It was 9:46 PM.
In Hisaki’s room, it was so quiet that only two soft breaths could be heard.
The two people under the blanket were lying together in a position Rinna hadn’t expected.
She was lying on her side, her left ear pressed into the soft goose down pillow, her right hand lifted out from under the blanket and placed on the edge of the pillow, creating a curve just big enough for Hisaki to tuck herself into.
Hisaki leaned entirely into her embrace, her face buried in the softest gap between Rinna’s chest and collarbone, where the sleepwear was warmed by body heat.
Hisaki’s right hand was loosely curled into a half-fist near her cheek, her knuckles accidentally brushing the edge of the slightly raised fabric over Rinna’s chest.
Her other arm was wrapped around Rinna’s body, her palm resting on the curve between Rinna’s shoulder blade and spine.
Rinna’s other hand rested on Hisaki’s shoulder, fingers slightly spread, fingertips touching the cotton of Hisaki’s yukata at the shoulder, which was soaked with the scent of gardenia.
Their legs had somehow become gently intertwined under the blanket…
Hisaki’s knees were slightly bent, resting against the outside of Rinna’s thigh, while Rinna’s calf poked out a little from under her nightgown hem, pressing against the warm, smooth skin of Hisaki’s inner calf.
It was completely different from what Rinna had imagined.
She still remembered tonight when Hisaki was lying on her stomach and asked, “Can I sleep while holding Rinna?” The way her voice trailed off with a hint of hesitation, as if she was afraid of being rejected.
At that time, she had instinctively thought that what would happen next was Hisaki wrapping her arms around her waist from behind, pulling her into a full embrace, wrapping herself around Rinna like a large dog protecting its only puppy.
But now it was exactly the opposite…
Hisaki was nestled in her arms, her face buried in Rinna’s chest, her warm breath brushing against the edge of Rinna’s nightgown collar, one puff at a time, ridiculously well-behaved.
Rinna lowered her head, and her chin just touched the clean, sharp part in Hisaki’s hair.
From this angle, she could see Hisaki’s eyelashes resting quietly, casting two small fan-shaped shadows in the lamplight, the tip of her nose brushing slightly against the fabric next to the top button of Rinna’s sleepwear.
The curled-up posture made her look smaller than during the day…
It wasn’t a deliberate pose; it was the unconscious retraction of all edges and defenses that only happened when one was with someone they completely trusted.
Rinna couldn’t help but think to herself, ‘The young mistress of the Kurose family, who took down over a hundred people with two steel pipes outside, is now sleeping peacefully in my arms like this. Probably no one else in the world knows about this.’
The thought stirred something in Rinna’s heart.
Once the lying position was fixed, the body had nothing else to do, and the brain began to spin uncontrollably.
Her thoughts were like a string of glass beads knocked over, rolling one by one into the questions she had been deliberately avoiding recently.
The first question was:
‘My sexual orientation seems not to have changed just because I became a girl.’
‘I had actually come to this conclusion before, but had never seriously sat down to have a good talk about it.’
‘In my past life, I liked girls. That fact was as natural to me as “water flows downhill,” so natural that I didn’t need to think about why.’
‘Now I’ve become a girl…’
‘Shirase Rinna, 16 years old, a high school freshman.’
‘Her body is completely female, from bones to internal organs to skin texture. Her voice is a girl’s voice.’
‘Her wardrobe is filled with skirts, sleepwear, shawls, and the pure cotton underwear Hisaki personally picked out. Just a moment ago, I couldn’t take my eyes off the open collar of Hisaki’s yukata when she leaned over.’
‘I still like girls.’
‘That fact hasn’t changed just because my body changed.’
‘The male soul from my past life liked girls, and the female body in this life also likes girls. Two completely different lives have reached a surprising agreement on this issue.’
But with it came something she hadn’t thought about carefully before.
Rinna lay there, staring at the unlit washi paper hanging lamp on the ceiling, and realized she had become very afraid, very terrified of the feeling of “that kind of thing” entering her body.
