What Jin couldn't see was the storm unleashing inside the head of the woman, whose name was Yukino.
Because she wasn't human.
Beneath that delicate porcelain appearance and lake blue eyes, the blood of a Yuki-onna pulsed. A Snow Woman of pure lineage, a direct descendant of the creatures that legends painted wrapped in a mantle of terror: seductresses who stalked men lost in great snowstorms, lured them with their supernatural beauty, and drained their life force until they were nothing but empty shells on the snow.
In the old stories, a Yuki-onna wasn't a woman. She was a death trap shaped like one.
But Yukino wasn't as terrifying as the legends.
As a Yuki-onna of pure lineage, her body generated all the energy it needed autonomously. She didn't need to seek out men to feed or drain anyone's life to survive.
In that sense, she was completely harmless.
The problem was the other side of that coin.
The innate cold she possessed, that frigid aura radiating from every inch of her skin, prevented her from having close contact with normal humans. A handshake was enough to cause numbness, a hug could cause hypothermia, and prolonged contact... well, she'd never gotten that far with anyone to find out.
Until today.
This unknown boy had held her hand and absolutely nothing had happened! He simply gripped her, steadied her, and smiled at her as if touching her were the most normal thing in the world.
'Could he be a powerful ability user? Or does he have a special body...?'
Her mind began to wander, what was he...?
"Do I have something on my face?"
His voice snapped her out of orbit. Blinking, Yukino discovered with horror that she'd been staring at him for a while with her head slightly tilted.
This time she'd been the one doing it!
"Oh, I'm sorry!" The blush climbed up her cheeks instantly and she lowered her head quickly. "I-I didn't mean to! I mean... I can do it myself, really..."
She reached out hurriedly to take back the luggage that Jin had started loading at some point without her noticing, but he dodged with an agile movement, turning his body just enough to leave her hands grabbing at air.
"Don't worry about it, just let me help."
Saying it with the same naturalness with which he'd held her hand, he began walking toward the building entrance carrying the heaviest boxes as if they weighed nothing.
"..."
Yukino stood there with her mouth slightly open.
Then she hastily grabbed the handle of her small rolling suitcase and followed him, not wanting to be left behind.
Walking half a step behind him, her gaze settled on his profile. The line of his jaw, the way he carried the boxes on one shoulder with a single arm, the ease of his stride.
Softly biting her lower lip, she gathered courage.
"Hey... sir."
Jin looked at her without stopping.
"Th-Thank you for your help... My name is Yukino Mifuyu."
"It's nothing." Jin returned a sincere smile, without a drop of the calculated charm from before. This one was genuine. "I saw you were alone carrying all this and it seemed rough. I'm Jin."
"..."
Looking at that warm and uncomplicated expression, something stirred inside Yukino. An unknown current, small but undeniable, that flowed through her chest and undid a knot she didn't know she had. She felt... warm! She, a Yuki-onna whose body temperature never rose above freezing point, felt genuinely warm for the first time in a long while.
And that scared her.
Her life in human society had never been easy. Although relations between the different races had relaxed considerably since the creation of the Sub-human Alliance, they could now live among humans without hiding.
But her taciturn nature made her hard to approach, and her striking beauty attracted exactly the kind of attention she didn't want.
Over time, she learned that loneliness was safer than disappointment.
She had never met anyone like Jin... A boy who touched her without consequences, who helped her for no apparent reason, and who looked at her as if she were a normal person instead of a dangerous creature wrapped in beauty.
She didn't know what to do with that.
"Miss Yukino, you just moved here, right?" Jin asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. "With this much luggage, why not hire a moving company?"
The question was casual, but the effect on Yukino was as if someone had stepped on a landmine.
"Because... because I've been a little tight on money lately..."
She said it looking at the ground, and with each word her voice shrank a little more until it became nearly inaudible at the end.
'Uuugh... is he going to think I'm a useless woman?!'
Panic colored her ears pink. She had just admitted to a gorgeous stranger that she was broke. 'Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, Yukino!'
"I see."
But Jin's reaction wasn't what she expected.
He spoke without a gram of judgment in his voice. No pity, no condescension, not that uncomfortable look people got when someone mentioned money problems.
He simply accepted it and kept walking. "But Miss Yukino doesn't need to feel embarrassed about that. Everyone goes through tough times. The important thing is to keep a positive and optimistic heart!"
Yukino raised her gaze cautiously, expecting to find that fake smile.
But what she found was genuine.
Jin's expression was that of someone who meant it, who had lived it.
"Th-thank you..."
And staring at him, her heart, which had barely stabilized, sped up again.
And unable to help it, her mind began to wander into dangerous territory.
'Jin-kun has such a good character... and on top of that he's not afraid of my cold. If I lived with someone like that, I'd be really happy, wouldn't I? I could cook for him, share the silence, have someone who doesn't pull away when I get close... and I wouldn't be so alone anymore...'
