Substitute Toyokawa Shoko, you can become stronger by breathing

Kujo Renji took the hair dryer and sat next to the girl.

The warm wind, accompanied by the roar of the machine, blew the girl's short golden hair.

His movements were far from gentle as he casually combed her hair with his fingers, drying it as quickly as possible.

Chu Hua, who was sitting on the ground, felt as if he was in heaven.

She could smell the pleasant fragrance of shower gel coming from Xiaoxiang, and feel the trembling sensation brought by his fingers occasionally brushing across her scalp.

The noise of the hairdryer was very pleasant to her ears.

She closed her eyes and greedily enjoyed this moment of tenderness.

She knew that Xiaoxiang at this moment was completely different from the Xiaoxiang in her memory.

The current "Xiaoxiang" is cold, powerful, and full of dominance.

But the girl's occasional, almost charity-like "concession" made her sink a little.

She even felt that she began to like this feeling.

I like being ordered around by him and being treated like his property.

Because only in this way can she truly feel that she is "needed" and "valuable".

The hair was blow-dried quickly.

The sticky evening breeze slipped in through the half-open window, rolled up a corner of the curtains, and then dissipated silently.

There was no main light on in the living room. There was only a floor lamp casting a dim light in the corner, making the shadows of the two people on the wall slender and gentle.

Kujo Renji turned off the hair dryer, the incessant buzzing sound stopped abruptly, and the world instantly returned to tranquility.

She casually threw the still warm hair dryer onto a stool beside her, making a slight "bang" sound.

"All right."

Her voice carried a hint of casualness, as if she had completed a task, and it drifted calmly into the air.

Sanjiao Chuhua, who was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, slowly opened his eyes.

The girl who had just been enjoying the blow-drying service obediently did not get up immediately.

She maintained that posture, only slightly tilting her head back, her long, completely dry hair cascading down her shoulder blades like a waterfall, and a few playful strands of hair were gently scratching Xiangzi's calves.

"Xiao Xiang..."

She closed her eyes, as if that would help her organize her words better. Her voice was a little unclear, mixed with a deep sense of uneasiness.

"Xiao Xiang, have I played the role you need well?"

Jiujo Renji lowered his eyes and looked at her.

The light came from the side, casting a shadow under her long eyelashes, making it difficult to see her expression at the moment.

She didn't answer immediately, but simply reached out and brushed her fingertips lightly and absentmindedly across Chuhua's soft hair. The touch was like confirming the texture of a precious piece of porcelain, delicate and smooth.

After a while, she finally spoke, her voice still flat.

"Passed."

These two words are both affirmation and an invisible boundary that clearly divides "performance" and "reality".

Chu Hua's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.

She suddenly opened her eyes, and her purple eyes were instantly filled with an anxious emotion.

She was like a student waiting for her final grades but only received a passing grade, desperate to know where she had gone wrong.

“Just qualified?”

There was a hint of anxiety in her voice, and she didn't even bother to hide her desire for more recognition:

"So what should I do? Work harder? Or... Or are the lyrics not good enough? I can change it, I, I can..."

She was a little incoherent.

“Be yourself.”

Kujo Renji interrupted her eager confession, stopped moving his fingertips, and instead gently pinched a small bunch of her hair and entangled it between his fingers.

This action made all of Chu Hua's subsequent words stuck in his throat.

“You don’t have to play anybody.”

Her voice remained calm.

"All I need is you. Whether you're Mikado Hatsuka or Mikado Hatsune, you'll always be my asset."

It is this "asset theory" that sounds cruel but is full of absolute possessiveness.

She stared at Xiangzi blankly, letting his fingers leave a trace of warmth on her hair.

This time, it no longer gave her the distorted sense of security she had felt in the car last time.

It is a kind of sudden enlightenment and instant clarity.

She was finally convinced of her guess.

The feeling of incongruity that had troubled her for countless days and nights, about "Miss Xiangzi" becoming strange, found its final and only answer at this moment.

The person in front of her was not the Xiaoxiang she knew.

So, who is he?

None of this matters anymore.

Because, no matter who he was, one thing was certain—it was "him" who, in his most desperate moment, broke through the door and pulled him back from the brink of death. It was "him" who, in the most brutal and unreasonable way, branded his life with the mark of "possession."

It was "him" who gave me a reason to no longer have to play anyone else.

It took a long time before she seemed to react. She lowered her head a little embarrassedly, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but rise slightly, forming a satisfied arc.

Xiangzi stood up and, ignoring Chuhua who was still grinning foolishly, walked straight to the kitchen.

She took a carton of ice cream and two spoons from the freezer.

"Come and eat." She said without turning her head.

"Oh!"

