Shiratori Seiya typically avoided cooking whenever possible. It wasn't that he lacked the skill—his repertoire, while modest, was perfectly adequate for survival—but the effort-to-reward ratio rarely justified itself when dining alone. He only bought groceries when the refrigerator had been stripped to its bare, humming shell.
A quick inventory of the current situation revealed: eight eggs, a large family-pack of instant noodles, and three frozen steaks entombed in their vacuum-sealed packaging. Not exactly the ingredients for a feast, but sufficient.
He still felt the residual dryness in his throat from his long sleep. After draining a tall glass of cool water in one continuous swallow, he rolled up his sleeves and decided on a course of action: fried noodles.
Simple. Fast. Difficult to ruin.
Saori, predictably, was incapable of assisting in any culinary capacity. At this particular moment, she had reverted to her default state—standing rigid and vigilant at the kitchen entrance, a guardian spirit carved from alabaster and loyalty, watching his every movement with the unwavering focus of a hawk.
Shiratori Seiya scooped the blanched noodles from the pot, shaking off the excess water with practiced flicks of his wrist. Catching sight of her still standing there—motionless, solemn, her wooden katana resting against the doorframe beside her—he couldn't suppress a sigh.
"Are your legs feeling any better yet? Even if you stare holes into my back, the food won't cook any faster. Go sit down in the living room and rest properly."
"Hmm..."
The young girl hummed, a thoughtful, melodic sound, but made no move to retreat. Her luminous eyes remained fixed on Shiratori Seiya as if he were the most fascinating spectacle in the universe. After a moment, she parted her lips and offered, in her characteristic halting cadence:
"In the book... it says... looking at plums can quench thirst..."
*to comfort yourself with illusions or empty fantasies when facing hardship. It describes using daydreams or false hope to satisfy a desire instead of a real solution.
As she spoke, she swallowed. Visibly. Audibly. A small, unconscious gulp of pure, anticipatory hunger.
Shiratori Seiya's hands paused over the sizzling pan. He turned to look at her with genuine, unfiltered surprise. She had used the idiom correctly. In context. With appropriate application.
"You used that surprisingly well," he murmured, half to himself. Then, a new curiosity sparked: "Have you been reading lately? Like, voluntarily?"
The question caught him off-guard even as he asked it. His mental image of Saori had been frozen in time—a snapshot from their first year of high school. What had she been doing in the years since? What did her university life look like? The gaps in his knowledge suddenly felt vast and inexcusable.
"Yes. Saori has been reading."
"What kind of books?"
"The Art of War."
"...Huh?"
Shiratori Seiya's brow furrowed deeply. He turned from the stove, spatula still in hand, and stared at her with undisguised bewilderment. "Why on earth are you reading that?"
He knew the text she was referring to—a Japanese classic that closely mirrored Sun Tzu's Art of War from his previous life, though this version seemed to incorporate elements of the Thirty-Six Stratagems as well. It was a dense, complex, philosophical treatise on military tactics and strategic thinking. Not exactly light bedtime reading.
"Hmm... the instructor said... it's useful for competitions. For strategy. For winning."
Shiratori Seiya opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
He wanted to point out that kendo matches at her level were lightning-fast—decisions made in fractions of a second, outcomes determined almost before conscious thought could intervene. True masters decided victory in the space of a single heartbeat, in the 0.1-second flash between intention and action.
Spending hours puzzling over ancient military philosophy seemed, at best, inefficient. At worst, a complete misallocation of her talents. Breaking all techniques with overwhelming force—that was the path she should be walking. That was her nature.
But looking at her earnest, hopeful expression, the words died on his tongue. She had read a book. Voluntarily. For him. Because she knew he loved culture, philosophy, strategy.
She had cracked open a dense, difficult text that she could barely understand—just to feel a little closer to him. In all their years of middle and high school, she had barely managed to get through her standard Japanese literature textbooks. And now this.
"Reading is always good," he said finally, his voice gentler than before. "It's a good habit to cultivate. I'm proud of you."
A pause.
Then, with the faintest hint of teasing: "But... can you actually understand any of it?"
Hearing this, Saori ducked her head. Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her tracksuit. "Hmm... Seiya likes culture... and Saori wants to like it too. Even if it's hard. Even if Saori doesn't understand all the big words. Saori wants to try."
This fool.
The words echoed in Shiratori Seiya's mind, but they were flooded with warmth. Affection. A tenderness so acute it almost hurt. He turned from the stove, reached out with a hand still damp from cooking, and poked her forehead gently with his index finger—leaving a tiny, glistening droplet of water on her smooth skin.
"Then you should also like yourself more. That's an order. Put some of that effort into taking care of Saori, too."
The young girl froze. Her clear eyes widened. Then, slowly, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, a wide, radiant, utterly foolish grin spread across her delicate features. She giggled—a soft, breathless, delighted sound that seemed to bubble up from somewhere deep inside her.
"Go. Living room. Rest. The food will be ready soon."
"Oh. Okay."