‘It’s not that I dislike sex itself…’
Just now, when she saw the full outline exposed in front of her as Hisaki leaned over, her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would jump out of her throat.
But as soon as she thought about the specific implementation steps, thinking about something that didn’t belong to her body invading her, her brain would automatically pop up a huge red warning box.
What was even more unbearable was that even if she tried not to project that image onto someone else’s body but instead recalled her own organ from her past life… that thing that had been part of “her own body” in her past memories…
‘Thinking back now, it only feels extremely disgusting and repulsive.’
‘It’s not disgust with the male body, but an inability to accept anything entering me.’
This psychological fear and physical rejection made her very uncomfortable.
Rinna forcefully kicked that thought out of her mind.
‘Okay, this question is too complicated. Let’s set it aside for now.’
She switched to a lighter angle.
‘What if…’
‘The Kurose family doesn’t care whether Hisaki’s marriage partner is male or female? Then would I have a chance?’
‘Xiao Xiao likes me, right?’
Actually, she didn’t need a question mark to end that question anymore.
Hisaki had scared off a guy who bumped into people on the train with just a glare, taken down over a hundred perverts who surrounded them with steel pipes, and swung a bamboo sword five hundred times every morning at 5:30 in the dojo just to be able to protect herself at any time.
If a girl did all this for another girl, and she still had to ask, “Does she really like me?” Rinna felt sorry for Xiao Xiao just thinking about it.
But what kind of “like” was this exactly?
‘Is it the kind of “like” that is “I want to protect her,” or the kind that is “I want to be with her”?’
‘There is a line between the two, and I’ve never confirmed which side Hisaki stands on.’
There was one more thing she had never been able to figure out, and recalling it now still made her chest feel tight.
This afternoon, on the second-floor corridor of the Yangjian Town Shopping District, she had clearly said, “Xiao Xiao, thank you for protecting me today,” and then touched the wound on Hisaki’s face and asked, “Does it hurt?” Hisaki had said, “Rinna is my painkiller.”
And then those words slipped out… “Stupid Xiao Xiao, doing this will make me fall in love with you and give myself to you in marriage…” After saying that, she cried.
After she cried, Hisaki just wiped her tears, held her in her arms, and quietly waited for her to finish crying out all her grievances.
Hisaki didn’t respond to that sentence.
Not a single word.
She just used her right hand to stroke Rinna’s tear-wet cheek again and again, extremely gently, as if wiping a piece of porcelain splashed by rain.
Then she took Rinna’s hand and led her past the “bodies” lying scattered on the cold floor of the mall’s second floor, covering Rinna’s eyes and saying, “You can’t look at this scene right now.”
She didn’t pick up on the “give myself to you in marriage” line.
She didn’t take advantage of Rinna’s emotional breakdown to push their relationship forward.
Rinna knew that was Xiao Xiao holding back… precisely because she cared too much, she couldn’t take advantage of Rinna when she was most vulnerable.
‘But does Xiao Xiao not want to, or is she unable to?’
‘Is it the Kurose family not allowing her to date a girl?’
‘Or is it that she herself hasn’t figured out how to respond?’
Rinna bit the inside of her lip, very troubled.
She really wanted to ask clearly… Now Hisaki was leaning in the crook of her arm, nose gently brushing against her sleepwear, breathing steady and even.
If she quietly asked, “Xiao Xiao, why didn’t you answer me back then?” Hisaki would probably open her eyes the next second, those dark brown pupils would first widen slightly under the lamplight, then quickly retract the moistness of just waking up and become extremely alert.
But after asking, then what?
If Hisaki’s answer was, “The Kurose family won’t allow it,” or worse… if Hisaki stayed silent, lowered her eyes, moved her lips but said nothing… what would she do then?
Rinna didn’t know if her current sickly body could withstand that feeling of cardiac arrest.
‘I’m still too cowardly.’
‘A femdom tiny devil girl who can curse a strange guy on the train as “Trash” to earn malice points, who can dig into someone’s life story at a mall café, yet doesn’t dare to ask her own best friend if she really likes me.’
‘Grievance baka Xiao Xiao.’