"Mai's…younger sister?"
Emilia wondered if she'd misheard or if Mai was playing a prank, but the reality was plainly different. The panic on "Mai's" face was far too genuine to be staged.
"Could it be real…?"
"It is real,"
Tohru spoke up. Under "Mai"'s fearful gaze, Tohru's eyes shifted into her draconic pupils, staring so intently it made the girl shudder.
"Right now, another person's soul is inside Mai's body."
Just then, Rei Ao's phone rang. An unknown number was requesting a video call. He had his suspicions, so he answered straight away.
The screen showed a blonde girl looking anxious.
"Rei Ao-kun, something weird is happening!"
Rei Ao remained calm and nodded.
"I'm aware, Mai. I'll bring you back right now. We'll talk once you're here."
With that, he hung up, and in the same moment, he separated from the body that housed Toyohama Nodoka's soul. Turning to the panicked Nodoka-in-Mai's-body:
"I know you're confused," he said gently, "but let's hold off on explanations. You might want to take a shower first."
It was clearly not the best time to launch into a long story.
"…"
Toyohama Nodoka bit her lip, covering her borrowed body's exposed skin as she jumped up and dashed to the bathroom. Two girls asleep on the couch didn't notice her.
…
In the living room, Futaba finally asked:
"Rei Ao-kun, what's going on? Isn't that Mai? Yet Tohru said she's someone else entirely—she even claims she's another person."
"It's simple enough. Because of something like 'Adolescent Syndrome,' Mai and this younger sister, Toyohama Nodoka, ended up swapping souls."
Rei Ao had seen a similar phenomenon before with Yuian and her daughter Yui.
"Anyway, let me bring Mai back first."
…
Inside the bathroom, washing off the remnants of that intense experience, Toyohama Nodoka blankly stared at herself in the mirror. Sure enough, it was Sakurajima Mai's face—that oh-so-familiar face of her older cousin/role model. Nodoka's hands trembled as she brushed the glass, then pinched her own arm hard.
"Ow—this really isn't a dream…"
She whispered, voice trembling with despair. Her mind was in turmoil. She had no idea why she'd become her sister's look-alike, nor how it happened. More crucially, how had she ended up in such an intimate situation with that man?
Wait—
She suddenly recalled something:
That man hadn't done "that" to her, but rather to this body's owner: Sakurajima Mai. Once she realized that, Nodoka's eyes went wide.
Conclusion: Her idol, top star Sakurajima Mai, had taken part in a…multi-person arrangement?
She was stunned. The very famous sister she'd admired—was she actually living such a wild private life?
Her mind raced with scandalous thoughts. Glancing down at this flawless figure in the mirror, Nodoka pictured it being treated so…intimately—just like what she'd partially sensed.
Her legs went weak, cheeks flushed.
"That wasn't me. That was Mai. This is Mai's body!"
She repeated to herself, trying to quell her confusion, even as certain vivid sensations refused to leave her memory.
…
After a while, draped in a bath towel, Toyohama Nodoka emerged from the bathroom. Noticing two girls asleep on the sofa, she found the situation even stranger: so many pretty women in one large home?
Her mind drifted to certain rumored dark sides of showbiz—rich patrons, shady deals… She went pale, imagining Rei Ao as such a "young master of the underworld," and Mai caught in some unscrupulous arrangement. Should she flee?
But footsteps interrupted her thoughts. Rei Ao walked out of the bedroom, beckoning her.
"Come over here."
"…"
Toyohama Nodoka felt uneasy, edging backward. Part of her wanted to run from this place. Except—she saw another figure step out from behind Rei Ao.
At that moment, Nodoka's eyes went wide.
"That's…!!!"
The face was unmistakably hers: Toyohama Nodoka's own face. But the expression was cooler, more composed than she'd ever worn herself. Because on the inside, it was Sakurajima Mai. That Mai also stared at the borrowed body, visibly curious.
After a pause, the girl in Nodoka's body said, in a frosty tone:
"Nodoka, let's talk."
…
Thus, with Mai's sudden arrival, Nodoka found herself back in what she saw as the "den of sin." The other women she so resented had dressed by now. Nodoka-in-Mai's-body and Mai-in-Nodoka's-body ended up seated face-to-face, as if in a mirror. Seeing her own familiar face on the opposite side, each of them went momentarily speechless.
But Mai, who'd faced many strange events already, recovered quickly, though her eyes flickered at first. She turned to Rei Ao with an even gaze:
"Tell me, did you do anything to Nodoka?"
Rei Ao shrugged:
"When we noticed something was off mid-way, we stopped. If you don't believe me, you can ask her directly."
"!!!"
Nodoka jolted:
"We—didn't actually go…all the way!"
She blurted it out before she could think, then froze. Why did I say that?!
Her mind conjured the scene, plus the foreign ache in this body, and she wanted to vanish.
"…"
Mai stayed silent. She could guess exactly what the scene must have been like at the time—and it made her want to die of embarrassment.
"Mai, you can't blame Rei Ao for this. You and Nodoka swapped bodies in the middle of everything, but he still stopped—pretty gentlemanly, if you ask me."
Tohru piped up, even pointing to her own mouth:
"In the end, I personally finished up for him—otherwise you'd have left Rei Ao unsatisfied, y'know?"
"???"
Mai's expression darkened, face going black. Really, in front of people, must you talk like that?!
~~~
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