"Oh my—what a coincidence."
Mejiro Ryan let out a soft pfft of laughter and waved at them.
She couldn't help it.
The scene at the doorway was objectively funny—Wuyou and Chiharu were clinging to the doorframe like elementary school kids, stacked one above the other, pressed together in a ridiculous pose.
"Ryan, long time no see!" Chiharu greeted her brightly.
Ryan's slightly boyish vibe made her wildly popular among horse girls—Tracen's resident "sports prince"—so she and Chiharu were on decent terms.
"So you're staying next door," Wuyou said calmly, giving a small nod.
"Yeah… what a coincidence…"
Mejiro Takamine stared at him, the light in her eyes shifting like stained glass.
For some reason, the words felt like they carried extra meaning.
Chiharu sensed it instantly.
Her tail flicked—and then, with a snap, wrapped around Wuyou's waist.
"Eh—?! Ah!"
Before he could even yelp properly, Wuyou was yanked backward like a heroine in a questionable VN grabbed by a tentacle monster—
WHOOSH.
Straight into the room.
Chiharu smiled sweetly at the seven sisters in the hallway.
"Since that's the case, we won't disturb you all. Have a pleasant rest—goodbye."
And she shut the door immediately.
Click.
Silence.
Ryan blinked once, then laughed helplessly and shrugged.
"Well then. Stolen away, huh~"
The seven sisters exchanged looks, each seeing the same helpless amusement in the others' eyes.
In their memory, Chiharu wasn't the possessive type.
And yet…
That had been pure, shameless "hands off my Trainer" energy.
But they didn't overthink it. They simply entered their own suite.
…
Mejiro's dedicated guest suite was far larger than Wuyou and Chiharu's room next door.
It was built to accommodate all seven sisters at once—a luxurious layout with a shared living area and multiple bedrooms, as if several adjacent rooms had been opened into one.
The décor was elegant, warm-toned, and the thick wool carpet swallowed footsteps entirely.
What stood out most was the style.
Embarrassingly, despite Tsukiyozuki-an being an old-fashioned Japanese inn, the Mejiro suite leaned heavily European—noble-house vibes, refined and stately, almost jarringly out of place.
But that "out of place" was exactly the point.
It was expensive to bend an inn's aesthetic around you. That alone spoke of Mejiro's influence.
The sisters put away their light luggage quickly.
Not long after, they gathered—without even planning it—in the common lounge.
A wide ivory sofa curved in a half-circle around a low walnut tea table. Sunlight poured through a large window, illuminating dust motes in the air and glinting off the inn's prepared tea set and delicate wagashi.
Among the seven, the best at tea was the gentle, waterlike Mejiro Ardan.
Under her hands, the fragrance of black tea gradually spread through the room, rich and calming.
They sat with cups in hand.
The space was quiet—only the faint clink of porcelain.
Yet the calm carried a subtle tension, as if everyone was circling the same thought and refusing to name it.
Finally, Ardan set her cup down.
Tin.
The crisp sound gathered their attention.
"Everyone… do you feel anything unusual about that Mr. Wuyou?"
Her tone was soft and warm, her smile unchanged—but she was the first to pierce the silence.
Silence.
No one spoke, yet several bodies flinched in tiny, telling ways.
Ardan's lips curved slightly, as if she'd already gotten her answer, and she took another sip as if nothing had happened.
A moment later, Ryan spoke first.
"It doesn't feel like our first meeting," she admitted. "He looks like an ordinary human… but there's this… strange sense of familiarity."
She thought of Chiharu's aggressive "guard dog" maneuver and nearly laughed again.
Takamine leaned against the sofa armrest. Her gaze lowered, focused on the amber tea rippling in her cup.
"It isn't imagination," she said quietly. "He feels… close. Like we've had an important crossing of paths somewhere."
She remembered how he'd reacted to her 'what a coincidence', like he'd sensed something under the words.
That only deepened her certainty.
Mejiro Bright nodded timidly.
"Y-yes… I can't explain it, but seeing him makes me feel… at ease."
Bourbon and Dobber also gave small, silent nods—each with the same vague warmth, the same inexplicable closeness.
Only Mejiro Zenno Rob Roy—no, wait, wrong track.
Only Mejiro Zenno…—no, only Mejiro Faith sat in the single chair by the window, absent-minded, staring at drifting clouds. Her fingers rubbed the rim of her cup unconsciously.
"On the… floor?"
"Eh?!" Faith jolted so hard her tea almost spilled.
She turned—finding the sisters' gazes resting on her more than she'd realized.
"Are you feeling unwell?" McQueen asked.
"N-no, no! I'm fine!" Faith waved frantically. "I was just thinking!"
But the way she reacted made Takamine and Ardan understand something immediately.
Not sickness.
A secret.
Still, they didn't press. A younger sister deserved her own privacy.
As the conversation returned to Wuyou, Faith quietly clenched her hands beneath the cup, gaze drifting back to the sky.
The voices around her blurred into a soft haze.
Because her mind had already been dragged—hard—back into childhood.
Five years old.
A bright afternoon.
A family outing to a festival.
Crowds too thick.
A small hand slipping loose.
A single moment.
And then she was alone.
Strange streets. Strange voices. The sun sinking. The air growing colder.
For a child, that fear wasn't poetic—it was suffocating.
She'd crouched at the corner of a street and cried, small and silent, convinced the world had abandoned her.
Until a shadow stopped in front of her.
"Are you lost?"
A boy a few years older—simple shirt, simple pants.
Faith could no longer recall his face.
But she'd never, ever forgotten one thing.
His eyes.
They were the most beautiful eyes she'd ever seen—like the sky after rain, like light in clear water.
