"What's wrong, Mizuki?" Kochou Shinobu slightly furrowed her brows, a hint of worry visible between them. "You don't look well."
Yushiro said indifferently, "Tamayo-sama probably scolded you."
"That should be you, shouldn't it?" Mizuki glanced at him sideways. "Have you figured out how you're going to explain things to Tamayo when you get back?"
He had never proactively seen a guest off before. Even if Tamayo asked him to escort someone, he would do it perfunctorily and hurry back.
It was as if he couldn't bear to be half a step away from Tamayo.
Now he was walking sluggishly, like a criminal heading to the execution ground.
She had been chatting with Tamayo inside for so long, yet she caught up to the pair before they even walked out the main gate.
Mizuki could figure out the problem even if she thought with her toes.
Yushiro's face darkened, his eye twitched fiercely twice, a vein popped on his forehead, and he looked at Mizuki with a gnashing expression: "Didn't you ask me to get that for you?"
Mizuki immediately denied everything: "Just because I told you to take it, you took it?"
"Did I force you?"
Yushiro wanted to beat someone up upon hearing that, if only he weren't completely outmatched.
Just as he clenched his fists, sulking angrily, Mizuki generously patted his shoulder: "The revolution has not yet succeeded; keep up the hard work."
"What?" Yushiro smacked Mizuki's paw away, looking displeased.
Mizuki didn't mind, smiling as she said, "I mean the matter of winning over Tamayo."
Kochou Shinobu's eyes widened slightly.
How bold of you to say that, Mizuki.
Yushiro had also completely failed to anticipate Mizuki being so blunt; the composed expression he had managed to maintain instantly crumbled.
"You... you... you...!!" Yushiro's blood instantly rushed to his face, and he roared, "What nonsense are you spouting?!"
"Yes, yes, yes. Why are you yelling so loudly?" Mizuki leaned back slightly, avoiding him with a look of distaste.
Yushiro, his face flushed, choked out, "Tamayo-sama and I..."
He hadn't finished speaking, but Mizuki had already heard enough.
"In short, you need to work hard on your own."
Mizuki waved her hand casually, pulled Kochou Shinobu along, and left.
Watching the two walk out the main gate toward the setting sun, Yushiro stood in the shadow of the veranda, his expression gradually becoming complicated.
After a long while, he sighed and turned back toward the basement.
Knock, knock, knock... "Excuse me, Tamayo-sama." Yushiro opened the laboratory door.
Tamayo was still wearing her white coat, but what was different was that she had moved from her experimental desk, a spot she rarely left, to the tea table.
She was elegantly enjoying afternoon tea.
Ever since she developed the medicine that allowed demons to consume human food, Tamayo had maintained the habit of drinking tea.
Yushiro subconsciously asked, "Tamayo-sama, aren't you doing experiments anymore?"
Whenever he came in before, Tamayo was always sitting at that experimental desk, busy with something.
Hearing this, Tamayo gently set down her teacup and looked at him calmly: "That's right. Why can't I do anything at all?"
Cold sweat poured off Yushiro: "Uh... I..."
His mind was already a mess, and he couldn't figure out how to explain.
Just as that hateful woman had said, he had made the choice himself.
Seeing his tense expression, Tamayo couldn't help but smile, pouring him a cup of tea. "Come and sit down."
"...Yes." Yushiro let out a breath. Fortunately, Tamayo-sama was not angry.
Yushiro secretly observed Tamayo while drinking his floral tea.
Ah, Tamayo-sama is so elegant even when drinking tea!
Just as this thought arose in his mind, Mizuki's blunt words echoed through his head.
Win over Tamayo... No, no, no! How could he have such a thought?
Damn it!! That hateful, stinky woman!
...But yes, when he first met Tamayo, that seemed to have been his exact thought.
If it was this woman, if it was this woman, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Comparable to Yushiro's chaotic emotions, a ripple also stirred beneath Tamayo's calm eyes.
'Recently, you don't seem to use the term 'that child' to refer to him anymore.'
That's not right... Mizuki... She deliberately used 'that child' to refer to him precisely because she sensed Yushiro's feelings for her.
Trying to maintain a certain distance from Yushiro through words and attitude... But just as Mizuki said, recently, she seemed to be increasingly forgetting the intentional address she used.
Tamayo gently raised her eyes, looking at Yushiro, who was holding his teacup, lost in thought.
Tamayo calmly looked at the teacup reflecting her face on the tabletop and said, "We have done everything we can. The rest is up to Mizuki and her group."
But indeed... she was very sorry... she couldn't reciprocate those feelings.
Just as Mizuki said, she couldn't forgive herself.
The matter of having once harmed her family, the matter of having once harmed innocent people.
She was different. Unlike Mizuki, Yushiro, and Nezuko.
If... if there was still a next life, perhaps once she had atoned for her sins, she might openly accept this affection.
"Ah? Mm..." Yushiro hadn't fully recovered his senses... "Were those two in that kind of relationship?" Kochou Shinobu remarked with emotion on the way back to the Butterfly Mansion.
Mizuki glanced sideways: "Shinobu didn't notice?"
"Hmm~ Not really..." Kochou Shinobu pondered for a moment. "It just felt like the two of them weren't in that kind of relationship at all."
Mizuki lowered her eyelids slightly: "...Comparatively speaking, the identity they are more familiar with should be that of family."
Kochou Shinobu murmured to herself, "Family?"
When love reaches its end, it inevitably sublimates into an emotion similar to familial affection.
Mutual support is what it's all about.
Yushiro and Tamayo's companionship over two hundred years meant their feelings had already surpassed what is typically called a romantic relationship.
If you were to say Tamayo hadn't sensed Yushiro's feelings for her, Mizuki wouldn't believe it.
She just couldn't move past her past.
That memory was too cruel for her; whether she forgot it or remembered it, both were extremely painful.
And Yushiro deeply understood Tamayo's complex feelings and chose not to break that window.
Ultimately, although Yushiro looks like a Shota, his actual physical age is over thirty, and his true age is over two hundred years old.
He normally appears impatient and fidgety, but that is only his attitude toward people other than Tamayo.
"But I never expected Mizuki to be so straightforward in saying that." At this, Kochou Shinobu couldn't help but laugh.
Mizuki said frankly, "It's probably because it has nothing to do with me."
Before this, she hadn't felt embarrassed about growing bigger or smaller.
It's like many people, when acting as a Strategist for others, possess the wisdom to command the entire land, surpassing even Kenji.
But when it comes to themselves, they immediately devolve from the commanding Kenji into a babbling Tenju.
They stammer and stutter, unable to even say the words, "I love you."
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