Kusari
By the time dinner was ready, the mountain house had become a place where pain moved quietly.
It was in the way Hyoudou-san lowered himself to sit like his legs no longer belonged to him. In the way Argento-san held her teacup carefully because her fingers were tired from control practice. In the way Kiba-san’s shoulders stayed relaxed while the rest of her body gave away that she had spent most of the day correcting other people’s mistakes. In the way Toujou-san moved without waste because she always did, but tonight her stillness held the dense, heavy satisfaction of having spent the afternoon breaking someone smaller than her patience.
That someone was Hyoudou-san.
He looked wounded in body, pride, and dignity.
It was difficult to know which injury troubled him most.
The dining room was warmer than the rest of the house. The mountain air stayed outside. Lamplight settled softly over the table, over lacquerware and bowls and steam and polished wood. Himejima-san had cooked enough that the meal looked like something prepared for a much larger household. Rice, fish, vegetables, soup, side dishes, pickles—far too much care had gone into it for this to be only practical fuel after training.
That made it more dangerous.
Shared meals always did.
Buchou took her place at the head of the table and the rest of us arranged ourselves around her almost without thought. I had begun to understand where everyone sat without meaning to learn it. Toujou-san at a useful edge. Himejima-san near Buchou. Kiba-san where she could still see everyone without being central. Argento-san where it was easiest to be included. Hyoudou-san wherever his body landed after suffering. Myself where I could occupy the least intrusive portion of the room without actually being absent from it.
That last part had become harder.
“Eat while it is hot,” Buchou said.
No one argued with that.
Hyoudou-san put his hands together so fast it was almost devotional. “Akeno-san, if I survive this trip, I’m putting your cooking on the list of things worth living for.”
Himejima-san smiled with easy brightness. “My, my. That sounds as though the rest of us are not on the list.”
“You are on the list! Just lower. And more painful.”
Argento-san made a soft sound that might have become laughter if she had been less tired. Kiba-san lowered her eyes toward her bowl, which was the nearest she came to openly smiling in moments like these.
I ate.
The food was good enough to be almost irritating.
That, too, was dangerous. There were things more unsettling than hunger. One of them was being fed by people who expected nothing immediate in return.
Himejima-san noticed me finishing the first portion I had served myself and, without comment, added more to my bowl before I could stop her.
I looked up.
She smiled.
“Eat properly, Kusari-chan.”
The way she said my name was light. Affectionate. Wrong in the precise way something gentle could be wrong when it reached too close to places not built for it.
Still, refusing would have been more conspicuous than accepting.
“Thank you,” I said.
Beside me, Argento-san received another serving with less hesitation. Toujou-san simply took what she wanted and made no apology for it. Kiba-san thanked Himejima-san with the easy, practiced calm of someone accustomed to such things.
Hyoudou-san took a bite, made a noise of immediate joy, and then said around the food, “If the training kills me, at least I’ll go with a good final meal.”
“Eat before you speak,” Buchou said.
“Yes, Buchou.”
He obeyed.
For almost half a minute.
Then he looked up again. “I’m just saying, if this is what mountain training food is like, maybe the climb was worth it. I’ll train without complaint if the food is like this.”
“...Liar….” Toujou-san said.
“Pain and beauty can coexist!”
Himejima-san laughed softly. “That does sound like something Issei-kun would say.”
I kept eating.
Somewhere between the second bowl and the first full silence that was not uncomfortable, I realized the meal had changed shape. It was no longer simply recovery. Buchou began speaking again, and the room tightened naturally around her.
“Tomorrow will be harder,” she said.
Hyoudou-san actually looked offended. “Buchou, that’s a cruel thing to say while I’m chewing.”
“It remains true.” Buchou did not so much as blink. “You all felt the first day. Good. The next days are meant to build on that.”
Her gaze moved first to Hyoudou-san and Argento-san.
“Issei, Asia, your improvement remains the priority. Issei, you are not to think only in terms of winning exchanges you cannot currently win. You must learn survival, retreat, repositioning, and how to remain useful even when outmatched.”
Hyoudou-san’s shoulders tightened.
Not from disagreement.
From the fact that she had named his weakness exactly.
Buchou continued as if she had not noticed. “If a stronger opponent engages you, you are not helping by failing to defeat them.”
