Day three, the last beat of the sports festival. Today’s matches crested like waves. Every event burned white-hot. After tonight, the stage goes dark. Tomorrow, it’s officially over.

After today, Italy’s battlefield starts its layout, like pieces sliding on a cold chessboard. Then comes a war that redraws the Underworld.

Yun Shi will march, not alone—Miyuki Kiseki will, too. This war weighs the Underworld’s future: will the Church swallow the world, or will it reset like dawn after storm? No one knows.

She stood outside the school gate, heart knotted like tangled threads. It’s the last day here. She studied a year in these lanes. She found friends. Leaving feels like tearing silk.

Yun Shi pulled out a bracelet with a cracked link, a memory like a scar. She stared until her breath steadied, squeezed it like a warm pebble, then slid it into her pocket.

She would come back alive. Her life wasn’t hers alone.

“Morning, Yun Shi—”

“Mm. Morning.”

“Morning, Yun Shi!”

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Your Majesty the Queen!”

“Morning… wait. What’s with that title?”

What can you say—she cross-dressed once, and everyone flipped their faces like pages in the wind.

No, cross-dressing once isn’t small. It rewrites the picture frame other people put you in.

“You guys, can’t you cut it out already?”

Yun Shi was speechless, like a cat in rain. Before, no one bothered her. Now, the sudden attention itched. She wasn’t used to it.

“What’s the harm? Everyone’s starting to like you—”

“I’d rather not have that kind of ‘like.’”

“Don’t sweat the details—”

She let their buzz drift like smoke and walked away. She had her own events to prep. No time to carry stray stares on her back.

“Walks off so cool—”

Watching her fade down the path, Zhu Bingwei chuckled like dry leaves.

The guys had to admit they’d awakened a dangerous kink, like moths to silk. After that outfit, they couldn’t unsee it. The girls were calmer—at most, they found him much easier on the eyes.

“Why’s he a guy… I don’t wanna go gay.”

“My soul’s already sold to Lucifer—”

“He’s a guy, sure, but… if it’s cute, it’s fine!”

“Yeah. Cute clears all checks.”

Seeing the boys tilt like reeds, the girls shot them looks sharp as needles.

Then came a sigh, like wind through a lonely swing. Losing to a boy cuter than girls must hit hard.

If they learned that this cross-dressing “boy” was actually a girl, who knows what storm would break—

“If only he were a girl. Then my heart would balance.”

“Such a cute face, wasted on a boy.”

You don’t need to be jealous. You didn’t lose, truly.

Yun Shi wanted to prep. She didn’t linger. She headed for the arena, feet fast as swallows.

She didn’t expect to see a familiar figure the moment she arrived—Yan Er from Songhai.

Yan Er saw Yun Shi. No shock rippled across her face. Two calm glances, then her eyes turned away, cool as water.

Yun Shi followed that line of sight and found Maya Hanazaka on the badminton court. As class rep, Maya’s athletic sense was sharp; back in middle school she competed often, and she joined clubs here, too.

Watching Maya play, springy and bright, her energy didn’t match the handsy, teasing version she wore off-court. Maybe Yun Shi hadn’t truly looked at her. She didn’t even know when Maya’s liking took root.

That confession scrambled everyone’s bonds like tossed threads, yet it forced Yun Shi to face her own heart. That kiss—was it an outpouring of feeling, or the farewell of everything tender?

“Do you know why I have a bone to pick with you, Yunshi Bianqi?”

Yan Er’s voice cut like a thin blade.

Yun Shi didn’t need to think. Her mind wasn’t dull.

“You like Maya Hanazaka. And Maya Hanazaka likes me, right?”

“Good that you know.” Yan Er’s gaze was steady as glass. “I never thought Maya would like you. She doesn’t like boys. I couldn’t imagine why the Maya who shuns every guy would—”

Yun Shi stayed silent, like snow holding its sound.

Yan Er didn’t know Yun Shi’s true self. Her confusion wasn’t strange. Maya doesn’t fancy boys. But Yun Shi wasn’t liked as a boy.

“What did you do? Why would Maya like a guy? I still don’t get it. Tell me—did something happen between you and Maya?”

Yan Er locked onto Yun Shi, her tone bristling like thornbush. A jealous woman is hard to face. That’s truth.

Even so, Yun Shi wouldn’t spill everything.

“I can’t answer.”

No matter what, she wasn’t going to announce who she was.

Yan Er hurt because Maya liked Yun Shi. But Yun Shi—being pinned like this—didn’t she hurt too? She was human, helpless in the knots of feeling, drifting like a leaf in eddies.

