Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 25

The half-youkai white fox girl... Shiro fidgeted and glanced outside through the oxcart's curtain.

There is still no sign of anyone at the entrance to the dark underground tunnels, even to her, a half-youkai, whose senses are far more acute than those of humans. It makes the girl's tail and ears wilt with a worried expression on her face.

"Oh my, oh my? Are you so worried that you won't eat the sweets I prepared for you?"

At the sound of her voice, Shiro turns her head. Inside the oxcart, which is unusually spacious compared to the size seen from the outside because it has been transformed into a "stray house," Shiro sees a girl sitting on a cushion in the center of the oxcart, picking a bowl of brown sugar from a bowl in her hand while sitting on the cushion and resting on the side of the cushion.

Kizuki Aoi... that was the name of the white fox's Lord, who was young, bewitching, and elegant in her luxurious clothes.

...and also the Lord of the young man whom Shiro is worried about right now.

"B-because...!! The one who's coming with him is... Hamu!?"

The white fox tries to respond to her lord's words as she rushes to the beckoning hand, but her words are blocked by the brown sugar that has been shoved into her mouth. The refined sweetness of the brown sugar spreads in her mouth. With a little dissatisfaction and a little more excitement from the sweetness, she bites into the brown sugar, swallows it, and spins her words again.

"That person, who is accompanying him, was with Tomobe-san the other day...!"

Shiro had noticed. At that time, at that meeting, that girl with purple hair was clearly wielding a sword with the intent to kill him. And if the Lord in front of her hadn't stopped the blade just in time...

"Hehehe, you're right. That was a bit much, was it? But that was partly because I encouraged her a little too much. So, forgive me?"

Aoi childishly says while covering her mouth with her white hand, which is already covered with the wound due to her original shallowness, the robustness of her body as an exorcist, and the many expensive medicines.

"U... Ugh..."

When she apologized like that, Shiro couldn't pursue it further because of the absolute difference between their positions.

She also somehow knew what was going on. The conversation after Tomobe was out of the room... the content of the conversation itself was one thing, but more than that, there was something strange about the tone of her voice, and she sensed from what might be called a sixth sense that the strange hostility at the last fight.

Though, there was no proof...

"Um... aren't you worried about Tomobe-san, Princess?"

Shiro asks fearfully. She has been serving this lord for several months now, and in that time, she has seen the Lord in front of her show her all sorts of meanness towards the young man, both major and minor. On the other hand, there is a strange softness to him, and she also understands that there is no clear malice in him. No, or perhaps it is...

That's why Shiro is puzzled. She wonders why she is so mean to him, then.

"...he's so mean."

"Huh...?"

Kizuki Aoi's words left Shiro puzzled. She did not understand the meaning of those words. At least as far as she could remember, the young man who looked like a big brother didn't seem to have any aspects that could be called that mean.