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"Ah... Uh... Hmm... No, that's absolutely not it! I just innocently wanted to sleep in the same room with Ran!"
Leo was so completely, violently flustered by Kogasa Tatara's blunt, inappropriate two words that he temporarily forgot how to physically speak. He gesticulated wildly with his hands for a long, agonizing minute, his face as red as a tomato, but couldn't utter a single complete, coherent sentence to defend his honor.
"Alright, alright, I officially admit it," Leo sighed in absolute defeat, his shoulders slumping. "But we aren't legally married yet, so we can technically only hug and peacefully cuddle in bed. We absolutely can't take the final, biological step."
Looking down at Kogasa and Chen's wide, innocent, completely uncomprehending big eyes, Leo's guilty heart felt forcefully purified by their purity. He could only admit dejectedly to himself that he absolutely, unapologetically lusted after Ran's beautiful adult body; he was a despicable, hormone-driven human.
"Fine, then Chen and I will be good girls and sleep in another room tonight so Master can cuddle."
The more incredibly sensible and understanding Kogasa Tatara was about the situation, the more it glaringly highlighted Leo's own filthy, desperate heart. When walking obediently upstairs to the third floor, she even politely pulled away the hovering One-Eyed Xiao San umbrella, who had desperately wanted to stick close to her master's side as usual.
"Hahahaha... hic!"
Once the innocent children were safely gone upstairs and out of earshot, Aya Shameimaru could no longer hold back her amusement. She burst into strange, cackling, crow-like laughter that echoed in the empty farmhouse. She clutched her stomach painfully with one hand and frantically pounded the wooden dinner table with the other, tears streaming from her red eyes.
It was absolutely hilarious! The Almighty World Lord, reduced to a stuttering mess by a child's question! It was a massive, tragic pity she didn't have her professional camera running right now, or she definitely would have recorded this humiliating, priceless scene for the front page of tomorrow's paper.
"Laugh! What the hell are you laughing at?!" Leo roared, his embarrassment turning into defensive anger. "If you laugh one more time, I'll permanently send you off to the chicken coop to hatch eggs for the rest of your life!"
Leo violently pulled out his smartphone from his pocket, his thumb hovering threateningly over the system app, and fully prepared to ruthlessly kick Aya Shameimaru completely out of Stardew Valley. He was a veteran, tyrannical Tieba forum admin back on Earth; if he arrogantly said he'd kick someone from the server, he'd absolutely kick them, without even bothering to think of a valid, logical reason!
"Hahaha, okay, okay! You two lovebirds carry on, carry on! I'll just sleep at my own home tonight. Tomorrow, I'll definitely be able to hold and photograph the new Little Fox baby!"
Aya consciously pulled out her glowing ID Card, still giggling, and voluntarily returned to Gensokyo before Leo could press the button. She desperately wanted to spread this incredibly juicy, embarrassing gossip throughout the entire Youkai Mountain network. It was so incredibly amusing! Mating, hahaha! So brilliant!
The glowing spatial passage hummed and closed with a pop, and the massive, empty cottage immediately fell completely silent.
Leo awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he looked over at Ran Yakumo. She appeared perfectly calm and unconcerned on the surface, meticulously wiping the table, but the nine massive golden tails behind her back were already tied into an incredibly tight, trembling knot of pure nervous energy.
Despite his earlier bold, lustful words and inner thoughts, Leo was actually a tragic, inexperienced old bachelor who had been completely single for over twenty miserable years on Earth. He usually only interacted professionally with middle-aged, married female clients in their forties and fifties at his old tech job. He was such a pure-hearted, pathetic gamer guy that he would actually get nervous and sweaty for half a day if a random teammate in Future War opened their voice chat and happened to be a real girl.
He honestly didn't know what on earth to actually do next.
"Well... it's getting late," Leo stammered, glancing awkwardly at the ticking wooden clock hanging on the cottage wall—a little past eight in the evening—desperately trying to make normal conversation to break the tension. "Why don't we just rest for tonight?"
