My thoughts spun wild; spiral rings swam in my eyes. Hands clasped on a raised leg, my rose-petal lips parted.

“Ling, are you a Yokai?”

“...”

Panic first, then shame like cold rain. What was I saying? Why would I ask that?

It poked straight at her privacy, a thorn under silk. Ling never said she wasn’t human, which tacitly matched when the Ninety Nine Maiden called her one.

But maybe she’d hid it on purpose, a mask over moonlight. Yokai show up when you’re young, new as dawn. If I’d torn off her mask—would she silence me, a knife behind the fan?

That was just the Ninety Nine Maiden overthinking. Ling trembled, small as a leaf in wind, then steadied like a stone in a stream. She didn’t hide it.

“I am a Yokai…”

The Ninety Nine Maiden had ruled out hearing that. With the truth laid like a blade on the table, she choked on her reply.

“Oh… oh? Oh-oh? You really… that thing, huh?”

Ling, a towel gripped between her teeth like a little flag, nodded once. Her free hands were quiet rain, undoing Alicia’s buttons one by one.

The Ninety Nine Maiden stepped back half a pace, shy as a fawn. She covered her eyes with her fingers—yet those gaps were wide as lattice windows. Was she really blocking the view?

“Wh-what are you doing?! Taking advantage isn’t allowed!”

Ling finished unbuttoning Alicia’s top, slipped the towel from her mouth, and looked back. Her face was a calm mask, but the chill of disdain flickered like frost.

“Aren’t you a girl? Why get shy? I’m just wiping my sister down. What are you imagining, you perverted Dragon?”

“Eh?” The Ninety Nine Maiden stared, stunned like a lantern in fog. “You really believe I’m a girl?!”

Ling ignored the tangle-brained maiden. She peeled off Alicia’s sweat-soaked clothes, the fabric heavy as rainclouds. No fairy tale of “a beauty’s sweat smells sweet,” yet no stink either—almost no scent, like soft water.

She tossed the clothes aside like fallen leaves and began to wipe her down. Sweat beads sat on skin like dew on petals, and Ling brushed them away, gentle as twilight wind.

She kept it simple—belly, back, arms, sunlit plains. The shadowed places stayed covered, mountain veiled by cloud, nothing improper seen.

Maybe because she’d just wiped her once, Alicia’s skin seemed to glow, moonlight on a lake. It pulled like tide; Ling’s gaze couldn’t drift away.

Her eyes climbed, a moth toward flame. Her hand crept upward, a vine seeking light…

“Ling…”

“Eek!”

Alicia’s sleepy whisper struck like a dropped pebble in still water. Ling jumped like a startled rabbit, a stray hair on her head standing straight like a tiny antenna.

The Ninety Nine Maiden, rummaging for Alicia’s clothes like a sparrow in straw, turned, dazed. Ling’s shout had made her flinch too.

“Hey, little one, what are you doing? Why shout so loud all of a sudden?”

Her usual deadpan cracked like thin ice. Ling’s eyes skittered left and right; her hands fluttered over her chest like nervous sparrows. The stray hair spun into a spiral, and her tongue tangled.

“N-nothing!!!!”

Suspicion hung like mist, but Ling wouldn’t answer. The Ninety Nine Maiden didn’t press, and went back to searching, hands rustling like reeds.

Seeing there’d be no questions, Ling breathed out, warm as steam. She dusted her backside with one brisk pat, sat again by Alicia, and poked her side, a fingertip like a pebble tapping a drum.

“This is your fault. Calling my name while sleeping—scared me. I almost made a fool of myself.” She muttered under her breath, a cricket in grass.

Her grumble was soft, but her face held no anger—only happiness shining like dawn. If the one you love calls you, even in dreams, isn’t that a kind of blessing?

Well… unless it’s a nightmare.

“Ling~ found them~”

The Ninety Nine Maiden bounced back, steps like springs. That cutesy “Ling” made Ling’s mouth pinch, a small grimace like tasting bitter tea.

She slipped a hand between Alicia’s back and the bed, palm a steady raft in a river, and lifted her. Then she dressed Alicia with patient care, each motion a stitch in quiet cloth.

A warm ache rose, a kettle murmuring. Alicia used to look after her like this. Now the river ran the other way, and Ling didn’t mind at all. No—she wished Sister would lean on her more, outside battle too, like shade under a summer tree.

“Hey, Ling, you’re a Yokai, right? What about your sister? Her physical strength is unlike any Yokai I’ve seen, but her magic sits around a Yokai’s average.”

Ling’s fingers paused on a button, a moment of still snow. She shot the Ninety Nine Maiden a glare, sharp as a hawk’s, then finished the buttons without a word.

Knowing she’d stepped on a landmine, the Ninety Nine Maiden rubbed the back of her head, sheepish as a dog in rain, words lost.

“By the way, whose clothes are these?”

Luckily, Ling wasn’t angry. After dressing Alicia, she could still speak like clear water.

“They’re mine. Back when I went by Qiqi, I wore this. Ah, those days… I was a cute dragon maiden~”

Ling didn’t care that the Dragon King once called herself Qiqi. Her eyes went to Alicia’s loose chest, then to the Ninety Nine Maiden’s firm front, a quick compare like weighing apples.

“Tsk… such sin.”