Mai sat close to me, her eyes occasionally darting to the faint cut on my cheek, though she didn't say a word. The adrenaline from the underground arena was slowly fading, leaving behind the heavy, crushing weight of her exhaustion.
Mai stepped out of the car and completely froze. She stared up at the massive, towering stone walls and the heavy, traditional wooden gates that loomed in front of us. Security cameras tracked our movements, and the Ichijou family crest was proudly displayed on the dark wood.
"This... this is your house?" she whispered, her voice laced with disbelief. It didn't look like a home; it looked like a feudal fortress right in the middle of modern Tokyo.
"Technically, it's a compound," I corrected casually, walking up to the small pedestrian door built into the main gate. I punched a code into the keypad, and the heavy lock disengaged with a loud clack.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the sprawling courtyard, gesturing for her to follow.
The moment my foot hit the gravel, three large men in sharply tailored dark yukata stepped out from the shadows of the guardhouse. They had severe haircuts, and the distinct collars of elaborate tattoos peeked out from under their white shirts.
Mai instantly tensed, her breath catching in her throat. She instinctively stepped behind me, gripping the back of my dress shirt to hide herself from the terrifying enforcers.
The three men stopped a respectful distance away and bowed a perfect, synchronized ninety degrees.
"Welcome back, Ren-sama!" they barked in unison, their rough voices echoing in the quiet courtyard.
"Good evening. Keep the perimeter tight tonight," I replied smoothly, not breaking my stride as I walked past them toward the main house.
"Hai!"
Mai kept her head down, her heart pounding as we walked right past the guards. She waited for the inevitable shout. She waited for them to demand who the girl was, or to stop her from entering the inner compound.
But nothing happened.
When we were safely out of earshot, Mai looked over her shoulder. The guards had returned to their posts. They hadn't even glanced in her direction.
Her grip on my shirt tightened, her voice trembling slightly as the terrifying reality of her Adolescence Syndrome hit her all over again. "They... they didn't see me at all. I walked right in front of them, and they didn't even blink."
I stopped walking and turned around. I gently placed my hands on her shoulders, grounding her.
"I know," I said softly, my voice completely steady. "Right now, your anomaly is completely active. To them, I just walked through the courtyard by myself. It's terrifying, but look at the bright side—it makes sneaking a girl into my bedroom infinitely easier."
Mai's lingering panic hit a brick wall, instantly replaced by sheer, flustered exasperation. "We are going to the guest room! And you are unbelievable! Your subordinates look like literal thugs! Are you actually a Yakuza?!"
"I'm the notoriously frail, studious older brother," I chuckled, guiding her into the grand, dimly lit corridors of the main house. "My younger brother is the terrifying heir. I just want to handle the paperwork."
"Frail. Right. Because frail honors students casually knock out giants," she muttered sarcastically, rubbing her temples as we walked.
I led her past the sprawling main living areas and slid open the shoji door to one of the premium guest suites. I flipped the light switch. The room was massive, featuring pristine tatami mats, a low modern table, and a luxurious, Western-style king-sized bed in the center. Adjoining it was a private, high-end bathroom.
Mai stepped inside, her shoulders finally dropping as the safety and privacy of the room washed over her. She looked down at her Shuchiin uniform, realizing she had been wearing it for nearly two days straight.
"I don't have any clothes," she realized quietly. "Or a toothbrush."
"Give me a minute," I said, stepping back out into the hallway.
I headed to my own room, grabbed an unopened toothbrush from my supplies, and dug through my closet. I didn't have any women's clothing, obviously, so I grabbed a clean pair of athletic sweatpants and a soft, dark grey t-shirt.
When I returned to the guest room, Mai had taken off her blazer and was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking utterly drained.
"Here," I said, tossing the clothes and the toothbrush onto the mattress next to her. "The sweatpants have a drawstring so you can tie them tight. As for the shirt... well, it's mine, so it's going to be a bit large on you."
