"I'm home~"
Mio let herself in and went to her room. No sign of Mashiro—which was actually a small relief.
She went to her dresser, opened the underwear drawer, and pulled out a clean pair of panties without looking too hard. Only after changing did she notice they were Mashiro's.
She'd stopped being precious about this a long time ago. At this point, half her panties were probably in Mashiro's dresser, and half of Mashiro's were probably in hers. It had evolved into something resembling a shared system without either of them doing it deliberately.
Satisfied that everything was in order, Mio went next door.
Chihiro-sensei had a mixer this afternoon, so the apartment was quiet. This, incidentally, was the reason Mio hadn't stayed over at Yui's—Mashiro couldn't look after herself unsupervised, and if Mio spent the night away, Mashiro would simply not eat.
She found Mashiro exactly where she expected: at her desk, in front of her computer. But she wasn't drawing. She was hunched over something, reading it.
Manga, in all likelihood.
Mio knocked on the open door. "Mashiro, I'm back."
The moment she spoke, Mashiro's hands moved—a quick, reflexive motion, tucking whatever she was reading behind her back before she turned around.
Mio's eyes narrowed.
Mashiro hiding her reading material was not normal behavior. Ordinarily she couldn't have cared less who saw what she was reading. So what, exactly, required concealment?
Mio stepped into the room. "What are you reading?"
"Nothing. Regular manga." Mashiro met her eyes with an expression so visibly guilty it functioned as a confession.
She would be catastrophically bad at poker.
Mio considered pressing further—but then checked herself. If their roles were reversed, she wouldn't exactly want someone digging into it either. She let it go and changed the subject. "Dinner tonight—what do you want? I'll cook."
The guilt on Mashiro's face dissolved immediately. "Anything Mio makes is fine. But—if there's dessert, even better."
"Figured you'd say that. I bought pudding—it's in the fridge. One before dinner. That's the rule."
"Mio—I love you!"
Mashiro yanked her desk drawer open, shoved the manga inside, crossed the room, pressed a quick kiss to Mio's cheek with a mwah, and headed toward the kitchen at a pace that was, for Mashiro, practically a trot.
Mio touched her cheek. She smiled despite herself.
Her eyes drifted to the closed drawer.
Mashiro had put it away right in front of her—which meant, in Mashiro's particular logic, that she trusted Mio not to look. That was essentially an explicit statement of confidence.
Mio looked away from the drawer.
She surveyed the room instead. She'd been tidying it daily, so it was reasonably orderly—a few items of clothing draped over the bed, including some of her own. Mashiro's duvet had clearly not been unfolded in some time; Mashiro slept in Mio's room now as a matter of routine, and even on the rare nights Mio was out, she just migrated to Mio's bed instead.
Mio folded the stray clothes, straightened the room quickly, then went to the kitchen to start dinner.
What surprised her was that Mashiro followed her in.
Mashiro stood in the kitchen doorway, pudding already consumed, expression unusually purposeful. "Mio—I want to help."
Mio turned and wiped a small smear of pudding from the corner of Mashiro's mouth without thinking about it.
"You want to help with what?"
"Cooking. I want to learn."
"...Why, suddenly?"
Mashiro's answer was given with complete sincerity. "The manga said—if you want to capture someone's heart, start with their stomach."
Mio blinked.
Is Mashiro trying to capture my heart?
The System spoke up before she could answer herself: "Shiina Mashiro's conquest rating has increased by 1 point."
"Would the host like me to narrate the moment your heart fluttered~?"
"Screw off."
If the System had a physical form, Mio would have introduced it to her iron-fist divine judgment. It did not, unfortunately, have a physical form. And even if it did, Mio was currently so physically weak she couldn't fight her way out of a paper bag. She was stuck with strongly-worded internal commentary.
She reined herself in and said, "Okay. But you'll observe first—watch a few times before you try. It'll go better that way."
"Okay."
Mashiro stationed herself at the kitchen doorway and fixed her full attention on Mio with an intensity usually reserved for reference photos. The kind of focus that didn't miss steps.
This being Mashiro's first non-drawing-related interest ever, Mio slowed her movements deliberately. As a result, dinner ran later than usual.
When she finally set the plates down, Mio asked, "How did it go? Did you pick anything up?"
Mashiro tilted her head and said, in her signature toneless voice, "I think... I was mostly watching Mio."
"Don't just ambush me like that," Mio said, helplessly.
At least the conquest rating hadn't ticked up again. If it had, Mashiro would be over 50 by now.
When was a Mashiro task going to appear? Every other time she hadn't wanted a task, they'd come endlessly. Now that she was actively hoping for one—silence.
Even task failures as a route to lowering conquest ratings were off the table without an active task.
Was it the [Bearer of Misfortune] card, somehow? Was that card suppressing Mashiro's trigger conditions?
Mashiro blinked. "Ambush?"
She clearly didn't understand the word in this context.
"Never mind. There's always next time." Mio managed a smile. "You'll get it eventually."
"Okay."
Dinner was finished. Mio washed the dishes, the same as every night, and went back to her own room.
She was trying to decide between drawing and writing when she noticed something.
The doujinshi she'd borrowed from Eriri—it was gone.
She retraced her steps mentally. She'd brought it home, read through it several times—because it was genuinely good—and then, because it had been late and Mashiro had come over, she'd slid it onto the bookshelf without much thought.
The bookshelf was empty.
The memory arrived half a second later, cold and clear:
Mashiro hiding something behind her back.
The desk drawer sliding shut.