Maki had venomously told me after the fact that because Ryuto had involved me in Amemiya's problems at the time, it had thrown off her plans.

So I knew that Maki wouldn't celebrate Ryuto's arrival. But she wouldn't normally have bared her emotions to quite this extent.

Leaving aside the way she made nasty comments with a smile, of course...

"You shouldn't keep looking at people like they're cockroaches, Princess."

Ryuto's face tightened, as well.

Maki hated Ryuto, and he bore her a grudge in return.

Well, there was no avoiding that since she had held him captive at a hospital and made him disappear from the world. Plus, after everything that happened, he probably hadn't gotten any apology from Maki whatsoever.

Ryuto kicked back his chair and stood up, then walked toward Maki. I gulped reflexively and clenched my hands into sweating fists.

The two of them glared at each other as if they were the worst of enemies. When he was right in front of Maki, Ryuto lifted only his lips into a smile, as if to show her how relaxed he felt.

"Well, I'll be relyin' on your hospitality for a couple days. So thanks."

"No way. Get out of here now."

"I don't have anywhere to stay."

"That's not my problem."

Their wrestling gazes were getting more and more heated, and the air was crackling with tension.

"Maki! Ryuto investigated what happened eighty years ago for us! Besides, Tohko is the one who told him to come."

"So what?"

Even dropping Tohko's name didn't change Maki's attitude. If anything, her eyes grew even harder.

"It ticks me off seeing the smirking face of that sloppy womanizer. Hey, if you put a plastic bag over your head and promise you won't speak another word for the rest of your life, then I don't mind if you stay."

"You some kinda monster or what?"

"Did I manage to get it through your skull that not every woman in this world is sweet on you? You need to thank me."

"Oh, I see. Should I pay you tuition, too?"

"No need. Just get out of here. The mere fact that you exist infuriates me. It's only been a month since Hotaru died and you're making out with another woman, and on top of everything, you do it in front of me. You've got guts."

The heat disappeared from Ryuto's face and his expression grew cool.

"But Hotaru is dead."

There was an incredibly loud noise and Ryuto's knees buckled.

Maki had slapped him. Her eyebrows went up, her eyes flared with rage, and she screamed, "I wish you'd bled to death! I shouldn't have been so nice and taken you to the hospital!"

Ryuto yelled back at her, "Except you held me prisoner when you did that and tormented me by deliberately droppin' apples and melons and whatever in my cut!"

"That's because you wouldn't listen! I should have stabbed you with a paring knife and wriggled it around in your side! Then your heart wouldn't be straying so easily, I bet!"

"It doesn't change anything! Because Hotaru is dead! She's gone now! Doesn't matter if it's one day or one month or ten years! Even if I waited a hundred years, I still wouldn't get to touch Hotaru again or hold her in my arms or kiss her!"

Now what? Ryuto was getting pretty emotional, too. In a screaming voice that sounded as if it had been ripped out of his chest, he shouted, "I can't go on thinkin' about someone's ghost when they're buried in their grave, like Kurosaki did! Only warm, living girls have any hold over me. I have no idea what you're so ticked off about, but don't tear me apart over it!"

Maki's cheeks flushed scarlet.

The next moment, she'd raised a leg and landed a brutal kick in Ryuto's side.

I gasped.

It was the spot where Amemiya had stabbed him.

Ryuto's eyes bugged out and he fell to his knees on the floor.

"You are such an obnoxious little snot," she spat. She swept aside the hair that had fallen across her face in aggravation, then turned her back on him and walked away.

"Ryuto! Are you okay?!"

I ran over to him, frantic.

"-Nngh. Don'cha have any restraint, you bully?"

Ryuto wailed, still doubled over and holding his side. He looked so sad with his slumped shoulders, and for once he actually looked depressed.

I comforted him hesitantly. "Maybe whenever Maki sees you she remembers Amemiya...and it hurts her...and so maybe that was the only way she could manage to talk to you."

"...Prolly."

Ryuto didn't lift his head. I caught a glimpse of him biting down on his lip. His hoarse voice was tinged with pain and desolation.

"If Hotaru were still alive...I mighta loved only her.

