“I’m sorry…” I apologized, though with very little sincerity.
After saying that, I feigned surprise. “Oh, Yoriichi, why are your ears so red? And so hot? It’s all my fault; let me blow on them for you.”
I curled the corners of my mouth in a mischievous grin, leaned in close, hovered near his ear, and took a shallow breath. “Whoosh~”
His earrings fluttered and danced continuously from my breath.
The result of doing this was as expected: not only did it not get better, but that blood-red flush spread to his cheeks.
He stopped in his tracks. My arms were pressed against the sides of his neck, and I felt something was wrong. I looked down and saw the blue veins beneath his pale skin bulging like awakened dragons; his body was as tense as a bowstring pulled to its limit.
He let out a long, slow breath, turned his face away, and said in an indifferent, flat tone, “Megumi.”
For some reason, I felt a sense of pressure. I didn’t dare to move. I ducked my head and obediently hugged his back, hands clasped together.
“I know, I promise I won’t tease you anymore.”
I grabbed a cluster of his hair to block my face, leaving only a pair of innocent eyes blinking up at him. “Truly.”
He sighed, returning from his tense state. “Don’t do that again; I’m not feeling quite right.”
“What’s not right about it?”
“All the blood in my body is rushing toward my heart. I can’t control the surging and the spreading… It’s a bit like anger, but not quite the same?” He described his physical condition in detail. “And…”
He suddenly paused.
It was rising with a sense of agitation and urgency, but it wasn’t dislike; it was more like it wasn’t enough.
I listened and said, “Tsk tsk, that sounds like a heart condition!”
“Maybe I caught it from you… you’re already a critical patient; there’s no saving you.”
“Heart conditions are not contagious,” he answered with certainty.
I laughed. “Are they not? Then how do you explain what just happened?”
He went silent, frowning slightly as he pondered something.
I thought about his expression just now, poked his spine, and then whispered into his ear: “Hey, Yoriichi… you’re so powerful, you won’t commit domestic violence against me in the future, right?”
Tsugikuni Yoriichi: …
I was truly dancing on the very edge of a good person’s tolerance level.
But it was so much fun, wasn’t it?
I could tease him for a lifetime!
Passing by a silver mountain stream where the water bubbled melodically, I jumped down, as I had recovered enough energy and was afraid of pushing things too far. I went to the side of the stream to scoop up water to drink. “It’s so sweet!”
It was a little cold, but after being warmed for so long, it didn’t really matter.
The grass opposite us stirred. I raised my face and saw a pair of large, wet eyes. It was a young fawn; its antlers hadn’t even grown in yet, just two little bumps. Its color wasn’t very distinct, and it looked like a silly little deer.
It retreated, its eyes filled with curiosity and caution.
“Deep in the woods, one sees a deer.” It was truly so. If I had known, I would have picked some wild fruit to throw to it.
“Hello there!” I waved happily at it. Because there was a stream between us, it felt safe and didn’t run away.
It ignored me, stepped out again, and on its own, lowered its slender neck to gracefully lap at the water, its ears twitching from time to time.
Fluffy things are the cutest in the world! I watched it with excitement.
Through the reflection in the water, I noticed he was secretly looking at me. I discreetly straightened my posture.
After resting on a stone for a while, we walked a bit further up along the stream. The trees became sparser, and finally, a house hidden in the quiet mountain forest appeared, half-concealed.
I was surprised. “A family actually lives in a place like this?”
I had lived here for so long, yet I had never known?
After saying that, I looked at Tsugikuni Yoriichi and suddenly understood. “Could it be… is it you? Is this the place you wanted to bring me?”
He nodded.
He actually built a house? I was shocked. I kicked off my shoes and walked straight in. “Wow! It’s huge!”
The exterior of the house was ordinary, but the interior was a hidden gem.
It was exquisite, spacious, and bright.
Visually, it was extremely comfortable.
The air was filled with the pleasant, refreshing scent of bamboo and wood. The mountain chill seemed to be blocked out by the house, and it was unexpectedly warm inside—warmer than at the foot of the mountain.
I looked around and found simple furniture, such as tea cups, though they looked brand new and unused.
I turned my head in disbelief. “Did you build this alone?”
“Mr. Gotō provided quite a bit of advice and help.”
Then he added, “If I were driven away, I would have come here to live.”
So that’s why he didn’t say a word and was ready to leave just like that…
Live here alone? That would be too lonely, and the design and structure of this house didn’t look like it was for a bachelor.
