Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima had successfully shaken off the frenzied fans chasing them down.
But the sprawling Akihabara was a dangerous place.
People everywhere.
The situation was tense.
One slip-up — one moment of being recognized — and they would be surrounded all over again.
Lin Ye had ways of getting Mai Sakurajima out of any cordon, but those means had limits, and the more he used his skills, the easier it would be for the wrong people to take notice.
Even though the efficiency of the Japanese government couldn't be called impressive, and its surveillance infrastructure couldn't hold a candle to Xia Country's, if he were ever careless enough to be caught on camera, what would come down on him next would be force at an official level.
At this stage,
Strange Players were still a scarce sort of existence.
"We can't keep hiding like this forever,"
Mai Sakurajima spoke up.
Right now, even the sight of someone outside set her nerves on edge — she was terrified that whoever appeared might be another one of her fanatic fans, here to hunt her down.
A few people wouldn't be a problem on their own, but she was afraid of how quickly that handful could draw an even bigger crowd.
"Let's find somewhere we can rest for a while!"
Mai Sakurajima looked at Lin Ye, waiting for his decision.
"All right. Where do you think would be best — you probably know Akihabara better than I do."
"That way!"
Mai Sakurajima pointed off to one side.
Lin Ye nodded and led the girl in the direction her finger had indicated.
The two of them kept their hands clasped together without letting go, both of them keeping a sharp eye out — any stray figure that appeared sent a small jolt through them.
"Where did that guy run off to?"
"Where's our Mai?!"
"Give our Mai back to us, now!"
...
Now and then, distant howls drifted over from somewhere behind them.
A whole horde of onlookers and fans was still combing the area, searching for any trace of Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima.
About ten minutes later,
Mai Sakurajima's voice came again,
"Here."
She pointed.
Lin Ye looked, and saw the sign.
A hotel.
And not just any hotel — a love hotel.
The girl, sensing exactly what Lin Ye was thinking, gave his side a light punch with one hand. "Don't get any ideas. There's no registration desk here, no front-desk staff — we won't be exposed."
That was Mai Sakurajima's reasoning.
And what she knew even better was that Lin Ye needed to rest, now.
Yes —
Right now, the one thing she wanted to do more than anything was find a place where Lin Ye could get a proper sleep.
A regular hotel would have been the natural choice.
But normal hotels had staff. And right now, the news about her and Lin Ye was spreading like wildfire — it had completely taken over the Trending search rankings.
If she and Lin Ye showed up at a regular hotel and the staff there saw them, they would absolutely set off a fresh wave of uproar and attention.
That was the last thing Mai Sakurajima wanted.
As for contacting her career and her agency, she had decided to push all of that off to tomorrow.
Tonight,
She just wanted to be with Lin Ye. She just wanted Lin Ye to get one good night of rest.
"What, Student Lin's losing his nerve? Don't men love places like this? A beautiful woman like me is willing to spend the night at the hotel with you, and you're still hesitating?"
Mai Sakurajima curved her lips into a faint, taunting smile. "Looks like Student Lin really is too scared. Don't come trying to tease me in front of me ever again, then."
The instant she finished saying it,
Mai Sakurajima found her wrist seized by one of Lin Ye's hands, and felt herself being pulled straight toward the hotel.
Soon enough,
The two of them arrived at the hotel's entrance lobby.
Lin Ye's eyes caught sight of the self-service check-in machine, and he walked right over and began operating it.
His practiced motions made Mai Sakurajima, watching him from behind, blink slightly in surprise.
That practiced?
Did he come here often?
What was there to do at a love hotel?
Apart from that, she couldn't think of any other possibility.
"Senpai, let's head up."
"Mm — but Student Lin, you're certainly practiced at this."
"Practiced at what?"
Lin Ye's first instinct was that she meant 'practiced at kissing,' which made him think of a certain plotline from White Album.
