Chapter 6: A Maiden's Prayer
Day two of our school trip.
After finishing breakfast in the banquet hall, the four of us gathered in the inn's lobby to go over our route for the day.
Spread open on the low table was Kashiwagi-san's handwritten schedule sheet, packed with famous Kyoto landmarks: Shimogamo Shrine, Fushimi Inari Taisha, Ginkaku-ji, Nanzen-ji, and more.
“...Hey, Iori-kun?”
“Hm?”
“Just looking at this map... isn't it physically impossible for us to hit all of these places in a single day?”
At Renji's question, I glanced down at my wristwatch.
It was currently nine in the morning, and curfew back at the inn was five in the afternoon—giving us eight hours total.
Factoring in how long it took to tour each shrine and temple, plus bus and train transfers clear across the city...
“Yeah... there's no way we can make all of these.”
“Called it.”
Renji groaned and held his head in his hands.
The culprit behind this impossible timetable was obvious: back at the family restaurant, Renji and Kashiwagi-san had gotten carried away shouting “Let's go here too!” and “Ooh, I wanna see that place!” while cramming landmarks onto Day Two, and I hadn't had the heart to rein them in.
At the time, a voice in the back of my head had wondered if the transit times actually added up—and sure enough, here we were.
“I-I'm so sorry, everyone...”
“My bad, team. I got greedy.”
While Kashiwagi-san bowed her head in genuine contrition, Renji scratched the back of his head without an ounce of actual remorse.
His smug expression practically said, I admit my mistake, but I regret nothing! Naturally, I smacked the back of his head.
Still, we can't just cross half the stops off our list, either...
According to the school trip rules, each group was required to visit every stop listed on their approved itinerary sheet and bring back either a group photo or an admission pamphlet from each site as proof.
Which meant that somehow or other, our group had to check off every single landmark on the sheet today.
“Even so, visiting all of these together as a group of four is physically impossible in eight hours...”
Kashiwagi-san stared down at the schedule sheet with a troubled frown.
She was right; even if the four of us sprinted from bus stop to bus stop, we'd barely have thirty seconds at each shrine before having to run for the next train.
Coming all the way to Kyoto just to run a marathon through the transit system would ruin the whole point of the trip.
Which left only one practical solution.
“...What if we split up into two pairs?”
When I floated the idea, all three of them looked up at me at once.
“If we divide into two pairs of two and each pair covers half the landmarks on the list, we can collect all the pamphlets and photos with plenty of time to spare.”
Strictly speaking, splitting up a four-person group was against school rules, so we'd have to make sure we didn't bump into any patrolling teachers, I added.
“Um... it's technically a rule violation, sure, but I don't think we have much choice at this point.”
Kashiwagi-san nodded reluctantly, while Renji brightened right up with an enthusiastic “Ooh!”
“I always knew you had a brilliant tactical mind when pushed into a corner, Iori!”
“Want us to send you out to cover all six stops by yourself instead?”
“I deeply apologize for my earlier hubris, sir.”
Renji pressed his palms together in an instant apology.
Beside us, Mizuki voiced no objection either, content to leave the logistics to us.
“S-So then... how should we decide the pairs?”
The instant Kashiwagi-san asked that question with a faint tremor of nervous anticipation in her voice, the atmosphere around the table shifted.
Dividing four people into two pairs left exactly three possible combinations:
Mizuki and me, plus Renji and Kashiwagi-san.
Renji and me, plus Mizuki and Kashiwagi-san.
Or Kashiwagi-san and me, plus Renji and Mizuki.
...Every single one of those three options came with its own minefield.
Pairing up with Mizuki would let the two of us spend the day alone together, sure, but suggesting that out loud would look way too suspicious.
Pairing up with Renji was the safest bet on paper—except leaving Mizuki and Kashiwagi-san alone together all day would give me a stomach ulcer.
And pairing up with Kashiwagi-san while leaving Mizuki with Renji... came with a whole different set of headaches.
Still, we couldn't just stand in the lobby all morning staring at each other.
“How about we draw lots for it?”
“Huh?”
At my suggestion, Kashiwagi-san blinked in surprise.
Leaving the pairings entirely up to blind luck was the only way to avoid awkwardness.
“Leaving it to chance is the fairest way, right?”
“Y-Yeah! I think that's a good idea.”
Kashiwagi-san nodded in agreement, and neither Renji nor Mizuki had any objections.
