"Want to go take a look first?"
"Let's go, Takagi-chan, let's go take a look first."
As the words fell, Shouko and Ajitani's eyes met, and both understood the meaning in the other's gaze.
At the same time, they tacitly reached out and linked arms with Takagi on both sides, escorting her toward the fortune-telling stall ahead.
"I didn't say I wasn't going..." Takagi's gaze swept over the pedestrians. Resisting verbally out of helplessness, and finding it ineffective, she could only comply.
As the three walked closer, they briefly wanted to turn around and leave. A table was covered with a starry sky black cloth, and on it were just a deck of tarot cards and a glowing crystal ball—nothing else.
If you had to say, there was also a fortune-telling price tag on the table: "100 yen per fortune-telling."
"Hehe... Are the three of you here for fortune-telling?" The girl sitting behind the table, wearing a black lace head veil, smiled and looked at the three.
"Don't worry, it's absolutely accurate and effective. If it's not, you can come back tomorrow to find me for a refund."
The girl seemed to see through their concerns, patting her flat chest and repeatedly assuring them.
"..."
Shouko exchanged a glance with the two beside her, hesitated for a moment, but still took the first step. She took out a 100 yen coin from her wallet and handed it to the girl.
"Please tell me my fortune for next year," Shouko spoke before the girl could.
"Mhm." The girl picked up the tarot cards on the table and began shuffling, then spread them out: "First, randomly draw three cards, then draw one card from each side."
Under the curious gazes of Takagi and Ajitani, Shouko followed the girl's instructions, drew five cards, and placed them on the table, then quietly waited for the explanation.
"Wh- What's wrong?" After waiting for a long time without an explanation, Shouko couldn't help but feel a little nervous.
"Ah? Oh oh oh..." The girl seemed to snap back to attention because of Shouko's words and quickly scanned the five tarot cards placed on the table.
"Cough, cough..." The girl lightly coughed, and said mysteriously:
"Yours is simple. As long as you let a family member or someone you like kiss the side of your face before sunrise tomorrow, your luck will double, and the whole year will go smoothly."
"..." For a moment, Shouko didn't know what to say, so she could only politely thank her and return to the two beside her.
"Haha..." Ajitani chuckled, waving her hand and whispering: "Shouko-chan, it doesn't feel very reliable. Maybe we should go..."
"..." Shouko didn't speak, just blinked her eyes, looking at her.
In the end, Ajitani still obediently handed over 100 yen to the girl, and soon returned to the two beside her. Just as she was about to do as Shouko did before, she was interrupted by Takagi.
"Don't..." Takagi raised her hand to cover her eyes. "I understand what you mean. I'll go."
The methods to double the luck that the two got from the fortune-telling were more outrageous than the last. Afterward, they even felt that Shouko's was much more normal.
Takagi was told to maintain normal chat with a boy who secretly exercises for a month. At first glance, it seemed very normal.
But the problem was that she'd have to be crazy to go around checking if other boys were secretly exercising. She only interacted with a few boys in her class.
Ajitani was a little more normal—helping a young boy with psychological trauma overcome it. She immediately dismissed this matter from her mind.
Anyway, fortune-telling is just for psychological comfort, and the fortune-telling girl also said that even if they don't follow her advice, the three of them would still have good luck next year.
"She didn't get knocked silly, did she...?"
Tsuna, curled up in the warm quilt, watched Shouko, who occasionally giggled foolishly, and muttered softly.
Shouko snapped back to attention because of his words and dissatisfiedly picked up the cushion from the chair, throwing it at him.
"Get up quickly, Tsuna. The sun is almost out." She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and urged him.
"Hai hai hai." He could only helplessly crawl out of the quilt, walk to the wardrobe, and take out the clothes he was going to wear outside today.
According to his experience with morning runs in the dead of winter, sunrise is usually visible around 6:50 AM, and it's only just past 5:30 AM now...
"Shouko, can you go down first?" Tsuna looked speechlessly at her crawling into his quilt.
He even suspected in his heart that she came so early specifically to snatch this spot.
Shouko playfully stuck out her little pink tongue at him: "You change yours, I'm not watching you. Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you when we were kids."
As soon as she finished speaking, she covered her head with the quilt, no longer looking at him.
"..."
Tsuna looked speechlessly at Shouko wiggling around in the quilt. At first glance, she looked a bit like a maggot. In the end, he could only choose to ignore it, turned around, and silently started changing his clothes.
