“Tch. So annoying.” Yun Shi’s voice snapped like a snapped twig, dry and sharp. A flock of girls trailed after her, all pretty as spring blossoms, the kind that drew daggers from onlookers’ eyes. Sometimes beauty was a painting on a wall; today, it was a bed of needles under her skin.

They’d come to scrounge dinner—no, to visit, sugar over salt. Even Yun Shi had to open her door to guests, like a gate creaking for rain.

She swung the door wide and slipped in with a grocery bag, casual as a drifting leaf. “Find yourselves a spot,” she said, cool as shade.

The words had thorns, but everyone knew her tsundere bark. They stepped into the entry like careful cats, stiff backs loosening a breath at a time.

“S-sorry to intrude~” Yan Er murmured toward the threshold, voice light as a moth’s wing.

“I live alone,” Yun Shi said without looking back, and the tension fell like dust from rafters.

Mizuki’s gaze wandered the room, curious as a sparrow peeking at a nest. “So this is Yun-kun’s place…” she breathed, wonder pooling like lantern light. The others wore the same soft surprise, all but Sham and Maya Hanazaka, who had already crossed this door like old rain.

To be honest, the place wasn’t big. For one person, it fit like a well-worn shoe, no elbow wars with family, no walls closing like winter.

What kind of weather raised this girl’s temperament? The question hung in each of them like fog over water.

They reached the “living room,” small as a teacup. One round wooden table anchored the space like a stump in a clearing. Yun Shi had shed her school blazer, white shirt bright as cloud. She came with a tray of tea, steady as a stream, set cups with practiced hands, and poured from the pot. Steam curled like spring mist. The fragrance spread like warm rain across their noses.

Her manner was cool, but her hosting never missed a stitch. Without trying, she won favor like a breeze lifting a boat.

Tea done, Yun Shi slipped to the kitchen to make dinner, leaving the girls floating in the quiet like leaves on a pond.

“If this housekeeper were a girl, there’d be a line of suitors out the door,” Mizuki said, sipping, her tone as airy as dandelion fluff.

“This tea’s so good. If I could marry him into my house, I’d be blissed out. Shame I’m a girl~” Yan Er closed her eyes, sipping joy like sunlight.

“A girl, huh…” Mizuki didn’t touch her cup. She stared at the table as if it hid an answer under ice.

“Maybe~” Sham’s eyes flashed with a fox-light, then narrowed into a crescent smile, sweet and sharp. “Honestly, she meets several of my standards. If she married me, I wouldn’t be losing out~”

Maya Hanazaka tossed it out like a pebble. It hit the pond, and every ripple stilled. All eyes turned to her, as if she’d just sprouted horns.

“Uh… what’s with you?” Maya lowered her cup, puzzled, mid-sip frozen like frost.

“Who are you?” Sham’s guard went up like a raised spear.

“Eh?”

“The real Maya wouldn’t be this chummy with Yun-kun. You two bicker night and day. How are you suddenly getting along? Speak. Who sent you? Where’s the real Maya!” Mizuki pointed at Maya, disbelief ringing like a bell, and that haunted look made belief bloom in everyone like mold after rain.

“W-w-wait—what?!” Panic rushed Maya, a cold tide up the spine. She wanted to explain, but words jammed like rice in the throat.

How did she make it so obvious? She and Yun Shi used to mix like fire and water!

If they found out Yun Shi was a girl, everything would come crashing like a clay pot.

“I’ve got it!” Mizuki tapped her fist to her palm, a candle flaring to life.

“Maya-chan finally hit puberty and fell for Yun-kun!”

“What!” they shouted in chorus, shock cracking like thunder.

“But… I heard Maya likes girls…”

“You’re too naive, Yan Er-chan. Even in yuri, this world gives the protagonist a halo bright enough to straighten the bent!”

Mizuki looked smug as a cat on a wall. Maya’s temples throbbed. Why couldn’t she be this unhinged on normal days?

“Maya, do you really like Yun-kun…?” Mizuki asked, cool as snow, a faint tang of jealousy like vinegar in water.

