Shiratori Seiya's face had hardened into a mask of grim determination. Without a word, he shrugged off his raincoat and wrapped it around the girl's thin, trembling shoulders. His hand found her wrist—cold and delicate beneath his fingers—and he pulled her forward, striding briskly toward the dilapidated bungalow from which she had emerged.
Hasegawa Saori offered no resistance. She simply stood there, momentarily blank, allowing him to do as he pleased. When he suddenly tugged her wrist, she stumbled forward two steps, her wet sneakers skidding on the muddy path. Then, as if some profound truth had just clicked into place within her heart, her lips curved upward. A soft, bell-like laugh escaped into the rain-drenched air.
Hearing that clear, crystalline sound behind him, Shiratori Seiya turned his head. His gaze fell upon her rain-soaked, radiantly smiling face—completely at odds with her bedraggled, half-drowned appearance—and the words burst from him before he could stop them.
"You absolute idiot."
"Saori is not an idiot, you know."
Her response came instantly, reflexively—the same gentle, stubborn rebuttal she always offered. By now, it had become something of a sacred ritual between them. An unspoken understanding. A call and response that required no elaboration.
As she walked, guided by his firm grip, Saori became acutely aware of two sensations. First, the lingering warmth of the boy's body heat still clinging to the inside of the raincoat—a warmth that seeped through her soaked clothes and spread across her chilled skin like a gentle flame. Second, the strength with which he gripped her wrist. Not painful. Not desperate. Just... solid. Anchoring. As if he was afraid she might dissolve into the rain and disappear if he let go.
A effervescent joy blossomed in her chest, so pure and overwhelming that she felt she might float away. It didn't matter where they were going. The destination was utterly irrelevant. She simply wanted to keep walking like this, her wrist in his hand, forever and ever, until the rain stopped and the sun came out and the world ended and began again.
But then she looked up. She saw the rain plastering Shiratori Seiya's dark hair to his forehead. Saw the droplets tracing cold paths down his temples. He had given her his only raincoat. He was getting soaked.
She froze mid-step. Her free hand rose, reaching for the raincoat's collar, intending to pull it off and return it to him—
Shiratori Seiya noticed her movement immediately. He turned back, his glare sharp enough to cut steel.
"Hurry up!"
"O-Oh..."
She startled beneath his fierce gaze, shrinking back like a small forest creature caught in a sudden beam of headlights. Timid. Mouselike. She tucked her chin and followed obediently in his footsteps, her earlier rebellious impulse thoroughly quashed.
Ten seconds later, Shiratori Seiya found himself standing behind Saori in the doorway of her home. Through the narrow gap between the girl's shoulder and the warped doorframe, he could glimpse the interior. What he saw made something inside him clench painfully.
Narrow.
The space was almost impossibly narrow—a shoebox pretending to be a human dwelling. Crude. The walls were unfinished, stained with years of neglect. And the smell—a dark, damp, musty miasma of mildew and stale air—assaulted his nostrils with physical force. It wasn't as aggressively foul as the garbage heap festering outside, but somehow, it was worse. More insidious. It made his stomach lurch. Made him want to vomit.
The entire room measured perhaps three or four square meters. Two steps from the entrance brought you to the toilet—a cramped, closet-like cubicle, separated from the kitchen by nothing more than a flimsy sheer curtain that had probably once been white. The kitchen itself was barely a kitchen at all. A single portable gas burner. A miniature sink. No counter space to speak of.
Another two steps to the left, through a sliding door, lay the bedroom. It was exactly the scene he had witnessed through the video call. Rainwater seeped through the cracked ceiling in dismal, unrelenting lines. The tatami floor was submerged beneath a shallow lake of dirty water. The thumb-thick stream he'd spotted earlier was gone—in its place, the mold-blackened corner of the wall had been hastily stuffed with a towel. Two flimsy stools were stacked precariously beneath the leak, forming a makeshift barrier.
She had clearly tried to fix it herself. Before he arrived. While he was driving. She had climbed up on those rickety stools with her small, cold hands and tried to plug the sky.
But it was useless. The towel was already saturated, dripping steadily. Water continued to cascade down the rotting wall in glistening rivulets, tracing the veins of cracks like tears following wrinkles on an old woman's face.
Beyond saving.
The conclusion crystallized in Shiratori Seiya's mind with cold, clinical finality. This place was not fit for human habitation. It probably never had been.
