Chapter 4
Morning light seeped through the gaps in the curtains and fell across Eriri's face.
She opened her eyes groggily and reached for her phone on the nightstand out of habit—she had only gone to sleep at five in the morning, so she should have been exhausted. But the moment her finger touched the screen, she froze.
No headache. No body aches from staying up late. On the contrary, her body felt as light as if she had just stepped out of a hot spring. Her mind was so clear it was almost unsettling.
"Reverse Cursed Technique…" Eriri murmured to herself as she sat up in bed.
She glanced toward the storage closet. The door was closed. Morning light slipped through the crack, and everything was so quiet it seemed like nothing had happened at all. But Eriri knew that the Heian-era ghost was sleeping in the shadows—or rather, his consciousness was floating in what he called the "shadow realm."
"Time for school." She shook her head and threw off the covers.
---
An hour later, Eriri stood in front of the full-length bathroom mirror, carefully checking her makeup.
Her golden twin tails were neatly tied, the tips lightly curled, glowing softly in the morning light. A thin layer of foundation covered dark circles that didn't even exist anymore. Blush sat perfectly on her cheeks. Lip gloss in a pale cherry blossom shade.
The ribbon on her school shirt was tied flawlessly. The length of her pleated skirt was exactly three centimeters above her knee—the daily standard for the number one beauty of Toyonoki Academy.
But today felt a little different.
Eriri looked at her reflection and inexplicably felt that her face was especially radiant today, her eyes especially bright. This wasn't the effect of cosmetics. It was a healthy glow shining from within. She remembered the sensation of warm current flowing through her body the night before, and the corners of her mouth lifted involuntarily.
"Reverse Cursed Technique… what a cheat," she muttered quietly, picked up her school bag, and left the bathroom.
As she passed the storage closet, she hesitated for a moment, then reached out and tapped the door panel.
"Hey, Zen'in… Genji? I'm going to school. Are you… still there?"
No response.
Eriri waited five seconds and was about to turn away when the storage closet door silently opened—not physically, but the shadow itself parted like a curtain. From it emerged Genji's figure. Still in his indigo hunting robes, but in the morning light, he looked more solid than he had the night before.
"Good morning, girl." He nodded slightly, then paused as his gaze fell on Eriri's face.
It was a very brief moment—so brief that Eriri almost thought she had imagined it. But Genji's eyes had definitely flickered with a hint of surprise. Not a lecherous look, but pure admiration for something beautiful, like stopping in front of a famous painting in a museum.
"What? What is it?" Eriri touched her face involuntarily. "Is my makeup wrong?"
"No, not at all." Genji shook his head, a faint smile appearing at the corners of his lips. "I was just thinking that when we first met last night, you were exhausted, disheveled, and haggard. Now you look like a completely different person. The cosmetic arts a thousand years later are truly magnificent."
"Of course they are!" Eriri puffed out her chest, her golden twin tails swaying gently with the movement. "I'm the公认 beauty of Toyonoki Academy! I wake up an hour early every morning to get ready!"
The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. What was she doing? Showing off her looks to a thousand-year-old ancient? How childish!
But Genji didn't laugh at her. He simply nodded seriously. "It truly is beautiful. Mixed-race features, golden hair, blue eyes—I saw a few foreign traders during the late Heian period, but a face as delicate as yours is rare."
The direct praise made Eriri's ears burn. She turned away and grabbed her school bag. "S-Shut up! I'm going to be late!"
"Then please, go ahead, girl." Genji stepped aside in the hallway. "I will wait here—"
"Come with me."
"Huh?"
Eriri turned around, her cheeks still slightly flushed, but her tone was firm. "Don't you want to see the world a thousand years later? What are you going to see by staying home?" She paused, her voice softening. "I promised to show you modern things. School. The streets. Shops… This is the real world."
Genji was silent for two seconds. Then he smiled.
It was a genuine, unreserved smile that made his already handsome face especially radiant in the morning light.
"Then… I am in your care, girl."
---
Toyonoki Academy was located in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, a twenty-minute bicycle ride from Eriri's apartment.
The early morning streets were beginning to wake up. Office workers hurried toward the station with briefcases. Housewives pushed strollers toward the supermarket to buy breakfast ingredients. Shopkeepers changed promotional posters at their entrances. For Eriri, it was all an ordinary daily scene.
For Zen'in Genji, it was his first lesson in a thousand years.
He "floated" beside Eriri. The wide sleeves of his hunting robes fluttered slightly in the morning breeze, creating an absurd contrast with the pedestrians in modern clothing around him.
But no one looked at him.
To be precise, no one could see him.
"You really are… invisible?" Eriri asked quietly as she rode her bicycle.
"It's not invisibility, it's 'unseeability,'" Genji explained, though his eyes continued to scan the environment—the high-rise buildings, cars, traffic lights, vending machines—each one making his eyes light up with unusual curiosity.
The reason ordinary people couldn't see cursed spirits was that they existed on a different frequency from what human perception could detect. Genji could simply adjust the oscillation of his cursed energy to mimic a similar state.
He paused, then added, "Cursed energy is to ordinary people what ultrasound is to sound waves—it exists, but it cannot be heard. I simply place myself in the 'inaudible' category."
