—In the hot spring bath, I have to successfully strike up conversations with at least three beautiful older sisters or elegant married ladies.
When Yukino Yukinoshita overheard Kotomi Izumi muttering this under her breath, she was so annoyed she nearly wanted to give Kotomi a thorough beating. Even though she herself had no idea exactly how she would go about "teaching her a lesson."
Just hearing Kotomi say something like that was enough to spark the urge within her.
If one were to ask what Yukino wanted to do most right now, it would probably be to give Kotomi a firm spanking—hard enough to make her little face flush red with tears.
But very quickly, Yukino calmed herself down. With a bitter smile, she questioned herself:
What's the point of me wanting to discipline Kotomi? Do I even have the right? Yui is her girlfriend. The jealousy I just felt... it's honestly ridiculous...
"Didn't see the hot spring scenery you were imagining? What does that mean?"
At that moment, Yui Yuigahama asked curiously.
When Kotomi had muttered that earlier, Yui had been on the phone with Yuka, so only Yukino had heard it.
Yukino glanced at Yui, hesitating internally. She wondered whether she should tell Yui what Kotomi had just said to herself.
Even if Yui wasn't someone who got angry easily, if she found out Kotomi had such thoughts, she would definitely feel hurt. It might even create a rift in their relationship...
And if a rift really did form between Kotomi and Yui, then for Yukino, it would be the perfect opportunity to step in and snatch Kotomi away.
Yukino Yukinoshita was intelligent. She quickly realized that, given the current situation, this might be the most effective method if she truly wanted to take Kotomi from Yui.
But while she was intelligent, she was also proud.
Her pride and self-respect made her disdain such manipulative tactics. She didn't want to rely on schemes or opportunism to win Kotomi over. She wanted to take her away from Yui openly and honorably—fair and square.
With that thought, Yukino suddenly felt as though her mind had cleared. Carrying a quiet, proud confidence, she spoke calmly:
"It's nothing. Kotomi has always imagined that when soaking in an outdoor hot spring, she could look up and see a sky full of stars. Even though we're in an outdoor bath now, tonight's weather only lets us clearly see the full moon—not a sky filled with stars. She probably feels a bit disappointed because of that."
"Eh? Kotomi never told me that..."
Yui looked surprised. Anything Kotomi wanted, she would carefully remember and do her best to make it happen. But she truly had never heard Kotomi mention wanting to see a star-filled sky while bathing in an outdoor hot spring.
Could it be... she forgot?
The thought hit Yui like a bolt from the blue.
She knew she wasn't the smartest, but she had always been confident in one thing—anything Kotomi had ever said she wanted or hoped for, she would remember without fail.
And yet now, this supposed wish of Kotomi's... no matter how hard she tried to recall it, she couldn't remember it at all.
For a moment, Yui's mood sank, like a child who had unknowingly done something wrong.
Of course, Yui couldn't remember—because Kotomi had never said such a thing in the first place.
—Wanting to look up at a sky full of stars while soaking in an outdoor hot spring.
That so-called wish was nothing more than a lie Yukino had casually fabricated to answer Yui's question.
That said, Kotomi herself was currently in a state of complete detachment after failing to spot any beautiful women in the hot spring. She had entered a near "enlightened" mode, devoid of worldly desires, to the point where she wasn't even paying much attention to the sounds around her.
Naturally, she hadn't heard the conversation between Yukino and Yui.
If she had, she would definitely be confused, complaining as she asked:
When did I ever say I wanted to see a sky full of stars while bathing? What kind of influence do I think I have—to make the entire sky cooperate just so the stars would shine brightly when I'm in the hot spring? Even Valkyries who claim 'the sky belongs to me' couldn't pull that off, right?
After finishing their bath and returning to the changing room, Kotomi noticed that there were now quite a few young girls and mature women who had come to soak in the hot springs.
Her lips twitched.
So she had simply come at the wrong time earlier.
Clearly, there were far more young women and married ladies coming to bathe at this hour.
For a moment, Kotomi felt a faint sting of embarrassment. She had confidently lectured earlier in the day about how timing was important when visiting hot springs—yet now that evening had come, she had chosen the wrong time herself.
Kotomi quickly looked up at the clock on the wall.
8:25 PM.
She silently committed the time to memory, deciding that she would come again at exactly 8:25 tomorrow night. She absolutely did not want to end up bathing with a group of kindly grandmothers again.
To be honest, Kotomi hadn't quite had her fill of the hot spring earlier. It wasn't that the bath itself was lacking—rather, there had been no beautiful older sisters or elegant married ladies present, leaving her with no opportunity to use the carefully crafted conversation openers she had polished in her mind for so long.
The feeling was like spending ten years forging a peerless sword—only to discover, just as you were ready to wield it in battle, that the age of warriors had already ended.
Another reason was that Kotomi felt the dynamic between herself, Yukino, and Yui had become somewhat awkward.
On the surface, they were just good friends. But in reality, she and Yui had already secretly become lovers behind Yukino's back.
While they were in the bath earlier, Kotomi had wanted several times to pull Yui into her arms and tease her a little.
But with Yukino right there, every time she was about to act, it felt as though she could sense Yukino's gaze. In the end, she always held herself back and withdrew her hand.
Whenever Kotomi tried to sneak a glance at Yukino from the corner of her eye to see if she was really watching, Yukino would either be looking up at the sky or staring down at the surface of the hot spring.
It wasn't that Kotomi was shy or lacked the nerve to hold Yui in front of Yukino. If she were that timid, she wouldn't have gotten close with Yui the night before while Yukino was asleep.
