Just one glance at him from afar.
Even just one. A stolen glimpse, a fleeting silhouette, a whisper of his presence on the evening air—that would be enough to satisfy the ache clawing at her chest.
That was what Hojo Suzune told herself as she slipped out of the hotel, her heart a wild drum in her throat.
But the human heart is a treacherous, insatiable creature. It makes promises it has no intention of keeping.
After tailing the blinking dot on her phone's GPS tracker with the obsessive precision of a detective in a police procedural, Suzune finally spotted him.
Shiratori Seiya.
Walking alone down a street lined with glowing lanterns and food stalls, his hands tucked into his pockets, his expression relaxed. Unaccompanied. Unguarded.
Wait. He's... alone? Actually alone?
Suzune pressed herself against the brick wall of a narrow side alley, her eyes darting left and right with the hypervigilance of a meerkat on sentry duty. She scanned the crowded street. The convenience store entrance. The line outside the takoyaki stand. The shadowed doorways. No sign of that vixen anywhere. No Takahashi Mio clinging to his arm. No flash of pretty eyes or that infuriatingly confident stride.
She followed him for another half-block, ducking behind a vending machine, then a postbox, then a cluster of teenagers arguing about bubble tea toppings.
Still alone. Definitely, indisputably, miraculously alone.
Could it be? Did they split up? Did they have a fight? Did he finally come to his senses and leave her back at the hotel?
A slow, radiant smile spread across Hojo Suzune's delicate features like sunrise spilling over a mountain ridge. Her eyes sparkled with the particular, feverish brightness of a scheme about to be born. She ducked into the side road, circled the block at a near-sprint, and re-emerged onto the main street ahead of him—casual, unhurried, as if she had simply been wandering this very spot all evening. A perfect, innocent coincidence.
If Seiya is alone... then it doesn't count as breaking my promise, does it? I didn't seek him out. I didn't go looking for trouble. I just... happened to be here. At the exact same time. On the exact same street. It's fate. Pure fate. You can't blame me for fate.
...
Shiratori Seiya emerged from a modest Chinese restaurant, a plastic takeout bag dangling from his fingers, the lingering warmth of a good meal radiating through his chest. The feeling of being satisfyingly full brought a rare, unguarded look of contentment to his face—the kind of simple, animal pleasure that transcended the tangled complications of his romantic life.
Perhaps his soul had been branded at birth with an indelible preference. No matter how many years he lived in Japan, no matter how many exquisite kaiseki meals or perfectly crafted sushi platters he consumed, his palate stubbornly, traitorously yearned for the flavors of his other homeland.
*Kaiseki=Japanese haute cuisine
It wasn't that he couldn't cook Japanese food—his skill level was perfectly adequate, edible, survivable—but the effort-to-reward ratio never felt worth it when he was dining alone. Instant ramen and convenience store bento boxes were the fuel of bachelor efficiency.
But when there was a Chinatown nearby? When the scent of star anise and sizzling garlic drifted through the streets? He would absolutely, without fail, find an excuse to treat himself.
He patted his stomach, conducting a quick internal inventory. Satisfied, yes. But there was still room. A strategic reserve. His gaze drifted across the surrounding street stalls—a treasure trail of late-night snacking possibilities. Pan-fried buns. Grilled skewers. Sweet sesame balls. His feet began carrying him in the direction of the most tantalizing aroma—
And stopped.
A familiar silhouette had materialized at the edge of his vision.
Small. Slender. Wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her brow. But he didn't need to see her face. The curve of her cheek, the way she held her shoulders, the particular tilt of her head—he would have recognized her anywhere.
Suzune?
A flicker of genuine surprise rippled through him. Then, almost immediately, reason caught up. She had told him earlier that afternoon, her voice bright over the phone line, that she had arrived safely in Yokohama. That they would see each other tomorrow at the concert. So encountering her here, on a street not far from the venue, wasn't entirely unreasonable.
It made sense. It was, in fact, perfectly logical.
Though his relationship with the Hojo sisters had grown significantly more distant and complicated since his entanglement with Mio—the unspoken tension, the careful avoidance of certain topics, the way Shione's eyes lingered on him just a beat too long—it hadn't deteriorated to the point where they wouldn't even greet each other upon a chance encounter.
