Seiji still didn’t get any of what was happening. And Yuki didn’t seem to be able to make up any reasons why to satisfy Seiji. So he just kept walking up the steps towards the two women with a very fused expression on his face.

  Before he even made it the st ten steps, Aoi leapt down at him. She hung off his neck, settling in very close to him. fusion didn’t override his personal fears. Even though he grew more used to Aoi being a ghost, it didn’t ge how his body felt whe too close to him. Seiji leapt almost teers into the air and nded more than a safe distance away.

  His body still was shaking with chills, which he tried to cover up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

  Yuki sweated a little bit watg things py out. ‘Huh, that’s an oddly stroion. I know he wasn’t really that familiar with girls before, but still…’

  The ghost worked up a mix of disappoi and affe, naturally the sed being pletely missed by Seiji. “You’re being so cold, dear. Getting embarrassed being in front of pany?” She floated back over to Seiji trying to stick close to him only to get him to finish running the rest of the distao the main grounds of the shrine.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?! Why are you ag so weirdly?” Seiji bolted a little more to get some extra distanbsp; Ever since she came in tact with him, his body’s sensitivity heighted. “Weirder than usual,” he corrected, remembering that Aoi was already a strange one.

  While Aoi ended up chasing Seiji around the grounds, Nerine just watched it all py out. She kept her posure during the whole thing, never saying a word.

  Or so it seemed. Yuki finished his own walk up the stairs, taking things more at his own pabsp; ‘Eveoie’s looking a little shaken. Well it’s not like she wasn’t already getting a little heated earlier.’

  * * *

  Yuki recalled when he walked into the shrine. He found Shoji poking his head through the door as though he didn’t really belong in his own home. “Your brother and grandfather fighting again?” he inquired, hoping that he didn’t startle the boy with his sudden arrival.

  The little boy looked back, pulling his head out, holding up a fio mouth. “Quiet, we’ve got a visitor.”

  “A visitor? So yrandfather’s doing some ceremony or advice giving session.”

  Shaking his head, he pointed in motion for Yuki to look inside. “Something much more iing.”

  Now Shoji had his curiosity. The boy was naturally excitable and curious about almost anything. So it made Yuki wonder what had Shoji so ied. He carefully leaned over top of Shoji to line up his eye. Siheir home was small, the main living space was immediately open to the front, making it incredibly great for peeking or spying. “Hmm…I don’t see…I see a woman, a ghost?” It didn’t take long for Yuki to piece together enough of Aoi’s appearao uand what she was.

  However, Shoji insisted on him looking a little further. ‘What’s got him so excited, a ghost is pretty , but as I heard from Seiji they already knew about ghosts. Must be the one he was saying was a deadbeat mooch.’ Then he saw anure that forced his head to tilt around further. “Nerine!”

  “Shh!” ordered Shoji pulling Yuki away from the door.

  “What’s Nerine doing here? She should be ba her homend.”

  “So you know the tall dy?” The thought of more information made Shoji lean in closer. He seemed to uand immediately that there was a story there.

  Sweating a little, Yuki stammered a bit in thought. ‘I had fotten how excited he gets at these things. He eats up all of our stories.’ Panning around the site of the shrine grounds reminded Yuki again of their situation. ‘I keep fetting Shoji’s their pride and joy. He must be locked up here whenever he’s not in school.’ However, he couldn’t think for long. Shoji kept leaning in more pressing for information. “Um-erm…Seiji knows her better than me.”

  “Ooh!” Shoji’s eyes lit up so fast it seemed like they would igo stars on the spot. “My brother has a hot fn girlfriend! He’s two-timing!” The notion seemed to make him giggle.

  The whole versation turn floored Yuki. He wasn’t sure where to start. ‘Where’d he learn such words…kids these days…’ Yuki sweated further, not certain how he should actually respond. ‘I had thought so too, they did seem to be close, but Seiji’s so dense. He only seemed to be treating her like a friend rather than something more special. Though Nerine’s rather hard to read herself, ly sure how she feels oter either.’