“...Right.”
“Asia, you are support. That means support.” Buchou’s voice remained calm. “Do not follow Issei simply because he moves.”
Argento-san’s cheeks colored immediately. “Y-Yes.”
That answer carried embarrassment from more than one direction.
Kiba-san spoke next, practical as ever. “Formations tomorrow?”
“Not yet,” Buchou said. “Tommorw will continue why we started today. The day after will start more advanced training. Basic rotation first. Then paired practices. We will start simple."
Toujou-san’s gaze shifted toward Hyoudou-san.
He noticed and pointed at himself. “Why do I feel like that was secretly aimed at me?”
“Because it was,” she said.
He looked wounded all over again.
I ate in silence, but I was listening harder than I let show.
Formation work. Support timing. Retreat lines. Staying useful without winning outright.
Those were things I understood.
Not as social truths. As battle truths.
Buchou’s gaze moved once around the table and stopped on me very briefly.
“Kusari.”
I looked up. “Yes, Buchou.”
“The task I gave you today is still in effect.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That was all.
No elaboration.
No need.
The others had heard enough already.
A lighter curse application. Less immediate penalty. Better pacing. A way to shape pressure without spending myself so heavily every time I chose to hurt something.
The answer was close enough that it had begun to irritate me.
Not close in spellform. Close in logic.
That was worse.
The room loosened slightly after Buchou let the subject go. Himejima-san steered the conversation away from battle for a few minutes by asking whether anyone wanted more tea, more rice, more of this, more of that. Hyoudou-san took every offer with indecent gratitude. Argento-san finally relaxed enough to laugh once when Toujou-san called him “bottomless.”
Then Himejima-san smiled over the rim of her cup and said, “After dinner, we should all wash off the day properly.”
Hyoudou-san froze.
I did not look at him immediately.
That would have been too easy.
When I did, a second later, he was trying and failing to look normal in exactly the way men look when they have already imagined too much and know it.
I had to stop my tail from swaying from my amusement.
Himejima-san’s smile deepened.
“The outdoor bath is lovely at night,” she added.
Hyoudou-san swallowed.
Argento-san made a small, nervous sound into her cup.
Toujou-san looked at him and said, “...Don’t get any ideas.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You don’t have to,” she said.
Buchou, who had either chosen mercy or cruelty depending on the angle from which one viewed it, simply said, “Issei can use it after we are finished.”
Hyoudou-san looked like a man hearing both divine revelation and a death sentence at once.
That expression would have been almost funny if it were not so nakedly obvious.
“I have no complaints,” he said.
We could all tell.
Himejima-san tilted her head. “My. Such restraint.”
“I am the image of restraint.”
“You’re drooling,” Toujou-san said.
“I am not drooling!”
He was not.
Barely.
Dinner ended with the house settling into a second rhythm. Dishes were cleared. Water heated. Lamps adjusted. Towels gathered. The mountain darkened beyond the windows while the interior grew warmer in answer.
The outdoor bath had been part of the house from the beginning, but until the mention of it at dinner it had remained simply another structure in the estate grounds.
Now it had become a fault line.
I followed the others because not following them would have drawn more attention than necessary.
The night outside was cool enough that the heat rising from the bath felt visible even before we stepped inside the screened space. Steam curled upward into the mountain dark. Stones framed the water. The air smelled faintly of cedar and mineral heat.
Himejima-san undressed first, as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
That, perhaps, was the real problem.
It was natural for them.
Not modesty.
Not prudery.
Not innocence.
Just a way of existing in shared space with no cost attached.
My own body had never seemed strange to me in the practical sense. I knew how I looked. I knew what people saw when they looked. That was not new.
What was strange was being expected to step into that shared vulnerability without barter, without transaction, without anyone claiming the right to interpret the act for me.
Argento-san’s nervousness was almost a relief.
She turned pink before she had even fully unfastened her robe and spent the next several minutes trying not to look at anyone and accidentally looking at everyone anyway. Kiba-san was calmer, but not entirely untouched by the situation either; she carried herself with practiced composure, though there was the slightest extra care in how she settled into the water among the others. Himejima-san seemed to find all of it charming. Buchou found it ordinary. Toujou-san ignored it with professional dedication.
