The President’s Office within the Fire Finch Guild.
“Damn him, he’s worse than an animal!”
Fire Finch clawed and gnashed at the empty air, as though intent on tearing the invisible man before her into a thousand pieces.
****
The clock rewound to a mere thirty minutes prior.
Waking from a heavy hangover, Fire Finch’s eyes fluttered open to the familiar ceiling above.
Naturally, a room she had occupied for nearly a week held no unfamiliarity.
Yet, none of that truly mattered.
The crucial detail was this:
Fire Finch realized her clothes had been inexplicably swapped for pajamas.
A woman, drunk and spending the night in a man’s house, had her attire changed while she was unconscious.
What could this possibly signify?
At that moment, a flicker of hopeful anticipation had danced in her heart, suggesting a certain someone might finally be ‘getting it.’ However, upon rising, she found herself utterly alone.
Only a curious white entity remained, its gaze fixed intently upon her.
(●—●)
Noticing Fire Finch’s awakening, Big White thoughtfully presented a freshly laundered set of clothes. “Miss Fire Finch,” it inquired, “Master instructed me to ensure your comfort. Did you sleep soundly last night?”
Fire Finch accepted the clothes with an impassive face. “Mm, it was adequate,” she replied.
Her mother’s advice, it seemed, was only effective on normal individuals, and Aya Tone…
…was quite clearly anything but normal.
“Excellent,” Big White responded. “Breakfast is prepared; you may dine at your leisure once you have changed.”
With that, Big White departed the room without a backward glance, granting Fire Finch ample privacy.
‘The aura emanating from this big sister is truly terrifying. It’s best to make a swift exit.’
“…”
As it was the weekend, no sooner had Fire Finch stepped out of her room than she beheld a father and daughter sprawled haphazardly across the floor, lost in slumber.
Fire Finch: [○･｀Д´･ ○]
‘So, you’d rather sleep on the floor than act like a beast?’
‘I am a beauty, am I not?’
‘This is absolutely outrageous!’
Snatching a fried dough stick from the table, she stormed out, slamming the door shut behind her.
‘That stubborn blockhead!’
****
“Aaaah! Ee-yah, ee-yah, oh-oh-oh-oh!”
Situated on the second floor, the President’s Office lay relatively close to the main hall, and with its door left ajar,
…the entire guild was instantly filled with a chorus of wails, echoing like the tormented cries of vengeful spirits.
The sound was utterly bone-chilling.
Yet, apart from a few bewildered newcomers, everyone else seemed entirely accustomed to the racket, continuing their tasks without a flicker of disturbance.
A bewildered newcomer, oblivious to the truth, tugged at the sleeve of a nearby senior. “Senior,” they whispered, “has a monster escaped from a dungeon? That sound is absolutely terrifying!”
The senior glanced upwards, towards the second floor. “Oh, that noise?”
“That’s just our President having one of her ‘episodes’ again. Pay her no mind; she’ll settle down soon enough.”
Evidently, Fire Finch commanded little in the way of a dignified image in the eyes of her own subordinates.
In fact, she and Aya Tone were collectively known as the guild’s two unofficial mascots.
Despite the newcomer’s lingering unease, the senior’s casual dismissal seemed to suffice.
Thus, they quite naturally embraced the notion that their guild president was prone to occasional ‘episodes.’
****
Having vented her frustrations, Fire Finch eventually calmed, sinking silently back into her armchair.
She pulled out her tablet, immediately immersing herself in a short drama.
With some time remaining before the clan meeting, she knew better than to rush things.
Moreover, it wasn’t as if she absolutely *needed* Aya Tone.
‘Hmph.’
When faced with uncertainty, it was always best to simply lie back and relax for a bit.
Just then,
…a shimmering teleportation portal materialized within the office, from which Li Jia emerged with a measured stride.
Without uttering a single word, she approached Fire Finch.
“Clack!”
A photograph was slammed onto the desktop, her eyes brimming with undisguised scrutiny.
“Jia’er, what brings you to your elder sister’s office?”
Fire Finch set aside her tablet, her gaze drifting to the photograph. Imperceptibly, her pupils constricted.
The image depicted none other than herself, hand-in-hand with Xiao Aya Jiu, leaving school.
‘Had Li Jia sent someone to follow her?’
In that fleeting moment, a myriad of possibilities raced through Fire Finch’s thoughts.