The fantasies unfolded on their own, painting domestic scenes that a lonely Yuki-onna shouldn't allow herself to imagine about a boy she'd known for exactly ten minutes.
"Hello, good afternoon."
The deep voice of the security guard at the entrance popped her daydream bubble.
Giving a small start, Yukino snapped back to reality. "H-Hello. I'm a new resident, my name is Yukino Mifuyu."
Responding, she clumsily searched for the documentation in her bag. The guard verified the information, nodded, and waved them through.
And Jin walked beside her with complete naturalness.
Inside the elevator, both set the luggage down on the floor with a shared sigh.
Yukino pressed the button for the fifth floor, watched it light up under her finger, and then turned her head sharply toward Jin.
"I live in 503." She said in a tone that tried to be informative but sounded suspiciously close to an invitation. But she quickly corrected herself. "Jin-kun, wh-which one do you live in?"
"I'm not a resident of this building."
Jin leaned against the elevator wall with his arms crossed. "I came to visit a friend who lives here. But it turns out her apartment is right next door, 502."
"So Miss Yukino and I are next door neighbors~ Looks like we're destined to be together."
"O-oh, really?"
Yukino's face turned pink for the umpteenth time in the last fifteen minutes. The word "destined" bounced around, lighting up places that should have been off.
'Next door neighbors... meaning I'd see him often... maybe every day... and if he needs something he could knock on my door... and I could make him tea... and...'
The fantasies took off again at full speed, more elaborate than before, with scenarios that already included shared breakfasts and casual encounters in pajamas.
...
The elevator opened on the fifth floor with a chime. The hallway was quiet, well lit, with numbered doors on both sides and a silence that contrasted with the bustle of the street.
Jin carried the last boxes to the door of 503 while Yukino struggled with the lock, taking three attempts to get the key right because her hands insisted on trembling every time he got too close. Finally the door gave way and they both set the luggage inside.
"Phew, done."
Setting the last box on the floor, Jin dusted off his hands with satisfaction.
He briefly scanned the empty apartment: white walls, wide windows, boxes everywhere. The place smelled like a fresh start.
"Well, I should get going." He gave her a calm smile from the threshold. "If we get the chance, I'll see you later, neighbor."
The "neighbor" lit up Yukino's ears.
"Okay. Thank you so much, n-neighbor." She bowed slightly, trying with all her might to maintain the composure of a functional adult.
And she managed... Barely.
Jin's silhouette disappeared through the door, and his footsteps faded down the hallway. Yukino waited a few seconds before releasing the breath she'd been holding since the elevator.
'What a shame he's not a resident of this building...'
Leaning against the wall, she pressed a hand to her chest where her heart was beating at an absurd pace. Then, as if her brain switched modes, the melancholy transformed into calculation.
'But he said his friend lives in 502... Right next door. If I could build a good relationship with her, maybe I could have contact with Jin-kun naturally... Say hello to her, bring her something as a welcome gift, run into him casually when he comes to visit...'
The plan took shape quickly and with silent steps, she headed to her apartment door. She cracked it open as if she were going to close it, but stopped halfway, leaving a gap just wide enough to peek through.
Jin was standing in front of the door to 502, barely three meters from hers, and knocked softly twice.
"Who is it?" A feminine voice came from inside.
"It's me... Jin, your favorite student."
The playful tone with which he said it made Yukino narrow her eyes. 'Favorite student...?'
"Oh, Jin-kun!"
The door flew open and the surprised face of a young, attractive woman appeared in the frame. Hair down, radiant expression, with that overflowing joy of someone receiving an unexpected visit they'd been wanting for a while.
"Come in, come in!" She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside with a familiarity that squeezed something in Yukino's chest. "How come you showed up out of nowhere? Let me get you a glass of water."
Click
The door to 502 closed.
"..."
Yukino stood staring at the wood for several seconds, with a complicated expression.
...
On the other side of door 502, Jin watched Miwa walk away toward the kitchen humming a cheerful melody, completely oblivious to the show she was putting on with every step.
The hot weather and the comfort of being at home had reduced Miwa's clothing to the bare minimum.
She wore a loose tank top, two sizes too big, that hung from her body like a curtain. The fabric floated over her torso without clinging to anything, but precisely because of that it was worse: with every movement of her arms, the neckline opened enough to reveal the beginning of a bare breast, confirming that underneath that tank top there was absolutely nothing else.
And the shorts... calling them shorts was generous. Those scraps of fabric barely covered the essentials, so short that the lower half of her ass was permanently peeking out as if the garment had thrown in the towel a long time ago.
But what really got him was the movement.
Every barefoot step toward the kitchen made that ass bounce from side to side with a fleshy sway that didn't ask not to be watched. The shorts died with every step: the flesh spilled out from beneath the fabric, revealing that juicy crease where the cheek meets the thigh, that strip of hot skin that appeared for an instant, just long enough to drill itself into his eyes, and hid again with the next step.