"Mhm..."
Her voice was so incredibly soft it was almost inaudible over the ticking clock. Ran Yakumo immediately stood up, abandoning the cleaning rag, and quickly retreated up the wooden stairs to the master bedroom without looking back.
Lord Leo, honestly, what on earth was he saying so casually in front of the innocent children! her mind screamed.
After standing frozen alone on the first floor for a long while, listening to the crickets outside, Leo scratched his head in confusion and finally went upstairs as well.
Since Ran hadn't locked or even closed the heavy bedroom door, that must logically mean his entry was permitted, right?
Bright, silvery moonlight streamed beautifully through the large, uncurtained window, so the spacious room wasn't too dark. Leo saw Ran Yakumo covering her entire head tightly with a thick, woolen blanket on the large bed, only her fluffy, twitching golden fox ears exposed outside the covers. They trembled slightly upon hearing Leo's heavy footsteps enter the room.
This was the absolute first time Leo had ever seen Ran Yakumo sleep in her humanoid form on a bed. Usually back home, because Chen, Kogasa, Flandre, and a chaotic group of others constantly crowded the mattress, there physically wasn't enough space for her human body, so she would protectively curl up at the foot of the bed in her massive Great Fox form.
Nervously taking off his dusty outer clothes, Leo, dressed only in his thin silk pajamas, hesitantly lifted the edge of the blanket and slipped inside the warm bed next to her.
"Why can't I hear absolutely anything?"
In the guest room next door, Kogasa Tatara pressed her ear flat against the cold wooden wall, frowning.
Someone who literally spent all day mischievously hiding in dark, lonely graveyards specifically scaring innocent people absolutely couldn't possibly be a perfectly "good" child. She had only obediently agreed to sleep separately because her beloved Master explicitly requested it, but her Master absolutely hadn't specifically said anything in the rules about not eavesdropping on their adult activities!
"What sounds? Leo just seems to be quietly chatting with Lady Ran, meow."
Chen also leaned in closely, pressing her furry ear to the wood. The biological advantage of having four functional channels (two human ears and two cat ears) became immediately apparent: Kogasa physically couldn't hear anything through the thick wood, but Chen's superior hearing could easily pick up the faint, muffled sounds of their voices.
Inside the Master Bedroom.
"By the way, Ran, what are your actual, honest thoughts about me? You already know mine perfectly well; Satori Komeiji ruthlessly exposed absolutely everything back at the hot springs—pure, unadulterated lust."
Lying stiffly on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, Leo was suddenly, intensely curious why Ran had actually agreed to this intimacy. All they had really done was peacefully cook a few meals together and live together as a chaotic family for a very short period—a mathematically negligible amount of time for an ancient Great Youkai with a nearly infinite lifespan—yet she had agreed to be with him and share a bed just like that.
"Ah, that." Ran Yakumo slowly poked her beautiful head out from under the heavy blanket, also staring up at the wooden ceiling beams. "At first, Lady Yukari formally, strictly requested as a mission that I interact more intimately with Lord Leo to thoroughly investigate exactly what kind of human he is and what his weaknesses are."
Ran disdained lying or deception in personal matters; whatever Leo explicitly asked, she answered honestly, without any strategic concealment.
"Then... I slowly discovered that Lord Leo is incredibly approachable and absolutely doesn't put on arrogant, aristocratic airs like the Youkai Lords. Even though he is the absolute, omnipotent Master of a pocket dimension, he can happily sit in the dirt and eat cheap food with us, and play happily with the children all day. He is a very, very gentle person."
"Finally... taking care of Lord Leo's daily needs feels a bit like taking care of little Chen, which is quite interesting and fulfilling."
Saying this, Ran smiled softly in the dark. She realized that while meticulously taking care of Leo's meals and schedule during this time, Lord Leo sometimes genuinely acted just exactly like Chen: he loved to lazily sleep in past his alarm, often showed a wonderfully childish, naive side, happily squatted by the muddy fields eating raw strawberries with the Fairy Swarm, played silly video games with them, and stubbornly had to be called several times before finally coming back inside when it was time to eat dinner.