Borrowing a notepad and pen from the front desk, I tore off four small strips of paper, wrote A on two of them and B on the other two—
Folded them up tightly, shuffled them in my palms, and lined them up across the table.
“Alright—whoever draws the same letter pairs up for the day.”
“Heck yeah, let's do this! Lady Luck, don't fail me now!”
Rolling up his sleeves with unnecessary drama, Renji reached out first.
One by one, the four of us each picked up a folded slip of paper: me, Renji, Kashiwagi-san, and finally Mizuki.
“Ready? Open 'em on three—one, two, three.”
All four of us unfolded our slips at the same time.
Written on the slip in my hand was—A.
Glancing to my side, I saw Renji holding up a slip marked B.
Looking across the table, I saw Kashiwagi-san blinking down at her open palm.
Written on the paper in her fingers was—A.
“...Ah.”
Which meant, by process of elimination—
The slip in Mizuki's hand was B.
“W-Whoa?! Wait, seriously?!”
Clutching his slip of paper in both hands, Renji did a double-take between his palm and Mizuki.
Mizuki, meanwhile, looked down at the B in her hand for a quiet beat before glancing up at me.
“...”
Meeting her eyes, I gave a tiny, imperceptible nod. Accepting that, Mizuki turned her gaze toward Renji.
“Let's have a good day, Miyama-kun.”
“Y-Yes, ma'am!! I'm at your service! Leave the navigating to me!!”
Renji snapped a crisp military salute in reply. Feeling a complicated twinge in my chest as I watched them, I turned my eyes toward my own partner for the day.
Holding her matching A slip in both hands, Kashiwagi-san looked up at me with a shy, bashful smile.
“...I-I'm looking forward to touring together today, Amano-kun.”
Her voice carried a delicate mix of nervous awkwardness and unmistakable happiness.
“Yeah. Same here.”
Keeping my tone as steady and normal as possible, I nodded back.
All we were doing was following our assigned route and visiting the shrines on the northern side of the city. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Okay, then Kashiwagi-san and I will take the northern route starting with Shimogamo Shrine, and Renji and Yukimura-san can take the southern route down to Fushimi Inari. Sound good?”
“Works for me! Fushimi Inari is that famous shrine with the endless tunnel of red gates, right? Talk about a prime photo spot!”
“The Senbon Torii gates, yes! The mountain trail is pretty long, though, so pace yourselves, okay?”
At Kashiwagi-san's helpful warning, Renji grinned and thumped his chest.
Yeah, I wasn't worried about your stamina, pal—just make sure you are considerate of the girl walking beside you.
Glancing over at Mizuki, I saw her looking absently down at the tourist map in her hands without much interest.
...Well, knowing Mizuki, she could handle Renji with her eyes closed anyway.
“Let's meet back here in the inn lobby at three o'clock, then.”
“Roger that! S-Shall we head out, Yukimura-san?”
“Sure.”
As a comically polite Renji ushered her toward the entrance, Mizuki glanced back over her shoulder at me one last time.
Her lips curved into the faintest smile, as if silently mouthing See you later.
Keeping my hand low by my hip so nobody else would notice, I gave her a tiny wave in return.
“...Alright, then.”
Turning back around, I found Kashiwagi-san fidgeting with her fingertips as she peeked up at me.
Seeing her look so much like a nervous little squirrel made a fond, wry smile tug at my mouth.
“Shall we head out too, Kashiwagi-san?”
“Y-Yes!”
No matter how tangled our feelings might be, we were in the middle of our high school trip.
Resolving to make sure she could enjoy the day properly, I walked out of the inn alongside Kashiwagi-san.
◇
After a twenty-minute ride on a city bus, Kashiwagi-san and I arrived at Shimogamo Shrine.
Walking along the gravel approach through the ancient primeval forest of Tadasu no Mori, we found the grounds wonderfully hushed and serene—a world apart from the bustling crowds at Kiyomizu-dera yesterday.
As we passed beneath the towering vermilion gate into the inner courtyard, the crisp morning air tingled against our cheeks.
“...It's so pretty here.”
Hugging her cloth-bound goshuincho stamp book to her chest, Kashiwagi-san gazed around the tranquil shrine grounds in wonder.
Her eyes were shining like a kid's.
“Want to stop by the shrine office and get your seal stamp first?”
“Oh, yes please! Sorry, give me just two minutes!”
Watching Kashiwagi-san trot happily over to the stamp window, I sat down on a wooden bench near the courtyard edge.
