After she finished speaking, Miss Mira hung up the phone.
From her tone, Hikari could tell that Miss Mira was in a bad mood.
After all, she'd been trying to reach him for something, but hadn't been able to get through.
And since she said it was important, Hikari quickly packed up and hurried back to the Tsubakihara residence.
———
"Hikari-chan, you're really becoming more and more careless about home, aren't you? You come back less and less often, and every night who knows which woman's house you're sleeping at. You just don't want to come back to the Tsubakihara house anymore, do you?"
The moment he got home, the beautiful and alluring Miss Mira, though with a touch of anger on her face, caught Hikari and scolded him on the spot.
"No, no! I slept at the apartment I'm renting yesterday! Besides, haven't I come back four or five times this week already? I just couldn't make it when I got busy," Hikari defended himself, sounding perfectly justified.
"Is that so? Then why didn't you reply to a single one of my messages today? Were you that busy? What exactly were you doing?", Miss Mira stared straight at Hikari's face, her tone slow and deliberate.
"There was… a bit of a dispute with the neighbor next door at the time…", Hikari answered truthfully, then immediately changed the subject, "Anyway, Miss Mira, you were in such a hurry to find me, what's the matter?"
Instead of answering, Miss Mira asked first, "Do you still remember what I asked you to do last week?"
Hikari looked puzzled, "Which thing?"
Seeing his confused, blank look, Miss Mira was so angry she wanted to grab his ear, "You forgot? The thing we agreed on before, you said during your break you'd help me with it!"
Hikari shook his head, "I don't remember. I've already made plans with a girl to go out and have fun during the break."
"You! You! You...", Miss Mira was so mad she wanted to pinch his cheeks.
Hikari dodged aside, and seeing the charming anger on her pretty face, he suddenly grinned, "Just kidding, just kidding. Of course I remember clearly. Miss Mira asked me to go to the countryside during the holidays to deliver some things to Aunties Miyuri and Sayoko, and to help greet them for you. I remember that."
Hearing that, Miss Mira's beautiful face bloomed with a lovely smile again, "Good, that's what I thought. As expected of my Hikari-chan, I knew you wouldn't forget."
"But it's not just Miyuri and Sayoko, you know, there's also that girl Touka."
"She used to be a teacher and has two daughters, so she's probably really busy. I haven't heard from her in a while. Not sure if she's still in the village."
"Anyway, if you see her, say hi for me."
Hikari nodded, "Got it."
"If you do this well, Auntie will give you a reward when you get back~", Miss Mira suddenly reached out, pulled him into her arms, and said cheerfully.
His head was tightly wrapped in soft, overwhelming warmth.
After getting thoroughly "face-washed," Hikari struggled out with difficulty.
Miss Mira was smiling sweetly at him.
"Reward? I remember that. But, Miss Mira, what kind of reward exactly are you talking about?", Hikari asked.
"Secret. You'll find out when you come back~", Miss Mira said in a teasing tone.
Hikari looked at her soft white hands and her plump, shapely thighs.
He thought of last time.
Before she'd sent him to the countryside the first time, she'd rewarded him with those things.
And this time, Miss Mira said the reward would be even better than before.
'So what kind of reward could it be…'
"Alright, Hikari-chan, it's rude to keep staring~", Miss Mira interrupted, smiling as she caught his wandering gaze that had been roaming over her body for quite a while.
"Ahem!", Hikari coughed a few times, "I wasn't staring, I was just curious about how your weight loss progress has been lately. You've been doing yoga so diligently, after all."
"How do you think it's going?", Still wearing a pink exercise skirt, Miss Mira spun around gracefully. A rich fragrance drifted through the air as she turned.
"There's still a little bit of belly fat, and your thighs are still a little thick, you'll need to work a bit more on—", Hikari began giving serious feedback.
But Miss Mira cut him off with a short, sharp "Hmph!"
"Uh?", Hikari immediately changed his tone, "Actually, you look amazing! Miss Mira, your workout results are great! You've lost so much weight!"
"You're perfectly balanced, curves where there should be, slim where there should be, you've really worked hard, and it totally shows!"
Hearing that, Miss Mira beamed and pulled him into another tight hug, giving him another overwhelming "face wash."
Nearly suffocating, Hikari struggled free and gasped, "Um, Miss Mira, could you help me pack? I need to leave right away. The bus I booked is leaving soon, I've gotta hurry to the station."
"Alright."
Reluctantly, Miss Mira let go of him and went upstairs to help pack.
Once everything was ready, Hikari got into the taxi with her seeing him off.
After she saw him off toward the bus station, Miss Mira returned to her room, planning to resume her yoga routine.
———
But only a few minutes later, the doorbell rang.
She thought Hikari must have forgotten something.