Mai picked up the dark grey t-shirt and unfolded it. She held it up against her body.
Because of my Level 5 physique, the shirt was broad in the shoulders and long in the torso. On Mai, it would easily drape halfway down her thighs like a short dress.
She looked from the oversized shirt up to me, her violet eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"You didn't have anything smaller?" she asked, her tone entirely accusatory. "Or did you purposely pick the biggest shirt you own just to see me walk around looking like I'm not wearing pants?"
I leaned against the wooden doorframe, crossing my arms. I let a slow, entirely unapologetic smirk cross my face as I allowed my gaze to drop, just for a second, to the straining buttons of her school uniform.
"Senpai," I purred, "Given your incredibly... generous proportions, a tight shirt would just be cruel to both of us. The oversized look is simply a matter of physics and comfort."
Mai's face instantly burned a brilliant shade of crimson. She clutched my t-shirt tightly against her chest, hiding her uniform.
"You are the most shameless junior in existence!" she hissed, though she didn't throw the shirt back at me.
"I prefer the term 'observant'," I corrected smoothly, pointing my thumb toward the adjoining bathroom. "The shower is in there. There are fresh towels in the cabinet. If you need someone to help you wash your back, just yell."
A decorative throw pillow suddenly sailed across the room at blinding speed, launched with surprising accuracy. I casually tilted my head, letting the pillow bounce harmlessly off the doorframe behind me.
"Get out!" she ordered, pointing at the door, her face still fiercely flushed.
"Goodnight, Sakurajima-senpai," I laughed, stepping out into the hallway. "My room is just next door. If anything happens, or if you just need something, don't hesitate to knock."
I slid the shoji door shut, the soft *click* of the lock echoing a second later.
The moment I was out of her sight, I let out a heavy sigh, my posture finally sagging. My Level 5 Constitution was incredible, but taking glancing blows from a hundred-and-twenty-kilo giant still took its toll. I dragged my exhausted body down the quiet, moonlit corridor toward my own room, feeling the deep, dull ache in my bruised knuckles and ribs.
After a quick, scalding hot shower to wash off the grime of the underground arena, I threw on a pair of loose sweatpants and collapsed onto my futon. The exhaustion was pulling me under fast.
But about an hour later, a very soft, hesitant knock echoed from my door.
"Ichijou-kun?" a quiet voice murmured from the hallway. "Can I come in?"
I blinked the sleep from my eyes, sitting up and sliding the door open.
Mai was standing in the dim light of the corridor, clutching one of the guest room's plush pillows tightly to her chest. The faint, sweet scent of the estate's premium shampoo wafted off her.
But what immediately short-circuited my brain was her outfit.
She was wearing the dark grey t-shirt I had given her. Just as I had predicted, the massive shirt completely swallowed her torso, the hem dropping down to mid-thigh. Because of the way it draped, the athletic sweatpants underneath were completely hidden.
Combined with her bare, perfectly shaped legs exposed to the cool air, it gave the incredibly dangerous illusion that she wasn't wearing anything at all underneath the shirt.
I quickly forced my gaze up to her face, keeping my expression neutral. She looked incredibly small right now. The confident actress was entirely gone, replaced by a girl who looked like she had just woken up from a nightmare.
"I couldn't sleep," she whispered, looking down at the tatami floor. "Can I... can I just sleep in here tonight?"
I didn't need to ask why. My pragmatic mind understood exactly what was happening. She had spent the last two days completely invisible, trapped in a horrifying, absolute silence where no one could see or hear her.
The guest room was massive, luxurious, and completely isolated. To her traumatized mind, being alone in that huge room probably felt exactly like being back out on the streets. She was terrified of waking up, speaking out loud, and finding out she had disappeared again.
I understood it perfectly. But i didn't say it out loud.
Instead, I took a step back, aggressively wrapping my arms over my bare chest in a dramatic display of self-defense. I looked at her with wide, feigned panic.
