It wasn’t intentional. Her brain hadn’t fully woken up from sleep, and jealousy drove her body before consciousness could stop it…
The speed of raising her shoulders was faster than usual, and when she pushed off the bed edge with her arm, her elbow joint let out a very soft creak. Her entire upper body pressed a deeper than usual indentation into the mattress.
She leaned toward Rinna, her gaze fixed on Rinna’s phone screen, trying to see who was chatting with her.
Her black hair slid forward from her shoulders, the ends brushing against the white covers on Rinna’s futon with a faint rustle.
Rinna noticed.
‘She noticed the urgency and anxiety in that gaze. She also noticed Hisaki leaning toward her phone screen.’
‘She can’t let Hisaki see. Absolutely not.’
‘There are two reasons.’
‘First, and most directly… the person on the screen is Kikyo.’
‘If Hisaki sees Kikyo’s name and the content of the chat, she’ll immediately realize that yesterday’s “bullying” in the stairwell was a prearranged performance.’
‘If that happens, what will Hisaki think?’
‘She rushed into the stairwell, scooped Rinna up, glared at that boy like he was a bug, said she’d have her family expel him… All of that was based on the premise that “Rinna was being bullied.”‘
‘If she finds out that premise is false, if she discovers that her righteous anger was for a staged show, she’ll probably be silent for three seconds first, and then her composure will collapse.’
‘And then she won’t get angry… not at Rinna… but her eyes will darken. That look of “So you’ve been keeping me in the dark” will hurt Rinna more than any anger.’
‘Rinna can’t let Hisaki become a clown.’
‘Hisaki is not a clown.’
‘Hisaki is the one who protects her, the one who carved out a small space for her on the train, the one who knelt by her bedside this morning with pumpkin porridge and fed her spoon by spoon.’
‘To let someone like that discover that her bravery was just part of a script… No, absolutely not.’
‘The second reason is simpler.’
‘She needs Kikyo’s cooperation for the next performance.’
‘If she exposes it now, she’ll never find such a perfect “bullying victim” again.’
So Rinna reacted. Fast and decisive.
Her thumb pressed the power button. The screen went dark with a click between her and Hisaki, turning into a black mirror.
Then she shoved the phone behind her back, a quick and small motion, like hiding a test with a failing grade, the screen wedged in the gap between her lower back and the mattress.
But her body’s reaction wasn’t as fast as her brain’s command. Or rather, this body simply couldn’t keep up with any urgent orders from her brain.
Hisaki had leaned too close. Close enough for Rinna to smell the lingering gardenia fragrance in her hair. Close enough to see the amber halo of jealousy that hadn’t yet faded in her pupils.
Startled by the sudden proximity, Rinna instinctively tilted to the side. It should have been a slight sideways dodge, but her abdominal muscles chose that moment to go on strike.
Her waist had no strength to support the motion, so she fell diagonally toward the outside of the pillow, like a reed blown over by the wind.
The moment Hisaki saw it, the jealous flame in her pupils was overwhelmed by something fiercer. Instinct. The instinct to protect.
Her fingers left the sheet in the same instant. Her arm shot through the gap between Rinna’s head and the headboard. Her palm opened, steady, and caught Rinna’s head.
The momentum of Rinna’s fall pulled Hisaki’s body downward with it.
Hisaki’s other hand grabbed the mattress to stabilize their center of gravity. The mattress let out a dull, soft sigh under both their weights.
But her other hand never moved from behind Rinna’s head.
They found their balance again, but their position had completely changed.
Rinna lay on the bed, still wrapped in her blanket. The collar of her white sleeping robe had loosened slightly from the earlier movement, exposing a thin patch of skin in her collarbone hollow.
Hisaki was over her. Not pressing down—supporting.
One hand cradled the back of Rinna’s head, palm between Rinna’s skull and the pillow, fingers slightly apart, thumb stopping just below her earlobe in that soft little hollow.
The other hand pressed into the mattress, her elbow bearing all the weight of her upper body.
Rinna could feel Hisaki’s breathing. Slightly faster than usual—maybe still unsettled from being jolted awake, or maybe that quick rescue had drained her stamina.
Hisaki’s black hair fell from both sides of her shoulders, the tips landing beside Rinna’s ear and on her collarbone. It tickled, but at this distance, Rinna didn’t dare scratch.
Hisaki’s knee sank into the folds of the blanket near Rinna’s thigh. Through the blanket and the sleeping robe, Rinna could feel the slight pressure of that kneecap.
Their faces were less than fifteen centimeters apart.
Rinna looked into Hisaki’s eyes. Dark brown. In the light filtering through the shoji paper at noon, her pupils held a sharp, fine glint—hard to tell if it was jealousy, anxiety, or something else.
Hisaki looked into Rinna’s eyes. Amber. Widened more than usual from the scare just now. A faint ring of deep gold stripes circled the iris.
They stared at each other for about two seconds.
In those two seconds, the air was so still there was hardly any sound, only the faint rustle of someone’s toes brushing against the sheet under the blanket.
Rinna swallowed.
Then Hisaki spoke.
“Rinna.”
Her voice wasn’t as flustered as last night’s “I’m sorry” by the hot spring, nor as gentle as this morning’s porridge feeding. It was somewhere between the two.
Lowered a bit, but not successfully—the end of her voice lifted slightly, trailing into a barely noticeable, sticky drag. “Who were you talking to.”
Her eyelids lowered a fraction. Her gaze moved between Rinna’s eyes, nose, and lips, as if searching for something hidden.
She didn’t add a “huh” to that sentence. It wasn’t a question. It was a tone bordering on a command.
‘She has to know.’
Rinna felt it.
Felt the fingers of Hisaki’s hand pressed into the mattress tighten just a little—shallow, nail-drawn creases appeared on the sheet.
Felt the thumb of the hand cradling her head stop its motion.
It had been moving very, very slightly, but now it was completely still, as if waiting for an answer that was about to come, needing absolute silence to hear it.
Rinna weighed her options quickly.
‘I have to answer now. There’s no way around it.’
‘But I can’t let her know about Kikyo.’
Then, with her thin, powerless fingers—she bent the knuckles of her index and middle fingers, and flicked Hisaki lightly on the forehead.
So light that Hisaki’s bangs barely lifted a few strands. So light that the gesture wasn’t so much a “flick” as it was an invisible little feather landing on Hisaki’s forehead.
“It’s Mama, you silly Xiao Xiao!”