It was getting late, and Yaeko came to the restaurant to pick up Shoko.
After Shoko left, Kanna seemed to enter a state of deep thought.
No one knew what this young dragon was thinking. She simply stared at the ceiling with hollow, dazed eyes.
Yuto found it strange at first, but Tohru said this was one of Kanna's usual "spacing out" episodes and that there was no need to worry.
After secretly marveling at that, Yuto stopped worrying about Kanna.
As expected of a dragon, even the way she spaced out was different!
A while later, the King of Conquerors came to the restaurant.
However, he only drank a few cups of alcohol before leaving. Waver had to prepare for his students' tests tomorrow, so he would not be coming.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu were nowhere to be seen, and Iskandar didn't feel like waiting for them, so after satisfying his craving for alcohol, he left.
Some time later, Reiko arrived with a helpless expression, bringing a woman along with her.
The moment Yuto saw the woman, he felt that she was not human.
Anyone with sharp senses would be able to feel something unusual about her.
Although she was beautiful, her entire aura gave off a vague, ethereal feeling, as though she were floating.
She wore a blue-purple kimono, and there was a touch of purple eyeshadow around her eyes.
She was holding Reiko's arm, making the two look as though they had a good relationship.
Connecting this with Reiko's past, Yuto judged that this woman was a youkai.
After all, Reiko didn't have any human friends she was this close to.
"Reiko, is the person beside you a friend of yours?" Yuto asked with a smile.
Reiko's face carried a mixture of helplessness and embarrassment.
"Oho, so this is the place Reiko comes to every night. It does look quite nice." Before Reiko could answer, the woman in the kimono spoke first with admiration and surprise.
"Quiet down a little, Hinoe. Boss, sorry, this is my friend Hinoe. She's rather lively, so please don't take her words too seriously." Reiko gave Hinoe a helpless warning, then explained the situation to Yuto.
"It's all right. Please, have a seat." Naturally, Yuto did not mind.
The two women sat down.
Hinoe was like a curious child, reaching out to touch various things around the restaurant.
Reiko looked at her with slight disdain.
"Hinoe!" With that light reprimand, Hinoe restrained herself, making her look like a child being scolded by an elder!
Yuto found it amusing.
"Sorry, Boss." Reiko apologized again.
"It's fine. As long as nothing gets knocked over, touching things a little is no problem," Yuto smiled.
"How unexpectedly generous." Hinoe covered the corner of her mouth with her sleeve and looked at Yuto with a mysterious gaze.
But immediately afterward, Reiko knocked her on the head. "Don't deliberately act mature!"
"Uu—" Hinoe covered her head and groaned in exaggerated pain.
Reiko brushed back her hair, looking full of helplessness.
"Honestly." After a sigh, she looked toward Yuto. "Boss, please give me a serving of butter rice."
She decided not to pay attention to Hinoe and directly placed her order.
However, the woman beside her looked wounded and immediately hugged her.
"Reiko hit me so hard, but she doesn't even care about me. Uu, uu, uu, I'm so sad!" Hinoe clung to Reiko and cried out as though she had been terribly wronged.
"Idiot Hinoe, hurry up and act normal!" Reiko snapped at her in irritation, and Hinoe instantly calmed down.
The speed with which her expression changed was truly remarkable.
Yuto found it amusing.
This was the first time he had seen Reiko like this.
As he looked at Hinoe and Reiko, emotion rose in his heart. These two really did have a good relationship!
"Sigh, as expected of Reiko. You always wound my heart so deeply," Hinoe said with calm resignation, though there was no real disgust in her tone.
"Hinoe-san, what would you like to eat?" Yuto found the right moment to cut in.
"Eh... I'll have the same as Reiko. It's my first time coming to a human restaurant, so I don't know what I should order," Hinoe smiled faintly.
Yuto accepted the order and turned into the kitchen.
The moment he turned away, Hinoe squeezed herself closer to Reiko's side.
She seemed attached to being pressed close to Reiko.
Although Reiko looked helpless about this behavior, she didn't say anything more.
"I really don't know why I helped you pick up that hairpin back then," Reiko spoke with disdain.
Her arm, however, allowed Hinoe to cling to it without making any attempt to pull away.
"Hehehe, I told you, that was fate! Fate!" Hinoe was not angry and simply grinned at Reiko.
The two of them had first met because Hinoe's hairpin had fallen into a lake, and Reiko had gone into the water to retrieve it for her.
After that, Hinoe became attached to Reiko.
She was a lonely youkai to begin with.
Although she knew a little about charms and talismans, she was weak, and there was always a crowd of youkai around her waiting for a chance to devour her.
Reiko was the first person she had ever met who treated her kindly.
Even though Reiko was human, Hinoe didn't care.
She liked Reiko.
In every sense of the word.
From the moment Reiko jumped into the water and picked up her hairpin, Reiko's figure had been etched into Hinoe's heart.
That silhouette, drenched in water droplets and glittering beneath the sunlight, had simply been too dazzling.
"Here you go, two servings of butter rice!" Yuto walked out from the kitchen.
Butter rice was a very simple dish: nothing more than a piece of butter placed over white rice, allowing the heat to slowly melt it.
Once the fat seeped into the grains, the rice would take on a fragrance unlike anything else.
Reiko clasped her hands around her chopsticks and said, "Itadakimasu."
Hinoe copied her in a surprisingly proper manner, and then the two began eating.
Reiko's reaction was normal, but perhaps because Hinoe had never eaten human food during her life as a youkai, her response was.. funny and a joyful blush rose across her face.
"This is so good!" she cheered like a child. Without noticing it, a single grain of rice stuck to her cheek.
"Be careful." Reiko reached out helplessly and brushed the grain of rice away from Hinoe's face.
Hinoe looked at Reiko with a cheerful grin before happily continuing to eat.
Watching the two of them, Yuto felt something stir in his heart.
He had once wondered what kind of youkai friends Reiko might have, and now that he had finally seen one, he found himself relaxing.
Hinoe was not noble and imposing like Yukari or Yuuka, but she was pure.
For Reiko, perhaps that was exactly what was best.
After finishing their rice, Reiko began talking about the first time she met Hinoe.
She smiled as she spoke.
"Back then, Hinoe only knew how to sit there and cry. She was so noisy that I couldn't sleep, so I went over and helped her pick up her hairpin. Honestly, what an idiot." The smile on Reiko's face was obvious.
Beside her, Hinoe's face filled with embarrassment.
"If I hadn't been there back then, were you planning to keep crying forever?"
"N-no way!" Faced with Reiko's teasing, Hinoe stubbornly tried to fight back.
Reiko smiled. "I don't believe you."
"Uu! Reiko is bullying me!"
Yuto watched the youkai and the girl chat and tease each other.
His heart felt calm, yet beyond that calm, a faint and distant thought began to rise.
If one compared a human's lifespan to that of a youkai, then the better their relationship was now, the more painful the future might become...
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