"Practiced at checking in. Student Lin must come here often, hm? Bringing all kinds of cute, pretty girls to spend the night at love hotels."
"..."
Watching Lin Ye's reaction, Mai Sakurajima went on, "You've been here with Ai-chan, haven't you?"
How are you this accurate?
If she had said Yukinoshita, he could have firmly denied it, because he genuinely had never gone to a love hotel with Yukino Yukinoshita.
But Ai Hoshino — he really had stayed in one with her, and there had even been some ambiguous moments between them.
"So you really have been here before. Well, fair enough. The two of you aren't lovers, but you might as well be — going to a love hotel with her wouldn't really qualify as anything strange."
Mai Sakurajima's tone was completely even, as if she didn't really care.
But Lin Ye picked up on the faint resentment threading through her words.
She was jealous, wasn't she?
Senpai had taken the news of him visiting a love hotel with Ai Hoshino, and her mood had soured.
"Senpai's jealous?"
A single line set Mai Sakurajima off.
"Don't talk nonsense. How could I possibly be jealous? Student Lin, please don't get full of yourself."
The girl with long black hair gave Lin Ye a reminder not to get too high on himself.
"Mm, got it. Senpai doesn't care in the slightest."
"Of course not."
"Then tomorrow I'll go ahead and invite Ai-chan to come to a love hotel with me."
"You wouldn't dare."
A single sentence — out of her mouth before reason could rein it in.
The moment it was said,
Mai Sakurajima realized her own slip.
She might say with her lips that she didn't care, but on a subconscious level she did — she was still pushing back against Lin Ye having that kind of close relationship with other girls.
"Mai Sakurajima-senpai, I actually would dare."
"Hmph."
Mai Sakurajima let out a small huff.
Lin Ye shrugged and led the girl toward the elevator.
The two of them stepped in and rode up to the eighth floor.
Room 806.
A soft beep.
The door opened.
Click…
Lin Ye flipped the switch, and a moment later the room's lights came on.
Bathed in violet-red light, the room took on a faint atmosphere of ambiguity and sweetness.
And the sugary décor of the room came into Mai Sakurajima's view all at once.
This was the first time in her life she had ever set foot in a love hotel. She had only ever heard of them before — she had never actually been to one herself.
Love hotels had never held much interest for her in the past, but since she had decided to spend the night at one this time, she found her curiosity about the interior layout perking up a little.
Now,
The oversized circular bed,
The pink-themed décor, the assortment of items scattered about — it was all hammering away at Mai Sakurajima's pure, innocent heart.
"Was the love hotel you went to with Ai-chan also like this?"
"Not the same. Every shop has its own layout."
The love hotel he had gone to with Ai-chan was one inside the Strange Game's instance world.
Completely different from this place.
"Hm."
Mai Sakurajima stood at the doorway, hesitant to step inside — the visual stimulation was just too much. She even felt like every breath she took carried the sweet scent of the room.
"Ah!"
A tug came through her hand, and Mai Sakurajima let out a small, trembling cry.
"You — what are you doing?!"
"Bringing you inside. What are you standing at the door for? Don't tell me Senpai is actually scared?"
Lin Ye leaned in close, making Mai Sakurajima retreat two steps. Her hands instinctively crossed over her chest, and a flush of flustered red bloomed on her cheeks.
"What is there for me to be afraid of? I'm the one who brought you here."
Bang —
Mai Sakurajima even reached back and shut the door herself.
"Senpai's awfully bold. Don't you know what could happen, being alone with a man in a love hotel?"
"You wouldn't."
Mai Sakurajima rolled her eyes at Lin Ye.
The very fact that Lin Ye could ask a question like that told her he wouldn't actually do anything.
If he had really wanted to, he had had plenty of chances.
Back during those days when her presence had vanished from the world,
Only Lin Ye had been able to perceive her existence,
And the two of them had shared a bed on multiple occasions. If Lin Ye had really wanted to make a move, she wouldn't have been able to refuse.
