After wandering through the lantern-lit pathways of Chinatown for the better part of an hour—Suzune pausing to admire every trinket, sample every aroma, stretch every moment into two—Shiratori Seiya finally glanced at his watch and made the executive decision to escort her back.
The concert was tomorrow. She needed rest. And frankly, so did he.
The walk to her hotel, which should have taken ten minutes at a normal pace, stretched to nearly half an hour. Suzune's footsteps grew slower the closer they got to the entrance.
She stopped to adjust her shoelace, which had somehow come untied despite being perfectly fine moments ago. She paused to admire a potted plant in a hotel lobby window, commenting on its leaves with the solemn appreciation of a botanist. She took a long, contemplative moment to finish the last traces of her bubble tea, the straw rattling against the ice cubes with a sound that seemed to say don't go, don't go, don't go.
Finally, they stood before the glass doors of her hotel. The warm light of the lobby spilled out onto the sidewalk, and Shiratori Seiya placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Alright. Go on up. Your sister's probably waiting."
Hojo Suzune's lips formed into a small, reluctant pout that she didn't even try to hide. Her dark eyes, still glistening from the joy of their encounter, now shimmered with something closer to the threat of tears. "Seiya..."
"See you tomorrow. At the concert. Front row, remember? You'll have the best seat in the house."
"Okay..." She took one step toward the door. Then turned back. "See you tomorrow, Seiya."
Another step. Another turn. Another lingering glance.
This ritual repeated itself three more times before she finally, definitively, pushed through the revolving door and disappeared into the gilded warmth of the lobby. The last glimpse Shiratori Seiya caught was of her baseball cap, still slightly askew, bobbing toward the elevator bank.
He exhaled a long breath—not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh—and turned back toward the street. The plastic bag of takeout he'd picked up for Takahashi Mio was still warm against his palm. He pressed it gently, checking the temperature. Still good. Autumn in Kanagawa was mild enough, and the insulated container would keep the food from going cold on the walk back.
He pulled out his phone, opened the map navigation, and charted the shortest possible route to his hotel.
Twenty minutes, give or take.
He'd only walked a few paces when the low, purring growl of an engine reached his ears. A black minivan—sleek, polished, unmistakably expensive—rounded the flowerbed ahead and rolled toward him with the slow, deliberate confidence of a panther stalking through its territory.
Shiratori Seiya's gaze flicked to the vehicle. His steps slowed. He recognized that car. Or rather, he recognized its type. Hojo Shione had arrived in an almost identical vehicle the last time she'd sought him out.
A coincidence? Perhaps.
But in his experience, coincidences involving the Hojo sisters rarely turned out to be coincidences at all.
Better not to disturb her. Not tonight. She needs to focus on tomorrow. He quickened his pace, hoping to disappear down the next side street before the car could close the distance.
But the minivan had already spotted its target. It decelerated smoothly, gliding to a stop roughly ten meters ahead of him.
A heartbeat of silence. Then, the rear door swung open.
Hojo Shione stepped out.
She moved with the fluid, unhurried grace of someone who had long ago mastered the art of appearing before crowds. Even now—dressed not in stage costume but in simple, elegant civilian clothes, her face bare of performance makeup—she carried an aura that made the streetlamps seem slightly dimmer by comparison. As she walked toward him, she reached up and peeled off her face mask, the motion slow, deliberate.
The smile she wore was gentle. Unreadable.
The smile of someone who had rehearsed this moment in her mind and was now watching it unfold exactly as scripted.
She stopped before him, close enough that he could smell the faint, familiar trace of her perfume. Her gaze lifted, settling on his face with an expression that held no accusation, no desperate longing—just a quiet, almost serene recognition.
"Long time no see, Seiya."
Hearing the calm, measured tone, so different from the tension-laden exchanges they'd shared in recent months, Shiratori Seiya felt something loosen in his chest.
Relief. Or perhaps resignation.
He nodded.
"Long time no see."