Yet, outwardly, she maintained an impeccable smile. “Why, isn’t this me?” she remarked lightly. “Since when did Jia’er develop such a penchant for games?”
Li Jia, ignoring Fire Finch completely, fixed her gaze directly on her eyes and stated, as if to herself, “This little girl is named Aya Jiu.”
A single sentence, yet it spoke volumes.
“And then what?”
‘Then what?’
A confident smile played upon Li Jia’s lips as she retrieved another document from her bag—a photocopy.
It contained Xiao Aya Jiu’s enrollment details.
And prominently displayed in the guardian section were the characters for “Aya Tone.”
“So, this child is the Xiao Jiu that Aya Tone mentioned! I’m right, aren’t I?”
“…”
Fire Finch paused, a momentary flicker of surprise crossing her face, before she burst into hearty laughter.
‘Is that all? She only managed to uncover this much?’
‘And here I was, momentarily startled.’
“Since you already know, there’s no point in me trying to deceive you.”
“This child… is truly Aya Tone’s?”
Despite having mentally prepared herself, hearing the confirmation directly from Fire Finch’s lips still struck Li Jia as somewhat difficult to accept.
‘The child is already this grown?’
“Mm-hmm~” Fire Finch hummed, offering a slight nod before taking a delicate sip from her water cup.
‘Hah, she’s only scaring herself.’
“Then who is this man?” Li Jia pressed, pulling yet another photograph from her bag.
Though the photography was clearly amateurish, the image still distinctly showed what appeared to be a “family of three.”
“Pfft!”
The water Fire Finch had been about to swallow erupted from her mouth in an uncontrolled spray.
‘What the hell!’
‘Wasn’t that me, completely wasted last night? How on earth was that captured?’
Li Jia deftly dodged, narrowly avoiding the sudden spray of water.
She then brandished the photograph at the visibly flustered Fire Finch.
“Are you perhaps surprised by how I managed to capture this image of you in such intimate contact with a certain man?”
“Mm, a little, perhaps.”
Yet…
‘Intimate, she says?’
A faint smile, barely perceptible, touched Fire Finch’s recently wiped lips.
‘So, this is the full extent of Li Jia’s imagination?’
Understandable, given she was unaware of Aya Tone’s return from the Imperial Capital.
After all, who could have possibly imagined that the adorable Aya Tone’s true form was, in fact, male?
With a slight push from her long, slender, pale legs, her chair glided smoothly in a circle around the table, coming to a steady halt directly before Li Jia.
“Jia’er, your elder sister has a favor to ask,” Fire Finch began, snatching the “family of three” photograph.
“I imagine you’re quite curious about this man, aren’t you? Well, I won’t keep it from you; your elder sister has taken a liking to him. Care to offer some advice?”
Li Jia lowered her head slightly, her gaze lingering on her best friend’s face for a silent moment.
“Are you actually serious?”
Fire Finch hailed from no ordinary family, and as for the man in the photograph, Li Jia frankly admitted her poor judgment.
Aside from his face, she saw nothing else about him that seemed worthy of her esteemed friend.
“Of course! Do you think I’d be joking about something like this?”
‘If I can reel in Aya Tone, Xiao Jiu comes as a bonus.’
‘Plus, a legally sanctioned loli who’ll never ‘expire’!’
‘Such a bargain couldn’t even be found in the marketplace.’
‘Before anyone else catches on, I absolutely must whisk him away.’
“I don’t even know the man myself. What kind of advice do you expect me to offer?”
Li Jia, for her part, had been a campus belle in university, not unacquainted with the intricacies of romance.
While it was true that her admirers had always pursued her, and her relationships had ultimately ended, she still possessed a certain level of experience.
She felt perfectly capable of assuming the role of a strategist.
Yet, for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, witnessing her best friend’s fervent desire to find a man filled her with an inexplicable sense of displeasure.
‘What happened to our pact of being proud single ladies?’
“Oh, right.”
Li Jia had never actually met Aya Tone’s true form; they were, in essence, still strangers.
“In that case, never mind. If you have nothing else to do, feel free to amuse yourself elsewhere.”
Fire Finch, without a hint of mercy, issued her dismissal.
Her best friend was proving unreliable, and her mother’s methods were equally ineffective. It seemed she would have to resort to the persistent, ‘soft-and-hard’ tactics so often depicted in television dramas.