"Hurry up and go take a shower, and then sleep. Right now, I need you to sleep right this instant."
Seeing Lin Ye not budging from his spot, Mai Sakurajima actually went so far as to push him toward the shower room.
"Senpai, being this aggressive isn't very becoming, you know."
"If I'm not aggressive, I'm afraid you're going to drop dead. So — hurry up, shower, and sleep."
Under Mai Sakurajima's forceful insistence, Lin Ye finally had no choice but to comply.
He pulled off his coat and trousers, set the items from his pockets on the table, and then took the bathrobe Mai Sakurajima handed him and headed for the shower room.
"Senpai."
"Hm?"
"No peeking at me."
Mai Sakurajima: ???
"Who's going to peek at you, a guy, in the shower?"
"I'm a guy, but I have a great body. Plenty of Perverts stare at me, dying to get a look."
"..."
Mai Sakurajima rolled her eyes at Lin Ye again.
Lin Ye burst into laughter and disappeared into the shower room.
Hissss…
Hot water came pouring down.
Lin Ye washed himself in the shower.
Mai Sakurajima was just fiddling with the switches to adjust the lighting when one button revealed something — the frosted glass had turned transparent.
She had just gotten a full look at Lin Ye.
"Wuuu…"
Thankfully there was a thin veil of steam, otherwise she would have seen everything clearly — and she meant clearly, in the most literal sense.
Click…
Mai Sakurajima switched it off, but her gaze still kept drifting back toward Lin Ye against her will.
"His body…"
"Actually pretty incredible…"
Better, by a noticeable margin, than the people who spent all their time at the gym.
Beyond her surprise and her embarrassment, Mai Sakurajima also felt a small ache of sympathy.
This body of his — it must have been forged in training, all for the sake of dealing with the Strange.
Otherwise, how else could he look like that?
Just then, Mai Sakurajima noticed the phone ringing.
...
...
Yukino Yukinoshita stared at the figure on the livestream screen, as many forgotten memories surfaced one by one in her mind.
Half an hour earlier, she had received a call from Yui Yuigahama. It was because of Yui Yuigahama that she had logged in and tuned in to this Trending search livestream.
"Yukinon, Yukinon, there's something exciting happening — quick, click the link I just sent you, go watch the live stream."
"Do you remember that love-letter incident from a few days ago, the one that went all over the internet?"
"Well, that incident has a follow-up now. The male lead from the letter has shown up — he's standing in front of the ramen shop in Akihabara, Tokyo, right now, holding a bouquet of roses, waiting for that girl called 'Miss Sakurajima.'"
"It's just — it's so romantic, really!
"And there are tons of pretty young girls confessing to him, too! Though he's turned them all down."
Yui Yuigahama could not, by her nature, resist any kind of romance-related event. Especially with that letter from before, she had already been looking forward to the male and female leads and how their story would unfold.
Several days of silence had done nothing to dampen her enthusiasm — if anything, all that quiet had let her anticipation steep and brew, and now, here, in this moment, it had erupted.
And she had even gone out of her way to share it with Yukino Yukinoshita,
Because she had already come to think of Yukino Yukinoshita as her friend.
Yukino Yukinoshita hadn't refused. She had clicked the link and watched the stream.
The livestream's angle wasn't great, but she could still make out most of the scene.
The crowd of onlookers conveyed the heat of the actual scene — countless passersby had gathered around, all of them clearly fascinated.
Her first reaction was that it had to be staged. But as the livestream went on, through observation, she began to feel that the odds of it being staged were very low.
And as the male lead revealed his true feelings and made his confession,
She found herself puzzled — why was he confessing to thin air?
Unlike most people, she knew of the existence of the Strange. So after a brief moment of confusion, she immediately tied this peculiar situation to the Strange.
Only the Strange could turn someone invisible, could cause them not to be perceived.
But that frame of mind didn't last long.