  Sneaking back to the door, Yuki checked ba on the room. Now that he khe situatioer, he could read the temperature. It was ice cold almost when he peeked inside. It felt like even the air was stale from holding its breath.

  He pulled back to look at Shoji. “Yikes, this is bad…I know this setup all too well and Seiji’s not going to uand and barge straight into the middle of a hurrie.”

  Shoji grinned with excited nodding to Yuki. “Should be really fun to watch!”

  “Since when were you so precocious?”

  * * *

  While Seiji and Aoi provided the physical edy for the se, Shoji resurfaearby Yuki. “It’s lookily like it does in those books!” He seemed to be getting more excited by the moment as though he was living a dream.

  Yuki looked a little incredulous at Shoji, but he started to piece things together. “Have you by any ce been borrowing your friends’ manga?” It was starting to make sense for him.

  Shoji o him. “Yeah! They gave me all sorts of things! They are really iing to read. Seeing things happen like in those fighting stories was so cool! I didn’t think I’d get to see more of them py out!”

  Patting Shoji on the head, he uood the se all too well. ‘I had the same sort of rea, though it quickly disappeared when I realized that this was reality not a fantasy… Shoji seems to be young enough not to make that leap so quickly…’

  “Big Brother’s already closer to having a harem than you, Yuki and you’re the main character!”

  Yuki had to nod a little in agreement with his assessment. “You may be right about that. Though I do have more female friends than male ones, now that I think about it. Not like any of them other than Yumi has any romantiterests though.”

  Actually being a sun from the excitement, Shoji looked up to Yuki. “Oh wow, so you do have a harem!”

  “Chiharu’s a tsundere, but so is Seiji. This is a battle story, not a romanbsp; So you’d have to bend pretty hard to try to make that work.”

  The two boys’ versation had drawention of Nerine. While she outwardly didn’t seem to be making any iion, as Saki would to shut them up for their idiocy, her face was bright red. It seemed that she had finally cracked.

  Yuki finally remembered he o y off the fourth wall and tried to get a little more serious. Coughing a bit, he redirected the versation. “Why do you know about harems? You’re too young for that!”

  “Huh? But I was told that it was every boy’s dream.”

  “Well I…” He saw Neriaring at him further. She seemed to want to do what Saki normally did, but was held back by her sense of respebsp; Yuki was still the King, even if he was ag more like a child. The joke had run its course. “… reality and dreams are different. It’s best to focus on one!” He wasn’t really sure if he was helping things anymore. It wasn’t quite the type of versation he expected to be having with Seiji’s little brother.

  “But don’t some marry all of the girls?”

  “Please help me escape this edy skit…” The situation only became more difficult for Yuki to expin. ‘Shoji’s too young to uand romand he seems to be having too much trouble s fantasy from reality… I o do something…’ Yuki searched around the grounds fns of anything. A distra would be all he needed. Then it jumped out at him. “I think your brave you enough eai for now. He seems to be really scared and we ress the stain.”

  Chapter 308 – Mixed Messages

  It took a few minutes for Yuki to catch them. The only way he was able to end the chase was to use his powers to restrain Aoi enough that Seiji would calm down. Once Yuki actually made an effort, Shoji expio him the real cause of Seiji’s as. Surprised and amused, Yuki mao settle it all ahem to sit in a room.

  “…umm…” Yuki made sure to pce Aoi and Nerine on opposite sides of the table and they still made the entire room unwele. Most of it came from Aoi, but Nerine only seemed to make it worse by providing almost ion to Aoi’s jealousy.

  Brave and dumb, Seiji had enough of Aoi’s attitude towards Nerine. “She’s going to be uest. So I expect you to be polite to her!” He still didn’t get the source of the problem though.

  “Guest?! But I thought you said that you had no room fuests!”

  Seiji’s eyes fttened a little as he looked at Aoi. “We have no room fhosts. People that are actually living are a different story.”