Hojo Shione acknowledged this with a small dip of her chin. Then her gaze drifted past his shoulder, scanning the street behind him. "Suzune's already gone back?"
"She just went in. Safe and sound."
He paused, his eyes flicking toward the two figures who had emerged from the minivan and now hovered at a respectful distance. The manager—Fukada Fuyuna, recognizable from their earlier phone call—and a stone-faced bodyguard whose gaze swept the surroundings with professional vigilance. The bodyguard's eyes lingered on Shiratori Seiya for a beat longer than strictly necessary.
Shiratori Seiya raised his free hand and checked his watch. The hour was indeed growing late. "You should get back to your hotel too. Rest early. Tomorrow's a big day."
He met her eyes once more, his voice carrying a simple, unadorned sincerity. "Good luck. Not that you'll need it."
"Mm."
Hojo Shione lifted a hand, her slender fingers brushing a stray strand of hair away from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was so familiar—so achingly, intimately familiar—that Shiratori Seiya had to resist the urge to look away. Her dark eyes, moist and depthless as twin pools of ink, fixed on his with an intensity that seemed to gather the surrounding light.
"Seiya. Watch me closely tomorrow. Don't look away. Not for a single second." Her voice was soft. Serious. A vow disguised as a request. "I won't let you down."
"..."
For reasons he couldn't fully articulate, a thin, cold thread of unease coiled in Shiratori Seiya's gut. There was something in her tone—beneath the confidence, beneath the polished calm—that sounded less like a promise and more like a warning. He opened his mouth, a question forming on his tongue, but Hojo Shione simply smiled at him once more.
A gentle, final, inscrutable smile.
Then she stepped past him, her arm brushing his sleeve for the briefest of instants, and continued walking toward the hotel entrance where her manager waited.
...
"So. Let me get this straight."
In the warmly lit hotel room, Takahashi Mio sat cross-legged on the plush king bed, a paper container of mapo tofu and rice balanced on her lap. Her chopsticks hovered mid-air, a single cube of glistening tofu clutched between them. Her eyes, still slightly puffy from her earlier exhaustion, fixed on Shiratori Seiya with an expression of profound, theatrical grievance.
"You abandoned your girlfriend—who was completely passed out from exhaustion, might I add—alone in a strange hotel room, in a strange city, just so you could go wandering around Chinatown and 'accidentally' run into your ex-girlfriend. And her little sister. At night. Under the romantic lantern-light. Am I understanding the situation correctly?"
Shiratori Seiya, seated on the room's single armchair with his arms folded, met her gaze with the weary patience of someone who had already explained this exact sequence of events twice.
"You're making it sound like I orchestrated some kind of elaborate clandestine meeting. I went to get dinner. I happened to run into Suzune, who had snuck out without telling her sister. I walked her back to her hotel. That's the entire story. Beginning, middle, end."
He uncrossed his arms and gestured toward her. "And for the record, you were literally snoring when I got back. I could have been gone for hours and you wouldn't have noticed."
"I do NOT snore."
"You absolutely snore. A little whistling sound. Like a tea kettle that can't quite decide if it's ready."
Takahashi Mio's cheeks flushed a shade that nearly rivaled the mapo tofu's crimson sauce. She shoved a mouthful of rice into her mouth to avoid having to formulate a dignified response. The red chili oil from the tofu had stained her lips a vivid, glossy vermilion—brighter and more striking than any lipstick she owned. It made her look, despite her indignation, unfairly attractive.
Seeing that she was still pouting—still harboring some residue of jealousy beneath her theatrical complaints—Shiratori Seiya found himself studying her face more closely. The slight downturn of her lips. The crease between her brows. The way she was stabbing at her tofu with perhaps more force than strictly necessary.
Is she genuinely upset?
Or is this another one of her performances?
He remembered the kiss. The fierce, desperate, utterly genuine kiss she had pressed to his lips that night in the car. And he remembered the aftermath—the way she'd accused him of being 'too skilled,' the way her tears had been unmistakably real.