They were still... something. Friends, perhaps. Something adjacent to friends. Something that required polite acknowledgment.
Shiratori Seiya looked at the girl standing motionless before the pan-fried bun stall, her phone clutched in both hands, her attention seemingly absorbed by the screen. After a moment's deliberation, he walked toward her.
Hojo Suzune was staring down at her phone with an intensity that was entirely performative, her thumb scrolling absently. Perhaps she sensed the shadow falling across her, the subtle shift in the ambient light, the approaching warmth of another body.
She looked up.
For a fraction of a second, her delicate eyebrows were drawn together—an expression of mild, pre-programmed irritation, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of something important. But the moment her eyes registered who was standing before her, the frown dissolved like morning frost under sunlight. Her red lips parted in a soft, involuntary gasp.
Then, in the next heartbeat, recognition ignited into joy. Her eyes—dark and luminous as polished obsidian—lit up with a brilliance that bordered on incandescent. The corners of her lips curled upward in an expression of pure, unfiltered, almost tearful happiness.
"Seiya!"
The name burst from her lips like a firework, bright and explosive and utterly uncontainable. No honorific. No polite distance. Just his name, carrying the full weight of months of longing and restraint and desperate, secret hope.
Hearing her call him simply 'Seiya'—not 'Seiya-nii,' not 'brother-in-law,' not any of the careful, distant titles she'd used since the breakup—Shiratori Seiya felt something ease in his chest. A tension he hadn't fully acknowledged. He smiled at her, the expression genuine and warm.
"What a coincidence, running into you here."
The word coincidence landed on Hojo Suzune like a blessing from the heavens. Her smile grew even more radiant, threatening to outshine the streetlamps. Her small head bobbed up and down in vigorous, enthusiastic agreement, the brim of her baseball cap flapping with the motion.
"Yes! A coincidence! A total, complete, absolute coincidence!"
Coincidence. Encounter. Reunion.
These words were sacred to her. Meeting the person you yearn for unexpectedly—seemingly by chance, on a random street in a random city—that was fate. It was romantic. It was the stuff of every love song and every shoujo manga climax. It subtly, beautifully implied a cosmic connection. A red string of destiny pulling them together despite all obstacles.
But if she were to reveal the truth—that she had tracked his location, schemed her route, and deliberately positioned herself in his path—it wouldn't just be unromantic. It would be desperate. Stalker-ish. The kind of behavior that made people uncomfortable. Seiya would probably find it annoying, and that would defeat the entire purpose.
Even if she knew, deep in the secret chambers of her heart, that every detail of this chance encounter had been her own careful, painstaking design... that was fine. As long as Seiya believed it was a coincidence. As long as he looked at her with that warm, surprised smile and thought, Ah, what a pleasant stroke of luck.
If he were to feel that she and he shared some special, inexplicable connection—some thread of destiny binding them across time and distance—that would be even better. That would be worth every ounce of effort she had poured into this moment. Every skipped heartbeat. Every held breath. Every frantic dash through side streets.
What's more, if she was being strictly honest, this wasn't entirely her own fabrication. If Takahashi Mio had been by his side tonight, she would never have been able to orchestrate this meeting. The vixen's presence would have blocked her entirely. So the fact that she could encounter him now... that was proof, wasn't it?
Proof that she and Seiya had a connection that transcended circumstance. Proof that they were meant to cross paths.
Just thinking about it made Hojo Suzune so incandescently happy she thought she might dissolve into starlight. Her fingers kneaded together in front of her chest, twisting and intertwining, as if she were physically trying to wring the overwhelming emotion out of her heart before it burst through her ribs.
Watching the girl practically vibrate with joy, her sparkling eyes fixed on him with an intensity that bordered on devotional, Shiratori Seiya felt a faint, uncomfortable stir in his chest. He recognized that look. He'd seen it before. But he carefully, deliberately, chose not to acknowledge it. Instead, he smiled easily and asked:
"Why are you out wandering around by yourself at this hour? Can your sister possibly be at ease with that?"
He knew Suzune had made the journey from Kyoto alone. Logically, Shione—ever the protective, slightly controlling older sister—would never casually permit her to roam the streets of an unfamiliar city after dark.