“N-no, you’ve got it wrong, Mizuki. How could I like this… sissy… guy…” The back half fell to a whisper, like rain fading to mist. Not love—just guilt. And fear of speaking ill of someone she’d decided to treat right.

“What a sinful man. No wonder the rumors swarm like flies. Seems they’re all true,” Yan Er mused, thoughtful as shade.

“Misunderstanding!” Maya protested, flailing like a netted fish.

“Maya, come with me.” Sham stood, voice flat but edged with steel, like a blade in paper. Her face didn’t shift, but seriousness pressed like a storm front.

“O-okay…” Maya’s knees wobbled like reeds. She followed, leaving the room hushed, the others’ eyes hanging like lanterns.

A flash of hostility sparked in Sham’s gaze, then went out like a snuffed wick. She led Maya toward the kitchen. Maya’s gut knotted; this wasn’t going to be simple, the way thunder warns before rain.

In the kitchen, Yun Shi, apron tied, moved at the stove. Her waist was too slender for a “boy,” willow-slim and fine. Her hips, even wrapped in pants, curved like a hill under snow. From the back, she was all girl, a shadow in soft lines.

“Sham? Dinner’s not ready. Wait,” Yun Shi said, catching footsteps, assuming Sham was here to pilfer like a pilfering fox. Habit spoke, dry and familiar. Maya blinked. So Yun Shi and Sham were this close? A dark thought rose like a tide, expected yet terrifying.

Sham only smiled, saying nothing, then flicked a pointed look at Maya like a thrown pebble.

“What? I told you—no food till it’s done. If you heard me, park it.” Yun Shi’s impatience scratched like dry bamboo. Maya stared, startled, her gaze asking Sham for a map. Sham spread her hands, innocent as a dove, and kept smiling.

“Yun Shi,” Maya tried, a small call tossed like a pebble into a well.

Yun Shi’s shoulders flinched. Her hands paused mid-motion. She turned.

“Maya Hanazaka… eh?”

She stopped when Sham’s shadow fell across her like a cloud.

“Hey, Little Yun~” Sham stepped close, smile bright as lacquer, enjoying the way Yun Shi stood half a head shorter, a sweet tilt like a teacup in hand.

“You…” Yun Shi began.

“Little Yun, are you~ hiding something from me~ hmm?” Sham’s smile was warm on the surface, knife-cold underneath, her eyes a narrow river with deep currents.

Maya’s heart dropped like a stone into cold water. She knows?

“W-what are you talking about…” Yun Shi’s gaze slid away like a fish. Guilt softened her voice to cotton.

“Talk.” Sham’s laugh was honey; her tone was iron.

“N-no. I’ve got dinner to make. You go wait over there…”

“Hmm?” Sham’s smile vanished like a smothered candle. She caught Yun Shi’s small wrist, her face darkening like a sky before rain.

“Hey—what are you doing?” Maya moved, but Sham’s cold stare cut like sleet. Maya froze on instinct, breath held like a bird in a snare.

“Sham?” Yun Shi had never seen this weather in Sham. Fear rose like a wind. She tried to step back, but the wall was there, mute and flat.

“Little Yun. What are you hiding from me?” Sham’s voice was level, but danger bled through like ink. Yun Shi’s usual steel thinned to glass.

“I… I…”

Sham is angry, Yun Shi realized, terror blooming like frost. She wanted to run, but her legs felt poured in lead. Panic surfaced on her face like ripples under ice.

Sham’s brows knit. She exhaled, a thin mist. “Little Yun, did someone find out you’re a girl?”

…

One simple sentence, and the girl fell into a pit without a bottom.

Yun Shi’s eyes blew wide. Her hands shook like leaves in wind. Breath refused to come, tight as a closed fist.

“Y-you knew?” Maya blurted, then bit her tongue and clapped a hand over her mouth, late as a sunset.

“As I thought, you knew.” Sham’s voice struck true, a needle threading each thought. “I’ve been suspecting it. A girl who likes girls wouldn’t get along this well with Little Yun. She wouldn’t wear the face she uses with girls, not with him.”

