Sena Ajisai had been feeling restless for days now, the kind of unease that curled in her chest like a stray cat refusing to leave.
Ever since Togawa-san from Haru-kun's band had first appeared at the doorstep, his schedule had unraveled into something she could no longer read. The old rhythm—shoes lined up by 9, kitchen light off by 10—had dissolved into a stranger's timetable.
Piecing together fragments from the times he entered and left the house, from the absence of the familiar coffee-shop apron on his laundry line, she'd arrived at a quiet conclusion: Haru-kun had quit the café job she'd known about.
Was he pouring every scrap of himself into the band now? Mou, that reckless boy.
Of course, she'd cheer him on. She had no right to shackle him to practicality. But somewhere beneath her carefully folded smile, Sena didn't want him consumed by it. The reason was painfully mundane—rent, tuition, the merciless arithmetic of survival—and it made her chest ache every time she thought about it.
She'd heard him mention performance fees, sure, but could a fledgling band really keep pace with a high schooler's ballooning expenses in central Tokyo?
In Sena's heart, someone as gentle and talented as Kazama Haru—even if fortune had never smiled kindly on him—would inevitably build his own quiet prosperity through sheer perseverance. She believed in him with the absolute conviction of someone who'd watched him tie his own shoes since kindergarten.
With his study habits and academic record, honors wasn't a fantasy—it was a matter of time. And with a name like that on his diploma, whether he chose the civil service path or a corporate seat at a major firm, the road would smooth itself out beneath his feet.
So, as perhaps the one person in the world who most fervently prayed for his happiness, she resolved to risk being called overbearing. She'd sit him down. She'd have The Talk with him.
She wanted to gently remind him about the delicate balance between passion and rice on the table—yume mo, meshi mo, dreams and dinner both—lest he end up in that heartbreaking situation of dropping out over unpaid tuition, watching his brilliant future dim like a fading lantern.
For a full week after this resolve took root, she'd sat in his empty two-story house every evening, waiting like some tragic housewife from a late-night NHK drama.
But what gnawed at her was this: for seven straight days, she'd failed to catch Kazama Haru returning before the 10 PM curfew of her own household.
On some nights, driven by an anxiety that gnawed at her ribs, she'd stayed up past dawn, peeking from her bedroom window like some lovesick, moonlit specter, watching the empty driveway across the street.
Nothing. Not once did the porch light flicker on. Not once did she catch the silhouette of that boy fumbling for his keys.
Tonight, sitting on the sofa in the Kazama living room, the tragic heroine on the late-night soap opera wailing her lungs out on-screen, the loneliness and dread pooled in Sena's chest until it threatened to spill over.
She pressed a palm to her sternum, feeling her heart flutter like a trapped moth against a paper lantern. She couldn't take it anymore.
Pulling her phone from the pocket of her cream-colored cardigan, her pale pink fingertips trembled slightly as she swiped, then tapped the contact she cherished most but hadn't dared call in weeks.
Even if he thought her clingy—even if he sighed that exhausted sigh of his—she didn't care anymore. Tonight, no matter what, she was bringing him home.
"Trrrrrr—!"
After a ringtone that seemed to stretch across three lifetimes, the call finally connected.
"Moshi moshi, ah… this is Sena-san, right? Haru-kun's childhood friend? Good evening, this is Togawa Sakiko—the one who plays in the band with him. We met the other day, desuwa."
Listening to that low, elegant voice with its distinct verbal quirk floating from the other end, Sena's heart lurched sideways. …Haru-kun?
Setting aside the enormous question of why Togawa-san was the one picking up his phone in the first place—
Even if they were bandmates, they were still a boy and a girl.
Wasn't "Haru-kun" a bit… too close for comfort?
Swallowing down the sudden prickle of something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy, Sena rifled through her memory. If she remembered correctly, when she'd overheard the two of them speaking at the doorstep before, Togawa-san had been all polite honorifics and careful distance, hadn't she?
When did that change—
"Hello? Sena-san, are you still there?"
"Hai—! Yes!"
Snapping back at Togawa's prompt, Sena's voice came out flustered, her free hand pinching the hem of her plaid skirt.
"Um—excuse me, Togawa-san. Why are you answering Haru-kun's phone? Where is he?"
"…"
On the other end, Togawa Sakiko—tall, willowy, her waist-length ink-black hair spilling over the shoulders of her Celica-style gothic blouse—glanced at the bandmates gathered close around her, all shamelessly eavesdropping. Her violet eyes flicked to Kazama Haru, who was face-down on the low izakaya table, drooling faintly, mumbling incoherent syllables into the wood grain.
She pressed two fingers to her temple. Kami-sama, how was she supposed to spin this without it sounding like a scene from a hentai doujin?
Perhaps it was the sake loosening her thoughts, or maybe her natural gremlin instincts finally clawing to the surface—
Yutenji Nyamu, sensing Sakiko's hesitation, seized the opening. With her cat-eyed grin and orange-brown pigtails swaying, she snatched the phone straight out of her hand.
Slurring in that sing-song, borderline-purring voice of hers, she cooed into the receiver, "Ne ne, your Haru-kun? He's already, uh… totally submitted into unconsciousness under our combined offensive, y'know~?"
Combined offensive… unconsciousness?!
The sudden voice change and those catastrophically suggestive words made Sena clap a hand over her mouth, eyes going saucer-wide.