Appear. Disappear. Appear.
A show swaying in front of him that Jin couldn't, and didn't want to, look away from.
Miwa kept humming. She opened the fridge, bent down to look for something on the bottom shelf, and the shorts rode up to a point where they could no longer be called shorts. Her ass cheeks were exposed almost completely, separated only by the central seam of the garment that sank between them.
"..."
Jin was standing exactly where she'd left him, without having taken a single step. His gaze nailed to a very specific point that was not the kitchen, nor the fridge, nor the glass of water she was supposedly getting him.
He felt the blood abandon his brain and rush urgently toward a destination down south with a familiarity that should have worried him by now, but that at this point he'd accepted as an integral part of his existence.
Quickly kicking off his shoes at the entrance without taking his eyes off her, he closed the distance and, before Miwa could turn around, he wrapped both hands around her from behind, sliding them around her waist until his fingers interlocked over her abdomen, and gently rested his chin on her bare shoulder, letting his lips hover millimeters from her ear.
"No need to get water. I'm not thirsty."
!
Miwa froze, his heat hit her back like a wave, and his fingers on her abdomen sent a tingle that ran down her entire spine.
"And as for why I came..." His voice dropped to a deep tone. "It's because I missed you."
The tingle turned into something much more intense. Miwa felt her whole body go soft between Jin's arms, as if someone had removed her bones. Her hand fell from the fridge and instinctively settled over his on her waist.
"Ji... Jin-kun..."
"Is that what you call me in private now?" Smiling slightly, Jin then stuck out his tongue and slowly traced the edge of Miwa's ear.
The warm, wet sensation pierced through her like an electric current.
Something uncontrollable rose from the soles of her feet, climbing up her legs, her belly, her chest, until it concentrated at a point throbbing between her thighs. Her knees buckled and only Jin's arms around her waist kept her standing.
"Mmh~ A... ¿Anata?"
"That's better."
Satisfied, Jin pulled his lips from her ear and his hands began to move across her body.
They climbed up her abdomen, dragging the tank top up inch by inch, letting his fingertips graze the bare skin of her belly.
Miwa held her breath.
The fingers kept climbing, tracing the contour of her ribs, and upon reaching the edge of her breasts they stopped right there, exactly on that line where the flesh begins to curve. He didn't touch them. He only circled them, caressing the periphery with his thumbs, pressing just enough for her to feel the promise of what he could do without ever following through.
A frustrated whimper vibrated in Miwa's throat.
The hands descended. They traveled down her sides, closed over her hips with a firm squeeze that ripped a spasm out of her, and dropped to the edge of the shorts. His thumbs slipped beneath the fabric, stroking that strip of hot skin where the hip becomes thigh, tracing slow lines back and forth that lit up her skin like matches.
But he never touched where she really needed him to touch. Always leaving her wanting more.
"Let's... let's go to my room~"
Squeezing these words out with the last gram of coherence she had left, Miwa turned in Jin's arms, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him toward the hallway with urgency.
...
On the other side of the door, Yukino had just closed hers.
She leaned against it and let herself slide slowly down until she was sitting on the floor, legs extended and her body limp like a doll.
'So... so she was that kind of "friend."'
The scene she'd spied through the crack replayed on loop in her head.
"What was I even hoping for...?" she whispered, mocking herself with a bitter smile.
Her heart was still beating hard, but it was no longer the warm, nervous flutter from before. Now it was a bitter pulse that weighed on her chest like a stone of ice.
She hugged her knees and rested her forehead against them.
"But thinking about it, it makes sense. He's so handsome, and has such a good personality... he probably has tons of girls chasing him. It'd be weird if someone like that were alone..."
She tried to rationalize the pain so she could dissolve it, but it didn't work.
Sighing deeply, she forced herself to stand. She had luggage to unpack, an apartment to organize, and a new life to start.
She grabbed the first box and dragged it toward the living room.
But just as she was about to open it...
"Aaahhh~♥️!"
The moan pierced through the wall.
Yukino's hands froze on the box. Her eyes flew wide open and the blush exploded across her cheeks with the force of a bomb.
The building's soundproofing was excellent. For a normal person, that sound would have been completely inaudible, but Yukino wasn't a normal person.
"Th-They're... they're doing that kind of thing!"
Squealing, she covered her mouth with both hands as if she were the one who needed to keep quiet. Her heart, which had barely calmed down, took off again at full speed but for completely different reasons.
She should ignore it. She should put on headphones, open the box, and unpack like the responsible adult she was supposed to be... That's what any decent person would do.
And yet, at some point she couldn't identify, the box was already forgotten on the floor. Her body had moved on its own, and now she was pressed against the wall with her ear pushed against the surface.
'I just... I just want to confirm I heard right. That's all.'
________
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