Due to the angle of vision, he didn't notice the small gap in the quilt that had been lifted, and the pair of eyes staring intently at him.
"Let's go." Tsuna, who had finished changing, patted Shouko through the quilt. "We still have time to walk slowly to the Shrine halfway up the mountain."
"Got it, got it. Tsuna, you go down and wash up first." Her muffled voice came from the quilt.
"Alright." Hearing this, Tsuna didn't say anything else, turned around, and went downstairs to wash up.
"Click..."
Shouko in the quilt opened a small gap just like before, and only lifted the quilt after confirming that he had really gone down.
She couldn't feel the original winter cold at all now, and even felt a little hot, so she quickly raised her hand to fan her face.
She had completely not expected that Tsuna really didn't avoid her at all...
—
The snow piles on both sides were swept into crooked low hills, revealing the mottled scripture stone tablets underneath.
The candle flames in the bronze lanterns on the stone steps halfway up the mountain had long been extinguished. The gold paint of 「Offering」 (Hounou) on the lantern covers had peeled off in scales, yet it still reflected the gradually brightening sky's fish-belly white.
The accumulated snow suddenly slid off the branches of the cedar trees, revealing the stone fox statue hidden between the leaves. Its eyes had been smoked into burnt brown by centuries of incense, and at this moment, they reflected the first ray of vermilion on the eastern horizon.
"We almost didn't make it..." The boy held the girl's hand, looked at the gradually rising salted egg yolk in the distance, and sighed with emotion.
"You have the nerve to say that." The girl, dissatisfied, slapped the boy's arm. "Who told you to sleep so late yesterday, and then you couldn't be woken up?"
"Shouldn't you blame someone who dawdled on the second floor and refused to come down?" The boy retorted jokingly.
But the response was still the girl's dissatisfied slap.
Then neither of them chose to speak, but silently watched the sun rising in the distance.
In the end, the boy placed a kiss on the side of the girl's face as she watched intently. The girl's gaze also met the boy's with this kiss.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
The two, who were originally about to kiss, suddenly separated a distance because of the coughing sound that came from behind them.
"Your appearance like that will scare people to death, okay?" Tsuna looked back at the woman wearing the Miko outfit, relieved, but not forgetting to complain.
And Shouko beside him was still patting her flat chest.
"Then should I say sorry to you two? I accidentally disturbed you." The woman looked at the two with a smile in her eyes.
"No need, thank you..." Tsuna was speechless. The good atmosphere was completely gone, and now only the awkwardness of being seen remained.
"Happy New Year, Miko Sister." Shouko, having recovered, saw that it was an acquaintance and slightly bowed to her.
"Happy New Year." The woman nodded at the two, then took out two omamori from behind her and handed them to them.
"Happy New Year." Tsuna also added that sentence, and he and Shouko thanked her and accepted them.
Afterward, Shouko chatted with her briefly before being urged down the mountain by her.
"You've finished watching the sunrise, hurry back and rest. The shrine is closed today, and I want to go back to sleep."
As soon as the words fell, she added another sentence: "Be careful going down, watch out for slippery snow."
She turned around, raised her hand, and waved, then left.
She had stayed up all night and was planning to sleep at sunrise, but she didn't expect to see the two going up the mountain on the surveillance camera, which unnecessarily increased her workload.
Watching her walk away, Tsuna withdrew his gaze. "Shall we go?"
"Mhm..." Shouko hesitated, but the feeling of things happening naturally from before had disappeared, which was a bit of a pity...
The impulse to forcefully kiss Tsuna and the reason to wait for the next opportunity pulled at her heart. In the end, she still chose the latter.
"Let's go. Auntie should be up and has made breakfast."
"Mhm."
On the contrary, Tsuna didn't feel any pity or regret. There would be plenty more opportunities in the future, and besides, Shouko was his.
The point is, he's not a 'lolicon', okay? Just now, the 'feeling' came, and he almost couldn't stop.
The two held hands again and climbed down the mountain, chatting and laughing, tacitly not mentioning the scene from before.
The first ray of New Year's morning light penetrated the thin mist of Senso-ji Temple, and the streets awakened in the crisp cold.
Girls wearing furisode kimonos walked toward the shrine in their geta. Stalls were set up one after another, selling hot food, and the aroma of amazake was wrapped in the scent of sandalwood.