"The first time I saw Hotaru, I had this feelin' that this one would truss me right up...If she'd lived, it woulda happened."

"I got this feelin' like I finally met the ideal woman or like she would be someone important to me."

"I always thought if I could meet a girl like that, she'd be all I ever needed."

I vividly recalled him cheerfully talking her up in the restaurant, as if it had happened yesterday.

And how after that, on the day of the funeral, his entire body had been racked with his tears as he tore up Amemiya's letter.

"If we'd had more time, I woulda taken her to all kinds of places. I woulda made her eat a ton and fattened her up. If only she'd love me."

Ryuto had screamed those words in a shaking voice as the streaming rain poured over him and his tears rolled down his face.

"But Hotaru is gone...so all I can do is search forever. For a woman who'll love me so much she wants to kill me and hold onto me tight."

His desolation made my heart ache.

I had been nothing more than a reader of the story of the girl called Hotaru Amemiya.

But Ryuto-he had probably been just as sad as Maki to lose Amemiya. There was probably some pain or despair or sense of loss that only those two, who had been so deeply involved with Amemiya, understood. And maybe because of that, the two clashed with each other.

I heard light steps climbing the stairs and caught the sweet aroma of butter.

Tohko had returned.

Ryuto stood back up. In the same instant, Tohko's cheerful face entered.

"Sorry I took so long."

"Sorry, Tohko, but I gotta go."

"What? Why, all of a sudden?"

Tohko blinked her eyes, holding a tray with a pot of tea and some cupcakes sprinkled with sugar.

With an amiable look, Ryuto grabbed two cupcakes and bit into one of them.

"Mm, that's good."

"C'mon, Ryuto, what's going on?"

"I came all the way here, I figured I oughta sightsee. I'll still be around and I'll come check up on ya."

"Where are you staying?"

"I'm plannin' on stayin' with a nice lady I'm gonna meet later."

He left, waving the hand that held his cupcake.

"Geez, he doesn't regret any of it!"

Tohko pouted and banged the tray down on the table.

I said, "I'll walk him out," and chased after Ryuto.

I called out to Ryuto in front of the gate and he turned around suspiciously. Baron had started barking at him, but Ryuto was distracting him with a cupcake.

"Huh? Konoha? What's up?"

"Why not wait in town till things cool down, then come back? I'll convince Maki to let you stay."

"Oh, I'll be fine. I'm good at findin' places to stay and it's summer so I could just sleep outside anyway."

"I want you to stay, though. If Shirayuki appears again, I won't be able to handle it by myself. And I have no idea what Tohko might go and do."

Ryuto's face broke into a childlike grin. His lips curved up happily, and he looked me up and down.

"Oh-you're worryin' about Tohko?"

"That's not what I meant."

"It'll be okay. Tohko's great to have during a crisis. I mean, she's got a lot countin' against her, but you should follow her lead on stuff like that."

"Ryuto, c'mon."

"Ahhh, I wish I could meet my one and only, too. I wanna see what it's like to love one woman so much it drives me crazy."

He murmured brightly, then patted Baron on the head with a "See ya" and left.

I watched his reliable-looking, muscular back grow more and more distant, feeling uneasy.

Baron nudged at my butt as if to say, "hurry back," and when I started walking, I saw Maki standing in front of the door, her arms crossed and a hard look on her face.

"...He left, right?"

"It's not like Ryuto's forgotten Amemiya. If she were still alive, he said she might have been the only one he ever loved."

The desolation Ryuto had shown earlier came into Maki's eyes.

"...That doesn't change anything," she muttered brusquely, then turned her back. She looked powerful and majestic from behind, and I thought she resembled Ryuto in that way, too.

I sighed and went inside.

Tohko was waiting in the room. I had to get back.

As I was starting up the stairs, I heard voices talking.

It sounded as if things were getting heated.

Was it in that room in the corner? As I walked in the direction of the voices, I heard snatches of the conversation.

"What are we gonna do? There's even a boy who came to get him now. It's just like eighty years ago."

"So if that student kid leaves, we're all going to be killed?"

"But we've kept the promise!"

I felt a chill on the back of my neck and goose bumps on my skin.

Were these the voices of the butler and other servants?