In the kitchen with the door closed, the aroma of tea brewed with hot water filled the air.
Honestly, in that dizzying list of skills, there wasn't one related to the art of tea ceremonies.
However, perfect-level cooking included tea-related dishes like ochazuke. Expert-level dessert-making also encompassed a wealth of tea knowledge, such as the ideal temperature for serving black tea with certain cakes. The boundaries between the two were actually quite blurry.
Combined with his past part-time job experience, brewing fragrant Keemun black tea with a sweet aftertaste wasn't difficult for Yuu. The tea was even a gift from someone—authentic Anhui Keemun, though it came with a hefty price tag.
After finishing brewing the tea, he started to hesitate about something else:
Should he add a potion to this tea and let the unsuspecting Yuigahama drink it?
He still had six drops of the Life Potion left. As the first friend to visit his home, Yuu didn't mind sharing a bit of the precious life essence with her.
But he felt that if he added it, their friendship would no longer be pure and might very well accelerate in the same direction as Masuzu in the last task…
In simple terms, becoming a couple.
[Drink this, and you'll be mine.]
Yuu absolutely refused to admit that he was already experiencing slight PTSD from the word girlfriend. Just thinking about it irritated him, and he didn't want to dwell on it further.
Unless the system issued a fourth mission.
"Later. There's no rush anyway… The potion won't expire."
In the end, Yuu slipped the bottle back into his pocket. He sighed, picked up the tea tray with three cups of warm tea, and headed to the living room.
"They should be done arguing by now, right?"
While brewing the tea, he heard Sora shouting. If he didn't feel it unnecessary to intervene, Yuu wouldn't have bothered with the tea and would've gone out to mediate.
Now, there were no more loud noises from outside. He guessed they'd reached an agreement—luckily, he'd already said he'd side with his sister, so he wouldn't be put in a tough spot, no matter the outcome.
As for Yuigahama, Yuu believed she wouldn't do anything to make things difficult for him.
His fingers touched the kitchen door. Before opening it, he suddenly paused. A question he'd ignored all day surfaced—
Where did that Cursed Charm go, the one that always returned to his pocket no matter how many times he threw it away?
He hadn't seen it since morning. He just checked his pocket, but the charm wasn't there…
Could it have been reset along with the world's timeline changes?
If so, that was fine. What he feared most was that the bad luck had accumulated, and as the price for an impending disaster, the charm had vanished on its own.
But he hadn't experienced anything bad all day… Did his sister disliking his friend count as bad?
While thinking, Yuu frowned and shouted inwardly:
"System, give… no, explain this to me."
No familiar system voice responded. Instead, a panel suddenly appeared.
System: [This system is undergoing a major update. Please wait patiently, host. Current progress: 3.33%...]
Yuu: "???"
◆━⊰✧⊱━◆
After Yuu said he'd brew tea and closed the kitchen door, only the pink-haired girl with dango-style pigtails and the silver Rosy-haired girl faced each other in the living room.
The large window was tightly shut. The air felt frozen, as if it couldn't move.
It was a bit odd to say they were facing off. Though the atmosphere in the living room was somewhat heavy and quiet, Sora was merely indifferent toward Yuigahama, no longer showing a sharp attitude.
She grabbed the gaming console in front of the TV, connected the cables, and then idly selected a game.
"Sora-chan, you like playing games."
Sitting on the sofa, Yuigahama broke the silence with an obvious statement, trying to make her voice sound friendly and familiar.
An awkward conversation was still a conversation. Being able to talk at all was already a success. She wasn't afraid of being ignored—if nothing else, someone who could befriend Yukino was usually accustomed to this kind of chill.
"Not bad," Sora replied coldly, as expected.
To avoid her brother calling her rude again, Sora at least responded. However, she had no intention of continuing the conversation with Yuigahama.
Propping her smooth, pale cheek with her palm, she stared at the TV screen, but her mind wandered. She didn't know what she was thinking about.
Yuigahama wasn't discouraged. To keep the silence from returning, she tried hard to find a topic that might interest Sora.
"…Enough!"
After answering indifferently, Sora suddenly sat up straight and tossed the game controller onto the sofa.
Her cold, hostile eyes glared at Yuigahama, like a housecat baring its claws and growling in its throat. As if unable to hold back the emotions bothering her, she asked in a chilly voice:
"Let me ask you, did you force Yuu to bring you here?"
"…Force?"
Yuigahama blinked, tilting her head in confusion. "Why would you say force? And with Yuu-kun's personality, could anyone really force him to do anything?"
"I could… But that's not the point." Unwilling to boast in front of her, Sora asked again, "If it wasn't you, who else put Yuu in such a bad mood? Did something happen during the kendo tournament?"
If it was just a bad mood, Sora wouldn't care too much.
But in Yuu's eyes, she sensed a depression and self-mockery unlike anything before…
In front of his little sister, Yuu wouldn't deliberately hide his emotions. In the past, when he got a low test score, he'd openly show his disappointment and quickly bounce back.
Unless it was something he didn't want his sister to know, something serious enough to affect him deeply—at such times, Yuu was just a big brother desperately trying to maintain his dignity.
What Sora wanted to know was, during those four days and three nights in Kyoto, what kind of demon had shaken Yuu's mind?!
"Even if you ask me that… We really didn't encounter anything strange. Besides the matches, we just had fun. The matches went smoothly, and we won. There's no reason for Yuu-kun to be sad, right?"
(Though Yuuki-san did ask some weird questions, that couldn't possibly be the reason.)
Thinking seriously for Sora's sake, Yuigahama lowered her head and bit her lip. She racked her brain, trying hard to recall every past scene.
Fragments of memories flashed through her mind. She muttered unconsciously:
"Yeah, no matter when, I've never seen Yuu-kun show a sad expression…"