He didn't hurry past like the adults did.
He crouched down, patted her head gently.
"Don't be afraid. I'll wait with you until your family finds you."
He took her hand, led her to a roadside bench, and pulled out half a candy wrapped in oil paper.
While they waited, he told clumsy jokes. Pointed at the shifting clouds and made up stories. Even hummed a tune that didn't really have a melody.
It was cliché.
If Dobber heard it, she'd probably sigh—because nine out of ten shoujo manga start like that.
But only five-year-old Faith knew what that cliché had meant.
It meant breathing again.
It meant warmth.
It meant the difference between being abandoned and being saved.
By the time the Mejiro servants found her—frantic, pale, near tears—the boy quietly let go of her hand… and disappeared into the crowd, swallowed by dusk.
She hadn't even asked his name.
Years passed.
The memory faded into a warm outline. A lingering sensation on her palm.
But just now—when she'd seen Wuyou in the corridor—
That familiarity had struck like lightning.
The way he smiled with a slight head tilt.
The calm in his voice.
Even the way he stood, subtly shifting weight onto his left leg without thinking.
All of it overlapped with the shape of that boy in her memory.
Was it him?
Was it really him?
But she hadn't seen Wuyou's eyes.
And that mattered.
Faith's grip tightened until the cup trembled.
The others were discussing "a vague sense of closeness."
But for her, it wasn't vague at all.
If her intuition was right…
Then the "ordinary human" Chiharu had just yanked away was the same boy who, years ago, had soothed her terror with half a candy and an awkward song.
How could she confirm it?
Asking directly felt too abrupt.
Hinting at a childhood story felt too risky.
And more than anything…
Chiharu's overt protectiveness—and the subtle shifts in her sisters' emotions—made the situation dangerously complicated.
"Faith?" Ardan's gentle voice came again. "You've been very quiet."
Faith startled, then forced a smile.
"It's nothing… I just remembered something from when I was little."
She took a slow breath and lowered her eyes to the tea.
Outside, the clouds drifted.
A thin beam of sunlight slipped through, just like the last gold line of that long-ago dusk.
Maybe… someday I'll know for sure.
Her gaze slid—uncontrollably—toward the wall that separated them from the room next door.
…
Meanwhile, next door.
"Chiharu… what was that?!" Wuyou groaned, sprawled on the floor, rubbing his aching lower back.
She'd literally flung him inside with her tail.
Was a tail really capable of that kind of force?!
Horse girls were terrifying.
Chiharu walked over and stopped beside him, socked feet nearly in his face.
Arms folded. She stared down at him, lips puffed like she could hang a bottle from them.
"Just now…" she said, tone casual but not really, "Ryan was kind of… too friendly, wasn't she?"
Her voice carried the faintest vinegar sting, and her tail tightened unconsciously behind her.
And Takamine's "what a coincidence"—
Chiharu hated how much it sounded like it meant something else.
Wuyou blinked, momentarily at a loss.
Lady Chiharu, he thought with deep, exhausted affection, I just met them five seconds ago. How would I know what they're thinking?
But seeing him unsure made Chiharu's mood instantly brighten, like she'd just won a tiny invisible battle.
"Alright, alright—kidding~"
She crouched and tugged him up, patting nonexistent dust off him with exaggerated gentleness.
"My back hurts," Wuyou complained, rubbing his waist. "I thought you were going to kill me."
Chiharu's eyes sparkled.
She'd just had a brilliant idea.
"Yuu! Since we're already at Tsukiyozuki-an, let's go soak in the hot spring!"
Wuyou tilted his head. They'd just arrived. Wasn't it a bit early?
But Chiharu sounded so excited that he simply sighed and agreed.
"Fine. Let's go."
Chiharu grinned, grabbed him, and dragged him out again.
…
Tsukiyozuki-an had many baths.
An herbal bath infused with medicinal plants.
A stone-garden bath paved with smooth pebbles.
A bamboo-grove bath, secluded behind woven screens.
But the most famous were the three top-tier pools:
Shūka Bath, Kikka Bath, and Arima Bath.
Their water quality and scenery were said to be unmatched—reserved only for the highest-tier guests.
Even the names screamed horse-girl culture: the Triple Crown, the Classics, the final grand stage.
Which meant, bluntly:
Shūka Bath was for women.
Kikka Bath was for men.
Arima Bath was mixed.
At that moment, Wuyou sat in a bath, a towel wrapped around his waist, sinking into the water with a long, blissed-out sigh.
The open-air pool was cleverly designed—natural rock walls, moss and vines, quiet and ancient. The water was pale and clear, steam drifting upward.
A lone old maple leaned over the edge, red leaves occasionally falling onto the surface and rippling outward.
"Mm… this feels amazing…"
Even Wuyou—who wasn't picky about comfort—couldn't help murmuring.
And what shocked him was this:
The bath had real effects.
As a fairy, his sensitivity to spiritual energy was absurd. This wasn't a miracle cure, but it absolutely eased fatigue and supported recovery.
If a horse girl needed half a month to recover from accumulated strain…
A few days here could do the same job.
Of course, only the three top-tier baths were this potent. The others couldn't compare.
Then—
Slide.
The sound of a door opening behind him.
Another guest?
Wuyou didn't react at first.
But one second later—
His entire body went rigid, like an electric shock had hit his spine.
These baths were exclusive to the top floor.
And right now, on the top floor…
There were only him and Chiharu.
And the Mejiro family.
More directly:
He was the only male on this floor.
So who just walked in?
His mind flashed white.
No… no way.
Don't tell me—
"This isn't the men's bath?!"
....
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