Sakura sat a little stiffly in the back seat, head tilted to one side, carefully reaching a hand around to touch her own back.
She hadn’t noticed it on the way out of Yumizuka Satsuki’s house, but now that she’d let herself relax, the sensation was unmistakable.
Where her fingertips brushed, a strange dull ache answered — probably the spot that had hit the wall earlier.
Lips pressed thin, Sakura’s expression drifted.
She kept thinking of the way Yumizuka Satsuki had looked, that obvious wrongness.
The girl had said she’d run into a vampire.
But how could that be?
There were no such things as vampires in this world.
And yet Sakura’s intuition was telling her otherwise.
She lowered her head, the lights shifting across her clear, sky-blue eyes.
Are there really… supernatural things like that in this world?
The sedan stopped at an intersection, and Sakura jolted out of her thoughts.
When she lifted her head, the rearview mirror caught her gaze — and in it, Shigure was watching her.
Those indigo eyes were like a deep-night sky, as gentle as ever, as if the languid, drowsing look she’d glimpsed earlier had only been a trick of the light.
“Is there… something on my face?” Sakura asked softly.
After all, even from Shigure-nee — who had watched her grow up — being stared at like that for so long was a little embarrassing.
“Ah… there is.” Shigure spoke with a slight, gravelly rasp in her voice, looking at the slightly flustered Sakura in the mirror.
It was clearly different from her usual tone.
A side effect of that cigarette — the Sedative.
The light flicked from red to green; she slowly eased onto the accelerator.
“Eh!?” Sakura panicked a little, reaching up to touch her cheeks — and especially the place along her throat where Yumizuka Satsuki had leaned in, where her lips might have brushed.
Her fingers lingered there a long time.
If her sister noticed some inexplicable trace of lipstick or whatever else on her, her poor butt was doomed.
The pain wasn’t the worst of it.
The thing was — she was no longer that little.
Getting spanked, at her age, was simply too humiliating.
Sakura took out a small mirror and searched her face carefully.
Apart from a faint redness at her wrist where she’d been held earlier, she honestly couldn’t see anything.
“Shigure-nee?” Sakura looked at the maid, asking with a flicker of unease.
Shigure-nee had never lied to her.
Surely she’d missed something.
The car slowed, turning onto the small lane that led up to the Asagami residence.
Through the rearview mirror, the maid’s gentle indigo gaze seemed dusted with the faintest blue starlight.
She could see it clearly — on the slender, jade-like column of her Young Miss’s throat, the mark left where a Bloodsucker had licked her.
But how was she supposed to explain that to the Young Miss?
Shigure pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, a small headache blooming.
“Isn’t cuteness written all over Young Miss’s face?”
“Hah—!?” Sakura froze.
When she registered the words, a flush climbed her cheeks at visible speed, and the tips of her ears burned bright red.
If her sister had said it, Sakura would only have pouted, a little bashful.
But this was coming from Shigure-nee — Shigure-nee, who only ever watched her with that gentle look, who wore that trademark sliver of a smile, who never joked lightly.
The effect was completely different.
It was, in fact, a critical hit.
“Mm…” The soft, mewling sound escaped before she could stop it; Sakura cupped her burning cheeks and slowly bent forward.
Her forehead pressed against the fine soft fabric of stockings.
Her shoulders trembled once, and then, even more bashfully, she half-leaned her shoulder against the car door.
Her back was hurt; she didn’t dare lean against the seat.
This was the only posture left.
Her bright, fluttering eyes were a little afraid to meet Shigure-nee’s in the mirror — but couldn’t help… stealing a glance.
Shigure was driving very seriously.
Sakura felt a small, deflating sort of disappointment.
But she didn’t notice — beneath the dark sheen of Shigure’s hair, the small ear hidden there was tinged a faint blood-red.
My young lady is ridiculously adorable.
I want to stop the car right now and kiss her, hug her, nuzzle her, lift her up — what do I do?
Asking online, urgent, can’t wait.
The sedan rolled slowly into the back courtyard of the Asagami residence.
Sakura looked up at the Western-style house before them and ventured, hesitantly, “What happened today — let’s not tell my sister, okay?”
She didn’t want her sister to worry — and especially not about her back.
If her sister saw it, she’d be furious.
Shigure hesitated, then nodded.
The Eldest Miss already knew everything anyway.
Whether she said it or not made no real difference.
Out of the car, Sakura gave the maid a small, gentle hug.
She did her best to keep up a normal bearing, trying to charm her way through.
Fortunately, Asagami Fujino didn’t seem to notice anything off.
After sternly denouncing her sister’s previous bathroom invasion and receiving a firm guarantee that today she would absolutely not come in, Sakura let out a long breath.
Standing in the bathroom, she carefully laid her right hand over her shoulder and turned to look at the mirror, fogged with a fine veil of steam. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
A snow-pale, willowy back held a beguiling kind of charm — and even blurred by the thick steam, Sakura could still clearly see, along one shoulder blade, a faintly violet bruise blooming there.
Am I just too delicate?
A light bump, and it had come to this.
Her fingertips touched the bruised place; Sakura bit her lip and drew in a sharp, cold breath.
Tap-tap-tap—
The bathroom door was rapped.
“Who—!?”
“It’s me, Young Miss.” Shigure’s voice came from the other side.
Sakura hastily slid down into the bath, gesturing for her to come in.
A figure wrapped in a bath towel appeared in Sakura’s view — willowy, slender — and even through the towel Sakura could trace those uncannily perfect, vigorous curves.
No obvious lines of muscle, but a sense of trained, athletic grace.
Yet her figure was different from Big Sis Shiki’s.
Compared with Shiki, Shigure was a touch fuller.
Sakura felt a small flutter of envy.
She herself had nothing going for her except being soft.
The white bath towel dropped aside.
Sakura found herself staring blankly at Shigure’s chest.
A black cord hung at Shigure’s throat, and from it dangled a slim black sheath that looked rather like a switchblade.
The black hilt resting against the curve of her chest carried a quiet, sensual weight Sakura had never quite noticed before.
It was the first time she’d taken note of it at all.
“Did you need something, Shigure-nee?” Leaning against the bath’s rim, Sakura tilted her head, faintly shy.
Catching Sakura’s gaze, Shigure smiled lightly, unfastened the necklace and pressed it into Sakura’s hand.
Then she stepped into the bath and settled in behind Sakura.
Fingertips brushed near the bruise; the willowy shoulder gave a small jolt at the contact, and Shigure began to knead.
“I noticed earlier that Young Miss seemed to have hurt her back, so I thought I’d help with a massage.”
“And — Young Miss wouldn’t want the Eldest Miss to find out, would she?”
But by then Sakura had no thought to spare for answering.
Her small head was swimming, every sense crowded out by the warm, kneading pressure of those willowy fingers.
Pressing her lips together to keep from making any little sound, Sakura tried desperately to think of something else.
If her sister heard her, tonight would not end well for her.
She turned the necklace over in her hand.
It looked antique-looking and simply crafted — but in the shape of a switchblade, which felt strange.
She played with it idly — and her gaze caught on the deep-brown cloud pattern.
——Nanaya.
(Sakura)