With Takahashi Mio, the line between authentic emotion and theatrical embellishment had grown increasingly difficult to locate.
He sighed, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward slightly. "If this is really bothering you—if you're genuinely uncomfortable—we can head back to Tokyo tomorrow morning. You won't miss any classes. We can put this whole thing behind us. No harm done."
"Huh?!"
The effect was immediate and electric. Takahashi Mio's chopsticks clattered against the paper container. Her eyes—previously narrowed in sulky resentment—flew wide open, filling with genuine alarm. She set the takeout aside with uncharacteristic haste and leaned toward him, her voice pitching into a whine.
"I was just kidding! Why do you always take everything so seriously?! If I really didn't want to come to this concert, do you think I would have worked myself half to death these past two weeks? All those practice tests? That miserable training montage Araki-sensei put me through? I earned this, fair and square!"
She paused, registering the faint, knowing look in his eyes. Her indignation softened into something sheepish. She pursed her chili-stained lips and rubbed at the corner of her eye with a knuckle—a gesture that could have been genuine or could have been calculated. It was impossible to tell.
"Alright, alright. I know you wouldn't lie to me. You didn't even try to hide the whole situation with Hasegawa Saori. You've been honest. I'm just... giving you a hard time. It's what girlfriends do."
Another pause.
A strategic yawn.
"Thank you, Seiya, for bringing me dinner. But now that I've eaten, I feel even sleepier. Must be a carb coma or something..."
Shiratori Seiya knew—objectively—that Japanese girls generally had modest appetites. Takahashi Mio was no exception. She'd barely made a dent in the generous portion he'd brought back. Saori, of course, was the outlier. Saori could have demolished three portions and still had room for dessert.
He watched Mio's theatrical yawn stretch into something that looked suspiciously like a real one.
She was tired. That much, at least, wasn't an act.
The training. The travel. The emotional whiplash of the past few days. It had all accumulated.
"Get some proper rest, then," he said, rising from the armchair. "And if you can't fall asleep, read through the novels and scripts I sent you. Might be useful for tomorrow."
"Got it, got it." Mio waved him toward the door with a sleepy, dismissive gesture. But the moment the door clicked shut behind him, the drowsy haze evaporated from her eyes like morning mist.
She sat up straighter. Her gaze sharpened. Her lips—still stained that vivid, fiery red—curved into a slow, deliberate smile.
Go back to Tokyo?
Retreat?
Run away with my tail between my legs before the battle even begins?
The very notion was laughable. Hojo Shione had all but thrown down a gauntlet during their last encounter.
"Watch me. I'll prove it to you." That was a direct challenge. A declaration of war.
If Mio backed down now—if she fled before even setting foot in the venue—it would be an admission of defeat. It would mean that every condescending, pitying, maddeningly serene thing Hojo Shione had said was true.
No. Absolutely not. I'm not afraid. I'm not inferior. I'm not going anywhere.
She narrowed her eyes, her gaze drifting toward the window. Somewhere out there, beyond the glittering skyline of Yokohama, the concert venue was waiting. The stage. The lights. The thousands of adoring fans. And at the center of it all, Hojo Shione—radiant, untouchable, basking in the glory that Mio desperately craved for herself.
Hojo Shione... you'd better perform in a way that makes me feel like I can never surpass you. Not in this lifetime. Not in ten lifetimes. Because if you don't... if you fall short... I'll remember. And I'll make sure you know it.
The following afternoon arrived with a crisp, golden brightness that felt almost staged—as if the weather itself had been arranged by Hojo Shione's production team.
Takahashi Mio had woken at noon, her body still heavy with the residue of exhaustion. She'd then spent what felt like an eternity at the hotel room's small but serviceable dressing table.
Lotion. Toner. Foundation applied with painstaking precision. Eyeliner drawn with the steady hand of a surgeon. Lip tint chosen and discarded and chosen again. Her hair, brushed until it gleamed like spun obsidian, fell in carefully arranged waves over her shoulders.