Pale winter sunlight filtered through the tall canopy overhead, casting dappled patterns across the white gravel.
...Without Renji's constant chatter, walking through a quiet shrine like this with Kashiwagi-san really did feel peaceful and familiar.
Right as that thought crossed my mind, however, the phone in my coat pocket buzzed. Pulling it out, I saw a new LINE message from Renji.
【Scored a two-shot with Yukimura-san! Officially a family heirloom!】
Attached below the text was a selfie of Renji flashing a peace sign inside the vermilion tunnel of the Senbon Torii gates—with Mizuki standing right beside him offering a polite, faint smile.
...Okay, that annoyed me a little. Scratch that—it annoyed me a lot.
Not that I had any right to complain when I was the one who had suggested drawing lots in the first place.
Locking my phone screen with a little more force than necessary, I shoved it straight back into my pocket.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!”
Trotting back over to the bench, Kashiwagi-san proudly held open her stamp book to show me the fresh calligraphy.
“Whoa... that brushwork is incredible.”
“Right?! I wonder how many more shrine stamps I'll be able to collect before we head back to Tokyo!”
Kashiwagi-san beamed from ear to ear.
Seeing her look so genuinely happy made a natural smile come to my own face.
“Shall we go pay our respects at the main sanctuary, then?”
“Yeah! Oh—um, Amano-kun, while we're here, would you mind if we also stopped by Aioi-sha?”
“Aioi-sha?”
The name rang a vague bell from the guidebook, though I couldn't quite place it.
“What kind of blessing is that sub-shrine famous for?”
At my innocent question, Kashiwagi-san suddenly blushed and fidgeted with the strap of her bag.
“M-Matchmaking and marriage ties...”
I froze for a fraction of a second, unsure how I was supposed to react to that.
“I-I don't mean anything weird by it, I promise! Look, ‘good ties’ doesn't just mean romance—it covers friendships, school exams, and all sorts of connections too!”
“O-Oh... right, yeah. Of course.”
As Kashiwagi-san waved her hands in a flustered panic, I quickly nodded along.
If that was the cover story she wanted to go with, the polite thing to do was play along without poking holes in it.
“C-Come on, let's go! It's right back this way!”
Tugging lightly on the cuff of my blazer sleeve, she led me toward a small, ornate sub-shrine nestled just outside the main gate.
Standing beside the shrine was a sacred tree where two separate trunks had fused together into a single trunk halfway up—known as the Renri no Sakaki, the intertwined trees of fate.
Beside the sanctuary, wooden racks braided with red-and-white cords were hung thick with hundreds of votive ema plaques.
“Oh, look at the ema plaques! Would it be okay if I wrote one?”
“Sure, go right ahead.”
“What about you, Amano-kun?”
“Me...?”
I hadn't planned on writing one, but since we were already standing here—
“Yeah, I might as well write one too.”
“Yay! It'll be a nice souvenir of the trip!”
After purchasing two pentagonal wooden plaques at the counter and borrowing a pair of felt-tip markers, Kashiwagi-san took a few steps away from me.
“...No peeking while I'm writing, okay?”
Turning her back to shield her plaque with her shoulders, she began carefully writing out her wish.
Stepping over to the opposite end of the writing table, I looked down at the blank wooden plaque in my hands.
Unvarnished wood waiting for a wish.
...Now then, what should I wish for?
My greatest wish—having my ten-year first love come true—had already been granted.
Normally, the obvious follow-up would be wishing for Mizuki and me to stay together forever.
Yet for some reason, writing that down felt like relying on the gods for something I needed to uphold myself.
After pondering for a long moment... I uncapped the marker and wrote a single line across the wood.
『—May the me ten years from now look back without regrets.』
More than anything else, that was the prayer that rose from my heart.
Once we both finished writing, we walked over and tied our wooden plaques to the rack together.
Kashiwagi-san had hung her plaque with the written side facing inward so nobody could read what she had wished for.
“Did you finish tying yours up, Amano-kun?”
Nodding, I stepped up to the offering box beside her, tossed in a coin, and clapped my hands twice before pressing my palms together.
Since I had already written my real wish on the plaque, I kept my silent prayer simple and wished for everyone's good health.
When I opened my eyes and glanced sideways, Kashiwagi-san still had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hands clasped earnestly in front of her chest.
Whatever wish she was pouring her heart into right now was hers alone; I had no right to pry into it, so I waited quietly beside her.
