It was like you were watching TV normally, and the screen suddenly switched from a scenic documentary to a first-person view of a roller coaster—and a face-down one at that.
She lay in her chilly apartment room, staring at the small, non-glowing mana lamp on her ceiling. Yet, her consciousness was simultaneously broadcasting a completely different image: the warmth just below a collarbone, and a finger tracing across her back.
“Wait,” Qiluo said to the ceiling.
The finger traced a circle right on her spine.
“Wait! Hold on!”
Another circle.
Qiluo flipped her pillow over and pressed her burning cheek against the cool side. The pillow quickly warmed up, and from the other side of the contract, Yuki Kurokawa's steady heartbeat transmitted over. Each beat felt like someone gently tapping against her palm.
Yuki Kurokawa was asleep, but her hand wasn't. Every few dozen seconds, her fingers would twitch unconsciously.
Stroking Star-trail's ears, pinching the back of Star-trail's neck, and pulling Star-trail a little closer into her embrace.
Just as a sleeping person would naturally pull the blankets over themselves, Yuki Kurokawa's body would naturally pull Star-trail into her arms in her sleep.
“Does she usually sleep hugging a pillow?” Qiluo analyzed dryly, speaking to the wall. “She's treating Star-trail like a pillow. Yes, that must be it. Just a habit. Nothing more.”
Star-trail's tail was pressed a little uncomfortably in Yuki Kurokawa's embrace, and it twitched unconsciously.
Then Yuki Kurokawa's fingers immediately followed, gently rubbing the base of its tail as she mumbled in her sleep, “...Don't run away.”
Qiluo buried her face in her pillow.
It couldn't run anywhere. Star-trail's mana reserves were barely enough to maintain its form, and her main body only had a few scraps left.
The room was freezing, but her face was hot enough to fry an egg. There had to be something wrong with the physical laws of this world. Why did a person's face get this hot when they were embarrassed? The heat could have been much more reasonably distributed to her toes.
At two in the morning, Yuki Kurokawa rolled over. She scooped Star-trail out of her arms, changed her posture, and buried her face in the fur on the back of Star-trail's neck.
Qiluo sat up in her apartment.
The back of the neck.
That was the most sensitive area on Star-trail's clone, originally designed to improve the efficiency of mana exchange between the clone and the environment.
At the time, she had thought it was a genius design. What magical creature didn't need efficient mana exchange?
The sensation of her nose brushing against the fur, the humid warmth of her breath spreading through the hair, and the faint, fleeting softness of her lips accidentally pressing against it.
All of this was delivered intact into Qiluo's consciousness.
“I'm working overtime,” Qiluo said to the dark room. “I'm basically working overtime right now. This counts as a workplace injury.”
At three in the morning, Yuki Kurokawa began talking in her sleep. It was intermittent and hard to hear clearly.
Qiluo could barely make out a few syllables. It sounded like “Mom,” then “no,” followed by a string of mumbled denials. Then her brow furrowed—even in her sleep, her brow was furrowed—and the fingers holding Star-trail tightened slightly.
Qiluo quieted down in her apartment.
She stared at the ceiling, listening to the girl's intermittent sleep-talking. Yuki Kurokawa's breathing was becoming uneven in her dream.
Qiluo hesitated for a moment. Then, through Star-trail's clone, she gently wrapped its tail around Yuki Kurokawa's wrist. The starlight particles glowed faintly in the darkness, like a tiny, warm-yellow nightlight.
Yuki Kurokawa's brow gradually smoothed out. Her breathing stabilized. She snuggled a little closer to Star-trail, her lips brushing against the star-shaped mark on Star-trail's forehead, leaving a kiss so light it was almost imperceptible.
“Thank you... for coming home with me,” she mumbled, before sinking completely into a deeper sleep.
Qiluo pulled the bedding up over her face in her apartment.
“...You're welcome,” she mumbled.
At five-thirty in the morning, the sky began to pale.
Qiluo was still tossing and turning. She counted sheep, from one to a hundred, but every single sheep turned into starlight particles from Star-trail's tail after jumping over the fence. She counted backward from a hundred to one; this time the sheep were normal, but her mind was completely filled with the lingering sensation of Yuki Kurokawa's kiss.
That was just a normal physiological reaction when someone's mouth brushed against something while half-asleep.
Yuki Kurokawa had just happened to touch Star-trail's forehead. It didn't have any special meaning. Absolutely no special meaning whatsoever.
Qiluo rolled over, folding her pillow in half to prop her head up. Then she rolled back.