Eriri nodded as if she understood. She watched Genji reach out and gently tap the glass surface of a roadside vending machine. She watched him look up at a twenty-story apartment building, his eyes reflecting the morning light and the glass curtain wall. She watched him stop in front of a pet shop window, watching the puppies tumble around inside, the corners of his lips lifting unconsciously.
He looked like a child visiting an amusement park for the first time.
"Are you happy?" Eriri couldn't help but ask.
"Happy?" Genji repeated the word, considering it for a moment. "I suppose I've been waiting for this for a long time."
His gaze fell on Eriri. "A millennium… It's both a long time and a short time."
Eriri listened, and suddenly felt something gently touch her chest.
"There's a milk tea shop ahead," she said abruptly, turning her bicycle into an alley. "I… I'll treat you to something."
The sign for "Horn Alley" glowed pink in the morning light. The shop had no customers yet, just the cashier wiping down the counter.
Eriri parked her bicycle and pushed open the door. Wind chimes tinkled.
"Welcome—oh, it's Sawamura!" The cashier behind the counter beamed. "You're early today! The usual—bubble tea, half sugar, no ice?"
"Two cups," Eriri said, then paused. "Another cup… full sugar, with pudding and coconut jelly."
"Huh? Sawamura's drinking something that sweet today?" The cashier smiled as she worked the register. "Bringing a friend?"
"…Yeah."
Eriri paid and took two cups of milk tea. The warmth of the cup spread to her palm through the paper sleeve, a sweet aroma wafting up. She turned and walked out of the shop, holding one cup out to the empty space beside her.
Genji appeared for just a moment—just a flash, his long sleeves taking the milk tea before he quickly returned to his "invisible" state. The whole process was so fast that even the passing office workers didn't notice anything, simply thinking Eriri had made an odd gesture.
"This is…" Genji looked at the cup in his hand, which had a cartoon deer on it, then at the thick straw inserted into it, with a rare expression of bewilderment.
"Milk tea," Eriri said, biting her straw and speaking indistinctly. "A drink from a thousand years later. Try it."
She took a demonstrative sip. Brown sugar pearls slid through the straw, sweet fragrance melting in her mouth.
Genji smiled and shook his head at the girl who clearly thought he was some clueless ancient person.
He imitated her, lowering his head to take the straw, and sipped quietly—
He stopped moving.
Eriri watched him nervously. "How is it? Do you not like it? It's pretty sweet, if you're not used to it—"
"Delicious," Genji said.
He looked up, his eyes shining with surprise. This wasn't an exaggeration—they were genuinely shining. It was the pure joy of discovering a new continent.
"Sweet, but not cloying. The tea aroma is elegant." He took another big sip, savoring it. "Excellent. Much better than that broken tea."
Zen'in Genji sighed contentedly over his modern milk tea.
The tea of the Heian period was barely drinkable at best. There was simply no substitute.
Eriri watched the strongest sorcerer of the Heian period hold his milk tea like a child, sipping it one gulp after another, not even noticing the milk tea splashing onto the cuffs of his hunting robes, and suddenly felt like laughing.
"It's nothing, really," she looked away, the roots of her ears a little warm. "It's not expensive anyway. Just think of it as… thank you for helping me with my manuscript last night."
"Thank me?" Genji set down his cup—it was already half empty. "You're too kind, girl. Reverse Cursed Technique was just a flick of the wrist. But this tea drink…" He looked seriously at the logo on the cup. "'Horn Alley.' I'll remember this. The drinks a thousand years later are truly much more interesting than Heian-period matcha."
"Of course," Eriri lifted her chin. "There are even better things. Cola, juice, coffee… I'll take you another day—ah!"
Suddenly she remembered something, and her face changed.
"What's wrong?"
"I forgot!" Eriri wailed, her face crumpling. "First period is math! A quiz! I didn't review at all!"
She grabbed her school bag and was about to jump on her bicycle when she heard a soft laugh behind her.
She turned. Genji was watching her with a narrow, amused look in his eyes.
"Didn't you just say that with Reverse Cursed Technique, you could stay up all night without fear?"
"Those are two different things!" Eriri's face turned red. "Just because my body isn't tired doesn't mean my brain is completely fine! And math is math! It's the enemy of all humanity!"
She glared at him, then jumped on her bicycle. "Let's go! I'm really going to be late!"
The wheels began to spin. The morning breeze brushed against her cheeks. Eriri pedaled hard, her golden twin tails flying behind her.
And beside her, unseen, Genji held his milk tea in one hand and gently touched the cherry blossom branches along the roadside with the other. Most of the early April cherry blossoms had already fallen, but a few remaining flowers drifted in the wind, brushing against the sleeves of his hunting robes, falling to the ground, and being scattered by the spinning bicycle wheels.
He looked up at the Gothic spires of Toyonoki Academy in the distance, then at the high-rise buildings beyond, and at the slow-moving contrails of airplanes in the blue sky.
A millennium.
He had waited a thousand years, and finally arrived in this era.
There had been some unexpected episodes along the way, but fortunately, the outcome had been correct.
Genji lowered his head and took the last sip of milk tea.
He looked at Eriri, who was struggling to pedal her bicycle ahead of him, and said quietly:
"A thousand years… worth the wait."
His voice was very soft, so soft that only he could hear it.
But Eriri seemed to sense something. She turned around.
In the morning light, the girl looked at the ghost from a thousand years ago.
Then she turned her head and rode on toward school.