After another long moment, her eyelashes fluttered open, and she looked up at me.
“Sorry to keep you waiting! Did you make a good wish too, Amano-kun?”
“Yeah.”
“Hehe, I hope both of our wishes come true, then.”
Swallowing the bittersweet ache in my throat at her bright smile, I gave a small nod.
Turning away from Aioi-sha, the two of us walked slowly back down the tree-lined path through Tadasu no Mori.
Beneath the dappled winter sunlight, only the rhythmic crunch of our footsteps on the gravel filled the quiet woods.
“Hey, Amano-kun.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think... we'll ever be able to come back here again someday?”
There was a fragile, almost ephemeral quality to Kashiwagi-san's smile as she asked.
Hesitating for a beat... I gave a carefully measured nod.
“...Yeah. Let's come back again with the whole group someday.”
At my deliberate inclusion of the whole group, a shadow of quiet sorrow flickered across Kashiwagi-san's smile.
Even if it hurt to see her make that face, I couldn't give her false hope.
—Because I couldn't return her feelings.
After I rejected her after the cultural festival, I had assumed the thread between us had been severed for good.
And yet here we were, walking side by side through a Kyoto shrine just the two of us.
Whether allowing this was kindness or cruelty, I didn't know—only that leaving things unspoken and ambiguous any longer wasn't fair to her.
“Kashiwagi-san.”
When I called her name quietly, her chestnut hair swayed as she stopped and turned toward me.
“What is it?”
“...Why did you really ask to join our group for the school trip?”
The instant the question left my lips, the air between us seemed to freeze.
A dry winter leaf drifted down between us, the rustle of the branches overhead sounding abnormally loud in the silence.
Standing a few paces ahead of me on the path, Kashiwagi-san lowered her gaze without turning around.
“...To tell you the truth, I kept going back and forth on it for days.”
“...?”
“Ever since you turned me down after the festival, Amano-kun... I knew in my head that the right thing to do was to give up on you cleanly. But I kept wondering whether giving up like that was really the right answer for me.”
A faint, self-deprecating laugh escaped her lips—a sound that didn't suit a gentle girl like her at all.
Slowly, Kashiwagi-san turned around to face me, her lonely brown eyes meeting mine squarely.
“So when I asked to join your group, I intended for this school trip to be my final goodbye to my feelings. I figured if I could visit Kyoto with you just once... I could treasure it as one last memory and finally move on.”
“...!”
So that was what had been going through her heart when she approached our desks that day.
My chest constricted with a dull ache—yet at the same time, something about her phrasing caught my attention.
Wait... she said ‘I intended to,’ in the past tense?
Right before I could ask what she meant by that, a chime rang out from the smartphone in my pocket.
“...Oh. Looks like it's already time to head back.”
With a trace of wistful reluctance in her voice, Kashiwagi-san glanced down at her own watch.
Checking my screen, I saw that my two-thirty reminder alarm for our return bus was flashing.
“Shall we head back to the inn, Amano-kun?”
“O-Oh... yeah.”
With that lingering question still hanging unanswered in my throat, I let Kashiwagi-san tug lightly on my sleeve and walked with her toward the bus stop.
◇
SIDE: Renji
—Bragging about yourself is tacky, I know, but ever since I was a kid, I've never really had to struggle much at anything.
Grades, sports, socializing—pretty much everything I tried came naturally on the first go, and I certainly never had any trouble getting girls to like me.
Bask in a little attention, coast along smoothly without rocking the boat, and have fun every day—that was my motto.
That was the kind of guy I was... or rather, the kind of guy I had chosen to be.
Sure, if you dug into my backstory, there was that messy business in middle school where my first girlfriend cheated on me, plus a lifelong inferiority complex toward my ridiculously overachieving older brother... but whining about sob stories like that is totally off-brand for me.
Bottom line: to everyone at Shirayanagi Academy, Miyama Renji was an easygoing, silver-tongued playboy, and I was more than happy playing the part.
Naturally, I knew how to talk to girls and keep a conversation lively; for a high school second-year, I prided myself on being in the top percentile of romantic experience.
...And yet, despite all that.
“Miyama-kun?”
“Y-Yes, ma'am?!”
At the crystal-clear sound of my name, my shoulders practically jumped out of my skin.
Standing right beside me at the bus stop was a girl whose beauty defied all common sense.
—Yukimura Mizuki.