He turned sharply to Hasegawa Saori. "Is the power completely off? The main breaker?"
Startled by his abrupt question, Saori paused mid-breath. Then she nodded.
"Yes. Saori turned everything off."
Despite her confirmation, Shiratori Seiya felt a nagging unease prickling at the back of his neck. He methodically checked every potential electrical hazard he could find—outlets, switches, the ancient fuse box near the entrance. Only after confirming there was no immediate danger of electrocution did he turn back to the girl waiting patiently beside him.
"Let's go, Saori."
"Oh."
She responded without a flicker of hesitation. No questions about where they were heading. No protests about packing her belongings. No anxious glances back at the crumbling shell that had, until moments ago, been her home. She had seemingly entrusted her entire heart, her entire existence, into his hands. Wherever he led, she would follow.
As he drove Saori through the rain-slicked streets toward his own apartment, Shiratori Seiya felt the weight of his own hypocrisy pressing down on him like a physical force.
I told her I would marry her. I made that promise with my own mouth. Yet I didn't even know... I didn't even bother to find out... what kind of conditions she was living in. As if just tossing her a verbal promise was enough to soothe my conscience. "There. I said I'll marry you in three years. That's sufficient. I've done my part."
What a joke. What an absolute, pathetic joke.
Before arriving, he had entertained practical, reasonable thoughts.
I'll help. I'll contact the landlord. I'll assist with repairs. Maybe I can find her a temporary place while the ceiling gets fixed.
But the moment he had stepped across that threshold—the moment the smell hit him and the reality of her daily existence sank into his bones—every pragmatic consideration had evaporated. He hadn't wanted to spend a single second longer in that place. He'd only wanted to grab her and run. To take her somewhere warm. Somewhere dry. Somewhere safe.
The journey passed in heavy silence. Hasegawa Saori, seated in the passenger seat with the raincoat still draped around her shoulders, seemed to sense the turbulent darkness of his mood. Several times, she opened her mouth as if to speak. Several times, she closed it again, apparently worried that her voice might distract him from driving. She simply sat there, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze occasionally drifting to his profile before flickering away.
"Come in."
Shiratori Seiya guided her through the door of his apartment, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. He peeled off the raincoat, now thoroughly soaked on the outside but still dry within. He knelt at the genkan, retrieved a pair of spare guest slippers from the shoe cabinet, and reached for her foot.
Seeing his intention, Hasegawa Saori instinctively jerked her foot back, as if burned.
Shiratori Seiya looked up, genuinely puzzled. "What's wrong?"
Just a few weeks ago at the Kendo Club, you were practically begging me to massage your feet in front of half the team. You grabbed my hands and placed them on your leg without a shred of hesitation. Why are you acting like a startled deer now?
The girl pressed her lips together. A deep blush—visible even beneath the lingering moisture on her cheeks—rose from her neck to her hairline. Her voice emerged rushed and slightly panicked.
"Saori... Saori can do it herself...!"
Something is definitely strange.
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Without comment, he reached forward and firmly grasped her ankle. She flinched but didn't pull away this time. Her body was rigid with tension.
Once the sneaker slid off, Shiratori Seiya understood immediately.
There, on the heel of her white cotton sock, gaped a hole. A large, unmistakable, completely un-mendable hole. Through it, her pink little toe peeked out mischievously, as if waving hello to the wider world.
Hasegawa Saori tracked his gaze with the precision of a hawk. The moment his eyes landed on the incriminating hole, a flurry of utter panic erupted in her chest. She bit down hard on her lip, her face burning with mortification. Her toe curled inward shyly, desperately trying to retreat back into the safety of the sock's tattered fabric, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Shiratori Seiya stared at her expression—the flustered blush, the averted eyes, the deeply embarrassed pout. A flicker of genuine, helpless amusement stirred in his chest. Without a word, he simply peeled off the damaged sock entirely.
"There. Isn't that better now?"
Saori's gaze flickered down to her now-bare foot, then darted away. She pointedly turned her face from his, refusing to meet his eyes. Instead, she surveyed the room before her with intense, almost analytical focus. Her gaze swept across every corner, every surface, missing nothing. The posture of a mistress conducting a thorough inspection of her new domain.
