The sky outside was still draped in the pale grey of pre-dawn when Kyaru finished dressing and slipped out into the hallway. The night before, she and gumi had quietly agreed to wake up early and catch Jhin in the act of any suspicious behaviour.
"gumi's not up yet?" Kyaru murmured, puzzled. She padded softly to gumi's bedroom door and knocked. "gumi, are you awake?"
"I'm up, I'm up — just give a second, I'm putting my socks on."
"Okay." Kyaru leaned against the wall beside the door, her mind drifting back to gumi's peculiar look: bandage on the right leg, thigh-high stocking on the left. She sank into quiet contemplation.
The most ti-consuming part of getting dressed must be wrapping that bandage, right?
Just how on earth did she tie the thing?
The exact sa question that had been nagging at Jhin had now surfaced, uninvited, in Kyaru's mind too. Before she could puzzle it out, the door swung open and gumi bounced out, brimming with energy. "Kyaru, let's go!"
"Shh, keep it down."
"Oh — right, sorry. We're trying to catch Jhin off guard, aren't we."
"Exactly. He specifically arranged to room with Kokkoro — he's clearly up to no good."
"You really think so?"
gumi was convinced Jhin had a truly rotten personality and a special talent for tornting her with her most embarrassing monts — but his affection for Kokkoro was sothing everyone had witnessed firsthand. It was genuinely hard to imagine him doing anything improper where she was concerned.
"We'll find out in a minute, won't we."
"Fair enough."
The two of them crept down the stairs on silent feet and positioned themselves outside Jhin and Kokkoro's bedroom door. Kyaru held her breath, reached out, and slowly turned the handle, easing the door open inch by inch.
The aged wooden door let out a faint creak as it swung inward. Kyaru froze instantly, not daring to move a muscle. She pricked up her cat ears and listened intently, and only once she'd confird that the breathing from inside was long, deep, and perfectly steady did she dare to apply pressure again, nudging the door open with even greater care.
"Kyaru, we don't need to open it all the way — just enough for us to sneak through," gumi whispered close to her ear.
Kyaru didn't answer, but nodded and took the advice, pushing the door to about a third of the way open. Then she rose onto her tiptoes, hunched her shoulders, and crept inside one careful step at a ti.
A soft floral fragrance hung in the bedroom — it seed to be drifting from the flower-shaped hair ornant Kokkoro had left on her bedside table.
gumi hadn't even had a chance to take in the scent before Kyaru grabbed her by the cape and yanked it urgently several tis, nearly sending her sprawling. Then, trembling with agitation, Kyaru raised one shaking finger and pointed at the bed tucked against the far wall.
What's got you so worked up?
gumi steadied herself and looked in the direction Kyaru was pointing.
Jhin lay on his side, left hand tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow, right hand still holding a book — clearly he had fallen asleep mid-chapter while reading in bed last night. Nestled against his chest, a small white-haired head peeked out, a pair of distinctively long elven ears poking through the strands of silver hair.
Kokkoro and Jhin were sharing the sa bed.
gumi's shriek shattered the quiet of the room. "Jhin! You absolute scumbag lolicon — how dare you lay your hands on Kokkoro!"
The two of them divided up the work: Kyaru swooped in to rescue Kokkoro from Jhin's "clutches," while gumi brandished her magic staff to stop him from "retaliating violently."
Jhin blinked awake in bleary confusion — only to find, first thing in the morning, a magic staff shoved in his face and gumi yelling words that made absolutely no sense to him. He responded by raising one lazy hand and swiping the air twice to call up her blackmail reel.
"You—!" gumi hadn't expected him to go straight for the nuclear option. Her face turned a deep, splotchy shade of beetroot red with fury.
Jhin grabbed her magic staff and gave it a sharp sideways jerk. The force yanked gumi stumbling onto the bed. Their positions reversed in an instant — Jhin now held the staff and had her pinned beneath it. He let out a slow, languid yawn. "Talk. What's the aning of this at the crack of dawn?"