  Aoi took it about as anyone would expebsp; Her surprise hardly covered up well. When she gred over at the other woman, Nerine seemed to have a slightly smug look on her fabsp; It only enraged her further. “Fine! I see how it is! I hope you have fun with your living woman!” Aoi then disappeared from all of them.

  ‘That could have goer,’ thought Yuki. He looked over to Seiji to see if he po do anything. Remaining as blind as always to what was going on, he made ion to it. “Shouldn’t you go after her, Seiji? She seemed upset.”

  “To hell with her! She’s annoying anyway.”

  “But…” Yuki bit bae of his words knowing how this all looked. He tried to dial in how much he used his books to mirror reality.

  “Besides, she’ll e back eventually. I ever be rid of her.” Seiji motioned dismissively to Yuki oter. More pressing matters came first in his mind. “What are you doing here, Nerine? Isn’t it forbidden to leave Atntis?” Then Seiji recalled everything that happened with Yuki. “The cil hasn’t sent you to attack Yuki again?!”

  Nerine leaned back a little as Seiji rose. He got a little too close for her fort. Shaking her head, she wanted him to sit back down before she answered. It took him a few moments, but she had her space again. “No, I wasn’t sent by the cil. In fact, they shouldn’t know about my visit.”

  A familiar sound for Yuki, he had a bit of an idea of what was going on. “Demosthenes sent you then.”

  “That’s right, Your Majesty.” It pleased her to find someohat seemed to pick things up quickly.

  Yuki held up a hand to interrupt her before she tinued. “Drop the formalities. I’d like to keep that a secret around here. There may be ears listening that I don’t want to know. So just call me Yuki if you want to address me.” All the problems that he had to deal with seemed trivial, but it was just ahing he o keep under s. ‘If Demosthenes and my father are right, I don’t want her slipping while we’re out iy.’

  “But I ’t—“

  “This is an order. Are you going to refuse an order from me?”

  A plicated expression surfaced on Nerine’s fabsp; She had to obey him, he was the Ki her training told her to give him the respect he deserves. The flict silenced her.

  Waving his hand like none of it mattered, Seiji dow all. “It’s just Yuki. You don’t o stand on ceremony for him. You don’t o be so stuffy about these things, Nerine.”

  Unknown to Seiji, the tension rapidly increased in the room. Only Yuki uood it. It made him sweat watg Seiji crashing so fast and he did not even uand it. “Seiji…that might have been…”

  “What? We’re all friends here, o treat anyone differently.”

  Sighing, Yuki knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. Across the table, he saw how Nerine was taking it all. He could only defuse things. “So why are you here? Somethihenes needs from me?”

  It took her a bit to respond to Yuki, but she focused ba the task. “No. I’ve bee as an ambassador, though giveure of the situation it might be better to say that I’m here as a ral aid.”

  “ral aid? What do you pn to do?” Some of it made sense. He had an idea of what Demosthenes pnned.

  “I’ll be here so that you’re able to unicate with the homend. And if anything does happen I’ll be informed immediately of the situation.”

  “So a messenger. It’ll be good to know what’s happening. I did everything I could to ease tensions, but it’s not a perfect setup. I expect future flicts to still arise.”

  “And if they do, I’ll inform you immediately.”

  “Right.”

  Seiji jumped bato the versation, as it seemed the two of them settled their matters. “That expins Nerine’s presence, but what about you Yuki? I don’t see Saki with you. Just paying me a visit?”

  Pressed on his own situation, Yuki quieted up quickly. His mind had nearly fottehing that was happening. Ihe shrih them, it all seemed so far away. Unfortunately, he knew what had to be done. ‘All I’m doing is running away…’ It was something he had to fabsp; “Things have gotten plicated ba my neighborhood.”

  “What the UN doing something?”

  “No, that’d almost be more wele at this point. The best I describe it…war has broken out and friends are killing friends…”