It was about time for evening to start settling in.
The world outside the window was quiet, with no people in sight. At that hour, the Fire Keeper and I were at Itsuka-kun’s house.
“Hieta. Hand me that spatula over there.”
“Here you go.”
“Rinne, sis! The sesame seeds are here!”
“Thanks, Kotori.”
There were four people working in the kitchen now.
Itsuka-kun, me, Rinne, and the commander.
I hadn’t really needed to help, but I figured just taking was rude, so I decided to pitch in.
Tonight’s dinner was hamburger steak.
“Mr. Knight! Can I make one too?”
“Ah, then would Miss Sachi like to try this one? Just shape the meat however you want.”
The Fire Keeper seemed to find shaping the meat fun, so she took one of my portions and started molding it beside me.
“Big brother! Look at this!”
While everyone was shaping their meat patties, the commander showed off the one she’d made.
“Oh, a raccoon?”
“No, Itsuka-kun. That is clearly a bear.”
“It’s a rabbit!”
The commander insisted it was a rabbit, but no matter how I looked at it, it was a bear.
If it were a rabbit, shouldn’t the ears be a little longer?
And the mouth and the area around it were yellow, so it really did look like a bear.
“I’m going to have to double my hamburger portion for this.”
“Ahaha, Kotori. If you’re saying that, then why are you sneaking out a lollipop~?”
The commander tried to sneak out a lollipop, but Rinne caught her.
Rinne confiscated the lollipop and scolded the commander, while the rest of us pretended not to notice and went back to shaping our meat.
Once Rinne started lecturing, it usually lasted at least five minutes.
“Mr. Knight. Please look at this.”
“Oh... wow, this is...”
I lost the ability to speak when I saw the patty the Fire Keeper had shaped.
“Mr. Knight?”
The reason was that the shape was so bizarre I couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be.
I couldn’t tell what animal that was. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if it was an animal at all.
“M-Miss Sachi. What shape is this supposed to be?”
“Huh? Obviously it’s a cat!”
“...I-I see.”
A cat?
Was it a cat that had crawled up from hell?
Or a cat in the middle of turning Hollow?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could call that a cat, but since the Fire Keeper said it was one, I decided to just let it go.
After that, all the patties were finished, cooked, and plated.
“Tohka! Yoshino! Come out here already!”
“E-eh! We got found out!?”
Then we called over Tohka and Yoshino, who had been hiding behind the door and watching us, and everyone started eating dinner together.
“Oh, there’s no dressing. Itsuka-kun, where’s the dressing?”
“Ah, it should be in the fridge.”
Since there wasn’t any dressing, I asked Itsuka-kun where it was and moved toward the refrigerator.
But then I saw yellow in the middle of the way.
Huh? Yellow?
“Aaaahhh!!!”
When I turned my head to the left, the girl I’d met before appeared again.
Suddenly seeing her made me scream and fall backward.
“W-what happened!?”
Itsuka-kun rushed over at my strange behavior.
“Y-you are...?”
His reaction was strange too.
“What’s going on!?”
When even Itsuka-kun started acting weird, the others stopped eating and came over too.
“W-who is that...?”
“Who is it?”
Rinne and the Fire Keeper were the first to arrive, and they saw the girl.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Who, exactly?”
“There’s nobody here?”
The other three arrived just in time for the girl to vanish, so they couldn’t see her.
“Hiki. Did you see a ghost or something?”
“N-no... I’m not really sure either.”
*****
The four of us who had seen the girl hurried out through the kitchen’s back door.
“She’s not here.”
“Then let’s check the front entrance!”
We went out to the front entrance at Itsuka-kun’s suggestion, but sure enough, the girl wasn’t there either.
“Who was that girl, anyway...?”
“Itsuka-kun saw her too, right? Everyone definitely saw her?”
“Yeah. She was a blonde girl.”
“I saw her too.”
“I saw her when I was on a date too.”
“So that’s how it is.”
I couldn’t make sense of any of this.
“Curious~?”
A voice echoed like it was coming from inside a cave.
The voice came from beneath a glowing streetlamp.
Then a shadow formed there, and a person emerged.
“Kurumi.”
“Kurumi!?”
“Miss!?”
Of course, it was Tokisaki Kurumi, the lady.
“Please don’t be so wary~ We’ve cooperated before, haven’t we~?”
“...Do you have some business here?”
I immediately went on guard.
After all, the lady had killed people before.
Sure, she had helped save me last time, but I still didn’t know what her real intentions were, so being cautious was the right call.
“Nope. I came to check on the strange things happening around you all lately.”
The lady lifted a finger and tilted her chin toward the sky.
“I came to confirm that~”
“Kurumi, can you see that thing too?”
At her words, everyone was shocked.
“Kurumi can see that too...?”
“Mr. Knight. Who is that person?”
Ah, right. The Fire Keeper had never met the lady before.
“I’ll explain after this is over.”