I folded my clothes neatly and set them aside.
Himejima-san’s gaze flicked over me, then away, too quick to count as staring and too deliberate not to be noticed.
“Come in, Kusari-chan,” she said. “The water will help.”
I stepped in last.
The heat rose around me at once, sinking into the muscle-deep ache left by the first day’s training. Soaking my tail. For one moment—one very small, treacherous moment—I understood why people allowed themselves to close their eyes in places like this.
Then Toujou-san sat down beside me.
Not close enough to touch.
Close enough that the choice was obvious.
On the other side of the bath, Kiba-san settled with the same relaxed posture she used almost everywhere, though the setting made it feel softer than usual. The placement, unintentionally or otherwise, reinforced the shape of the group: Buchou and Himejima-san at the center, Argento-san easier to include, Kiba-san naturally watching over the group, Toujou-san at my shoulder, and me still trying not to feel what that arrangement could imply.
I turned my head slightly toward Toujou-san.
She looked straight ahead.
“...Water’s good…,” she said.
“Yes.”
That was all.
It was enough.
Across from us, Himejima-san had stretched one arm along the bath’s stone edge with the ease of someone born to both luxury and display. Buchou sat more quietly than she usually did, the steam softening the sharpness of her beauty without touching the strain underneath it. Argento-san had finally lowered herself fully into the water and seemed torn between embarrassment and relief. Kiba-san, now that she had settled, looked almost comfortable in the quiet, which made sense. She was better at inhabiting calm than most of us.
No one mentioned Riser.
That was its own presence in the water.
Himejima-san broke the silence first. “I wonder whether Issei-kun has collapsed in despair yet.”
Argento-san nearly inhaled water.
Kiba-san’s mouth curved slightly. “That would be understandable.”
Buchou actually smiled, though only for a second. “He’ll survive.”
“Tragic,” Toujou-san said.
I said nothing.
Himejima-san’s eyes shifted to me. “You’re very quiet tonight, Kusari-chan.”
“I do not think I am more quiet than usual.”
“That may be true.” Her smile sharpened. “The question is whether that is a defense or a habit.”
I disliked that she could ask things like that as if they were idle observations.
Buchou’s gaze flicked briefly to her Queen, then to me.
I answered the easier part. “Both.”
That earned me the smallest look from Toujou-san.
Argento-san blinked and then smiled with visible surprise, as if she had not expected me to answer at all. Kiba-san looked mildly interested rather than shocked, which was somehow easier to bear.
Himejima-san laughed softly. “There she is.”
There who was remained undefined.
I preferred it that way.
The conversation shifted after that, as if the bath itself made things drift rather than move directly. Himejima-san commented on the mountain air. Argento-san admitted she had never stayed anywhere like this before. Kiba-san mentioned having visited estates and retreats before, but not one under quite these circumstances, which earned her a dry look from Buchou. Buchou said very little unless directly addressed. Toujou-san remained where she was beside me, saying almost nothing and somehow making that a form of company.
When Buchou did speak at length, it was not about training.
That surprised me more than it should have.
“The mountain house belonged to my family long before I was born,” she said, looking out toward the dark line of the trees. “I came here a few times when I was younger.”
Himejima-san glanced toward her. “You used to like it.”
“Used to?” Asia-san asked.
Buchou’s mouth curved faintly. “Now it’s useful.”
The word stayed in the water longer than it should have.
Useful.
I understood that word too well.
Kiba-san’s gaze lowered slightly at that, reading more into it than someone less perceptive might have. Argento-san must have heard the same edge in it, because her expression softened into concern at once. “Rias-Buchou…”
Buchou looked at her, then away.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
That was untrue.
Everyone in the bath knew it.
Himejima-san did not challenge her. Toujou-san did not either. Kiba-san did not either, but the brief stillness in her face said she had filed the moment away.
No one mentioned the engagement directly.
No one needed to.
It sat in the silence with us all the same.
When we finally rose from the water, the night air hit cool and sharp against damp skin. Argento-san hurried to wrap herself first. Himejima-san took her time. Buchou moved with practiced calm. Toujou-san dried off without waste.
By the time some of us were finishing drying and some were getting dressed, there was a noise by the door.