Every detail here was handled with such care; it felt like I hadn’t just entered a house, but into his inner world.
I quieted down and looked carefully, only to discover that everything here existed in pairs.
This guy.
I gave him a meaningful look.
I felt like a leader inspecting the results of a project. I walked to the backyard, and it impressed me once again.
Inside were planted flowers wisteria, wild lilies, mountain roses… they were clustered together in a secret little garden. Beside it was a small pond with red and white koi swimming inside.
Further away, there was even a bamboo shed specifically for poultry, though it was currently empty. Next to it was a patch of dark, freshly turned soil.
“The land hasn’t been fully cultivated yet…” he said.
Farming, growing flowers, raising poultry…
It was… the perfect, god-like life of a hermit.
The most suitable place for a human to live imaginable, keeping company with the heavens, birds, flowers, mountains, and nature.
A shock still lingered in my heart.
This clearly wasn’t something completed in a day or two; it had been polished over a long period of time, and everything had been finished without me ever knowing.
Didn’t he just go up the mountain to chop wood? My mind was full of questions. He didn’t return any later than anyone else!
I surveyed the place and blinked as I asked, “I asked you so many questions just now, and yet I missed the most important one.”
“Yoriichi, when exactly did you start liking me?”
“The first time we met,” he replied crisply.
That early! My memory was a bit fuzzy; I only remembered that he wasn’t as tall then, that he was somewhat fragile, gloomy, introverted, and shy and back then, wasn’t he only…
Ah, he had bad intentions even at such a young age.
“The sun has fully risen.” He said this and looked toward a certain spot. “The flower has bloomed.”
Was he reminding me?
Weren’t the flowers always blooming? I watched curiously in the direction of his gaze, only to discover that the pond was actually quite cleverly designed.
I hesitated. “Is that… a person?”
There was a small tree planted by the pond. I hadn’t paid attention to it at first, but looking closely, I realized it resembled a person.
It had green hair, a delicate face, one eye was a deep hollow, and its intertwined roots extended into the pond as if it were playing in the water. It even had large, broad leaves on its head. At that moment, a very beautiful blue flower was blooming by its ear.
“This is… Little Green,” I murmured to myself.
“I felt it looked like the Little Green you described the moment I saw it. I thought you would like it.”
How can anyone take someone else’s nonsense so seriously?
I sat down slowly, a smile on my face, but tears slipped out uncontrollably.
My heart felt as sour and astringent as a steamed bun soaked in tears, yet in the end, it was filled with sweetness.
“I like it, I love it… I love everything here. Let’s come here to live.”
I cried ungracefully for a while and wiped the tears away with the back of my hand. When I looked back at Little Green, the flower by its ear had vanished like an epiphyllum in bloom.
“Huh?”
I rubbed my eyes. “The flower is gone.”
What a pity, I wanted to look at it a bit longer.
I looked at him.
“Hmm.” He nodded calmly. “The Blue Spider Lily has a short blooming period. We can see it again tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.” I nodded at first.
“Wait? What flower???” I jerked my head up.
My mouth hung open, tears still comically dangling from the corners of my eyes. The feeling of being moved to the core faded, replaced by only three words:
What the heck?
“The, Blue, Spider, Lily?” I repeated, word for word.
After receiving an affirmative answer, I turned my stiff, mechanical neck toward the messy-haired spot near Little Green’s head.
Holy mother of god!
Isn’t this the flower that Kibutsuji Muzan had been searching for for thousands of years, the one that would allow him to no longer fear the sun and become a truly perfect creature?
“Where… where did you get this?” I asked with difficulty.
He didn’t notice the turbulence of my heart and answered in an incredibly flat tone: “I saw it on the path while chopping wood, and I’d seen it in medical books before. It was the most beautiful blue flower I had seen in two years, so I planted it here.”
He looked at me. “Come to think of it, that might not be accurate. The books mentioned its blooming time is uncertain, sometimes it might not bloom for a year, but it blooms almost every morning.”
“At first I thought I had mistaken it, but I checked carefully and it was definitely it. Perhaps I was just lucky and found a better variety?” He tilted his head, feeling puzzled by the flower’s non-compliant behavior.
《Picked it up on the road》《It blooms every morning》《I was just lucky》
I went numb. What an incredibly “brag-worthy” statement.
I looked at him with complicated eyes. All I could say was… as expected of a full-level human favored by the gods?