At the very instant Mai Sakurajima's figure appeared on screen, all the forgotten memories came flooding back into her mind, surfacing all at once.
A brief moment of recollection, and Yukino Yukinoshita understood why.
Her Quasi-fiancé — Lin Ye — was right now in Akihabara, Tokyo, before hundreds of people on-site and millions of viewers online, making a confession to Mai Sakurajima.
And Mai Sakurajima had even accepted that confession.
Which meant that, right now, Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima had become a couple.
Her Quasi-fiancé had become someone else's boyfriend.
All at once,
Yukino Yukinoshita's once-buoyant heart plummeted to the bottom.
Her relationship with her Quasi-fiancé was ending right here.
The future she had once imagined would now become a phantom of the past, never to manifest in reality again.
Her chest ached with a dull, suffocating tightness, and a knife-like sharp pain kept stabbing into it.
Yukino Yukinoshita unconsciously pressed a hand over her own chest, feeling the sensitive throb of pain rising from somewhere deep inside her.
"So…"
"It can ache and grieve over something like this too…"
All this time, Yukino Yukinoshita had considered herself a relatively rational person — but in moments like this, she still couldn't manage the ideal response of meeting things with a calm expression and a level heart.
"Yukinon, Yukinon, what did you just say? I — I didn't quite catch it."
Yui Yuigahama's voice came through right away.
She had assumed Yukino Yukinoshita had just been too moved to speak.
"Nothing. Just remarking on the scene. Young people really are full of energy."
"Haha — Yukinon, you're only seventeen yourself. Saying things like that, you sound positively elderly, like you have no energy at all. Don't go saying things like that anymore."
Yui Yuigahama gently chided her.
Within her usual circles, she wouldn't have given that kind of feedback outright. But with Yukino Yukinoshita, she felt it was fine.
"I'll grow up sooner or later."
"That's still a long way off."
"Mm — if there's nothing else, I'll hang up now."
Yukino Yukinoshita wanted to end the call with Yui Yuigahama so she could turn her attention to dialing someone else.
It wasn't late — but it wasn't early, either.
Now that Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima had both successfully escaped, his phone should still be reachable, right?
Yukino Yukinoshita was afraid her call would be declined.
"All right, Yukinon, goodnight. I should turn in early too. Though I really wish I could've been there in person — that must have been so fun to watch."
Yui Yuigahama was clearly still reluctant to part with her conversation with Yukinoshita. "I wonder who that guy with Mai Sakurajima is — being able to date a major star like Mai Sakurajima, on top of being so good-looking, he must really know how to charm girls!"
As for the image of the male lead in the livestream and the screenshots floating around — Yui Yuigahama was also openly calling him handsome.
From his hairstyle to his face to his entire outfit, every detail showed off his good looks.
This long wait of his had clearly been meticulously prepared.
And then… it had worked.
Miss Mai Sakurajima had been swept up, her heart had fallen, and she had accepted his confession.
Waaaah!
"If someone confessed to me like that, I couldn't hold out either! Wuuuwuuwuu…"
Yui Yuigahama's voice trembled into excited little sobs as she said it.
"It was so romantic, so moving — I really wish there was a boy like that to confess to me."
In her excitement, Yui Yuigahama had let her real, inner feelings slip out.
Yukino Yukinoshita let out a soft, helpless sigh. "There will be, Student Yuigahama. There will absolutely be a boy who will stage a romantic confession like that for you."
Right then, listening to Yukinoshita's cool, composed voice on the other end of the line, Yui Yuigahama finally realized — she had just blurted out something she should have kept inside.
"Wuu, wuuwuu…"
She felt like she would never be able to face Yukinoshita again.
"I — I'm hanging up now, Yukinon. Get to bed early, goodnight."
Tossing out that last sentence, Yui Yuigahama waited just long enough to hear Yukinoshita's reply before hanging up the phone.
The pink-dumpling girl set down her phone.
"Aaaargh!"