My ears snapped to it before I completely registered what it was.
And then Hyoudou-san appeared.
Not close enough to claim he had been waiting directly outside.
Close enough that no one with functioning eyes would believe coincidence.
He froze.
We froze.
Shirts and towels were quickly put on.
Himejima-san smiled immediately.
“Issei-kun.”
“I was just— I thought that you were already done…” His words lost strength because there were too many possible ways to point out his lie and most of them were simple.
Toujou-san stepped forward exactly one pace.
He took one back.
Kiba-san crossed her arms and gave him a look that was not especially severe, which somehow made it worse for him. “You chose a very suspicious time to arrive.”
“That’s not helping, Yuuto-san!”
Buchou said very calmly, “Was there something important that you needed?”
His eyes betrayed him before his mouth could try again.
Which was unfortunate for him, because his eyes landed on all of us in sequence and lingered where no gentleman’s should. Not lingering obscenely. Lingering honestly, which was somehow worse because it was so obviously Hyoudou-san.
“I—well—technically—”
Himejima-san leaned one shoulder against the hall frame and smiled like she had found a new hobby. “My, my. A young man standing by the bath entrance at night as we getting dressed. Whatever shall we assume?”
Argento-san turned red all over again.
Kiba-san sighed softly, though there was the faintest hint of amusement under it. “Honestly.”
Toujou-san looked ready to hit him.
Buchou looked… not amused, exactly. But not shocked either.
And Hyoudou-san, because he was Hyoudou-san and apparently chose survival by confession tonight, drew himself up with all the wounded pride of a boy who knew he had been caught and decided the best defense was shamelessness.
“All right!” he said. “Yes! I was curious! I’m a healthy teenage guy surrounded by beautiful girls! This is youth!”
The silence after that was extraordinary.
Then Himejima-san laughed first.
Buchou covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders trembling once with the effort of not making it visible.
Kiba-san closed her eyes briefly as if asking for patience from the universe.
Asia-san looked like she might dissolve.
Toujou-san said, “...Disgusting...”
“Natural!” Hyoudou-san shot back.
“Go bathe,” Buchou said, still not quite looking directly at him. “Before I decide the climb back down the mountain would build character.”
That sent him moving at once.
He muttered something about being misunderstood by the world as he fled toward the bath we had just vacated.
I stood and watched him go and, against my better judgment, felt laughter rise under my ribs.
Not because he was dignified.
Because he was not.
Because he had been caught in the exact act everyone assumed him capable of and then chosen to defend himself by loudly declaring his own perversion as if that somehow preserved honor.
It was idiotic.
It was also, in its own way, strangely clean.
Himejima-san’s eyes cut toward me.
I schooled my face at once.
Too late.
“There it is again,” she said softly.
I frowned. “What is.”
“That thing you do when you nearly laugh and then decide dignity is more important.”
I looked away and adjusted the fold of my sleeve, which accomplished nothing.
Beside me, Toujou-san made the smallest sound. Not quite a laugh. Enough to be one if given permission.
Kiba-san’s mouth also twitched for a second before she smoothed it away.
No one gave permission.
Later, in my room, the house settled by slow degrees rather than all at once. Water in distant pipes. A footstep somewhere in the corridor. A door sliding shut. Then quiet.
I unpacked almost nothing. There was almost nothing to unpack.
When I sat down at last, the room felt less borrowed than it had the night before.
That was unfortunate.
The evening returned in fragments while I loosened my hair and folded the outer layer of my robe aside: Himejima-san’s extra serving, Buchou’s voice at the table, Toujou-san sitting beside me in the bath without asking, Kiba-san’s easy place among the girls, Argento-san’s flustered silence, Hyoudou-san loudly declaring himself a victim of biology.
And somewhere among those thoughts, without warning or permission, one small detail changed shape.
Asia’s face when she tried not to laugh in the corridor.
I stilled.
Not Argento-san’s.
Asia’s.
The thought had already formed before I caught it.
I sat there in the quiet room and looked at the far wall.
Then I stood up, crossed to the basin, and washed my face in cold water for no practical reason at all.
When I lifted my head again, the room had not changed.
Only the fact that I had noticed.
That was a mistake.
That could be dangerous.
Which was probably why I did not sleep quickly.