Each word struck Yun Shi’s heart like stones. She struggled, and Sham’s grip only tightened, a vise on a fragile stem.

“Little Yun. Since when?” Sham’s tone stayed even, but anger seeped like heat through a teapot.

“I—I don’t know…”

“Still playing tough?” Her fingers dug harder.

“Ah! Let go, that hurts!” Pain flashed across Yun Shi’s face, bright and sharp as lightning.

“Say it!”

“I said I don’t know!” Pride flared, a dry spark in a storm. She turned her face away, stubborn as a mountain.

“Try me again!”

Sham shoved Yun Shi against the wall. She caught both wrists and pinned them high, pressing her head to the plaster. A touch more pressure, and pain bloomed like fire.

“You think I won’t lay hands on you, huh?” Her grip tightened another notch.

“Ah—ow! S-Sham…”

“You think you’re strong? Still playing the man, are you?”

“Ugh—stop, it really hurts!”

“Damn it—say it! Since when!”

Wrists pinned, pain drilling to the bone, Yun Shi tasted humiliation and fear like iron on her tongue. She had never been handled like this. Sham, usually all smiles and harmless air, now burned fierce, a storm with teeth. Yun Shi’s tough shell cracked like fired clay. Her soft center showed through.

“Stop it, Sham! What are you doing to Yun Shi!” Maya tossed aside Sham’s hand and wedged herself between them, a shield thrown up like a pine against wind.

“Move,” Sham snapped, eyes flashing.

“Are you kidding me? Is that how you treat a girl?” Maya’s words cracked like a whip.

“But she—”

“Can’t you see she’s afraid of you? Do you want her to hate you?” Maya’s voice hit hard, heat behind it like summer sun.

The anger in that voice washed over Sham like a bucket of cold water. Her frown eased. Her thoughts cleared, beads of rain on a leaf.

What did I just do?

Why to Little Yun…

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I only wanted to shake the truth out of her, a scolding, a tap on the knuckles…

Yun Shi huddled behind Maya, eyes holding a sliver of unfamiliar distance, like a horizon seen through mist. Fear spiked in Sham’s chest, sudden and raw.

She didn’t want to lose Yun Shi.

“N-no, Little Yun… I…” Tears fell, one by one, pattering like rain on stone. Thin trails marked Sham’s cheeks, silver in kitchen light.

“I don’t want to lose you, Little Yun. I can’t stand it. You tell me nothing. It’s too much…” And at last, the dam broke. Sham cried.

Sham’s feelings for Yun Shi were hers alone, like letters locked in a drawer. Yun Shi, who always came to her to talk, said nothing today; her silence fell like muffling snow. Sham, the trusted guardian, tasted the cold sting of being left behind. If the day comes when Yun Shi no longer needs the girl called Sham Einafel, what is she supposed to do?

Fear pooled in her chest, like dusk gathering in a quiet room. She feared losing her like this; she feared tomorrow would turn strange. Restless, Sham didn’t want Yun Shi’s secret to spill wider, like ink spreading across rice paper. If it did, she felt she’d have no card left up her sleeve.

She was simple—just a person of clear water and plain rice.

Yun Shi more or less knew what Sham was thinking; time had braided them together. She’d known her longer than she’d known Mizuki, and they’d shared more seasons side by side. Yunshi Bianqi was only an ordinary person, with an ordinary heart, a small lamp in a common house. She wasn’t a great figure of mountains and banners. With Sham, there was a red thread she couldn’t cut.

“Don’t cry…”

Her voice fell soft, like rain on leaves. She stepped over, leaned in, and whispered where only two breaths could hear, “It’s just that she learned this. She doesn’t know about the Underworld.”

A short line—she didn’t know if it would help—but she wanted to calm Sham’s rippling heart, because she held her as a friend she couldn’t let go.

“Really?”

Sham stopped crying, tear-tracked, her voice unsteady like a reed in wind.

“Really.” Yun Shi nodded, and her own worry thinned like fog lifting.

“I see…”

Sham brushed her tears away like dew, then opened her eyes and fixed a grim look on Yun Shi and Maya Hanazaka.

“Then… where did she touch you?”