She felt herself growing softer, or more like a woman. She thought more than before, saw complexity in what was simple, even one small thing opened with different sides.

Her heart was changing, like ice loosening under spring sun. So this is what being a woman feels like.

“I see. I figured.” Yan Er’s smile curled, self-mocking, like a cracked mirror. “I shouldn’t meddle in you and Maya—”

A pale sadness lay under Yun Shi’s calm, like mist beneath pine. She still didn’t open her mouth.

Maya liked Yun Shi because Yun Shi was a girl. Without that, Maya’s heart wouldn’t stir. Yun Shi knew. Yan Er didn’t.

Yun Shi was also slowly realizing she might never have liked Maya that way. At most, it was the warmth between friends. Who did Yun Shi like? Sorry—she didn’t know.

Yun Shi left. Yan Er stood there, a figure of frost. Her heart felt icy, her face drained of light.

It felt like a breakup. Pain, ache—her world turned gray, like rain over concrete.

“Ayame, Chiyako, thanks for coming—”

“Seriously, you told us to come. If we didn’t, you’d cry again—”

“Haha, little Maya’s working hard. I saw it—”

Maya walked over with two girls, sunlight on their hair. They looked like they were from another school. From their easy chatter, they were old friends.

Maya laughed with them, then spotted Yan Er standing there, staring like a stunned deer. She stopped mid-step.

“Little Maya, what’s wrong?”

Ayame and Chiyako glanced at Maya, brows lifting like feathers.

They followed her gaze and saw Yan Er. A beat later, they clapped their foreheads.

“Right—Mizuki’s here too, isn’t she? Where is she?”

“I’ve got her number. Let’s go find her—”

“Okay then, little Maya, we’ll leave you two—”

They peeled away, giving Maya space, their whispers trailing like dragonflies.

“Maya’s a lesbian, you know. Maybe she’s into that girl.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Look how she looks at her. Chiyako, you see it?”

“I do.”

Once they were far, Maya breathed easier and walked over. “Yan Er-chan, can we talk?”

They went to the stands, hands resting on the railing. The sun sat just right here, and a quiet breeze slipped by now and then. A good place to talk.

“Yan Er-chan, I—”

“Maya, you like Yun Shi. I know.”

Maya tried to speak, but Yan Er cut in. Awkwardness pricked like nettles.

“Yeah. I like her. I won’t deny it.”

Yan Er’s heart felt stabbed, a clean pain like a needle through silk.

“I don’t understand.” She turned, studying Maya’s profile like a sculpture. “You only like girls. How can you be into a guy? What made you look at him that way?”

Everyone knew Maya was into girls. No secret there. But the girl who only liked girls liking an effeminate pretty boy—confusing as fog.

“It wasn’t about ‘looking at him that way.’ She helped me once, let me make up with old friends. Maybe that day, I fell for her.”

“But you told me you’d never have interest in boys.”

“I did. Even now, I don’t.”

“Don’t lie. Then what is Yun Shi?”

“…”

“Silence means yes. You say you don’t like boys, yet you like Yun Shi. You’re telling me you never liked boys at all. You think I’m easy to fool?”

To Yan Er, Maya’s words sounded like night dressed as day. Anger was natural. Jealousy pulsed under it like a quiet drum.

“Yan Er-chan, you don’t get me. I just wanted to try a romance.”

Maya sighed, her face set with helplessness, like a bird caged by threads.

How well had it gone? She confessed to Yun Shi once. Only two nights ago did they start to mend. She stole a kiss in that window, greedy as spring stealing a bloom.

That night, she thought a lot. Memories with Yun Shi walked by, soft as shadows. She still liked Yun Shi. But Yun Shi didn’t like her. Or rather, the person Yun Shi’s heart leaned toward wasn’t her.

Yun Shi simply hadn’t found her harbor yet.

“Yan Er-chan, I once liked Mizuki.”

“Eh—”

“Surprising, right? She’s my closest friend. It was back in middle school. I confessed. I was rejected. That love ended with silence.”

“…”

“Yun Shi is my second love. So I treasure it, even if I might not fit her.”

With each word, Yan Er’s heart clenched tighter, nails biting into her palm like thorns.

She was unwilling. She liked Maya too. Why hadn’t Maya seen it?

“Yan Er-chan, I think I need time to rest. Like after Mizuki turned me down.”

Yan Er seemed to see it—a thin stream of light slipping in, faint but there, like dawn under a closed door.