It was simply that—for now—Kotomi didn't want Yukino or any of the other girls to know about her relationship with Yui.
Just like how, back then, she hadn't wanted Yukino and the others to know about her relationship with Megumi Kato.
In addition, although Kotomi hadn't asked anything while they were in the bath, she could still sense that something was off with Yui. After saying a few words to Yukino, Yui's mood had inexplicably dropped, like a child who had made a small mistake.
Kotomi wanted to ask her what had happened right away.
But this clearly wasn't the right place, so she decided to wait until they returned to their room.
As the saying goes, discipline children in public, but speak to your partner in private.
Though it wasn't really "discipline"—Kotomi simply wanted to ask what Yukino had said to make Yui suddenly feel so down.
Most of the women in the changing room were either still dressed, wearing yukata, dressed in undergarments, or wrapped in towels. Even though it was a women's changing room, a sense of modesty still lingered.
Compared to the others, Kotomi Izumi was like an entirely different kind of scenery—an exceptional kind of beauty.
After entering, she didn't rush to get dressed or wrap herself in a towel. Instead, she sat down openly on a chair, rolled her wrists, gently tilted her neck, and stretched lazily, confidently displaying her striking figure.
Just a few casual movements were enough to draw nearly every gaze in the room.
Once their eyes landed on her face or body, it was as if they had sunk into a swamp—unable to pull away... or perhaps unwilling to.
Without realizing it, Kotomi had quietly altered the expectations of several girls regarding their ideal partner—making their preferences a little less rigid when it came to gender.
The lighting in the changing room was warm and soft, casting shadows onto the floor.
Perhaps it was just the lighting or the angle, but for several girls staring at Kotomi in a daze, even their shadows seemed to twist slightly beneath their feet.
In the end, it was Yui Yuigahama who noticed the way those girls were staring at Kotomi.
With her strong sense of possessiveness, there was no way Yui would allow other girls to look at Kotomi with such greedy eyes.
Swiftly, she stepped forward and covered Kotomi with a towel, blocking their view.
As a result, when those nearby girls looked at Yui, their expressions carried both envy and a hint of resentment.
The envy was obvious—just from their interactions, it was clear that Yui and Kotomi were at least close friends. Being able to befriend someone as overwhelmingly beautiful as Kotomi was something anyone would envy, even other girls.
As for the resentment, it stemmed from the fact that Yui's action—regardless of her intention—meant they could no longer admire Kotomi's beauty.
Their restrained annoyance was already quite polite. If it had been someone more hot-tempered, they might have said outright:
"Mind your own business!"
Of course, if anyone really dared to say that, Yui would likely abandon her usual timid demeanor and snap back loudly:
"Kotomi is my girlfriend. If you dare look at her again, I'll cut your eyes out with a chainsaw!"
Kotomi had originally intended to continue showing off her figure for a while longer. She thoroughly enjoyed the way these girls looked at her—admiration, envy, the desire to take her place, even the urge to make her theirs.
Kotomi had always liked showing off a bit. With such a perfect opportunity in the changing room, how could she possibly end it so quickly?
It was like a gym locker room—many people deliberately moved slowly while changing, not necessarily because they were laid-back, but because they wanted to show off their hard-earned physique to others of the same sex.
There were two main places to show off one's body at a gym.
The first was the gym floor, where both men and women could admire it.
The second was the locker room.
Just imagine—walking in, taking off your clothes, revealing a well-trained body, and basking in the admiration, praise, and even humble questions from others. That sense of satisfaction was hard to put into words.
Kotomi firmly believed that a body like hers existed to make other girls jealous.
So every time she went into a women's changing room, she would deliberately linger for quite a while. Using this as one of her "methods," she had easily collected the contact information of many young women.
Of course, she didn't keep chatting with most of them for long.
It wasn't that she lost interest—it was just that after becoming a light novel author, she often didn't have time to reply on LINE. As a result, her LINE icon was perpetually marked with a flashing 99+ notification.
She couldn't even remember the last time she had seen it without that red badge.
There were simply too many messages. Even if she dedicated an entire day to replying, from dawn until midnight, she might not be able to get through them all.
Fortunately, she had set up categories and notes when adding contacts, allowing her to easily tell which messages could wait and which required immediate replies.
Getting back to the point—when she saw Yui starting to get jealous, Kotomi smiled faintly and stopped showing off. She reached out and gently patted Yui's head, like soothing a jealous little puppy.
Then she opened her locker and began leisurely putting on her yukata. Every movement carried an elegance that seemed ingrained in her very bones.
It gave the impression that she was a princess from some ancient kingdom.
This wasn't something that could be acted—it had to be cultivated from a young age, absorbed naturally over time.
After getting dressed, Kotomi didn't leave immediately. Instead, she walked over to a vending machine, bent down, and bought three bottles of coffee milk. She had already asked Yukino and Yui what they wanted to drink before leaving the bath.
Since Kotomi had said she wanted coffee milk, the two of them had chosen the same.
As Kotomi bent down, a 22-year-old woman standing nearby caught a faint, fragrant breeze. When she saw Kotomi beside her, bending over to buy a drink, her mind went blank for a moment.
She... she's way too beautiful!!!
That was the only thought left in her mind.
When the three bottles of coffee milk rolled out of the machine, Kotomi picked them up, stood straight, and walked back to Yukino and Yui, handing two of them over.
Of course, before leaving, she didn't forget to cast a charming, captivating wink at the 22-year-old woman—one so enchanting it could make everything else fade in comparison.
If Yui and Yukino hadn't been there, she might not have stopped at just a wink—she might have even blown her a teasing kiss, something unforgettable.
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