The question hit its mark. Hojo Suzune's radiant smile flickered, dimmed, and was replaced by a sheepish, slightly guilty expression. She lowered her eyes, her dark lashes casting fluttering shadows on her cheeks. Her lips pursed into a small, defensive pout.
"That... that's... well, I might have... snuck out. Just a little."
Perhaps fearing that this confession would provoke Seiya's disapproval—that he might see her as a disobedient child, a nuisance, a burden—she lifted her gaze to meet his with the most pitiful, pleading expression she could muster. Her lower lip jutted out ever so slightly. Her eyes glistened with carefully calibrated vulnerability.
"I... I got hungry. Really, truly hungry. Even though I ate in the afternoon, my stomach started growling again once it got dark. And it's not every day I get to come all the way to Tokyo, you know? If I can't even enjoy a proper meal while I'm here, it feels like... like the whole trip was for nothing. A wasted opportunity."
A beat.
Then, quieter: "Besides, my sister is incredibly busy today. She has no time to bother with me at all. It's fine. Really."
Shiratori Seiya's eyes narrowed slightly. He studied her face with that uncomfortably perceptive gaze of his—the one that always made her feel like he was reading the fine print of her soul.
"So. Let me get this straight. You deliberately didn't tell your sister you were going out. Correct?"
Pinned beneath that steady, analytical stare, Suzune felt the urge to fabricate a more palatable version of events rise and die in her throat. She couldn't lie to him. Not convincingly. Not when he was looking at her like that.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Finally, after a long, agonizing pause, she gave a single, slow, defeated nod.
Shiratori Seiya's response was immediate. He pulled out his phone and began scrolling through his contacts with the brisk efficiency of someone who had no tolerance for nonsense.
The sight of him preparing to dial snapped Suzune out of her guilty stupor. Her eyes flew wide. She lunged forward, her small hands wrapping around his wrist in a desperate, two-handed grip.
"Oi, oi, oi—there's no need to call! Absolutely no need! I'm an adult now, you know! I'm eighteen! A full-fledged, legally recognized adult! I don't need to file a report every single time I step outside the door—"
Shiratori Seiya glanced down at her. All one hundred and fifty-five centimeters of her. Barely reaching his chest. The baseball cap swallowing her small head. The indignant pout on her cherubic face.
She didn't look eighteen. She didn't look anywhere close to eighteen. If someone stuffed her into a middle school uniform, there wouldn't be a trace of incongruity. Standing in front of him, fists clenched, cheeks puffed with protest, calling her a little radish head might be slightly harsh—but only slightly.
He pressed his free palm firmly against her forehead, holding her at arm's length as she flailed. His other hand raised the phone to his ear. The line began to ring.
Watching the call connect in real-time, Hojo Suzune's anxiety spiked to critical levels. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her sneakers squeaking against the pavement, her hands making grabby motions toward the phone.
"Seiya! Seriously! What could possibly happen to me when I'm with you?! You're, like, the safest person in all of Kanagawa! There's genuinely no reason to bother her when she's so busy—"
She squirmed. She wriggled. She stretched on her tiptoes, her fingertips brushing uselessly against his raised wrist. Controlling a flailing Suzune with one hand was, Shiratori Seiya discovered, surprisingly difficult. Like trying to hold onto a wet kitten.
He fixed her with a look. The kind of look that needed no words.
"Stop messing around."
The tone brooked no argument. Suzune's resistance faltered, then crumbled. Shiratori Seiya continued, his voice firm but not unkind:
"Even if you're with me, you still need to report in. Your sister is probably worried sick. And don't worry—I won't let her scold you for sneaking out. I'll tell her it was my idea. That I asked you to come meet me."
Hearing this, Hojo Suzune stopped struggling. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. Her lips formed a small, helpless pout.
'Worried sick'? Is that really what you think this is about? She's not worried about my safety. She's worried about me being alone with you. That's the whole reason she made me promise in the first place.
But then again... she hadn't actually broken her promise. Not really.
She hadn't sought out Takahashi Mio. She hadn't caused a scene. She had simply, innocently, fatefully encountered Seiya while he happened to be alone.
That was within the rules. That was completely defensible.
Her conscience clear, she allowed herself to relax. Let him call. Let him explain. What was the worst that could happen?
The phone rang for what felt like an eternity. Hojo Shione was probably buried in last-minute rehearsals, her attention consumed by stage blocking and sound checks. The call was picked up just before it would have rolled to voicemail.