Saori nodded obediently. Shiratori Seiya heard the soft shuffle of her slippers—and then silence. He prodded the thawing steak with his chopsticks, checking its sear, and turned to grab the soy sauce—
She was still standing there. Exactly where she'd been. Motionless as a statue. Her expression had shifted, though; now she looked almost nervous. Guilty. Like a puppy who had been caught chewing on something she shouldn't.
Seeing the frown gathering on his face, Saori pursed her lips. Her gaze dropped to the floor. She twisted her fingers together and stammered, her voice small and hesitant:
"That... earlier... Saori turned off her phone. Because Saori was worried it might ring and disturb Seiya's rest..."
Ah. So that's what this is about.
He had noticed the missed calls earlier. The dozens of notifications from his aunt. In truth, he hadn't been eager to return them. Even without listening to the voicemails, he knew exactly what Ando Norika wanted to say.
She had long ago decided—in that firm, immovable way of hers—that Hojo Shione was her future niece-in-law. Seeing such a catastrophic incident befall her prospective family member, she would naturally be beside herself with worry. She would want him to rush back to Shione's side. To comfort her. To fix things. To be the solution.
But honestly? The incident had already occurred.
The situation, for better or worse, was set in stone. Aside from helping with potential financial compensation, there was nothing else he could realistically do for Hojo Shione right now. And if Suzune's tearful accusations held any truth—if Shione had indeed orchestrated the entire collapse herself—then she must have already prepared her countermeasures. Her escape routes. Her carefully plotted path back into his life. She wasn't lying helpless in that hospital bed; she was executing a strategy.
A full night's sleep had done wonders for his mental clarity. The overwhelming emotions that had crashed over him at the concert—the shock, the guilt, the visceral pain of watching her voice shatter—had receded like floodwaters.
What remained was a cold, clear, slightly bitter residue. She had done this. Deliberately. Knowing the damage it would cause. The thought made him feel, in equal measure, frustrated and deeply, achingly sad.
That was precisely why he had cautioned Saori just moments ago. Don't do anything foolish. Don't harm yourself for my sake. Don't become another Shione.
He couldn't bear that. Not again.
If anything, Shione's dramatic, desperate gambit had only reinforced his conviction about one thing: the paramount, non-negotiable importance of money. If he possessed sufficient wealth—true, substantial, unassailable wealth—then this entire storm would be nothing more than a passing breeze. A minor inconvenience.
With money, he could control the narrative. Silence the critics. Pay whatever penalties the record company demanded without blinking. He would have ample, elegant solutions for every problem, whether it concerned Shione or Saori or anyone else who got tangled in his complicated orbit.
At this moment, the two most critical priorities were clear: make money. And accelerate Takahashi Mio's acting training to the point where she could generate significant returns through the System. Everything else was secondary.
These thoughts darkened his expression. His brow furrowed. His jaw tightened. The kitchen suddenly felt colder.
Saori, watching his face cloud over, felt her heart lurch painfully in her chest. Misunderstanding the source of his grim expression entirely, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm, her fingers clutching the fabric of his sleeve with desperate intensity.
"I'm sorry, Seiya! Please don't be angry! Saori was wrong—Saori shouldn't have turned off the phone—Saori will apologize properly—"
Shiratori Seiya snapped back to the present. He looked down at the girl clinging to his arm, her eyes already glistening with the threat of tears, her lower lip trembling. She looked genuinely, utterly terrified—as if she believed his dark mood was directed at her.
This girl...
He felt a helpless, rueful affection wash through him. She could take a full-force bamboo sword strike to the face without flinching—without even blinking—yet the mere thought of displeasing him was enough to reduce her to the verge of tears. What kind of absurd contrast was that?
He let his expression soften. A small, reassuring smile curved his lips as he reached out and patted her head gently.
"It's fine that you didn't answer the phone. I'm not upset about that at all. I'll just call back later. There's absolutely no reason to get this worked up over something so trivial."
Hearing this, some of the tension bled out of Saori's shoulders. But her brow remained furrowed. She chewed her lower lip, a conflicted, anxious expression still lingering in her eyes.
"But... but that was Auntie calling. She called so many times. Is it really okay? Won't she be angry at Seiya? Won't she be worried?"
"I'll call her back. It's fine."
"Oh."
A pause.
Then, in a voice so small and fragile it barely stirred the air: "Then... will Auntie like Saori?"
The question caught Shiratori Seiya completely off guard. He stared at her. When did she start thinking about things like this? When did she start calculating the opinions of people she'd never even met?
"If Auntie doesn't like Saori... then Seiya will be put in a difficult position, won't he? Saori doesn't want... Saori doesn't want to make things hard for Seiya."
How should one describe Hasegawa Saori? Slow-witted. Foolish. Always half a step behind everyone else in conversations, perpetually blinking in the wake of jokes she didn't quite catch, navigating social situations with the earnest, clumsy determination of a puppy trying to climb a staircase.
The delicate, complicated feelings that defined most girls her age—the jealousy, the insecurity, the intuitive grasp of emotional nuance—seemed to have been omitted from her design entirely. She was, in most respects, a blank slate. A cloudless sky.
Because of this, Shiratori Seiya had once genuinely believed she didn't understand what romantic love even was. That her feelings for him were simply a more intense version of friendship. That breaking up with her would be like two good friends parting ways amicably at a crossroads. He had felt, at the time, almost no guilt.