As the flow of people gathered into a winding queue, the bell of Hatsumode swayed at the eaves, and the snow-covered dead branches filtered the sunlight into fine golden specks, floating down into the devoutly clasped palms of everyone.
"I'm back!"
"I'm back."
"You two are really something. Sleeping so late and still being able to get up so early to watch the sunrise." Yu's voice came from the living room.
"Grandma, good morning." Tsuna, who had changed into his cotton slippers, walked into the living room first and indeed saw Yu watching TV early in the morning. "Have you had breakfast?"
Finally, he poked his head out to confirm that no one was in the kitchen. Just as he was about to ask in confusion, he was interrupted by Yu's words:
"Daisuke and Shizuka were 'busy' quite late last night, so they're still sleeping. I've already made breakfast; go eat."
Shouko, who had walked forward, politely thanked her, and along with Tsuna, who nodded beside her, turned and went to the kitchen to eat.
Regarding why Shouko was eating breakfast here, no one felt it was unusual. They were all used to it; after all, they were family.
"Ding dong..."
Shouko swallowed the food in her mouth and looked at the person beside her in confusion. So early in the morning, it couldn't be Nishikata sending him New Year's greetings, could it?
And at 12 AM this morning, everyone had already sent messages to each other in the group...
"Who is it, Tsuna?"
"Not sure, probably some spam message." He put down his chopsticks and took out his phone from his pocket.
He skillfully entered the password to unlock it and saw that it was a 'LINE' message notification.
Under Shouko's confused gaze, he clicked into 'LINE' and saw that it was a New Year's greeting from the girl who added him yesterday.
His hand paused. He suddenly remembered that Shouko seemed to not know about this yet. He turned his head and indeed met her curious gaze.
"Tsuna, who is this 'Takina Inoue'? When did you add her as a friend?"
Afterward, he explained the whole story of this friend to Shouko.
"Oh." Shouko nodded and continued eating breakfast. "So it was just asking about study problems, I thought it was something else."
"Mhm."
Regarding the explanation of the whole story, he slightly modified some content, which made Shouko feel there was no problem.
"Aren't you going to reply to her? It shows 'read' and it's been over 10 minutes." Shouko reminded him.
And he made a decision that went against his ancestors, nonchalantly handing his phone to Shouko. "You reply for me, I'll continue eating breakfast."
This decision also made Shouko's chewing movements pause. She instantly came back to her senses, took the phone he handed her, and quickly typed a sentence on the phone keyboard and sent it.
「Happy New Year!」
「Miyamura Senpai woke up so early?」
Shouko saw the instant reply from the other side, so she continued to reply to the other party, imitating Tsuna's tone and demeanor when speaking.
In this regard, she was becoming more and more skilled, because during this time, ever since the first girl successfully added 'his' contact information.
Afterward, more and more girls, and even quite a few girls from the same class, came to add him, and he politely didn't refuse.
As expected, she told the other party the contact information for her secondary account, and because it wasn't her main account, no one had found any problem so far.
Except for Shouko's two good girlfriends, who found the problem, Nishikata still looked dazed and sometimes even envied Tsuna for being able to receive contact requests from so many girls.
At the same time, he also admired Shouko's generosity for not getting angry about this. After all, in the eyes of the people in their small group, Tsuna and Shouko were a couple; they just weren't officially together yet.
And under Shouko's impersonation and operation for the past one or two months, Tsuna also gained the title of being cold in reality but warm-hearted online.
When asking 'him' about study problems on the phone, 'he' would reply one by one, but when asking in reality, they would be pushed away by Shouko or rejected perfunctorily by him.
"Drink some milk." Tsuna poured her a glass of milk and pushed it in front of her. Seeing her chatting animatedly with that girl, he chose not to interfere.
It was all about study problems, or some everyday chat, none of which he had any interest in anyway.
「How about you add my main account? This is my secondary account, I didn't notice at the time and just let you add it.」
「Mhm.」
Just as she was about to enter the contact information for her secondary account, Tsuna beside her reached out and stopped her. "This is different, you can't do it like at school."
He was still a little afraid that Shouko might chat with the other party and cause problems, like sparks or something, so it was better under his supervision.
Enduring her puzzled gaze, he explained a few sentences in a simple way to make her give up this idea.
But 'he' had already sent it, so he could only reluctantly send Tsuna's secondary account for the other party to add, but the chat would still be on the main account.