Chapter 31: Marisa Under the Bed.
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"Kihara, you are truly wicked! You actually made Momo write your math homework for you yesterday."
"Hehe, if you are so jealous, you can ask her to write yours too."
Kihara raised his eyebrows with a smug, punchable look of pride, making Anna Yanami want to smack him right then and there.
Momo and Nana had stated they wanted to attend school on Earth, but their father, Gid, had not sent a reply yet. Lala could not arrange their enrollment on her own authority either, so the younger sisters could only stay at home and play for the time being.
"Come to think of it... that invisibility tool they used yesterday was quite interesting. I think it was called 'Camouflage Grass,' right? If Nana had not made a sound on her own, it would have been truly difficult to spot them."
If she used her paper charms to sense them through the power of the wind, Sanae might have a chance to find the two. However, using her eyes alone was completely impossible. Thus, she was highly curious about how Kihara had managed to find them so accurately yesterday.
'I remember... a vampire True Ancestor, whose lineage is even higher than Remilia's, seems to live inside his shadow. Could it be because of her?'
Lala let out a soft laugh and introduced the plant. "That is a very rare plant that is practically extinct throughout the galaxy! However, a lot of rare plants are grown in Momo's garden, so it is not considered that rare over there."
"As expected of the third princess of the galaxy. A tool she uses so casually is a treasure beyond the imagination of ordinary people."
"It might be precious to others, but I remember the 'Camouflage Grass' in the garden makes up a whole forest."
Hearing Lala's words, Anna felt she could build a good relationship with Momo and borrow a leaf for emergencies down the line.
Ever since she saw the view of Kihara taking a shower, she had been using that single memory to cast her nightly water magic. By now, she was experiencing a bit of visual fatigue. If she could get her hands on the "Camouflage Grass," she could refresh her casting materials every now and then.
What a wonderful thing that would be!
While she was lost in her rosy fantasy, Kihara, who was walking in front, suddenly stopped. She crashed straight into his back without any warning.
"Kya!"
"What is that little brain of yours thinking while walking? You didn't even notice the red light."
The moment Anna fell backward, Kihara caught her right hand and pulled her into his embrace. It felt as though a soft piece of marshmallow carrying a girl's faint scent had crashed into his chest.
The tips of her ears peeking out from her hair turned bright pink in a flash. She took a deep breath, seeming to inhale his reassuring scent completely into her lungs.
"Phew~"
Instead of leaving his embrace, she lifted her deeply buried face. Her watery eyes, sparkling like spring mist, stared up at him as her pink lips parted slightly. "I was thinking... I didn't prepare a bento for you today, so how are we going to handle lunch?"
Words that completely mismatched her lovely appearance made a look of surprise flash through the eyes of the amused Sanae. She had assumed that since Anna saw beautiful girls moving into Kihara's house one after another, she finally could not hold back her inner feelings and wanted to confess.
'Does she truly not realize her own feelings, or is she terrified of a change in their relationship, making her afraid to take that step?'
Searching for the answer held no meaning for Sanae. She was a shrine maiden who would eventually return to Gensokyo. In this world, she maintained a bystander's attitude toward most people and things, except for Kihara.
No stepping in, no interfering, just letting things develop freely.
Furthermore, Anna was an obstacle to her sneaking a taste of Kihara behind Reimu's back. The fact that she was not making trouble for the girl was already the best result; guiding her out of her confusion was completely out of the question.
"Lunch is easy to handle. We can just cook by ourselves in the club room. The equipment inside is fully stocked anyway. Lala's Teleportation Phone can carry things, so we can just buy some ingredients at a convenience store on the way."
While Kihara and the others went to school, Momo and Nana, who stayed at home, were currently conducting a "Grand Adventure in Brother-in-Law's Bedroom."
Although Nana was very against searching a boy's bedroom at first—believing that entering someone else's room to rummage around was incredibly rude, especially when the target was Kihara, who had stood up to help them stay on Earth yesterday.
However, Momo had lived with her for so many years and naturally knew how to make this tsundere, flat-chested big sister give in. She did not try to convince her. Instead, she clasped her hands behind her back and walked upstairs at a leisurely pace in her rabbit slippers.
"If I find something inside Mr. Kihara's room, you are not allowed to ask me about it later, okay?"
"Tch, don't treat me like a three-year-old! A boy's room is definitely filled with games or... those kinds of lewd books. I don't care to look at them at all!"
Nana snorted with disdain and turned her back, but her ears secretly perked up to focus entirely on the sound of footsteps coming from the second floor. As a long, creaking sound rang out, she instinctively held her breath and concentrated all her attention on her ears.
"W-What?! The inside is actually..."
Momo did not finish her sentence. Right after, the second floor fell into absolute silence without making another sound, as if she had been swallowed into a pocket dimension.
'I am not going up to look at Kihara's room! I am only going upstairs because I am worried my little sister ran into an accident!'
Having found a perfect excuse for herself, Nana dashed up to the second floor in a single bound. As a result, she saw Momo leaning against the doorframe, looking back at her with a highly amused expression.
"You couldn't hold back your urge to come check it out so quickly? I thought you would last a bit longer."
"Shut up! I just didn't hear any sound from you, so I came up to check!"
"Then thank you for the concern. Since you are already here, why don't we go inside and take a look together?"
The door to Kihara's bedroom was casually pushed open by Momo. The clean and simple room looked even more suspicious in Nana's eyes. You had to know that her own room had never been this tidy.
For a boy's bedroom to be even neater than hers, there must be some hidden, unspeakable secret inside!
She walked into the room under her younger sister's teasing gaze. Momo, who followed her inside, casually shut the door, startling her. Nana complained out of annoyance, "If you're going to shut the door, just shut it! Why make such a loud noise?!"
"That was just a normal door-closing sound. I think you just have a guilty conscience like a thief, right?"
"What we are doing right now is basically no different from being thieves anyway."
Momo was left completely speechless. From beginning to end, she did not consider herself a thief breaking in to steal things. She was merely a girl interested in her brother-in-law's room. Even if Kihara found out, he would surely forgive a sister-in-law who harbored no malice... probably.
Compared to Nana, who was so stiff she did not even know where to put her hands, Momo did not feel the tension of being in a boy's room at all. Without a second thought, she walked to the side of the bed, lay flat, and looked underneath. After all, this was the classic hiding spot for books.
As a result, she did not find any books.
Instead, she saw a gold-haired girl locking eyes with her in pure awkwardness.
"Yo... Yo. The name's Marisa. What a coincidence, are you guys here to look for Kihara-bro to play too?"
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Thank you for reading.