It wasn't until that day at the Kendo Club—when he'd seen that other side of her, when she'd spoken about the past with such raw, unguarded pain—that he'd realized she had never let go. Not for a single day. Not for a single moment.
But even then, even knowing that she had held on, he'd doubted whether she could continue to hold on. Whether her feelings had the endurance, the complexity, the staying power to survive the reality of who he was now. The more he interacted with her, however—the more he saw these small, unexpected flashes of growth—the more he realized she was slowly, quietly, fundamentally changing from the simple girl preserved in his memories.
Seeing Shiratori Seiya fall into contemplative silence, Saori reached out. Her index finger extended, trembling just slightly, and gave him a tiny, tentative poke on the chest.
"Saori... wants to marry Seiya."
The words pulled him back to the present. He looked down, captured her slender finger in his hand, and held it gently. After a long, thoughtful moment, he turned the question around on her.
"Saori. What if your uncle and aunt don't like me? What will Saori do then?"
"Eh...? That..."
The question clearly hadn't been anticipated. Saori froze in place, rooted to the kitchen tiles like a startled deer, her expression blank with the monumental effort of processing an entirely unexpected problem.
"If your family doesn't approve of me, Saori will be put in a difficult position too, won't she? What's your plan for that?"
Shiratori Seiya smiled at her stunned, wordless reaction. He gently nudged her toward the living room, suggesting she go sit down and think about it while he finished cooking.
He turned back to the counter, reaching for the kitchen paper to pat the thawed steak dry before it hit the pan. Behind him, he heard no retreating footsteps. Just silence. And then—
"Then... let's get married because of a baby."
Shiratori Seiya's hand, which had been lowering the steak into the sizzling oil, jerked involuntarily. Scalding droplets splattered across his forearm, the sharp, biting pain barely registering through his utter shock.
"If Saori and Seiya secretly have a child first... then no one can object anymore, can they? It would be too late. Everyone would have to accept it."
He whirled around.
"What—" He sputtered, caught entirely off-guard. "What kind of—where did you even learn that idea?!"
She looked at him with those clear, earnest, completely serious eyes, and Shiratori Seiya realized with a jolt of mild horror that she wasn't joking. She had genuinely, earnestly arrived at this as a viable strategic solution. The Art of War. She'd been reading The Art of War. This was her tactical masterstroke.
He immediately launched into a stern, emphatic lecture—no, a prohibition—on ever suggesting such a thing again, punctuating his words with firm gestures and uncompromising eye contact.
Saori seemed to have more to say, her lips parting with unspoken arguments, but Shiratori Seiya summarily ushered her out of the kitchen before she could deploy any further strategic revelations.
Nearly twenty minutes later, he emerged carrying a large, steaming bowl and a separate plate, both heaped with fragrant, glistening fried noodles interspersed with strips of seared steak. He set the larger portion in front of Saori.
The aroma hit her immediately. Her eyes widened. She swallowed reflexively, shifting restlessly in her chair like a small animal presented with a feast, her gaze locked on the food with almost comical intensity.
Seeing the undisguised longing in her expression—and realizing, with a pang, that she had probably eaten nothing since that single rice ball at noon—Shiratori Seiya nodded. "Alright. Go ahead. Eat."
"Thank you for the food!"
While Saori attacked her bowl with the single-minded devotion she usually reserved for kendo, Shiratori Seiya settled into the chair opposite her. He pulled over the photography books and script drafts he had been studying earlier. The habit had become almost automatic: when eating alone at home, he preferred to review material simultaneously.
At first, the multitasking had felt awkward—his attention split between noodles and narrative structure—but over time, it had become as natural as scrolling through short videos while eating. The brain could adapt to almost anything.
Saori ate with startling speed. Within minutes, half the enormous bowl had vanished. She paused to lick a smear of oil from her lips, her gaze drifting to the book propped open beside Shiratori Seiya's elbow.
"Seiya... do you want to be a director?"
"Ah. Something like that."
Technically, his target was producer—a fundamentally different role—but he suspected the distinction would be lost on Saori. In her eyes, all the behind-the-camera jobs probably blurred into a single, indistinct category. The specifics didn't matter.
"Oh."
A pause.
She took a sip of water. Then, in a smaller, almost hesitant voice: "Then... could Saori be an actress too?"
Shiratori Seiya glanced up from his book. He looked at her—at her earnest, hopeful expression, at the wooden katana still resting within arm's reach—and shook his head with a gentle, rueful smile.
"No. That wouldn't work. Everyone has their own path, their own specialty. Saori's talent... Saori's gift belongs to the kendo dojo. That's where you shine brightest."
"Oh."
The single syllable was quiet. Accepting. She lowered her head, took another sip of water, and then—barely audible, as if speaking more to herself than to him—let out a small, wistful sigh.
"But with kendo... you can't even earn enough to eat properly. The prize money. The sponsorships. They're nothing."
A beat of heavy silence.
"If Saori were an actress... Saori would definitely make lots and lots of money, wouldn't she? Enough to help Seiya. Enough to be useful."