"Hello?"
The voice that answered was not Hojo Shione's. It was a woman—clipped, professional, unfamiliar. Shiratori Seiya blinked, pulling the phone away from his ear to double-check the screen. The contact name was correct. He pressed it back to his ear.
"Hello. I'm looking for Hojo Shione. Is she available?"
"Miss Hojo is occupied at the moment. This is her manager, Fukada speaking. May I ask who's calling, and whether there's a message I can relay?"
Ah. The manager.
Shiratori Seiya's posture relaxed slightly. "I'm Shiratori Seiya. Could you please let her know that I've taken her younger sister out for a bit of evening exploring? She doesn't need to worry. I'll have Suzune back safely within a few hours."
There was a brief, weighted silence on the other end of the line. Then, Fukada Fuyuna's voice returned, carrying a note of undisguised surprise.
"Shiratori-san! I didn't realize—have you also come to see Miss Hojo's concert?"
The question caught him slightly off-guard. "Is that... strange? I was under the impression it was a public event."
"Ah, no, no, of course not! Not strange at all! I simply..." The manager seemed to catch herself, her professional composure snapping back into place. "I understand. I'll relay your message to Miss Hojo right away. Thank you for taking care of her sister. We truly appreciate it."
"It's nothing. Just being a responsible adult."
He ended the call and pocketed his phone. Then he turned to face the still-pouting, still-slightly-sulky Hojo Suzune. Her gloom was almost theatrical in its intensity.
Without a word, he reached out and patted her on the head—a gentle, familiar gesture, his palm resting briefly on the crown of her baseball cap.
"Alright. Enough with the tragic expression. I'll treat you to a late-night feast. Whatever you want."
He turned toward the stall they were standing in front of—the one selling pan-fried buns, their golden-brown bottoms sizzling on the griddle—and addressed the owner in fluent, effortless Mandarin.
"Excuse me, one order of pan-fried sheng jian bao, please. Pure crab roe filling."
Hearing the young man—who had, moments ago, been conversing entirely in Japanese—suddenly switch to flawless Chinese, the stall owner froze. His ladle hovered mid-air. He had assumed, naturally, that these two were locals. The girl's Japanese was native-level. The boy's was indistinguishable from a Tokyo native's.
"Coming right up, young man! Give me just a moment. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking? Your accent..."
Shiratori Seiya returned the smile. "Kyoto. Born and raised."
....
Hojo Suzune wasn't the slightest bit surprised to see Shiratori Seiya chatting with the stall owner in effortless Chinese. She had known about this hidden skill of his for quite some time. The first time she'd witnessed it—back when she was still just the little sister trailing after him and Shione on their outings—her jaw had practically hit the floor.
Now, it was simply another entry in the mental encyclopedia she kept of everything that made Seiya extraordinary.
Why could he speak such an infamously difficult language with native fluency, as if he'd grown up with it?
She didn't know the full story. But she didn't need to. Seiya was Seiya—inherently better, naturally more capable, operating on a plane above ordinary mortals. To her, the fact that he could do things others couldn't was not surprising. It was simply... right. As natural as the sun rising in the east.
A few moments later, Hojo Suzune cradled the paper tray of golden, steaming pan-fried buns in both hands like a sacred offering. The smile that bloomed across her small face was so bright, so sudden, so utterly unguarded that it transformed her from a scheming little strategist back into the girl she truly was—a teenager holding her favorite food in the company of the person she adored most in the world.
Seeing her expression pivot from theatrical sulking to radiant bliss in the span of a single breath, Shiratori Seiya couldn't help the teasing note that crept into his voice.
"So easily pleased. A couple of dumplings and all is forgiven, huh?"
"Mm."
Suzune bit into the bun, the thin dough yielding with a satisfying pop, the scalding-hot crab roe soup flooding her tongue with rich, savory umami. Her slender shoulders wriggled involuntarily—a full-body shudder of gastronomic delight. Her eyes narrowed into blissful crescents, and her expression radiated the pure, uncomplicated joy of a Shiba Inu basking in a perfect sunbeam.
Without thinking, the words slipped out, soft and honest.
"As long as I'm with Seiya... I'm happy. Doesn't matter what we're doing."