"Yutenji-san, don't just grab the phone—! And your phrasing is going to cause an international incident, desuwa!"
Sakiko wrestled the phone back, both mortified and furious. The situation was already precarious enough without this walking chaos gremlin making it worse.
"Eeh~? Was there something wrong with what I said?"
Nyamu tilted her head, whiskers of hair falling across her freckled cheek. Her sake-loud voice climbed another octave, easily audible through the phone despite Sakiko holding it away:
"We were taking turns bullying Haru-kun just now, weren't we? You can't deny it, Saki-chan~"
"I—" Sakiko's mouth opened, snapped shut. Factually, she had been the one plying Kazama with round after round of hot sake earlier, watching him flush that deep peony-red she found so unfairly charming. Being a hopeless liar since middle school, she couldn't shamelessly deny it.
"Everyone, what kind of phrasing is that…"
Yahata Umiri, twin strawberry-blonde pigtails bouncing as she leaned in, plucked the phone smoothly from Sakiko's fingers. Her small mouth curved into a pacifying half-smile.
"Sena-san? Yare yare, please ignore those two idiots."
"Kazama-san is simply exhausted—he's been running himself ragged looking after all five of us these past few days, and tonight he pushed himself to drink alongside us. That's why he collapsed here."
Wakaba Mutsumi, seated beside Umiri, nodded solemnly, her long dark bangs falling over one thoughtful eye. "Just now, Haru-kun was working up such a sweat. Even when his stamina was totally drained, he was carefully attending to our bodies and… our hearts, too. Haru-kun is really a kind person."
"Nn, nn," Misumi Uika added gently, her honey-brown hair catching the izakaya's warm lantern light, her sea-green eyes soft. "Haru-kun tirelessly satisfied all of us. Every one of us went home fulfilled."
"Everyone, please stop talking, desuwa—!!"
Listening to her bandmates' well-intentioned testimonies stack one after another into what sounded, from the outside, like the setup for a doujinshi convention exclusive, Sakiko felt her vision tunnel. She'd have sewn every single one of their mouths shut if she had a needle.
On the other end, Sena Ajisai's soft hazel eyes lost their luster, and the hand gripping the phone shook so hard she nearly dropped it into her lap.
It was nearly midnight. Her Haru-kun was unconscious, apparently surrounded by a flock of girls in some private booth, being "attended to" and "satisfying everyone."
Coupled with the faint groans she could barely identify as his own, drifting through the receiver—
She'd heard the tabloid rumors. Idol bands, host clubs, the messy tangles between men and women in the music scene. But this was— this was too much—
What kind of unspeakable play had they engaged in to leave him sweat-soaked and blacked out?!
With all these absurd data points colliding in her mind, she'd already conjured a scene straight out of a late-night ecchi anime: her carefully nurtured Haru-kun, sprawled out and being taken turns riding by a pack of predatory band girls.
Were they doing band practice or hosting a harem route ending?!
...
Approximately 40 minutes later.
With the combined muscle of Sakiko, Umiri, and Nyamu—three not-especially-strong girls dragging one unusually heavy unconscious boy—they somehow managed to pour Kazama Haru into a taxi and escort him all the way back to his doorstep.
"I'm truly, deeply sorry, Sena-san. This was entirely our fault for drinking too much and blurting nonsense."
Standing in the entryway of the Kazama house, Sakiko bowed at a precise 90-degree angle, her long hair sweeping forward like a curtain, cheeks still faintly stained with sake and shame.
"No, no, I should be the one thanking you, Togawa-san, everyone."
Ajisai waved her hands frantically, matching the bow with her own, her strawberry-blonde side-braid slipping over her shoulder. "Haru-kun has caused you so much trouble, I'm truly sorry."
Glancing at Kazama Haru, curled up like a preschooler on the beige living room sofa, mumbling something about guitar tabs and natto in his drunken half-sleep, Ajisai's expression softened into something impossibly tender.
"Leave Haru-kun to me from here. Please, everyone, be safe getting home, okay?"
"Hai, Sena-san. You… get some rest too."
Exchanging meaningful sidelong glances—because none of them missed how disturbingly natural Ajisai looked staking her claim to an overnight stay at Kazama's house—the three still waved politely, filing out into the crisp autumn night that smelled of ginkgo leaves and distant konbini fried chicken.
"Fuuu—"
Once the door clicked shut behind Ave Mujica's three ambassadors of chaos, Sena Ajisai leaned back against the frame and exhaled a shaky breath she'd been holding since they'd walked in.
Looking at Kazama Haru curled on the sofa—defenseless, sweater rumpled halfway up his stomach, one sock half-off, dark lashes fluttering against flushed cheeks—her breathing quietly quickened. A creeping physiological blush bled from her earlobes down the pale column of her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her cream cardigan.
She padded across the tatami on stockinged feet, knelt beside the sofa, and brought her cheek close enough to feel the sake-warm heat radiating off his skin. She murmured, tone half-confession, half-plea:
"Haru-kun… I missed my own curfew waiting for you tonight. So… could I trouble you to let me stay? Just this one night?"
Kazama Haru, marooned somewhere in a sake-drunk dream, naturally couldn't respond.
Her guilty little request drifted into the dim living room, more like a girl convincing herself than one asking permission.