Chuhua immediately jumped up from the ground like a puppy that had received an order, trotted to Xiangzi, and watched her tear open the ice cream wrapper with eager eyes.

It was a box of matcha-flavored Haagen-Dazs, and it looked very beautiful in green.

Xiangzi handed her one of the spoons and took the lead in scooping a spoonful and putting it in his mouth.

The cool, sweet, slightly bitter tea aroma melted on her taste buds, causing her to frown slightly, but she quickly relaxed.

The two of them didn't say anything, just leaning side by side on the kitchen counter, sharing a spoonful of ice cream each.

The sky outside the window has completely darkened, and the city lights are like scattered stars, twinkling in the distance.

The apartment was so quiet that you could hear each other swallowing and breathing.

"By the way, Xiaoxiang..."

Chu Hua held the spoon in his mouth and spoke in a muffled voice:

"Next week's magazine interview, they want to do a feature on 'creative inspiration' and might ask something about the lyrics."

"If you don't want to answer, you don't have to." Kujo Renji said, "I'll tell my agent about it."

"no..."

Chu Hua shook his head, swallowed the ice cream in his mouth, and looked at her seriously: "I want to answer."

"Ok?"

"I want to tell them that my inspiration comes from the 'present' that I cherish, woo woo—"

Jiujo suddenly reached out and gently wiped away the green ice cream stain on Chuhua's lips with his fingertips, then pried open the girl's mouth with his fingers, interrupting her monologue.

Chu Hua's face suddenly turned completely red.

She felt like a depth charge had been dropped into her brain, all her thoughts were blown to pieces, leaving only the deafening sound of her heartbeat.

"What are you talking about?"

Kujo Renji subconsciously felt that if the girl finished her confession, something very troublesome would happen, so he said casually:

"I went to take a shower."

It was not until the sound of water splashing in the bathroom that Chuhua came back to his senses as if awakened from a dream.

She covered her burning cheeks and felt her heart was about to jump out of her throat.

That action just now... was so foul!

Xiaoxiang, you definitely did it on purpose!

While she was accusing Xiangzi of his "evil deeds" in her heart, she couldn't help but revisit that moment over and over again. It was a kind of possessive intimacy that was more powerful than any sweet words.

She looked down at the spoon in her hand, which still had traces of ice cream on it.

A ridiculous idea popped up uncontrollably in her mind—she wanted to keep the spoon.

This increasingly intense, almost pathological fetish even scared her.

.....

During this period, in order to "ensure" Sanjiao Chuhua's safety, Kujo Renji had to live with him for a period of time.

But now, the crisis is over.

The death of Toyokawa Takaaki is like a huge rock thrown into a lake, the ripples it stirs up will eventually calm down.

After Toyokawa Sadaharu returned to power, for the sake of his family's reputation, he would inevitably whitewash the situation and eliminate all unstable factors.

Sanjiao Chuhua, once a "bargaining chip", has become safe after losing its value to be exploited.

Therefore, the reason to continue living together no longer exists.

What’s more, the mobile phone background receives some silent but presence-filled “alarms” every day.

From Wakaba Mutsu.

She wouldn't call or send long, demanding messages.

She just sent a message to "Toyokawa Shoko"'s cell phone at 10 o'clock every night.

The content of the message is always just a blank, square emoji:

(?_?).

This emoticon does not carry any emotion, but it can express the sender's long-accumulated and deep resentment better than any harsh words.

It reminds Kujo Renji: You haven't been home for a long time.

So, on an ordinary evening with nothing special about it, he decided that it was time to end this "risk management".

At that time, the afterglow of the setting sun was shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dyeing the entire living room a warm orange-red.

The air was filled with the faint aroma of freshly baked cookies. Chu Hua was humming a tuneless tune as he took a tray of freshly baked butter cookies of various shapes out of the oven.

This is a new skill she recently learned and one of the few ways for her to leave her "mark" in this apartment.

"Chuhua."

Kujo Renji's voice came from behind her, calm and without any warning.

Chu Hua paused holding the baking tray and turned around, her face still flushed from the heat from the oven. Her purple eyes were sparkling with anticipation, like a little animal waiting for its owner's praise.

"Xiaoxiang, try this. I added a little almond powder today and it tastes..."

"I'm planning on moving back."

Kujo Renji interrupted her.

The smile on Chu Hua's face froze instantly.

Those sparkling eyes dimmed in an instant, like a candle that was suddenly extinguished.

Her hand holding the baking tray trembled slightly, and the edge of the baking tray made a slight knocking sound against her fingertips.

"...Eh?"

Her brain didn't seem to process the information immediately, and she could only utter a dazed, confused monosyllable.