"..."
The declaration was so sincere, so unguarded, so utterly without expectation of reciprocity that Shiratori Seiya found himself with absolutely no appropriate response. Anything he could say would either be dismissive or dangerously encouraging. So, with the smooth pivot of someone practiced in conversational evasion, he changed the subject.
"Speaking of which—how was your sister today? The rehearsal went well? She'll be ready for tomorrow?"
The bun in Suzune's hands paused halfway to her mouth. An invisible needle of tightness pricked at her chest. Even now—even sitting here, alone with her, sharing a late-night snack under the lantern-light—he was still thinking about another woman.
Her sister, no less.
A flicker of displeasure, of pure green jealousy, passed through her like a chill. But she suppressed it. Swallowed it down with the next bite of her bun. And when she answered, her voice was steady and serious.
"Nee-san? She's doing perfectly fine. The rehearsal went smoothly. No problems. No hiccups. The usual."
A pause.
Then, tilting her chin up, her dark eyes glittering with a needle-sharp spark: "What's this, brother-in-law? Worried about her again, are you?"
The teasing moniker landed with pointed precision. Shiratori Seiya exhaled through his nose—not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh.
"Even ordinary friends would care at least a little about something like this. A big concert. A milestone. It's natural." He fixed her with a flat, meaningful look. "And stop calling me brother-in-law. That title expired."
"Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. Seiya has a brand-new girlfriend now, so the old ties don't apply." Suzune popped the last corner of her bun into her mouth, chewing with deliberate, thoughtful slowness. Then she tilted her head, her eyes taking on a sharp, curious glimmer. "But... why didn't your precious new girlfriend come out with you tonight? Seems like a waste of a romantic evening."
Shiratori Seiya shrugged, his tone casual. "She was exhausted. Long day of training, long drive from Tokyo. The moment we got to the hotel, she couldn't keep her eyes open. She's resting. I'm just out here on a food run."
Hotel.
The word detonated silently in Suzune's brain.
Her mind instantly bypassed the reasonable, innocent explanation—separate rooms, obviously separate rooms—and sprinted straight toward the worst possible interpretation. Her imagination, vivid and catastrophizing, painted a detailed tableau: a single room, a single bed, that vixen lounging in something silky and inappropriate while Seiya handed her warm towels and asked if she was comfortable.
What a lazy, useless, good-for-nothing pig.
If she were the one dating Seiya—if she were the one blessed enough to hold that title—she would never voluntarily spend a single moment apart from him. Not one. She would be glued to his side like a shadow, soaking in every second of his presence, cherishing every breath they shared.
To have such an incredible, enviable opportunity and simply... waste it? Sleeping alone in a hotel room while he wandered the streets?
Unforgivable. Criminal. A sin against the very concept of love.
But then, almost immediately, a second thought surfaced. A secret, guilty, worming little thought that made her feel slightly evil and incredibly grateful at the same time.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness Takahashi Mio is exactly that lazy. Because if she weren't... if she were the clingy, devoted, never-let-him-out-of-her-sight type... I wouldn't have this chance. This perfect, golden, stolen moment. Alone with Seiya. Just the two of us.
A small, involuntary smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She tried to suppress it and mostly failed.
Then, the smile froze.
Wait.
She carefully, meticulously replayed Shiratori Seiya's words in her head. The inflection. The casual tone. The phrase he'd used.
"The moment we got to the hotel..."
Hotel. Singular. Not hotels, plural. Not her hotel and my hotel. THE hotel.
They... they wouldn't be sharing a room, would they? Sleeping in the same space? Her, in some skimpy little nightgown, pretending to be too tired to keep her eyes open, luring him closer with those seductive eyes and that ridiculous figure—
That seductive, scheming, absolutely shameless VIXEN!
Hojo Suzune's small, delicate face crumpled like a discarded candy wrapper. The crab roe bun, so delicious moments ago, suddenly tasted like jealousy and sand. Her fingers tightened around the paper tray, denting the edges.
Should I... should I also install a tracker on Takahashi Mio's phone? Just to be safe. Just to monitor the situation. Just to make sure she's not pulling any underhanded tricks while I'm stuck in a separate hotel...
Yes. Yes, that's a reasonable, perfectly justified security measure. I'll do it tomorrow.