This is her territory. Her home turf. Her kingdom.
Mio gazed at her reflection, her expression hardening into something resolute.
But that doesn't mean I have to surrender without a fight. At the very least—in terms of pure, physical presence—I won't lose. I refuse.
And honestly, in a direct visual comparison, the only categories where she could confidently claim superiority over Hojo Shione were her figure and her face. The former was generously, indisputably fuller. The latter—well, that was subjective, but Mio had never lacked for male attention. She knew her value. She simply needed to make sure everyone else knew it too.
She had departed the hotel with the spirit of a warrior marching into battle—chin high, shoulders squared, armor polished. But it wasn't until she actually arrived at the venue that the true scale of the war she was fighting became devastatingly, crushingly apparent.
The exterior of the building was draped in Hojo Shione's image. Massive promotional banners—three stories tall, at least—billowed gently in the afternoon breeze, each one featuring Shione in a different, breathtaking pose.
The street leading up to the main entrance had been transformed into a festival marketplace. Stalls selling official merchandise—T-shirts, acrylic stands, uchiwa fans, limited-edition posters. Stalls hawking every CD and vinyl pressing Shione had ever released. Stalls offering themed food and drinks with names Mio couldn't even parse.
And the lines. The lines. Thousands of people—young women in coordinated outfits, middle-aged men with expensive camera equipment, teenagers clutching handmade signs—snaked around the block in organized, patient queues, their excited chatter rising into a collective, humming buzz that vibrated through the pavement.
When they finally entered the venue itself—bypassing the general admission crowd through the VIP entrance, Shiratori Seiya's hand guiding her by the wrist—Mio's breath caught in her throat and refused to come back.
From the top of the stairs, looking down at the vast, darkened arena below, she could see everything.
The sea of bodies stretching toward the distant stage. The thousands upon thousands of glow sticks, not yet lit, held in waiting hands like dormant stars. The giant screens flanking the stage, currently playing one of Hojo Shione's music videos on a loop—her face, her voice, her presence filling every corner of the enormous space. The roar of the crowd was so loud it felt like a physical pressure against her eardrums, a wall of chaotic noise that made her head swim.
Takahashi Mio stood frozen at the top of the stairs. Her mouth opened. Closed. No words came.
She had attended live events before. She'd been a fan. She'd waved her own glow stick, screamed her own devotion, stood in her own lines. But those events... those had been tiny. Intimate. A few hundred people crammed into a small live house. This—this—was a coliseum. A kingdom. And Hojo Shione was its reigning empress.
The gap... the gap between us is...
Her hands, hanging at her sides, clenched so tightly that her fingernails bit crescents into her palms. The pressure was grounding. Steadying. But it couldn't stop the cold, sinking dread that was pooling in her stomach.
"Let's go."
Shiratori Seiya's voice cut through the noise. His hand, warm and solid, wrapped around her wrist. Takahashi Mio jolted back into her body, her awareness snapping back from the dizzying void it had briefly fallen into. She turned her head, offering him a smile that felt stiff and brittle as old porcelain, and let him pull her down the steps toward the VIP section.
But the moment she settled into her seat—plush, exclusive, perfectly positioned—she spotted a familiar silhouette already occupying the seat directly beside Shiratori Seiya's. The lights had dimmed almost completely now, cloaking the venue in a velvet darkness. Mio leaned forward, craning her neck, trying to make out the figure's features.
The person, evidently sensing her stare, turned sharply. And glared. A fierce, defiant, absolutely withering glare that communicated, in a single look, more venom than a hundred verbal insults.
Little bitch.
The recognition hit like a slap. Hojo Suzune. The younger sister. All one hundred fifty-five centimeters of seething, protective, territorial fury. Her expression practically screamed: "What are YOU doing here? This seat should be MINE. Everything should be MINE."
Takahashi Mio bit her lip. Hard. Then, with the deliberate, unhurried confidence of someone staking a claim, she reached over and linked her arm through Shiratori Seiya's, pulling herself close against his side.