She clutched at her own cheeks. "How did I let that slip out? Yukinon — Yukinon's going to think I'm thirsting for a man, isn't she?!"
If that was really how she came across, how was she ever going to face Yukinoshita?
"I — I'm not actually a desperate woman, Yukinon, don't get the wrong idea — I really was just commenting on the scene."
After muttering to herself for a good while, Yui Yuigahama's heart finally began to settle.
But when she thought back to that romantic moment in the livestream,
As a girl, her heart had genuinely been stirred.
Still, Yui Yuigahama also knew that she was just an ordinary girl — there was no way she could ever enjoy the kind of treatment a major star like Mai Sakurajima received.
The gap between her and Mai Sakurajima was just too vast.
That kind of radiance, that kind of breathtaking beauty — her every presence, her every appearance, had the power to tug at the heartstrings of countless people.
"I really want to… meet Mai in person sometime."
Yui Yuigahama remarked wistfully.
The livestream had officially ended, but the related Trending search heat just kept climbing. Tonight, Japan's internet was bound to be in an uproar for a while.
The hottest star, Mai Sakurajima, was officially in a relationship.
On the other side of things,
Yukino Yukinoshita picked up her phone, put it down, then picked it up and put it down again — repeating the motion several times. Finally, her thumb tapped to open Lin Ye's contact number.
Beep…
Beep-beep-beep…
The call was connecting.
Yukino Yukinoshita waited in silence, not hanging up.
Truth be told —
How to put it,
Lin Ye's appearance after the makeover was a far cry from his usual image. Even she had not initially recognized him — his voice was different too. Even after all the time she had spent in contact with him, even with how familiar she felt she had become with him, she still hadn't been able to recognize him.
The trigger for recognition had been the moment when Mai Sakurajima's existence was restored.
Why Mai had gone to Akihabara with Lin Ye, why she had been living with him, the girl who had appeared in her apartment — all of it, every bit of it, had come rushing back to her.
Yukino Yukinoshita had even briefly doubted that the man on camera was Lin Ye. But upon closer inspection, and given the content of his speech, she became certain that it was him.
And now,
She was just looking for one more layer of confirmation. That was all.
"Don't lie to me."
That was the absolute minimum she asked of Lin Ye.
Just don't deceive her — that was enough.
But by the time the ringing timed out, the call had not gone through.
Yukino Yukinoshita slowly typed out a single question mark in her mind.
Not connecting.
The call wasn't connecting.
All sorts of speculations rose, unbidden, in her thoughts.
Could it be that he was already off in some corner with Mai Sakurajima in his arms, doing… that, doing this?
Crk-crk…
Yukino Yukinoshita's expression grew colder by the second.
This kind of situation —
She absolutely could not accept it.
Her own Quasi-fiancé, off being all sweet and intimate with another woman.
Helping the woman in the first place was one thing. Bringing her home to live together — she could even accept that. But going all the way to confessing, dating, kissing in public — what was she supposed to call this?
Yukino Yukinoshita ground her teeth.
"Ring ring ring…"
The phone suddenly started ringing.
The girl with long black hair flinched, immediately assuming it was Lin Ye calling. She snatched up the phone at once — only to find that the incoming call was from her own older sister, Haruno.
Her sister's call?
After a brief moment of confusion, something clicked for Yukino Yukinoshita.
This plan of Lin Ye's — there had absolutely been her older sister's support behind it. Maybe her sister had been involved from start to finish, putting in tremendous effort.
Click…
Yukino Yukinoshita answered the call. "Sister. What is it?"
"Ahh, Yukino, you're so cold — there's not a shred of politeness in that. Does your older sister always have to have a reason to call you?"
Haruno let out a sorrowful sigh.
But Yukino Yukinoshita was wholly unmoved. She had long since gotten used to that kind of talk from Haruno — utterly accustomed to it.
If one day Haruno actually spoke to her in a serious, straightforward manner, Yukino Yukinoshita would find that more unsettling — she would suspect that something had gone wrong with her sister, that some major incident had befallen her.
