Now that Hazuki had returned to the Ichise household, Hana’s life went back to normal. She was a bit sad to see her sister go, but she could accept it by telling herself that it was Hazuki’s decision, not hers.
It was Nozomu who was far more crestfallen. Hana spotted him numerous times staring longingly at the room where Hazuki had stayed and heaving a deep sigh. Not that he had much to be torn up over, considering he’d see her in class every day. He was much better off than Hana, who was in a different class and had much more limited time to spend with her sister. Still, it was hard for Hana to see the cloud of grief hanging over him and not feel a little sorry for the guy, so she refrained from poking fun at him and pretended not to notice.
Despite a lingering sense of disappointment, time marched forward for the Ichinomiya household.
Following dinner and a bath, Hana was looking into a mirror and applying moisturizer. She wore the rather light attire of a tank top and shorts. Miyabi stood behind her, drying her master’s hair with a blow-dryer and comb. She caught a glimpse of Hana’s back while doing so and squinted slightly.
“Master, the scar on your back seems to have almost vanished.”
“Really? Good to hear.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be so relieved when you never should have been scarred to begin with.”
Getting her parents out of the picture was fine, but the plan for doing so required that Hana battle a strong shade, which at one point slammed her against a wall. The impact left a massive scar on Hana’s back.
Specifically, she had been wounded heavily enough that it left a scar. The injury was painful, of course, but that receded surprisingly quickly. Soon, all that was left was the throbbing of the scar tissue. Miyabi was displeased by it, and every time she saw Hana’s back, she grew more furious than Hana did.
Hana didn’t wear revealing clothes like this tank top around Aoi or Arashi, so Miyabi and Azuha were the only ones who knew how the scar was healing. Aoi took the form of a man, so despite being her own shikigami, Hana still got embarrassed. Arashi had regrettably wounded Hana back when she’d saved him from his rampage as a tatarigami, so Hana started covering up to keep him from feeling guilty.
“That pompous little… I don’t care if he’s the Sankourou successor—how dare he allow you to be injured like that?! I should have given him a piece of my mind as well.”
Considering her vaguely threatening statements and the vise grip she held the blow-dryer with, Miyabi seemed to be letting the rage go to her head. Hana could practically hear the dying wails of the blow-dryer as it suffered beneath enough force to nearly destroy it.
The man making Miyabi grind her teeth was Yukizasa Sankourou. He was the future head of the Sankourou clan, and he had been a classmate of Saku’s at Obsidian High School. The shade responsible for wounding Hana was originally something that Yukizasa had been tasked with defeating. That job had been pushed onto Hana as part of a plot to overthrow the Ichise children’s parents.
This was all done with Saku’s permission, however, so Miyabi and Aoi felt more than a little resentment toward him, too. That was why they had smiled sadistically when they watched Saku’s mother, Mio, tear into him for what he’d done. Incidentally, it was Azuha who had snitched to Mio about it.
“If he ever attempts anything like that again, I’ll see to it that he lives to regret it.”
“Well, let’s not go overboard.”
Hana had already landed her hit on Yukizasa to let off some steam, so she wasn’t too concerned.
As Hana finished applying an emulsion following her skin toner, Miyabi seemed to be done drying her hair, and she turned off the blow-dryer. Just then, the changing room’s door burst open, and in came none other than Saku.
“Oh, I forgot to lock the door. Phew, barely finished in time.”
“Master…please be more careful. Just think—what if this knave saw you in the nude?”
“Hey, I thought I locked it.”
Hana could have been spotted changing had Saku’s timing been any earlier. Hana was relieved, but Saku furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue.
“Tsk.”
“What was that for?”
“Make sure you lock the door. What’re you gonna do if Nozomu accidentally comes in while you’re in the bath? Especially when I haven’t even bathed with you yet.”
“Again with the dirty old man stuff. You’re not bathing with me for as long as I live!”
Hana glared daggers at Saku, but he was far from the kind of man who’d let that stop him.
“It’s a husband’s right to see his wife naked,” Saku said with a face far straighter than those words warranted. “And your current attire is revealing enough as is! Don’t ever wear those clothes in front of any man other than me.”
Hana was part exasperated by the way he managed to pull something to be angry at out of thin air, and part incredibly embarrassed to have been so lasciviously oggled in her revealing (yet concealing) outfit.
“Stop looking, you idiot! I’ll sue you for sexual harassment and drag your clan’s name through the dirt!”
“Go ahead and try. I’ll use my Ichinomiya authority to shut you down.”
To the uninitiated, this might have looked like a typical lover’s spat. If anything, the two were embarrassing themselves. But while Hana glared at Saku with the threatening energy of a cat with its fur standing on end, a jacket was draped upon her shoulders.
“Master, you’ll catch a cold if you stay dressed like that.”
“Thank you, Miyabi.”
What a thoughtful shikigami.
After zipping the jacket up high enough to cover her neck, Hana finally felt relieved.
“I didn’t say you had to cover up in front of me, you know.”
“Shut up.”
Hana shot Saku another glare, but all that did was make the corners of his lips curl up mischievously. Soon after, Saku seemed to remember something and changed the subject.
“Oh yeah, Hana. Keep your schedule open for next weekend.”
“Why?”
“We talked about your full-course French dinner, remember?”
Hana’s face lit up as soon as she heard those magic words.
“You’re really gonna take me to one?!”
“Yeah, I promised.”
“Hooray!”
Hana’s eyes sparkled as she excitedly threw her hands in the air. This full-course French dinner was her compensation for being injured by the shade that Yukizasa had forced her to deal with, which Saku proposed as an apology. Hana graciously offered her forgiveness in exchange for this dinner.
“As you requested, I made a reservation for the highest-class full-course meal you could ask for.”
“I’m getting even more excited!”