Faced one-on-one with our academy's reigning Madonna, my smooth playboy persona was currently crumbling into dust.
“Our bus is pulling up.”
“O-Oh, right! Thank you very much!”
Wait—why the heck am I speaking to a classmate in ultra-polite honorifics like a store clerk?! I mentally smacked my own forehead.
Ever since we left the inn lobby twenty minutes ago, I hadn't been acting like myself at all.
Being breezy, shameless, and able to chat up literally anyone without breaking a sweat was supposed to be my whole superpower.
“What's the matter, Miyama-kun? You're acting a little different from usual today.”
Tilting her head slightly, she looked straight into my eyes—and the sheer gravity of those ruby-red irises pinned my feet to the pavement.
Never once in my life had a girl left me this tongue-tied.
Come on, pull yourself together, Renji!
I had miraculously drawn the golden ticket to spend an entire day touring Kyoto one-on-one with the Yukimura Mizuki! Any guy with a pulse would kill for this chance!
And yet... every smooth compliment and witty icebreaker that normally rolled right off my tongue had evaporated without a trace.
When the city bus hissed to a stop at the curb, we boarded together. After Yukimura-san took a window seat near the back, I hesitated for a full second before gingerly sitting down beside her.
And the very first thought that registered in my brain as I sat down was—
...Whoa. She smells insanely good.
It was the most pathetic, virgin-level observation imaginable.
I wanted to pry the bus window open and hurl myself into traffic out of sheer embarrassment. Who knew the day would come when Miyama Renji cringed at his own internal monologue?
Sneaking a timid glance to my left, I saw her gazing absently out the window at the passing streets.
Taking in that museum-piece profile of hers from half a meter away, I couldn't help marveling all over again.
Seriously... how does someone this gorgeous even exist in real life?
Through friends of friends, I had hung out with a few girls who did amateur magazine modeling or underground idol work.
To be brutally honest, though, most of those girls were just ordinary cute girls who were high on their own follower counts.
Yukimura Mizuki, on the other hand, belonged to a different stratosphere entirely.
Thinking back, on the very first day of our first year when we were assigned to the same class, I had walked right up and asked her out on the spot.
Looking back now, it was laughably reckless—yet her beauty had been so overwhelming that I hadn't been able to stop myself.
...Naturally, she had shot me down in about two seconds flat.
Knowing her, she probably doesn't even remember that I asked her out back then...
Right as I was nursing that humbling memory to the rhythm of the swaying bus—
“Miyama-kun.”
“Y-Yes?!”
Having her address me out of the blue made my spine jolt ramrod straight again.
...God, I looked so lame right now. Please don't let anyone from school ever see me like this.
“What is it, Yukimura-san?”
When I asked cautiously, she kept her eyes trained on the passing scenery outside the window.
“You and Amano-kun are really good friends, aren't you?”
Of all the topics she could have brought up, that was the last one I had expected.
...Iori?
Why was she suddenly asking me about Iori in the middle of our trip?
A dozen question marks popped up over my head, though I quickly rallied and answered.
“Well, yeah! He and I have been hanging out every day since the start of first year—he's my best bud.”
Though come to think of it, it really was kind of funny that the two of us had clicked as well as we had.
Our personalities and social circles were polar opposites; honestly, on day one of first year, neither of us had probably thought we'd ever get along.
And yet here we were, nearly two years later...
“Why is that?”
“Huh?”
“Someone as sociable as you could have easily hung out with flashier guys who matched your energy better, right?”
Her quiet follow-up question caught me completely off guard.
Glancing beside me, I saw she was still looking out the window, making it impossible to tell what she was getting at.
“...Uh, well...”
I turned the question over in my head. What was she really asking me here?
Was she genuinely curious why an extrovert like me chose to spend every lunch break with a quiet loner like Iori?
Wait... why does she care so much about Iori's friendships anyway?
If this was just small talk to fill the silence on the bus, it was an awfully specific topic.
Still... why do I hang out with Iori more than anyone else?
Mullings it over honestly, she had a point: I had plenty of louder guys in other classes I could party with. Yet the reason I always gravitated back to Iori's desk was...
“...I guess it's just easy to breathe when I'm around him.”
Before I even planned it out, the honest answer slipped from my mouth.
At those words, Yukimura-san finally turned her head from the window and looked directly at me.
“Easy to breathe?”
“Yeah. Because Iori never looks at people through tinted glasses or ulterior motives.”
Without meaning to brag, I knew I had been dealt a pretty lucky hand in life.
