At nine o'clock the next morning, the doorbell at Tanaka Masao's house rang.
Tanaka Masao opened the door to find Yukinoshita Yukino standing outside.
Today, Yukinoshita Yukino wasn't wearing her school uniform. She also wasn't wearing her usual black tights. Instead, she had on a white short dress, a blue jacket over it, and a brown bag slung over her shoulder.
As for her hairstyle, it wasn't her usual long, straight black hair either, but the twin-tails she liked best.
Seeing Tanaka Masao blocking the doorway, Yukinoshita Yukino tilted her head slightly.
"Tanaka-kin, why are you just standing there? Aren't you going to invite me in?"
Tanaka Masao snapped back to his senses, carefully looked her over, and asked curiously,
"Are you… Yukinoshita-san?"
Yukinoshita Yukino looked at Tanaka Masao as if he were an idiot.
"Tanaka-kin, it's only been one day. Has your brain already degraded to the point where you can't even recognize people? I'm genuinely worried about today's tutoring session."
"Well, you can't really blame me for that."
Tanaka Masao shrugged helplessly and stepped aside to let her in.
"Yukinoshita-san's outfit today is completely different from usual. It's a bit too youthful and lively—so cute it should honestly be illegal."
As she passed by Tanaka Masao, Yukinoshita Yukino heard his comment, and her cheeks faintly, almost imperceptibly, turned red.
"Tanaka-kin, your taste isn't bad, but there's something I need to remind you of."
"What is it?"
"Not just today—even normally, I'm cute enough to be illegal."
Tanaka Masao: …
Yukinoshita Yukino changed into a pair of slippers decorated with little cat patterns.
Since she had been coming over so often lately, Tanaka Kazumi had specifically bought a pair just for her.
The design had been Tanaka Masao's suggestion—as long as it had cats on it, anything was fine.
Yukinoshita Yukino liked these slippers quite a lot.
After changing into them and walking into the living room, she asked curiously,
"Where are your parents? Do they still have to work on weekends?"
"Oh, them? They said it's been too long since they had some 'couple time,' so they went out to have fun somewhere. They'll be back around dinner."
Tanaka Masao shook his head helplessly.
"They usually stay home to rest on weekends. I don't know why they suddenly decided to go enjoy their 'two-person world' this time."
The Tanaka couple: Isn't it obviously to give you some space? You really don't understand our painstaking efforts at all.
Yukinoshita Yukino didn't think too deeply about it and simply remarked,
"Isn't that nice? Your parents' relationship is really good."
Thinking about her own parents, marriage seemed more like a job to them than anything else.
In Yukinoshita Yukino's memory, she had never seen her parents openly show affection—there wasn't even anything remotely intimate.
After setting her bag down in the living room, Yukinoshita Yukino looked around and asked,
"Why don't I see Jahy? Did she go out with your parents?"
"You mean her?"
Tanaka Masao poured a drink for Yukinoshita Yukino and explained,
"She went out yesterday and got bullied. She's feeling pretty down in her room right now."
"Bullied?"
Yukinoshita Yukino frowned.
"Who bullied her? And Tanaka-kin, why do you look completely unconcerned—almost like you're enjoying it?
Jahy may not be your real sister, but you should still care about her. And you've had similar experiences before, so you should be able to understand how she feels."
She felt genuinely angry. Jahy had been bullied, yet Tanaka Masao wasn't talking about getting revenge for her at all—he looked completely indifferent.
If Tanaka Masao wasn't going to treat Jahy like a little sister, then she would step in herself.
If she successfully protected Jahy, Jahy would definitely look up at her with sparkling eyes and call her [Onee-sama] (Big Sister).
And then… the ear-touching thing…
No, no, no—this wasn't the time to be thinking about that.
What needed to be done now was to scold Tanaka Masao for his lack of action and comfort the heartbroken Jahy.
She had heard that when comforting someone, gently rubbing their head could make them feel at ease…
Seeing Yukinoshita Yukino this angry was rare, and Tanaka Masao found it a bit novel.
Still, to prevent her from getting too angry and ignoring him altogether, he quickly explained,
"The one who bullied Jahy wasn't a person—it was a crow. Here's what happened…"
After attending classes for a whole week, Jahy finally had time to do her real job: searching for magic stones.
Yesterday, she brought some dry rations and set off on her search.
The method was simple. Magic stones were originally part of a whole, and each fragment naturally guided the others.
Relying on the small fragment she had with her, Jahy quickly found a fairly large magic stone in a nearby forest.
But just as she lifted the stone and hadn't even finished celebrating for two and a half seconds, a chicken—
Ahem, no, a crow flew over and snatched the magic stone right out of her hands.
When Jahy chased after it, not only did she fail to retrieve the stone, she was also toyed with by the crow and ended up falling into the mud, covered head to toe.
The incident dealt a heavy blow to Jahy's confidence.
In her bad mood, she—who normally could eat five bowls of rice at night—only managed three.
Seeking revenge, she even went to Tanaka Masao and asked him to use the power of his battle armor to blast the crow into scraps.
Naturally, Tanaka Masao refused.
Using the Mark armor to attack a crow was no different from using a cannon to kill a mosquito.
While explaining things to Yukinoshita Yukino, Tanaka Masao deliberately avoided mentioning magic stones.
Instead, he said that Jahy had accidentally picked up a pretty stone, which was then stolen by a crow.
After hearing the explanation, Yukinoshita Yukino was also left speechless.
Being bullied by a crow—there really wasn't anywhere you could go to argue that case.
After hesitating for a moment, she finally said,
"Then… should we go check on Jahy?"
Tanaka Masao nodded.
"Sure. Follow me."
He stood up and led Yukinoshita Yukino upstairs.
Walking behind him, Yukinoshita Yukino suddenly spoke.
"I'm sorry."
Hearing her voice, Tanaka Masao instinctively turned around, puzzled.
"Huh?"
They were on the stairs, with Tanaka Masao ahead. When he turned back, he was looking down at her from above.
He could clearly see Yukinoshita Yukino awkwardly turning her head away.
"I misunderstood you earlier and lost my temper at you. I'm really sorry."
Tanaka Masao scratched his head.
"It's fine. You were just angry because you care about Jahy, right?"
Since it hadn't caused any serious misunderstanding, he didn't take it to heart.
"Still, I didn't expect Yukinoshita-san to actually take the initiative and admit she was wrong."
Hearing that, Yukinoshita Yukino shot him a glare.
"Do I look like some unreasonable, ill-mannered person to you?"
"No, it's just that Yukinoshita-san always seems perfect—no matter the time, no matter the situation. Always absolutely right.
I'd never imagined Yukinoshita-san making a mistake and then apologizing for it.
Getting to see Yukinoshita-san lower her head like this—it feels like I struck gold."
Yukinoshita Yukino retorted, clearly unconvinced,
"What Tanaka-kin said isn't wrong. I am very perfect—but I'm still human, so I make mistakes.
And let me correct you: I didn't lower my head to you. I was reflecting on my own mistake.
That said, being able to recognize my own errors and proactively admit them… that's actually pretty impressive of me."
Yukinoshita Yukino pinched her chin and declared seriously.