“...I can't sleep.”
Qiluo rolled over under the covers, lying flat on her back, and covered her eyes with her arm.
Exactly seven o'clock. The alarm rang on time.
Qiluo Tian Gong reached a hand out from under the covers, fumbling around to turn off the alarm. She lay in bed for a few more minutes before slowly sitting up.
Her body felt heavy and her head was slightly dizzy—a classic hangover feeling from excessive mana consumption. But it was much better than when she had crawled back from the alley last night; at least her legs weren't shaking anymore.
Her mana had automatically recovered a small portion during her sleep, just enough to maintain a basic temperature.
A thin layer of condensation had formed on the inside of the window. Outside, the sky was a pale bluish-gray, and the sun hadn't fully risen yet.
She reached up to touch her forehead. It was still burning. It wasn't a side effect of mana depletion. It was because of something else.
“...First, eat,” she muttered to the empty air.
She quickly got out of bed, washed up, and changed into her school uniform.
The girl in the mirror looked no different from yesterday, except for the slightly darker circles under her eyes. She splashed cold water on her face. The light blue ribbon of her school uniform was tied slightly tighter than usual, as if to physically remind herself to cheer up.
Breakfast was the pineapple bun she had brought back from the convenience store last night.
The bread was no longer soft, and the sugar on the surface had hardened into tiny chunks from the cold. But she still ate it bite by bite, chewing each mouthful thoroughly.
There was physical education class today; if she didn't eat well, she wouldn't make it through.
Star-trail was currently curled into a tiny silver-white ball of fur, sleeping on Yuki Kurokawa's bed.
She directed a small portion of her consciousness over to take a look. Yuki Kurokawa wasn't awake yet, lying on her side with one hand loosely draped over Star-trail's back, her fingers buried in the soft fur of its neck.
Qiluo quickly withdrew her consciousness.
“Pineapple buns are so delicious,” she said to the empty room, completely out of context. Then she stuffed the last bite of bread into her mouth, stood up, slung her schoolbag over her shoulder, and headed out.
On the train to school, she stood in the corner of the carriage holding onto a strap, swaying gently with the train's motion. Her own face was reflected in the window, along with the blurry outlines of other passengers.
She ran through today's schedule in her head.
At school, the morning would consist of normal classes. During lunch break, Rei would likely come find her to eat together, so she had to be ready to handle whatever topics the other girl threw at her.
The first period in the afternoon was physical education, running on the track.
Although her current physical fitness wasn't bad, her depleted mana would cause her stamina to drain faster than usual. She needed to think of a reasonable excuse to slack off in advance.
And then tonight. Tonight, she needed to observe Yuki Kurokawa.
In her role as Star-trail, on the first day of the contract, a new Magical Girl had just completed her first battle. According to the common sense of this world, a magical creature should provide the new contractor with sufficient guidance and support during the early stages of the contract.
Star-trail was with Yuki Kurokawa right now, and she herself was about to cross paths with Yuki Kurokawa at school.
As long as Yuki Kurokawa didn't discover that Star-trail's true identity was Qiluo Tian Gong, everything would be fine.
“...It'll be fine,” she cheered herself up, looking at her reflection in the train window.
After walking into the classroom and sitting down, she opened her textbook on her desk, blocked her face with it, and closed her eyes to rest for five minutes.
“Tian Gong-san—!”
Qiluo moved the textbook away from her face. Rei was standing in front of her desk, with two sparkly decorative stickers under her eyes that looked like they had been peeled off from a magazine freebie.
“Good morning,” Qiluo replied.
“Good morning! You look so tired!”
“...I didn't sleep very well last night.”
“Eh, are you nervous? A new environment can definitely cause insomnia. Let me tell you, when I transferred schools as a kid, the night before my first day at the new school, I tossed and turned until three in the morning—”
Rei babbled all the way from the causes of insomnia to the plot of Magical Girl Meruru she had stayed up late watching last night, then jumped from the plot to today's weather forecast, before veering into the topic of physical education class without warning.
“Oh right, Tian Gong-san, the first period this afternoon is PE! Are you good at running? I'm super bad at it; every time I finish, I feel like I'm about to die—”
Qiluo propped her textbook back up, hiding her expression.
PE class, long-distance running with depleted mana. I really might die this afternoon.
“I'm not very good at it either,” she replied flatly.
