I endured the humiliation and humiliation while being besieged by the ghost story elder sister.

Upon hearing what Arisa said, Ami finally showed a satisfied expression and handed the peeled orange to Nozomi across from her.

Where no one could see, her dark tail, slightly thicker than Arisa's, was quietly removed from the kotatsu and tucked behind her.

For some reason, Nozomi subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, as if she had escaped a disaster.

Followed by.

After quickly finishing the orange that Aunt Ashi handed him, he spoke "kindly" to Arisa beside him.

"Arisa~ come here, we need to talk this out..."

"Eh?"

Although she didn't know what was wrong with Hio, Arisa obediently followed Hio out of the kotatsu and into her own room.

This scene was also witnessed by Ami and Honoka, who was still drinking orange juice.

"What's going on with those two?"

"I guess they had some private conversations that they didn't want us parents to hear."

Asa calmly told Honoka that she wanted to take this opportunity to have a good talk with Honoka about how to best educate children.

the other side.

Arisa, who had been called to the room by Hio, still looked at the boy in front of her with a puzzled expression, not knowing what he was going to do.

Xi Ling crossed her legs and sat on the edge of her bed, then slowly spoke.

"Give me the tail."

"Ah? Why?"

Arisa was completely stunned and stood there dumbfounded.

"Give me!"

She was startled by Xi Ling's shout. Looking at his slightly angry little face, she silently offered her tail to him.

The next moment, without any hesitation.

Hiyo suddenly opened her mouth and bit down on Arisa's devilish tail.

As expected, the excruciating pain caused Arisa to let out a scream, and tears welled up in her wine-red eyes.

She didn't understand why Hiyo would do that...

Chapter Ninety-Five: Recognizing

"Mio, what are you doing!"

Arisa snatched her now-droopy tail back into her hand, looking with a pang of heartache at the tail she usually took good care of to maintain its shine...

Although it wasn't very obvious, she still saw the faint teeth marks on her tail—a good deed done by Nozomi.

But when Arisa looked at Nozomi with some anger, she found that he was also looking at her angrily.

The implication here is rather intriguing...

She tentatively asked Xi Ling.

"Mio, are you... angry?"

"if not!"

"Why?"

Arisa couldn't hold back any longer and asked for the reason.

Then, Xi Ling, who was sitting on the edge of the soft bed with her legs crossed, told her about the tail that had happened under the kotatsu during dinner.

But in Mio's eyes, this was just Arisa trying to make excuses; he had already decided that the troublemaker was Arisa.

however.

When Arisa heard that Hiyo seemed to have misunderstood something, her eyes became a little strange, but she didn't explain anything. She just nodded slightly and took all the blame upon herself.

The consequence of this was that for the next fifteen minutes, she was constantly tortured by the furious Nozomi, letting the boy vent his anger.

a long time.

Arisa's bedroom door reopened, revealing the two people who were still in the living room. Hearing the noise coming from the room, they couldn't help but look over with curiosity.

Suddenly, Hiyo's expression changed completely. She walked straight to the kotatsu and crawled back in as if nothing had happened.

In contrast, Arisa, who came out behind Hiyo, looked completely drained, making one wonder if the two of them should look the opposite of each other.

But Honoka didn't care too much about it. What she was more curious about was how Nozomi made Arisa make that expression.

then.

"Hey~ Mio, where did you two go just now? That wicked woman seems a bit off?"

She leaned close to the boy's ear and whispered a question.

"Well... I guess it's because she deeply realized the mistakes she made that she had that guilty expression."

While Nozomi was chatting with Honoka, Arisa was giving her mother, who was drinking juice, a strange look.

If I hadn't teased Nozomi with my tail just now, then I'm afraid I would only be this one suspect left.

But now, it doesn't seem appropriate to talk about this with her mother. She can only wait until Mio and Honoka leave before asking Ami what exactly happened.

And so they waited until 8 p.m.

Before leaving, Ximiao made sure to wash the bowls and chopsticks they used for sukiyaki thoroughly, and then left with Fanxia after putting on her shoes in the entryway.

As the door closed again, the room fell silent, leaving only Arisa, who had watched Himiko and the others leave, and Ami, who was still huddled in the kotatsu.

Before Arisa could even ask, Asa already knew what she wanted to ask and said calmly.

"You already know?"

"Is there anything you want to explain, Mom?"

Back at the kotatsu, she sat in the spot where Nozomi had been sitting, facing off against Ami.

Two pairs of almost indistinguishable, wine-red eyes stared at each other, as if trying to discern something from each other's gaze.

After a moment of silence, Arisa sighed helplessly, then looked directly into Ami's eyes and spoke.

"This prank went a bit too far, Mom..."

"But the result was pretty good, wasn't it? Mio even bit your tail in anger. You should know what that means to a demon, right?"

As for what she did, Ashi didn't care, taking it as just a helping hand she gave to her daughter.

However, in Arisa's eyes, this was a blatant provocation from her mother.

She slammed her hands on the table, her expression becoming agitated, and shouted at Ashi across from her.

That's not what I want to hear!

Her shout completely startled Ashi, who froze in mid-air with the glass of juice she had just picked up, looking somewhat bewildered.

But Arisa wouldn't stop there. A rare hint of anger appeared in her beautiful wine-red eyes, and her expression wasn't very pleasant.

Just like before, she had been holding back, not losing her temper in front of Ximiao.

"You know perfectly well that Nozomi is my boyfriend!"

"Yes, it was obtained through the power of a demon's wish. How could I not know the aura emanating from Himo?"

Once she recovered, Asami retorted, seemingly not believing she had done anything wrong.

"..."

Seeing that her daughter did not respond, Asahi continued speaking.

"What have you given Himio? Aside from granting him a wish, I see absolutely nothing you've given him..."

"certainly not!"

Arisa instinctively wanted to retort, but she found that her mother's eyes were unusually serious, not like she was joking with her.

"All I saw was that because of you, Ximiao had almost no other friends at school, and even after school, she was always with you, without any world of her own."

If it weren't for the faint, slightly unhappy scent emanating from Himeko, even Ami probably wouldn't have noticed how well he was hiding his emotions.

however.

Arisa, who had not yet realized why her mother had said that, was still trying to defend herself.

"Isn't this how boyfriends and girlfriends should act?!"

"In my opinion, you're just taking out your anger at Nozomi for biting your tail on me, am I right?"

"..."

"For a demon, being bitten on the tail is equivalent to only acknowledging that person for the rest of its long life. Were you angry for a moment just now?"

Listening to her mother's words, Arisa had to admit that, just as Ami said, the moment Nozomi bit her tail, she felt anger... rather than anything else.

"That...that's because it was too sudden, I was startled, that's why..."

Even Arisa herself wasn't quite sure why she was acting this way.

Or perhaps, even she herself couldn't understand the place that Hio held in her heart.

Looking at her daughter's hopeless state, Ami couldn't help but sigh.

It seems she'll be busy tonight. She'll have to ask her future son-in-law, Xi Ling, for more compensation later…

Chapter Ninety-Six: People with Different Thoughts

After a very deep heart-to-heart talk between Ami and her daughter Arisa, Arisa did not show any signs of anything amiss as usual.

At least, Nozomi didn't notice anything different about Arisa.

Until the final exams ended, and the bell rang to announce the exam time, the students in the classroom who had been buried in their exam papers breathed a sigh of relief.