"Senpai!" I gasped, backing away like I was cornered by a criminal. "In the middle of the night? Dressed like that? Are you here for my body?! I know I'm a growing boy, but I demand you respect my purity!"
Mai froze. The heavy, suffocating anxiety in her eyes completely shattered, instantly replaced by a deadpan glare of absolute irritation.
"You are actually the worst human being on the planet," she hissed, stepping into the room and smacking me squarely in the chest with her pillow. "I'm literally having a crisis and you're treating me like a predator!"
"I'm just establishing boundaries," I chuckled, dropping the act and easily catching the pillow. The tension had successfully been broken. "Give me a second."
I walked over to the closet and pulled out a spare, thick futon, laying it out on the tatami floor a respectful distance away from my own. I set her pillow down at the head of it.
"Make yourself comfortable, Senpai," I said softly, turning off the main overhead light so the room was bathed only in the pale moonlight filtering through the window.
Mai slipped under the covers of the futon, pulling the blanket up to her chin. I laid down on my own, staring up at the dark wooden ceiling.
For a long time, the only sound was the quiet chirping of the cicadas outside in the compound's gardens.
"My mother," Mai's voice suddenly cut through the darkness, quiet and fragile. "She's also my manager."
I didn't say anything, simply turning my head slightly to show I was listening.
"I've been in front of the cameras since I was a little kid," she continued, her voice trembling slightly. "To her, I stopped being 'Mai the daughter' a long time ago. I became a product. A brand. Every movie role, every interview, every photoshoot... it was all carefully calculated to maximize the public's perception of me."
She shifted under her blankets, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"A few months ago, she scheduled me for a swimsuit photoshoot. I didn't want to do it. I told her I wasn't ready for that kind of image, but she had already signed the contracts. She told me it was what the fans wanted. What the public expected. It didn't matter what *I* wanted."
I frown, but I kept my breathing steady.
"So, you snapped," I concluded softly. "You forced the hiatus."
"I just wanted them to stop looking at me," Mai confessed, a tear slipping down her cheek and soaking into the pillow. "I just wanted to be nobody for a while. I wanted to ride the train, or buy a crepe, or just exist without a million people having an expectation of who I was supposed to be. But I didn't mean for it to go this far, Ichijou-kun. I didn't want to disappear entirely."
"No you still havent disappear." I reminded her, my voice acting as an anchor in the dark room. "We'll find a way to fix everything."
She let out a shaky exhale, the relief washing over her anew. She turned her head on the pillow, looking at me across the short span of tatami mats. Her violet eyes caught the moonlight.
"Ichijou-kun," she said, her tone suddenly shifting, carrying a hint of that actress's resolve. "Accompany me somewhere tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" I asked. "Like, a date?"
"Think of it as an investigation trip," she countered smoothly, a faint smirk returning to her lips. "I want to get out of Tokyo. I want to go to Fujisawa, or maybe Enoshima. If this 'Adolescence Syndrome' is tied to my environment and the people who know me... I want to see what happens in a completely different city. I want to know if I'm invisible everywhere."
I paused, doing the mental math.
Saturday. Saturday was supposed to be my dedicated training day with the Kure clan. Karla Kure was expecting me to show up bright and early so she could systematically beat me to a pulp and refine my combat mechanics.
If I completely ghosted a Kure clan assassin to go on a day trip with a famous actress...
'She's not going to be that angry, right?' I thought to myself, a small bead of sweat forming on the back of my neck. 'It's just one missed session. I'm sure Karla will be totally reasonable and understanding about it.'
I pushed the terrifying image of Karla holding a combat knife out of my head. I looked over at the incredibly beautiful, vulnerable girl lying just a few feet away from me.
"Alright, Senpai," I smiled, closing my eyes. "Tomorrow, we're taking the train out of the city. Consider the Service Club officially on the case."
"Thank you, Ren," she whispered.
It was the first time she had used my first name.