“Then we're the Bad-at-Running Alliance!” Rei clapped her hands happily. “It's fine, we can just run slowly. It's not like it's an exam. Oh, and today's PE class seems to be combined with Class B. Speaking of which, Kurokawa-san is in Class B, the one I mentioned to you last time—”
“I know,” Qiluo cut her off.
Rei tilted her head, seemingly trying to determine if that meant “I know who she is” or “I don't want to talk about her.” She chose not to press further and instead started complaining about how ugly the gym uniform colors were.
During lunch break, Rei's bento box was printed with the same round cartoon white rabbit. Rei continued her completely illogical, jumping topics while she ate, while Qiluo nodded in response from time to time, occasionally chiming in with “Is that so?” or “Wow, amazing.”
She had found this to be the most low-effort way to cope; Rei seemed to only need an auditory acknowledgment, not any substantive commentary.
As lunch break ended, Rei closed her empty bento box and suddenly asked, “Tian Gong-san, are you a bit curious about Kurokawa-san?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because this morning, you looked toward Class B's direction quite a few times. You don't usually look toward the door.”
“...I was just thinking about other things.”
“Ohhh—” Rei dragged out the syllable, but didn't press further. She stuffed her bento box into her bag, stood up, and stretched. “Good luck in PE this afternoon, fellow member of the Bad-at-Running Alliance.”
When the bell for the first period of the afternoon rang, Qiluo had already changed into her gym uniform in the locker room. Tachibana High School's gym uniform consisted of a white short-sleeved shirt and navy blue athletic shorts. In front of the locker room mirror, she tied her hair back into a tighter low ponytail.
Her depleted mana made her skin paler than usual, and her lips lacked color. She gently pinched her lower lip with her fingernails to give it a bit of color before walking out of the locker room.
On the track, some early-arriving students were already warming up. Then Qiluo spotted Yuki Kurokawa. Her long hair was tied into a low ponytail draped over her left shoulder, and her eyes were fixed on the track. She stood there quietly, doing nothing.
Rei was chatting with a few girls from Class B, but Qiluo wasn't paying attention. Yuki Kurokawa's gym uniform made her look even slenderer than her school uniform, and a small section of her collarbone was exposed at the edge of the collar.
Qiluo instinctively lowered her gaze, then realized she had been staring at her. She couldn't look anymore.
The PE teacher blew the whistle to assemble. The physical fitness assessment for this semester wasn't complicated: two laps after warming up, followed by a few sets of basic fitness tests.
After the bell rang, the students from both classes were mixed into groups. Qiluo was assigned to the third group. As she walked toward her group, she caught sight of Yuki Kurokawa in the second group out of the corner of her eye, walking steadily toward the starting line.
Rei sidled up to Qiluo at some point, following her gaze forward, her eyes sparkling with a frantic urge to dig up gossip.
By the time Qiluo withdrew her gaze, it was already too late. Rei's voice sounded low and excited beside her ear: “Tian Gong-san, you've been staring at Kurokawa-san this whole time. Do you two know each other?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“We don't.”
Rei stared at her with those round eyes for a few seconds, then suddenly smiled and patted Qiluo on the shoulder. “If you don't know her, why don't you just go introduce yourself after PE?”
“I really don't know her,” Qiluo said, sitting down on the steps by the edge of the track to wait for the second group to finish. Yuki Kurokawa happened to be running in the middle of the second group's pack. The white shirt made her look very agile, and she maintained her position in the middle throughout.
Qiluo looked down at her palm. Her mana was recovering, but at a snail's pace.
“Third group, get ready.”
As Qiluo stood up, Yuki Kurokawa happened to be adjusting her clothes on the grass opposite her. Her cheeks had a very faint flush from the exercise. Her gaze swept over to the third group's starting area and collided right with Qiluo's. They held eye contact for less than a second before she looked away, her expression unchanged.
Yuki Kurokawa didn't recognize her. Even though they had met in the hallway in that “love at first sight” moment, and even though she had slept in Yuki Kurokawa's bed all night.
Yuki Kurokawa looked at her as if she were just a regular person. What a cold woman.
Oh no! What kind of thoughts are those? Get out of my head.
Qiluo pulled herself together and focused on running. The first lap was fine; she ran in the back-middle of the pack, her breathing steady. But halfway through the second lap, her depleted mana began to demand its toll.
She ended up falling to the very back by the time she crossed the finish line. Rei ran over, holding out an unopened bottle of sports drink.
“Thanks, Rei.” She twisted the cap open and took a small sip. The sports drink was sweet and cold, and as it slid down her throat, she felt a small segment of her stamina bar replenish.
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