"Seiya's house is really nice... isn't it?" she breathed, genuine wonder coloring her voice. "So warm. So clean."
Hearing the unconscious awe in her words, Shiratori Seiya felt that familiar, painful tightness squeeze his heart again. He straightened up, removed the raincoat from her shoulders, and patted her gently.
"Come on. Bath first. You need to warm up."
"Oh."
She clutched the edge of his sleeve between two fingers and followed him obediently into the bathroom. She stood silently behind him, watching with quiet fascination as he fiddled with the water heater controls, adjusting the temperature, testing the spray against his wrist.
Once the water was running warm and steam began to curl lazily through the small room, Shiratori Seiya turned to face her. His eyes met hers directly.
"I don't have any products for women here. No fancy shampoos or scented soaps. You'll have to make do with whatever's available. The bath towel is here on the rack. I'll go find you some clean clothes to change into while you wash—"
He turned to leave. He'd taken exactly one step when he felt a gentle tug on the back of his shirt.
He turned back. Looked at her questioningly.
The girl bit her cherry-red lips, the gesture impossibly delicate. Slowly, almost ceremonially, she raised both hands and gathered her long, rain-soaked hair into a bundle at the crown of her head. The motion lifted the damp strands from her neck, revealing the elegant curve of her nape. Her cheeks flushed a shade of pink that had nothing to do with the steam.
"Isn't Seiya... going to wash too?"
Since when... since when did she learn to be so casually, devastatingly alluring?
Shiratori Seiya's mouth opened. Closed. He forcibly wrenched his gaze from the sight of her bare shoulders, her tilted head, her expectant eyes.
"You go first," he managed, his voice rougher than intended.
And before she could protest—before she could say another word with that innocent, dangerous mouth—he stepped out of the bathroom and slid the door firmly shut behind him.
Leaning against the wall of the hallway, Shiratori Seiya dragged a hand down his face. He found a box of tissues, wiped the residual rain from his hair and neck, and changed into a set of dry cotton pajamas. Settling at the low table in the main room, he forced his mind back to practical matters.
First, he contacted the real estate agent, arranging a viewing for a vacant unit in his complex. Tomorrow afternoon. Second, he checked the time and sent a brief message to Takahashi Mio, letting her know he wouldn't be able to pick her up from training tonight. An unexpected situation had come up.
After completing these tasks, he sat back and mentally scrolled through his checklist. Was there anything else? Anything he was forgetting?
Click.
The bathroom door swung open.
Shiratori Seiya turned his head on pure reflex—
And felt every coherent thought in his brain grind to a screeching, catastrophic halt.
The girl stood framed in the doorway, her silhouette backlit by the soft, steamy glow of the bathroom. She was clad in nothing but a single bath towel. And she had apparently not received the instruction manual on how bath towels were supposed to be worn.
Instead of wrapping it securely around her torso, she had merely draped it about her waist. The towel hung low on her hips. Above it—everything above it—was bare. Her long, straight legs, still glistening with a faint sheen of moisture, stretched endlessly downward, exposed fully to the cool air. The gentle curve of her waist. The flat plane of her stomach.
Her fair, luminous shoulders—dusted with a faint, rose-petal blush from the heat of the bath—gleamed under the warm lamplight. Water droplets clung to her collarbones like scattered diamonds. Her long, raven hair, now damp rather than dripping, cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in dark, glossy rivulets.
A misty, unfocused sheen clouded the girl's usually clear eyes. When her gaze found his, something flickered in their depths—shyness, hope, and a quiet, almost reverent invitation.
She lifted one hand, gesturing vaguely toward her wet hair, and spoke in a voice as soft as fresh snowfall.
"Seiya... can you help Saori blow-dry her hair?"
...
Noon. Aoyama Artist Training Institute.
The moment her morning training session concluded, Takahashi Mio released a long, shuddering breath of relief—the kind that seemed to deflate her entire body into the lounge chair's worn cushions.
No matter how she tried to frame it, the profession of "teacher" carried an inherently oppressive weight. And Araki-sensei, in particular, was not the type to practice anything remotely resembling gentle, nurturing education. Her feedback came sharp and precise, like a surgeon's scalpel. Every session left Mio feeling as though she'd survived a grueling mental sparring match rather than a simple acting class.
So, every single time she faced that stern, expectant gaze across the training room, her nerves wound themselves into impossibly tight coils.