"At this hour, if Sister didn't have something to discuss, she wouldn't be calling me."
"Ah, ai-yai-yai, Sister is so happy — turns out Yukino really does care about me, paying such close attention to the timing of when I contact you."
Haruno's tone immediately shifted from sorrowful to excited and delighted,
As though the earlier sadness had never existed at all.
This was Haruno — capable of switching between expressions and states at a moment's notice.
"Get to the point. If there's nothing, I'm hanging up. I'm planning on turning in."
"Yukino, your temper's a little short today — bad mood?"
"..."
Yukino Yukinoshita honestly didn't think her current tone was any different from usual. All she could say was that her sister was unusually perceptive — picking up on even the slightest shifts in her emotions.
She decided she would have to make further efforts to improve her own emotional self-management.
"No."
"Really not? Wait — I seem to remember that these past two days, Yukino was supposed to be…"
"Sister."
Yukino Yukinoshita cut Haruno off without mercy.
"All right, all right, I'll drop it. There's a Trending search going viral on the internet right now. I don't know if Yukino's noticed it."
So it was that, after all.
Her sister Haruno really was calling to test her.
Was it Lin Ye who had contacted her sister and asked her to gauge her reaction? Or had this come purely from her sister's own initiative, with nothing to do with Lin Ye at all?
Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't be sure for the moment.
"The Akihabara confession event?"
"Right — even Yukino has noticed it. Looks like just how big a deal this is has gone beyond all imagination."
"Sister, I'm not entirely cut off from social reality. I do have some contact with it."
"Hahaha, I just assumed Yukino wouldn't have the slightest interest in this kind of gossip-headline material."
She really had had no interest at first.
Had Yui Yuigahama not reached out on her own initiative, gushing about the 'Akihabara confession,' she truly wouldn't have clicked in to watch.
Without Yui Yuigahama, she would still not know any of this even now.
Except that, now that she did know — her mood was anything but good.
It hurt.
Even though her relationship with Lin Ye was only that of Quasi-fiancés, not anything formal — and she shouldn't have been reacting like this — the fact was that her heart was, in truth, overflowing with a sour, bitter ache because of him.
This was a feeling she had never experienced before.
And that very feeling had left her adrift in a fog, with no idea how to handle it.
"So — what is it?"
Yukino Yukinoshita's tone was level.
She didn't want to give away the fact that she had recognized the man at the center of the incident as Lin Ye. If her sister found out, she would absolutely stir things up. Absolutely.
She refused to be played with in her sister's palm.
"Mai Sakurajima, yes? Yukino, didn't you used to love watching her dramas and films?"
"I liked watching them, but that doesn't mean I'm her fan. Even if I were a fan, I wouldn't qualify as a fanatic one. I'll treat what happened to her today with an even mind."
"That's our Yukino. But isn't Yukino curious who Mai Sakurajima's boyfriend is?"
Yukino Yukinoshita's eyes widened slowly. She was certain now that her sister was absolutely not unconnected to this incident.
With the kind of getup Lin Ye had worn today, even she had only been able to figure it out by working backward from the connection to the Mai Sakurajima incident. How could her sister possibly have identified Lin Ye purely from his image in a video?
"Not particularly curious."
"Which means you are curious."
Haruno smiled, the curve of her lips pulling more sharply upward. "Do you want to know? If Yukino wants to know, Sister can tell you. You'll be in for quite a shock."
"If you don't want to say it, then don't."
Yukino's reaction was flat. But that was exactly within Haruno's expectations — if Yukino had spoken up wanting to know, Haruno would have found that strange.
"Oh, well — since Yukino's putting it that way, I won't say."
The two sisters tugged back and forth at each other.
But this round, Yukino had clearly won — having already known the man's identity, she had simply been stringing Haruno along.
"Mm. I'm going to sleep first. Hanging up. Goodbye, goodnight, Sister."