Good looks, decent brains, and an knack for picking things up fast—which also meant I had dealt with my fair share of petty jealousy, fake friends, and guys trying to use me to meet girls.
Iori, though, couldn't care less about any of that. He rolled his eyes at my antics, sure, but he never envied me or put me on a pedestal.
Half the time, his deadpan stare practically seemed to say, Being a little popular is nothing worth making a fuss over.
On anyone else, that attitude might have ticked me off—yet coming from Iori, it was weirdly refreshing.
“You probably know the feeling better than anyone, right, Yukimura-san? How exhausting it gets when everyone around you only sees your reputation and makes a huge production out of everything you do.”
If anyone in our school understood the suffocating weight of other people's expectations, it was the girl sitting next to me.
Yukimura Mizuki—the untouchable idol of Shirayanagi Academy, hailed by everyone as a once-in-a-decade prodigy.
Compared to the pedestal the whole school placed her on, my own experiences barely even registered.
“...”
“With Iori, though, there's zero pretension or hidden agenda. Hanging out with him just feels natural and uncomplicated, you know?”
Right as I finished saying all that, my ears suddenly turned hot. Whoa, hold on—why am I waxing poetic about my best friend like a lovestruck schoolgirl?!
Scrambling to salvage my cool-guy image, I quickly tacked on a joke.
“P-Plus, you know, the guy's a hopeless introvert if left to his own devices, so as his reliable big-brother figure, I can't just leave him unsupervised! Haha!”
“...Hehe.”
As I sheepishly scratched the back of my neck, a soft, genuine laugh escaped Yukimura-san's lips.
It was the very first time she had smiled since the two of us set out this morning—though the fact that it took talking about another guy to make her smile left my pride feeling a little conflicted.
Still, rule number one of any date was making sure the girl had a good time.
If talking about Iori had gotten her to relax and smile like that, I figured I could chalk it up as a win.
Right as the bus announced our stop at Fushimi Inari and we stood up to disembark, however—
“—So you really are a good friend to him, huh?”
The quiet murmur she spoke under her breath lingered strangely in my ears.
—Transferring briefly to a local train line, we arrived at Fushimi Inari Taisha and spent the next couple of hours walking the shrine grounds together.
Unfortunately, if I had hoped that earlier smile on the bus would carry over into a romantic atmosphere, I was sorely mistaken.
While I was genuinely awed by the sprawling sanctuary and the famous vermilion tunnels of the Senbon Torii gates, Yukimura-san simply walked beside me in mechanical silence, showing neither excitement nor emotion.
And here I thought I'd finally broken the ice back on the bus...
That brief smile earlier almost felt like a hallucination now that her cool, unreadable mask was firmly back in place.
At this rate, the single two-shot selfie she had let me take at the entrance of the torii tunnel was going to be my sole trophy from today's expedition.
“We should probably start heading back soon,” she said.
Her voice snapped me out of my musings.
Having checked the time on her phone, Yukimura-san slipped the device neatly back into her shoulder bag.
She was right: we had already walked the main circuit, picked up the shrine pamphlets, and taken our proof photos.
Having failed not only to flirt with her, but even to hold a normal five-minute conversation with her, was a crushing blow to my record—yet I knew when I was beat.
“Yeah, good call. Let's head back to the station.”
At the end of the day, Yukimura Mizuki was simply a fortress no ordinary guy could ever hope to breach.
Watching her graceful back as she walked a half-step ahead of me down the stone path, I honestly wondered if a man capable of melting her heart even existed on this planet.
...Which made me curious about one last thing.
“...Hey, Yukimura-san.”
“What is it?”
When she paused and glanced back over her shoulder beneath the red torii gates, her beauty was still enough to steal my breath away.
“Is there... anyone you actually like right now, Yukimura-san?”
The blunt question slipped out before I could overthink it.
...Immediately, I cringed at myself inwardly. What am I, a middle schooler on a field trip?! Smooth guys don't just blurt that out point-blank!
Even so, I didn't take the question back.
Deep down, I genuinely wanted to know whether a goddess as aloof and untouchable as Yukimura Mizuki was even capable of falling in love with a human being.
...Though I already know she's gonna say ‘No’ anyway.
Fully expecting her to shake her head and say she had zero interest in romance—
I was already preparing a self-deprecating shrug when she opened her lips.
“—There is.”
At those two quiet words, I froze dead in my tracks.
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