She half-expected him to pull away. To gently disengage. To mutter something about professionalism or appearances. That was what he'd done the last time she'd tried something like this in public. But tonight... tonight, he merely frowned.
A small, almost imperceptible crease between his brows. And then—nothing. No retreat. No resistance. He simply let her arm remain where it was, twined through his.
Oh?
Takahashi Mio's eyes lit up. The corners of her lips curved upward in a smile that she didn't even try to suppress. A warm, effervescent bubble of something that felt dangerously like triumph rose in her chest.
So what if you knew him first? So what if you're dazzling up there on stage, worshipped by thousands? Right now—here, in this seat, in this moment—the person beside Shiratori Seiya is ME. Not you. Not your sister. Me.
No matter how much you love him. No matter how long you've waited. In terms of official status... I've already won.
Her mood, which had been spiraling toward despair just moments ago, rebounded with astonishing speed. She settled more comfortably against Shiratori Seiya's side, her arm still linked through his, and turned her attention toward the giant screens with an expression of genuine, almost smug enjoyment.
The transition, when it came, was absolute.
In a single, synchronized instant, every light in the venue extinguished. The massive crowd—thousands upon thousands of voices chattering, laughing, calling out—fell silent as if a divine mute button had been pressed.
The darkness was total. Complete. Reverent.
Then, the spotlights began to sway. Slow, hypnotic arcs of white and gold, crisscrossing the darkness like celestial bodies tracing their orbits. A gentle, achingly beautiful melody began to rise from the speakers—soft, melodic, carrying the fragile wonder of a fresh snowfall.
And then, cutting through the darkness and the silence and the held breath of the crowd, a voice. Clear as mountain spring water. Warm as morning sunlight. Floating upward like a prayer:
"Nobita shadow wo pavement ni narabe..."
(Two elongated shadows, lined up on the pavement...)
"Tasogare no naka wo kimi to aruiteru..."
(Walking with you through the twilight...)
"Te wo tsunaide itsumademo zutto..."
(If only we could hold hands forever and ever...)
"Soba ni ireta nara..."
(If only I could stay by your side...)
Takahashi Mio's pupils constricted to pinpricks. Her mouth fell open. The song—this melody, these lyrics—she had never heard them before. Not once. Not in any album. Not on any single. Not even in the bootleg concert recordings that circulated among die-hard fans.
A new song?
This is... a new song?!
SNOW FLOWER?
Before the shock could fully crystallize, the stage erupted into brilliance. Every spotlight, every beam, every concentrated shaft of light swiveled and converged on a single point at the center of the stage. And there—slowly materializing from the darkness like a spirit stepping through the veil between worlds—a figure emerged.
At first, she was only a silhouette. A graceful, ethereal outline, hazy at the edges, draped in flowing white. But as the music swelled and the song progressed, the details grew sharper. Clearer. More impossibly radiant.
Hojo Shione.
Dressed in a pure white gown of layered gossamer and silk that floated around her like captured clouds. Light-gold high heels that scattered tiny galaxies of reflected starlight with every step. Her hair arranged in an elegant updo, leaving the graceful curve of her neck bare. And her face—serene, luminous, smiling with a joy that seemed too vast to be contained by a single stage.
The crowd erupted.
Thousands of glow sticks ignited at once, transforming the darkness into a surging, phosphorescent sea. The roar was deafening. Transcendent. A collective, ecstatic scream of adoration that vibrated through every atom of the venue.
Simple. Elegant. Radiant.
A face as holy and impossibly beautiful as an angel descended from a Renaissance painting. A voice as pure and clear as freshly fallen snow. And surrounding her, the thunderous cheers of tens of thousands of worshippers, a tidal wave of devotion that struck Takahashi Mio's heart again and again and again—like a bell being rung, like a drum being beaten, like the undeniable, world-shaking proclamation of a queen ascending her throne.