Yukino Yukinoshita went through it all in one breath, her finger pressing straight down on the screen.
The call ended.
Haruno was left listening to the 'beep-beep-beep' on the line, completely stunned.
She had been planning to tease her sister some more, to provoke her, to make her be the one to break and ask. But her sister, contrary to all expectations, hadn't played by the usual rules.
"No, wait — actually, doing it that way does suit her personality."
"You don't want to know now, but later, when you do find out — by the time someone's stolen the castle out from under you and there's no time left to take it back — you won't even know where to go to cry."
Thinking about the expression of pain and grief her sister would wear when she learned the truth, when she learned that Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima were together, Haruno felt a little uncomfortable. But after thinking it over rationally, she pressed that feeling down.
"Lin Ye being with Mai Sakurajima — that's actually a good thing for me. It means it can all end between him and Yukino, right there."
"A good thing. This is a good thing. I really didn't need to make that call just now."
Haruno did not, in fact, want Lin Ye to end up with her younger sister Yukino.
She had a hunch — if Yukino ended up with Lin Ye, the future would only bring her more grief and more trouble. A man like Lin Ye was not someone Yukino could keep in check.
But there were times when she also wondered: if her younger sister truly came to love Lin Ye, truly wanted to be with him, even walking all the way to the step of marriage, was it really right for her, as the older sister, to keep on opposing it?
Haruno was, in fact, quite troubled over this matter as well. But now — all of that could come to an end.
Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima were together.
Haruno gazed off toward the far edge of the night view in the distance, the direction in which Lin Ye and Mai Sakurajima had disappeared.
"Lin-kun — don't disappoint me. Don't do anything unnecessary."
What she was most worried about now, ironically, was that Lin Ye might do something completely unexpected.
The confession had succeeded. The thing to do now was to carry off the beauty in his arms and enjoy the happy hours with her, right?
...
Yukino ended the call with her sister,
And fell into a strange, undefined kind of bewilderment.
She didn't know what she should do next.
Her gaze kept drifting unconsciously toward her phone, but the screen stubbornly refused to light up — there were no new messages.
"Haaah."
Yukinoshita wasn't above considering reaching out again herself. But if two calls in a row went unanswered, she felt her heart might just shatter.
Right now, she couldn't sit still. She tried sitting and couldn't manage it, so she stood up and paced back and forth, her mood thick with restless distress.
The girl with long black hair even lay down on the bed — but couldn't summon a single drop of sleepiness.
"What's wrong… with me?"
She stared at the ceiling, her eyes clouded with confusion.
"Why is it like this?"
"Just because he started dating some other woman?"
"He's not even my boyfriend."
"We were only in contact, that's all."
"That contact failed. The relationship ends here…"
Wasn't this exactly what failed contact looked like? He had already confessed to another girl, was holding hands and kissing another girl, had even gone official with it.
So her side, too, should be a failure, should be the end.
Getting to date a major star like Mai Sakurajima — that was a man's dream, wasn't it?
At the very least, if she had been in Lin Ye's position, she absolutely wouldn't have let a girlfriend like Mai Sakurajima slip away.
Yukino Yukinoshita let out a small sigh, slowly exhaling.
She hadn't expected the change to come this quickly.
Her contact with Lin Ye had only just begun. They had only just started to know each other. And now it was already ending.
Goodbye.
This stretch of feeling should end here, too.
She, Yukino Yukinoshita, should go back to that ordinary life that had always been hers —
Cool, composed, day-to-day living, with no ambiguity with any male.
The girl with long black hair's lashes trembled faintly, her eyes brimming with a resolute determination.
Ring ring ring…
The sudden ringing shattered the silence of the room.
Yukino Yukinoshita's eyes snapped over to the screen, and she saw the caller ID.
Every shred of resolve from a second earlier vanished without a trace. The only thing she had now was the urgent need to answer the call.
Lin Ye had finally called.
...
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