Although her master, Lady Yukari, is also exactly like this in her daily habits, Lady Yukari is purely, selfishly lazy and manipulative. Lord Leo, however, often passionately tinkers with delicious food and fun, creative projects for the farm, sometimes working for several days straight without rest just to make someone smile. The incredibly abundant, diverse new recipes at home were all created by Leo's hard work. The fun wooden slides and carved tree hollows in the farm designed specifically for the Little Fairies were also painstakingly made by Lord Leo's own hands.
In this specific, caring regard, he is completely, fundamentally different from the selfish Lady Yukari.
"Huh? You're actually raising me like an overgrown pet cat?!"
Leo snapped his head to the side to look at Ran, utterly horrified by the comparison. No way! He wanted Ran to be his romantic, equal wife, not his strict, doting mother! He wasn't some pathetic, bridge-blocking mama's boy!
"No, no, I just find genuinely taking care of Lord Leo very enjoyable and fulfilling," Ran chuckled softly. "I really, truly like Lord Leo. I feel incredibly relaxed and safe living with you, and of course, as a Youkai, there's always a bit of natural, biological admiration for your absolute strength. You are the omnipotent Master of this world, far, far superior in raw conceptual status to us Youkai."
Under the warm covers, Ran actively, bravely reached out and took Leo's hand for the very first time. Their slightly cool fingers clasped together tightly, and Leo's face immediately, violently flushed red in the dark, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Let's... let's just sleep," Leo stammered, his mind blanking. "We still have to wake up early and continue exhaustingly exploring the rest of the island tomorrow."
"Pah! What an absolute, pathetic beast!"
Meanwhile, far away in Gensokyo, at the cozy Lost Home.
Yukari Yakumo, Eirin Yagokoro, Yuyuko Saigyouji, Yuuka Kazami, the two goddesses from the Moriya Shrine, Megumu Iizunamaru, Remilia Scarlet, and a massive, chaotic group of nosy old folks were all aggressively, shamelessly peeking directly into the Spring Island master bedroom through a dark, voyeuristic Gap secretly opened in the air by Yukari.
Seeing their beautiful, elegant Great Fox actively, romantically confessing her deep feelings while the dense young man showed absolutely no physical, romantic reaction or initiative whatsoever, Yukari couldn't help but violently spit out a furious curse, slamming her fan against her hand.
"Heh," Eirin Yagokoro smirked, crossing her arms and watching with great, clinical interest. "If the young man had actually made a sudden, aggressive physical move on her in the dark, you would have absolutely called him something much, much worse than a beast, Yukari."
Forget Leo awkwardly doing absolutely nothing but innocently sleeping right now; even if he had actually done 'that romantic thing' with Ran, Eirin would absolutely still watch the entire biological process without fail. As a dedicated, immortal doctor, she always observed all living things with a strict, critical, academic eye, entirely devoid of any personal worldly desires.
"No way! This is my precious, beautiful Great Fox; she absolutely can't just easily, cheaply give herself away to a human like this without a fight!"
Yukari violently slammed her hand on the wooden table, rattling the teacups. For the protective sake of her Great Fox's romantic dignity, she managed to completely overcome her deep, primal fear of Satori Komeiji's mind-reading and proactively grabbed her phone to contact the underground Chireiden.
"Send an urgent, high-priority message to the Komeiji Sisters! Tell them to pack their bags and come over to Stardew Valley immediately! Everyone, the romantic war has officially begun! We absolutely cannot let Ran be so aggressively proactive in this relationship; we absolutely must aggressively force the dense young man to take the romantic initiative!"
After finally, begrudgingly confirming through the Gap that Leo and Ran were genuinely, simply sleeping peacefully holding hands like children, Yukari sighed, opened another Gap directly above her own bed, and slipped exhaustedly inside to sleep.