thread.
"Then... what do you think would be an appropriate solution?"
"What's appropriate?" Mio made a quiet 'tch' sound, frowning in exaggerated contemplation. She tapped her chin, the picture of a strategist weighing options. "Well, at the very least, you should stop provoking that lunatic any further. Don't give her reasons to escalate. And then..."
She trailed off, her expression shifting into something more calculating. She tilted her head, her eyes meeting his with sudden, sharp intent.
"What do you think about the proposal my cousin brought up earlier today?"
"Saori is not a lunatic."
Shiratori Seiya corrected her with reflexive, automatic defense. Then, processing the actual content of her question, his brow furrowed. "Are you talking about... co-renting? Moving in together?"
The moment the words left his mouth—before she could even confirm—he shook his head firmly.
"No. Absolutely not. Think about it according to your own logic: if Saori found out you were living with me—sharing the same space, the same kitchen, the same morning routines—wouldn't that put you in exponentially more danger? That would be the exact opposite of de-escalation."
He pressed on, his tone practical and firm.
"Besides, something like cohabitation... your family would have to explicitly agree to an arrangement like that, wouldn't they? Your mother, your father... I doubt they'd sign off with a smile."
Living together was out of the question. Completely off the table. The potential for catastrophe was simply too high.
Setting aside the volatile Saori variable—whether she'd go on a jealous rampage or not—there was the more immediate, more mundane concern. A man and a woman, sharing a single apartment, facing each other every morning and every night. Takahashi Mio was objectively, distractingly beautiful. Even if he could maintain iron self-discipline and keep appropriate boundaries... could she? Would her focus remain on her training and career, or would the domestic intimacy slowly erode her professional drive?
If things ever spiraled out of control—if lines were crossed that couldn't be uncrossed—someone would inevitably get hurt. The damage wouldn't be worth the fleeting convenience.
Shiratori Seiya rubbed his temples, a genuine headache beginning to pulse behind his eyes.
"Look. If you genuinely don't feel safe living here alone anymore... you can move to my apartment complex. The same building. I remember there are a few vacant units available for rent right now. It would be more convenient for communication and coordination, and you'd be nearby if anything happened. Separate apartments. Separate spaces."
Hearing this counter-proposal, Takahashi Mio blinked. A flicker of surprise crossed her features—she hadn't expected him to offer even this much. She hesitated, running the logistics through her mind. Then, slowly, she nodded.
"That... would actually be more convenient. For script discussions and training check-ins and everything."
Her voice was calm. Accepting. Reasonable.
But inside the privacy of her own heart, she allowed herself a quiet, private, victorious little 'heh.'
So what if he promised to marry her? They're not married yet. Not even close. There are three whole years between now and that hypothetical wedding day. Three years is practically an eternity in the world of romance. Wars have been fought and kingdoms have fallen in less time.
Why should I be persuaded to retreat with just a single sentence? I'm not backing down. Not today. Not ever.
The two of them talked for a few more minutes—practical matters, schedules, the tentative timeline for the audition. Then, Shiratori Seiya gathered his things, slipped on his shoes at the genkan, and headed downstairs into the cool night air.
Climbing into his car, he didn't immediately start the engine. He sat in the driver's seat, staring out through the windshield at the dazzling lights of Tokyo at night. The neon signs. The distant glow of office towers. The endless, restless energy of the city that never truly slept.
His thoughts churned in endless, fruitless circles. Where did things go wrong? He traced back through every interaction with Takahashi Mio—the debt, the contract, the training regimen, the late-night script sessions. At what precise moment had the professional boundary blurred into something far messier?
But after turning the question over and over, he arrived at no clear answer. Because there was no clear answer. Just as falling in love required no logical reason, no neat cause-and-effect explanation... that feeling simply materialized. Out of nowhere. Uninvited. Unpredictable.
Shiratori Seiya let out a long, deep, bone-weary sigh. Then he turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. He pressed the accelerator and pulled away from the curb.
As the car's red taillights disappeared around the corner, swallowed by the Tokyo night...
A figure emerged from the shadows near the apartment building's entrance.
A girl. Chewing slowly, methodically, on a convenience store rice ball. Her expression was unreadable. Calm. Almost serene.
In one hand, she idly twirled a long bamboo sword—the polished wood catching the streetlight and glinting like a blade. The motion was casual. Practiced. Effortless.
She finished the last bite of her rice ball, crumpled the plastic wrapper in her fist, and tossed it into a nearby bin with perfect, silent accuracy.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she tilted her head back and looked up.
Up toward the window of Takahashi Mio's apartment.
The light was still on.
"..."