“Alicia, Ling, your rooms are ready—a quiet harbor after storm. Go rest.”

The king, gentle as spring rain, knew fatigue clung to them like mist after battle.

If he kept asking about food or fun, it’d just add grit to their tired gears.

That would be noise, not warmth, and make him look like a father without soft hands.

So he set two maids at the door like lanterns in night, in case service was needed.

He wished them sweet dreams, a moonlit blessing, then slipped out like a closing breeze.

The maids followed soon after, leaves drifting from a calm pond.

Silence swelled in the vast room, a lake too wide for two stones.

Boredom nipped, so the loli became a beached sardine—flop—onto a bed fit for a dozen.

She rolled and sprang, a tiny comet doing salted-fish calisthenics, performing for herself.

Normally, Alicia would switch to a strange mode, cute-baited into hidden cutscenes and unspeakables.

Now she sat at the bed’s edge, head bowed, thoughts pooling like ink.

Her quiet wasn’t calm; it was a storm held behind shutters.

Ling noticed; ripples don’t miss stones.

She stopped her silly show, crawled over like a cautious cat, and poked Alicia’s back.

No reaction—the statue stayed stone.

“Big Sis!!!”

Cornered, she used her finisher—the Loli Call.

It worked; Alicia’s shoulders stirred, like grass touched by wind.

“Ah… sorry. I was thinking. What’s up?”

“Nothing huge. What had you thinking so deep? My body? No need to think. Just ask, and I’ll show you, Sis—ter—Ma—dam.”

Whack!

As expected, Alicia’s hand-chop fell like a falling branch—except… no sting.

Ling rubbed her head; no bump, no thunder. Had Sis skipped dinner?

“Sis?”

Alicia drifted again, mind diving like a crane into dark water.

This wasn’t light fog—this was a cave. Alicia was wrestling something.

“Sis!”

Ling grabbed Alicia’s “white rabbits,” soft as fresh snow, warmth flooding her fingers like tea through porcelain.

She paid the price—Alicia woke, read the scene in a heartbeat, and dropped a full-force chop like a judge’s gavel.

Finally—familiar pain, a bell struck under skin.

Ling clutched her rising bump, eyes glassing with tears, but a smile curled like a cat in sun.

Maybe she’d turned a little… M, blooming under storms she knew.

“You get three sentences. Explain.”

“You’re off. I worried. So—grab chest.”

Her brain flashed like lightning, trimming origin, process, result in twelve clean strokes.

If a language teacher were here, Ling would earn a perfect sky-blue stamp.

Alicia understood, guilt pricking like thorns for the unthinking second chop.

That small head didn’t need more dents—she breathed, let the wind pass.

“…It’s weird, but thanks.”

“So, Sis, what were you thinking?”

“Not huge. I don’t really know what ‘Yokai’ means in your book.

But no matter how I look, I’m not human anymore.

Staying in human society—won’t that look strange?”

Whack! …and a flick—thwip.

Ling answered with a mirrored chop and a forehead flick, a two-hit combo that rattled pride like a dropped crown.

Alicia rose, ready to reclaim sacred sisterly dignity—then froze at Ling’s serious face.

Lesson holstered; storm softened.

“Sis.” Ling’s small hands cupped Alicia’s cheeks, warm as bread, eyes meeting like twin bridges over one river.

“In your head? I don’t know, and I don’t plan to meddle.

Hear one thing: your sister—me—is also a Yokai.

I live carefree among humans, like a fox in bamboo shade.

And… I’ll stay with you. Always.”

Her words fell like rain on parched earth; Alicia’s knot uncoiled like silk.

Right—why fear shadows when a lantern walks beside you?

She hugged Ling, surprise fluttering in the smaller girl’s breath, and rubbed cheek to cheek like sparrows sharing sun.

Warmth moved between them, a hearth with two flames.

Guu~ …Guu~

Two stomachs sang in harmony, twin drums in a quiet hall.

If not for different hair colors, no one would deny they were blood sisters, branches from the same tree.

“Hungry? I heard your belly rumble twice.”

“Hold on. I’ll hit the kitchen and whip up Sis’s love-special.”

Alicia, face steady as lake glass, pinned both growls on Ling like playful blame.

Ignoring Ling’s bright “Objection!!”, she turned, ran, door closing like a crisp note—one seamless, practiced motion.

Ling puffed her cheeks and smacked the bed like a drum.

She glanced at her delicate hand—the one that chopped Sis—and her sulk dissolved like salt in soup.