She leaned back in the break room's slightly lumpy lounge chair, the plastic water bottle cool against her palm. She took a slow sip, letting the chilled liquid soothe her parched throat. Then, out of pure, ingrained habit, she reached for her phone—thumb swiping across the screen to check for notifications.
The LINE chat with Shiratori Seiya sat stubbornly empty. No new messages. No missed calls. Not even a read receipt on the last thing she'd sent.
A shadow of undisguised disappointment flickered through her peach-blossom eyes. The corners of her lips, which had been unconsciously curving upward in anticipation, flattened into a small, dejected line.
He didn't come to see me again today...
Ever since that night—ever since that desperate, defiant, utterly mortifying kiss—Shiratori Seiya had seemed to be deliberately, systematically avoiding her presence. Oh, he still responded to messages. Eventually. He still maintained the professional framework of their arrangement. But the spontaneous visits, the casual check-ins, the way he used to linger after training sessions to discuss script notes and character motivations... all of it had dried up like a shallow pond in summer.
So... was I too hasty after all?
The question gnawed at her, a persistent, anxious rodent in the back of her mind.
Did I come on too strong? Did I scare him away? Did I completely ruin everything with that one moment of reckless, jealous desperation?
But... no. That didn't quite track, did it? He had been so skilled at it. So maddeningly, effortlessly experienced. And afterward, when he'd pulled back and looked at her with those calm, unreadable eyes, he hadn't seemed flustered or nervous at all. More... conflicted. Resigned. Like a man facing an inconvenient but not entirely unexpected complication.
Besides, she had deliberately given him an escape route afterward. She'd explicitly told him that she could accept him dating Hasegawa Saori. She'd given him permission—genuine, sincere permission—to pursue that crazy sword-wielding lunatic if that's what his heart truly wanted. She had swallowed her pride and her jealousy and laid them both at his feet like an offering.
So logically, rationally, there should be no reason for him to avoid her. None whatsoever. The situation was perfectly manageable. His promise to Saori was three years away. Three whole years. Anything could happen in three years.
And yet... here she was. Staring at an empty chat log. Alone in a break room.
Takahashi Mio bit down on her cherry lips, the familiar sting grounding her spiraling thoughts. Her heart was a tangled knot of conflict, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next.
After Shiratori Seiya had left that night—after the kiss, after the confession about Saori, after the complicated, emotionally charged negotiation about apartments and boundaries—she had finally, shakily, called her mother. And confessed. About the relationship. About Seiya.
Not the whole truth, of course. The sanitized, parent-friendly version she'd rehearsed in the shower. But still. It was more than she'd ever admitted before.
After all, even if she kept her mouth shut, her cousin Miki-nee would inevitably spill every last detail the moment her mother asked. Better to control the narrative. Better to frame it as a sweet, normal, wholesome romance before Miki's cynical, model-industry-jaded perspective could twist it into something suspicious.
The result had been... predictable. A relentless, loving barrage of maternal nagging. What kind of person is he? What does his family do? Is he serious about you? When can you bring him home to meet us? Your father is going to want to have a very long talk with this young man. Should I start preparing the guest room?
She had deflected every single question with the practiced evasiveness of a politician dodging a scandal.
Bring him home? Meet the parents? Absolutely impossible. Completely out of the question. The man was already avoiding her after a single kiss—a spontaneous, emotionally charged kiss that she had initiated, thank you very much. If she tried to drag him into a formal family introduction, he'd probably flee the country. Change his name. Assume a new identity in rural Hokkaido.
Under the current circumstances, the fact that he had agreed to let her move into his apartment complex—to occupy a unit in the same building, to be physically close—was already a monumental victory. A hard-won concession.
After all, neither the Hojo sisters nor that crazy Saori woman had been granted this privilege. This was her territory. Her advantage.
The self-help books she'd been secretly reading—the ones with pastel covers and embarrassingly direct titles like "How to Make Him Fall for You in 90 Days"—all emphasized the same fundamental principle: proximity is the ultimate weapon. A man and a woman who spent every day in close contact, sharing meals, sharing spaces, sharing the mundane rhythms of daily life... as long as there were no catastrophic conflicts, their feelings would naturally, inevitably, gradually warm and deepen. It was basic psychology. Basic chemistry.