As she stood up, she grumbled to herself, "That careless Hikari-chan, I'll have to punish him a bit before letting him leave again…"
She quickly walked to the entrance and opened the door.
But when she saw who was outside, she froze.
"Huh? You two?"
"What, not happy to see us home, Mom?"
Standing outside were two beautiful twin sisters, both resembling Tsubakihara Mira in appearance, delicate and lovely, smiling brightly at her.
"Yuna, Nina… if you were coming home, you could've at least told me first," Tsubakihara Mira sighed and shook her head.
Standing before her were her two daughters, Tsubakihara Yuna and Tsubakihara Nina.
"Hehe! We wanted to surprise you and Hikari-kun," Yuna, the older sister, said with a grin.
"How's Aunt Kasumi doing lately? And Ayaka and Sayuri, are you all getting along well?", Mira asked.
"Aunt Kasumi's great! And we're super close with Ayaka and Sayuri too. Oh, and they were just asking when Hikari-kun's coming over to play~", Yuna replied cheerfully.
"Then…", Mira wanted to ask a few more things about the Takamine mother and daughters.
But her younger daughter Nina was already too impatient, she grabbed her suitcase and started walking inside, "Let's talk inside, come on, come on."
Mira opened the door wider to let them in.
After the twins set down their luggage, they immediately went to the living room.
When they saw Hikari's jacket still hanging on the sofa, their eyes sparkled.
The sisters walked over, picked it up, and sniffed it. The familiar male scent made them glance at each other.
"Hikari-kun should be home today!", said Nina, the bespectacled and smart one, with conviction.
"But where is he?", Yuna looked around in confusion.
"Yeah, why hasn't he come out to welcome us?", Nina also looked puzzled.
"Is he hiding from us?"
"Yuna, you check his room!"
"Okay! Nina, you check the bathroom!"
"Got it!"
They thought Hikari must've heard their voices and was playing hide-and-seek with them.
But after searching every possible hiding spot in the house, they still couldn't find a trace of him.
Panting, the Tsubakihara sisters returned to the living room, hands on their knees, and asked their mother sitting on the sofa, "Mom, where's Hikari-kun?"
Seeing their anxious eyes, Mira's lips curved slightly.
———
"Mom, Hikari-kun's not home? Where is he?"
After searching the whole house and finding no trace of Hikari, Yuna and Nina were out of breath, their chests heaving as they helplessly asked their mother.
Hearing that her daughters, who'd completely ignored her the moment they came in, were now only focused on Hikari, Mira smirked slightly.
"Hikari-kun? You're looking for him? I sent him on an errand to the countryside. He won't be back for at least three or four days."
"Ah?", The two sisters' eyes widened.
"Yeah, he left not long before you two came home, less than half an hour ago," Mira added, twisting the knife.
"Ah?", Both sisters were speechless.
After all, they'd rushed back from the Takamine household in such a hurry, without even sending a message first, just to give their mom, and mainly, their adorable "little brother", a surprise.
But now that they were home, they found out he'd just left.
Both Yuna and Nina were at a loss.
They'd even brought gifts for him, and now they couldn't even give them.
"Hey, lunch's ready, where are you two going?", Mira called after her daughters, who were now listlessly heading upstairs.
"Not hungry."
"No appetite."
One after another, without turning back.
"So just because Hikari-kun's not home, you're not eating? Fine! Let's see how long you can last! Starve, for all I care!"
Seeing the sisters throw a fit just because Hikari wasn't home, Miss Mira didn't bother spoiling them either.
She muttered under her breath for a while, then went ahead and ate by herself.
"Those two little girls… always fighting over men, huh!"
———
Meanwhile—
Hikari had already arrived at the station in a taxi and was now standing before the long-distance bus.
Looking at the bus bound for the countryside, he couldn't help but recall the destination, Mira's hometown, Ino Village, and the memories tied to it.
Remembering the days he'd spent in the countryside before his past-life memories had awakened, all he could recall besides the sound of cicadas and frogs were the people Miss Mira had told him to visit, Miyuri and Sayoko.
They were Mira's close friends back in the countryside.
They'd always treated him well, too.
When he was little, they often took care of him and were quite fond of him.
But since he hadn't gone back in years, he'd rarely seen them lately.
His memories of them remained from when they were still young and in their prime, two beautiful, charming faces that surfaced in his mind.
He wondered how they were doing now.
Aside from the familiar Miyuri and Sayoko, there was also Touka, whom Miss Mira had mentioned.
She was older than the other two, already a mother, with twin daughters around the same age as Hikari, named Suiren and Aoi.
He remembered that back when he lived in the countryside, he often played with those two girls, they'd been good friends.
But those were childhood memories, the kind that fade with time.
And of course, there was Ino Village's central symbol, the Ino Shrine. The shrine belonged to the Jinno family, the most powerful household in the village.
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