"Jhin, you need to stop digging yourself deeper!" gumi implored him with the grave, sorrowful tone of soone trying to talk a hopeless criminal back from the brink. "Erase my blackmail material right now and I might still be able to say a few words in your defence."
"What exactly did I do wrong?"
He'd been sleeping perfectly soundly when soone burst in, ripped off his covers, and pointed a staff at his face.
Isn't that just bullying soone who was minding their own business?
Kyaru, clutching a thoroughly bewildered Kokkoro protectively to her chest, levelled her accusation at Jhin. "You tricked Kokkoro into sleeping with you — how is that not a cri?"
"Oh, so that's what this is about." Jhin released gumi's staff and scratched his head with a long-suffering sigh. "Look — are you two seriously treating Kokkoro like a little kid? She's an elf. A hundred and ten years old. She's older than both of you put together. How could I possibly have tricked her?"
Kokkoro, cheeks flushed pink, turned to the two indignant intruders to explain. "Kyaru, gumi... the truth is, we were both reading the sa book in bed together last night, and we simply fell asleep by accident."
"Ah? I — is that so." Kyaru released Kokkoro and exchanged a deeply awkward glance with gumi.
We might have just made an enormous fool of ourselves. What do we do?
You're asking ? I have no idea. And for the record, I only said to have a look — I didn't tell you to march in and rip soone's covers off.
Jhin's going to make our lives hell for this, isn't he.
Absolutely.
The wordless conversation concluded. Kyaru and gumi laughed sheepishly and offered Jhin a hasty apology, already angling for the door — but he had absolutely no intention of letting them slink away that easily.
"Stop right there."
Four quiet words from Jhin, delivered in that flat, even tone, landed like a paralysis spell. Both Kyaru and gumi froze mid-step, legs lifted and hovering in the air, too afraid to put them down.
"You barge into soone's room, rip off their covers, and then just try to walk out — do you seriously think you owe Kokkoro and no compensation whatsoever for being woken up for absolutely no reason?"
"Ha ha, oh co on, Jhin," gumi said, putting on her best breezy market-auntie smile and waving a dismissive hand at him. "We're guildmates now — why so serious? It was a tiny misunderstanding. Let's just pretend it never happened."
"Funny you should say that," Jhin said, smiling like the lord of the underworld. "I was actually just thinking it'd be nice to go for a little stroll around the royal capital with your blackmail reel playing on loop. Can you just pretend that never happened?"
"Please, I am begging you, don't do that — I would have to declare myself dead to the rest of the world!" gumi launched herself at Jhin and wrapped both arms around his leg, wailing dramatically. "I was wrong, okay?! Any punishnt you want — just don't bring out my blackmail material, please!"
Where is your backbone?! How could you just fold like that?!
Kyaru bit back the urge to bury her face in her hands, forced her chin up, and said with all the stubborn dignity she could muster: "W-well, whatever punishnt you've got — bring it on. It's not as though you and Kokkoro sleeping together isn't a real fact, is it."
"You make an excellent point. Which is why I've decided I'll take my ti giving your ears and tail a thorough pat-down as compensation."
The mont the words landed, Kyaru snapped both hands over her most sensitive spots, erald eyes blazing with alarm. "You pervert — so you really were targeting my body all along!"
"Master... perhaps it would be better to just forgive Kyaru and gumi. They were worried about , after all."
"Fine, fine. For your sake, I'll let it go. Today's breakfast is on you two — I'm going back to sleep."
Jhin's attitude gave both girls a sharp, stinging lesson in the aning of blatant favouritism. Since the fault had been theirs to begin with, they couldn't exactly throw a fit about it — all they could do was get out of there as fast as possible. Out of sight, out of mind.
When Pecorine ca downstairs, she found gumi and Kyaru already hard at work in the kitchen and blinked in surprise. "You two are handling breakfast today? Hasn't Jhin gotten up yet? And Kokkoro?"
"He's sleeping in," gumi muttered, her irritation barely contained. She turned back to the pan and began stir-frying the contents with the kind of vicious energy one reserves for a personal enemy.
Stir-fry that, you absolute scoundrel!
____
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