And wasn't that exactly how it always played out in movies and dramas? The cohabitation trope. The forced proximity arc. The slow-burn romance that started with convenience and ended with a passionate confession in the rain. She'd analyzed at least a dozen such scripts in her training. She knew the beats by heart.
Takahashi Mio allowed herself a small, private, unconsciously dreamy smile.
Just wait, Shiratori Seiya. You can run, but you can't hide forever. I'll be right next door.
She was still basking in the warm glow of her strategic optimism when a sudden commotion from the corridor jolted her back to reality.
Voices. Footsteps. The unmistakable bustle of an important arrival.
"...Miss Hojo, right this way, please..."
The name hit her auditory cortex like a triggered explosive.
Miss... Hojo?
Takahashi Mio's spine snapped ramrod straight. The water bottle nearly slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. She blinked rapidly, certain her ears must be playing tricks on her. A stress-induced auditory hallucination. A random coincidence of syllables.
But the name echoed in her mind with the crystalline clarity of a temple bell. Hojo. Hojo Shione.
She rose from the lounge chair in a single, fluid motion. Her feet carried her to the frosted glass door before her brain had consciously decided to move. She pushed it open—
And found herself face-to-face with three figures rounding the corridor corner.
The woman walking in the center wore oversized designer sunglasses that obscured half her face. But Takahashi Mio didn't need to see her eyes. The shape of her jaw. The elegant line of her neck. The poised, almost regal posture. The way the air itself seemed to part respectfully before her.
Hojo Shione. It's really her.
Why... why is she HERE?!
Mio's hand remained frozen on the glass door frame. Her entire body had gone rigid, caught in the blinding high beams of an oncoming emotional collision. She stared dumbly at the approaching figure, her mind a whiteout of static and alarm bells.
Her posture couldn't have been more conspicuous. She might as well have been holding a flashing neon sign reading "I KNOW EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE AND I HAVE VERY COMPLICATED FEELINGS ABOUT IT."
Hojo Shione noticed her immediately. How could she not? The girl was practically a deer in headlights, frozen mid-step, eyes wide and unblinking.
Shione stopped walking. Turned her head. Their gazes met—Mio's naked, panicked stare connecting with the dark, impenetrable lenses of Shione's sunglasses.
And seeing Takahashi Mio here, of all places, in the hallway of a professional artist training institute...
Hojo Shione was, undeniably, surprised.
"Miss Hojo?"
Her manager's prompting voice broke the suspended moment. Shione blinked, collected herself with a practiced, almost imperceptible shake of her head. After a beat of hesitation, she raised a slender hand and removed her sunglasses, folding them with deliberate, unhurried precision.
"Fukada-san, please go on ahead. I have something to attend to here..."
Fukada glanced at her in confusion. Then her gaze flickered to Takahashi Mio—still frozen, still staring—and a flicker of understanding crossed her features.
Acquaintances, perhaps. Some personal matter. She nodded professionally.
"Understood. I'll contact Kurosaki Yua-sensei in the meantime and finalize the arrangements."
"Mm. Thank you for your hard work."
Hojo Shione pressed her palms together and offered a graceful, forty-five-degree bow. She waited, poised, until the manager's footsteps had faded to a distance where conversation couldn't possibly carry.
Then, slowly, deliberately, she turned to face Takahashi Mio fully.
Her gaze was deep. Penetrating. Complex emotions swirled in the depths of her dark eyes—curiosity, wariness, and something else. Something sharper. More calculating.
An almost tangible pressure radiated from the idol's presence. It was the weight of fame. Of experience. Of knowing exactly who she was and what she was capable of.
Takahashi Mio swallowed hard. Her throat had gone desert-dry. Her body straightened involuntarily, her spine aligning as if preparing for inspection. The words tumbled out before she could stop them.
"Um... is something wrong? Is there... something you need?"
Hearing the barely concealed nervousness in her voice, Hojo Shione's lips suddenly pursed. Curved. A smile—gentle, knowing, and utterly unreadable—bloomed across her elegant features.
"Did Seiya bring you here?"
She paused. Let the question hang in the air like a suspended note of music.
Then she tilted her head slightly, her gaze drifting upward to the polished sign mounted above the training room door. The words "Professional Actress Development Program" gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
When she spoke again, her voice carried a subtle, layered weight. A question within a question. A blade wrapped in silk.
"You want to become an actress... don't you?"
...