“It hurts.”
Rinna said.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but in the quiet Large Tatami Room, every word fell clearly into Hisaki’s ears.
Hisaki turned her head.
A light kindled in her eyes.
It was like charcoal that had been smoldering in the dark, its surface ash blown away by the wind, revealing the red-hot core beneath.
Her lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
Then she lunged forward.
“Great!”
Hisaki’s arms wrapped around Rinna’s shoulders, pulling her whole body into an embrace.
The force was so strong that Rinna could feel the muscles in Hisaki’s arms tense beneath her summer shirt, so great that her shoulders ached slightly from the pressure.
Her face was pressed into the hollow of Hisaki’s neck, her nostrils filled with the scent of gardenia flower shampoo and a hint of Hisaki’s warm body temperature.
Then, almost in the same instant, Hisaki’s arms loosened.
It was as if her body had moved before her brain could react—tightening, then slamming on the brakes the moment her brain caught up.
The strength in her arms shifted from “squeezing” to “wrapping,” from “holding tight” to “gently encircling.”
Her fingers spread and closed slightly on Rinna’s shoulders, as if adjusting a force measured to the millimeter.
Rinna felt Hisaki’s breath settle on the top of her head—warm, one breath after another, a little faster than usual.
“Rinna, your body will definitely get better.”
Hisaki’s voice came from above, muffled, carrying something Rinna rarely heard.
It was something deeper and heavier, like the word “happiness” dropped into a deep well, the echo taking a long time to rise back up.
Rinna didn’t speak.
She just rested her head on Hisaki’s shoulder, closed her eyes, and let Hisaki hold her.
The executives on the right side were still eating with their heads down.
No one looked up, no one stopped their chopsticks, not even the rhythm of their chewing changed.
The Young Head picked up a piece of pickled radish and put it in his mouth, letting out a very light crack as he bit down.
The Elder used his chopsticks to stir the rice in his bowl, flicking a grain stuck to the rim back into the pile.
The Advisor picked up his miso soup and took a sip, a faint plop sound as the bowl rim touched his lips.
They saw nothing.
In a place like the Kurose clan, “not looking at things you shouldn’t see” was the most basic survival skill.
When the Young Lady hugged a white-haired girl, emotional and with a muffled voice, those images and sounds entered their eyes and ears and were automatically filed into a “no storage needed” folder in their brains.
Rinna sometimes felt that the executives of the Kurose clan were probably the world’s best at “pretending not to exist.”
They could stand in a row in front of you, letting you clearly feel their presence, and at the same time, when you needed privacy, turn themselves into pieces of breathing stone.
Besides, who would feel jealous of a little girl born with a weak constitution who might die any day? Only a god.
Rinna’s physical condition was no secret in the Kurose clan.
Every time she came, she had to catch her breath in the genkan, her walking speed so slow as if afraid of stepping on ants, and even in June she wore her winter uniform with cold hands and feet.
These details—details that in her own eyes were just “daily life”—in the eyes of those in the Kurose clan whose observation skills were trained to the extreme, pieced together a complete portrait: a porcelain doll that could shatter at any moment.
Who would envy a porcelain doll?
Moreover, this porcelain doll was protected by the Young Lady Hisaki and tacitly approved by the family head Kurose Okami.
Who would dare to scheme? And even if they did, what then? Drive Rinna away from Hisaki—and then what?
Hisaki would look at you with that “looking at a bug” expression, and Kurose Okami would look at you with that “you’re teaching me how to do my job” expression, and then you wouldn’t be able to stay in this house. Not worth it.
So no one was jealous. No one schemed. No one gave Rinna a second glance.
They just kept eating, kept chewing, kept being pieces of breathing stone.
***
7:30 PM.
The clock in the corner let out a low chime—dong—and the echo lingered in the empty Large Tatami Room for a long while before fading.
Before the chime had fully died, Kurose Okami set down his chopsticks.
This time he didn’t place them on the chopstick rest, but directly on the rim of his bowl, the ends hovering in the air and the tails pointing up, like a silent rest symbol.
“We’re done.”
He said.
Two words, not loud, but the shoulders of a young executive at the end seat noticeably tensed.
The row on the right put down their chopsticks in unison. The sound of bowls and dishes clinking rose and ceased in the same instant, as if something had suddenly cut it off.
The Elder stood up first, the hem of his dark gray pleated trousers brushing over the tatami with a very light shush.
The Young Head followed immediately, the cuffs of his black suit jacket brushing the table as he rose, stirring the faintest breeze.
Then the Advisor, then the others, one after another, following an order Rinna couldn’t understand but that certainly existed, silently filing out through the passages on both sides.
Hisaki also stood up.
She took Rinna’s hand, five fingers threading through the gaps, neither tight nor loose.
Rinna stood up with her. Her knees had been pressed against the cushion for too long, and when she stood, her calves were slightly numb, her body swaying.
Hisaki’s hand tightened in the same instant to steady her.
As the two of them walked out of the Guest Reception Main Building, the sound of a sliding door being pulled shut came from behind.
It wasn’t Hisaki who closed it, but the person who stayed behind last.
The wooden lattice of the sliding door slid along its track, emitting a uniform, low rumbling sound, like a giant door slowly closing, separating the inside and outside into two non-interfering worlds.
Rinna knew that once that sliding door closed, the people left inside would start discussing those “political and social highly confidential important contents” that she shouldn’t hear and didn’t want to hear.
The workings of the Kurose clan, the direction of the organization, the distribution of interests—these things were like a giant machine, roaring day and night, and she was just a passerby who occasionally walked past the machine room door, startled by the heat and noise inside.
Hisaki held her hand and walked back along the corridor.
The Kurose Residence at night was completely different from daytime.
All the stone lanterns were lit, clusters of warm yellow light scattered across the garden, as if someone had picked stars and carefully placed them among the rocks and pine trees.
The white sand was illuminated by moonlight into a hazy silver-white, with the shadows of the pine trees falling on it, thick and black, the edges sharp as if cut with a knife.
The bamboo leaves rustled in the evening breeze, a fine, fragmented sound, like a group of people whispering from very far away.
“Rinna.”
Hisaki’s voice drifted from the left.
“Let’s go soak in the hot spring.”