"I'm back~"
Mio returned to Yui and Shiina Mashiro's side, drinks in her arms.
Taking the drink Mio handed over, Yui asked, curious, "What took you so long?"
"Ran into someone I knew on the way, so I stopped to chat for a bit." Mio gave a slightly sheepish smile.
At that, Yui couldn't help raising an eyebrow. This "someone I knew" of Mio's — it wouldn't happen to be another pretty girl, would it?
She hadn't thought much of it before, but after turning it over carefully a few days back, she'd realized Mio didn't really seem to have any guys she was close with — or rather, Mio rarely interacted with guys at all. What you did see, often enough, was her walking around with one beautiful girl after another.
By now Yui felt she could basically peg Mio's orientation from all that — yet somehow it left her feeling even more at a loss than back when she hadn't been sure.
She let out a soft sigh, took a sip of her drink, then asked, "Mio, what've you got planned after this?"
"Everything I needed to do is done, and it's getting to be about that time — so next up is probably just heading home."
"Ehh?! It's so lively here. You don't want to walk around a bit more?"
Mio glanced at the sea of people all around, then gave a helpless little smile. "It's because it's this lively that I'm not really used to it."
Lively or not, Mio preferred a quieter sort of place.
And more to the point, it was honestly just way too cold out here — she'd much rather be sprawled somewhere with the heat cranked up.
"Oh, right — Yui, want to come hang out at my place? Not that there's anything fun to do there," Mio said, extending the invitation.
"Okay."
To Yui, where didn't matter. What mattered was who she was with.
If it could just be the two of them, Mio and her, nothing could be better — sadly, a chance like that was hard to come by. She'd have to wait and find a way to get Mio out alone some other time.
But she also knew that, until Sengoku Chihiro came back, getting Mio out one-on-one was pretty much off the table.
Right about now, even she couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy toward Mashiro.
As if she'd caught Yui's gaze, Mashiro looked over at her too — but, unable to read a single thing off Yui's expression, in the end she just tilted her head, adorably.
"All right, no time to waste — let's head straight back~"
"Mm."
Yui answered, then — just like on the way there — wedged Mio between the two of them as they set off toward the station.
A little over half an hour later, Mio and the others finally made it back to the apartment.
Watching Yui sit perfectly upright and composed on the sofa, Mio couldn't help laughing. "It's not every day I get to see such a prim and proper Yui~"
"Quit teasing me, would you. The outfit looks nice, sure, but it's torture to wear — especially... around the chest."
Mio quietly glanced at Yui's chest, then it dawned on her. "No wonder Yui looked like she'd shrunk today. So that's what it was."
Right then, for reasons she couldn't quite explain, Mio found herself thinking of Yui's Schrödinger's chest from the original anime.
Mio didn't say a word, but Yui — having clocked the look in her eyes — couldn't shake the feeling that Mio was thinking something rather rude.
Mio realized her stare had gotten a touch too direct, too. She coughed twice to cover the awkwardness, then said, "Sorry. If you don't mind, Yui, want to change into some of my clothes first? They definitely won't fit right, but it's got to beat being stuck in a kimono."
"Is that okay?"
"What's not okay about it?"
Mio led Yui straight to her room and opened the wardrobe.
Looking at the dazzling spread of clothes inside, Mio couldn't help marveling a little. Back when she'd first transmigrated, there'd been nothing in here but a lonely school uniform and the dress that came bundled with the System.
And now? The wardrobe was practically bursting at the seams.
Tucking the stray thought away, Mio picked out one of her everyday outfits and handed it to Yui.
Yui took the clothes and started undressing right there in front of Mio.
For her, Mio wasn't someone she needed to shy away from. They'd changed together in the locker room for gym class more times than she could count — she was long past the blushing stage.
Mio's figure was already pretty enviable for someone her age, but stacked up against Yui's, it still fell a little short.
That was mainly because, back when Mio had been customizing her character, she'd factored in a bit of realism.
"Feels... not bad."
Yui looked at herself in the mirror, dressed in Mio's clothes, and a faint smile curved her lips.
Right now, she could almost swear she caught Mio's scent on the fabric.
The moment the thought surfaced, a faint blush bloomed across her fair cheeks. The clothes had obviously been washed — Mio's scent, honestly, it was just the smell of detergent, okay? What on earth was she even thinking?
She drew a deep breath, then followed Mio back out to the living room.
Changed out of the kimono, she could finally breathe easy again.
"Mm? How come I don't see Shiina-san?"
"She probably went back to her room to draw."
"Ehh?! She's here?"
"Yeah. With Chihiro-sensei away, I just had Mashiro move in directly — saves me running back and forth every day~"
"That's... that's really nice." A flicker of envy crossed Yui's eyes. If she could, she'd want to live with Mio too.
But a thing like that — a day or two was fine; long-term just wasn't feasible for now.
Not unless she could get into the same university as Mio and rent a place together out there, or something.
Whatever it was she'd thought of, the smile on Yui's face only grew brighter and brighter.
By the time she came back to herself, she found Mio had drifted right up in front of her at some point, watching her with a puzzled look.
"Wh-what is it?"
"You were just talking, then you suddenly spaced out and started grinning to yourself. Did something nice pop into your head?"
The old Yui would absolutely have found a way to steer the topic elsewhere. But the Yui of now was different from before.
Once she'd lined up the words in her head, Yui nodded. "I was just thinking — it'd be so nice if I could live together with you, Mio. That way, I'd get to see you every single day~"
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