Right now, figuring out what that sphere was mattered more than talking about Kurumi.
“From what you’re saying, it seems you all can see it after all. Well, one of you is seeing me for the first time, though...”
Kurumi narrowed her eyes and looked at the Fire Keeper.
I stepped in front of the Fire Keeper and took a protective stance.
“Aren’t you being a little too wary of me~? We’ve already seen everything there is to see, after all~”
“That’s a very misleading thing to say...!”
The moment Kurumi finished speaking, I felt pressure on my shoulder and a gaze stabbing into my back.
Turning around with all the grace of a broken machine, I found the Fire Keeper gripping my shoulder with a cold smile.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It’s a misunderstanding! It’s absolutely not what Miss Sachi is thinking!”
“Kihihihi!”
Kurumi, who had caused all this trouble, just laughed and watched like it was the funniest thing in the world.
“Enough teasing. Tell me, Kurumi. What is that thing?”
“If I explain it, it’ll take a while~ But what Shido-san and Hieta-san are doing right now isn’t wrong~”
“You mean... dating?”
“Hey, hey, look over there!”
While Itsuka-kun was talking to Kurumi, Rinne pointed in another direction.
There, the girl we’d seen earlier was sitting on the guardrail.
“My, it seems we have a guest. I suppose I’ll leave it at that.”
“You are...”
“I’ll give you two one piece of advice. The human heart is something that even its owner can’t predict, and it wavers easily. Be careful.”
With that, Kurumi vanished back into the shadows.
And the girl also fell from the guardrail.
“W-wait!”
The moment I saw that, I rushed to where the girl had fallen, but there wasn’t a trace of her anywhere.
Was the girl okay?
That was what I was worrying about when—
“S-so, Mr. Knight. What exactly is your relationship with that woman?”
I was the one who needed to be worried about.
The Fire Keeper was stalking toward me with a fierce look in her eyes, and Itsuka-kun and Rinne, seeing that, were already quietly calculating their escape route.
“Th-that is, um... First of all, it is absolutely not the kind of relationship you’re thinking of, Miss Sachi!”
“Hmm~ And what kind of relationship do you think I’m imagining?”
“Uh...”
Right.
How was I supposed to explain this?
I had no answer to the Fire Keeper’s question.
“You can’t say it, can you?”
“At the very least! At the very least, it’s not like we have feelings for each other or anything like that!”
At my desperate shout, the Fire Keeper narrowed her eyes and glared at me, then seemed to believe me and looped her arm through mine.
“Hey~ Shido! I’ve finally decided on my date plan! You’d better look forward to it too, Shido!”
“O-okay!”
Just as I finished explaining myself to the Fire Keeper, Tohka waved from the balcony and called out to Itsuka-kun.
Come to think of it, Tohka was the last date.
I’d now gone on a date with everyone once, so all that was left was Tohka and Itsuka-kun’s date.
Which meant tomorrow would be a free day.
After going back to Itsuka-kun’s house and eating dinner, I’d have to think about how to spend tomorrow.
“Ah, before that. Itsuka-kun.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“Please take a look at this.”
I took out a sheet of paper buried in the corner of my inventory and handed it to Itsuka-kun.
Itsuka-kun stopped eating and stared at the paper I’d given him.
Then—
“Cough! Cough cough!”
He immediately choked.
“Shido! Water, here!”
“Ugh, thanks. Rinne.”
After drinking all the water Rinne handed him, Itsuka-kun pointed at the paper I’d given him and said,
“This. What the hell is this!?”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
“What is it?”
“What happened, big brother?”
“What is that?”
At his reaction, everyone looked at the paper in Itsuka-kun’s hand.
“Pffft!”
“Oh!”
“Ahahahahaha!”
“Wow...”
『Kya-ha-ha-ha-ha!』
As expected, the reactions were all over the place.
“This is... Shido when he dressed as a girl, right?”
“Yes. That’s right. When I was on a date with Miss Yuzuru last time, Tonomachi-kun and the others were handing these out.”
What Itsuka-kun was holding was none other than a flyer looking for Itsuka Shiori.
“No! Why are they looking for me when I’m like this!?”
“I heard as I was passing by that it’s probably because they’ve never seen you in person except during the Heavenly Festival.”
I answered Itsuka-kun’s question casually and kept eating.
“Then what about you! You’re the same too!”
“...I told them I was a twin younger sister, so I don’t think they’re worrying about it separately.”
I did think that part was strange too, but I’d already set myself up as the younger sister in the first place.
Since there was clearly a family member called “me,” they probably weren’t worried.
“Grrr! Why am I the only one!?”
Itsuka-kun crumpled up the flyer and denied reality, then—
“Haa... Why...”
—gave up.
And so, throughout dinner, Itsuka-kun kept sighing while staring at the flyer.
“The more I look at it, the more Shido seems like Hieta...”
“Hey, Rinne. That’s not true.”
I don’t do stuff like that, so what are you talking about?
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