Aunt Xiangzi, how did you manage to live?

"I have never felt happy about being in a band."

On a gloomy, rainy day, in a practice room where the air seemed to freeze, a girl holding a guitar spoke these words with her back to everyone.

This was also the beginning of the disintegration of the band CRYCHIC.

Why did Mu say that at the time?

While looking through old videos, Xiao, who was just over ten years old, looked at the smiling group photos of the girls on her phone with some confusion.

The mother's gentle smile stood out serenely among the radiant girls, much like her aunt, who avoided the camera, yet was still enveloped in the harmonious and warm atmosphere.

She clearly seemed to really enjoy playing music with everyone in this band.

"Why...why does Xiao know that I said that..."

He still remembers the slightly flustered expression on Muna's face when he raised that question.

"Of course, Aunt Lixi told me."

Even Aunt Su Shi had mentioned it to him with a smile and a subtle hint, but unlike Li Xi, she didn't express her feelings so directly, like she had said, "That sentence really made me extremely unhappy."

"...I'm sorry, because at that time, I had someone I needed to protect more than the band."

Mu remained silent for a long time before giving a very brief answer.

Even the still-naive Xiao could read a hint of melancholy in her serious expression, as if she were missing someone.

She seemed to miss her deceased friend.

Ye Xiao had thought more than once that if he could return to his own time and tell his mother that he had also met Aunt Xiangzi, she would definitely show a very rare and interesting expression.

Unfortunately, all he could grasp in this time and space was the wrist of a teenage high school girl named Wakaba Mutsu.

"...?"

A head of white hair that shone brightly in the sunlight, a face as delicate as a doll, skin as pale as a sickly person, and a slender and frail body.

The woman before him clearly resembled his mother from his memories, yet she appeared even more childlike and fragile.

If Ye Xiao caught a glimpse of her in the dessert shop, he would immediately chase after her, his subconscious action preceding his reason, and grab the girl's hand in front of him—but when he calmed down, he would realize that his actions were somewhat impolite.

When she was grabbed by the wrist, the expression on her face was not the tenderness and intimacy that a mother would show when talking to her son, but rather the confusion and helplessness she felt when a stranger struck up a conversation with her.

She is indeed Wakaba Mutsu, but she is also the Wakaba Mutsu who never existed in her own life.

"Ah...sorry."

Realizing that her actions were somewhat presumptuous of Ruoye Mu, the master of this time and space, Xiaoyi stiffly withdrew her hand.

No matter how much he wanted to reunite with his mother, or how much he wanted to recount his bizarre experiences and his meeting with the deceased Aunt Xiangzi, the person in front of him was not the same Ruoye Mutsu he knew.

And for some reason, Mu looked at him with an unusually terrified gaze, and after tremblingly withdrawing her hand, she didn't even dare to meet his eyes.

"Um...are you okay?"

Even if Mu is the type to keep strangers at arm's length, she shouldn't be so apprehensive about a guy who suddenly strikes up a conversation with her.

Just as he was about to say something more, a hand suddenly reached between Xiao and Mu.

"Please take your hand away—Auntie Mud Stick."

A stern-looking girl stepped out from behind Mu, who was as cute as a doll, and put her hand between the two of them.

"...!"

Xiao's pupils contracted slightly, as the girl reappeared before him.

—Toyokawa Shoko remained unmoved, her gaze towards Akira showing no fear whatsoever, which even made Mu take a few steps back.

"I never expected to run into you here... It seems you really do have designs on Mu. Now, explain why you suddenly appeared at my house back then!"

Xiao glanced at Xiangzi, who was on high alert (actually just breathing on him), and then at Mu, who was avoiding his gaze and hiding behind Xiangzi. He roughly understood what had happened.

……

……

In fact, Toyokawa Shoko had always been resentful of the thief who suddenly broke into her house and kept calling her "Auntie," but since she didn't know his name, she decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and call him "Auntie Mud Stick."

It wasn't because he quietly appeared in her bedroom, nor because he called her "Auntie" in a cryptic way, nor because he started rummaging through her room and even pulled out her underwear... Well, she was still a little resentful about the last one.

However, there was one thing she cared about most.

The person who suddenly appeared in his home blurted out the name Mu.

As Wakaba Mutsumi's childhood friend, Toyokawa Shoko knew the girl's social network inside and out. She wasn't the type to enjoy making friends, and the friends she had met were all people she knew from joining Shoko's band. How could she possibly have any contact with men her own age?

Even so, the little thief who kept calling her "Auntie" still called her "Mu" quite fluently.

Could it be some wicked man with ill intentions who's after Mu? Breaking into my house isn't enough; could Mu be his next target?

[Mu, have any strange people appeared around you lately?]

Thinking about this made Xiangzi feel a little uncomfortable. She deliberately sent Mu a message to express her greeting during her five-minute break from customer service. Then she immediately returned to her post with trepidation and answered the next customer's call with a smiling tone.

【? 】

During a break from her busy work, the message Mu sent back was, of course, a question mark that left her bewildered.

If Ye Mu's daily life was already very routine, after CRYCHIC disbanded, her life returned to the routine of going back and forth between school and home. Naturally, she would never have seen the "notorious thief" who had once stormed into Xiangzi's house.

Even so, Toyokawa Shoko still couldn't put her mind at ease.

"Mu, let's have dinner together tonight, and then I'll take you home."

"Well, um..."

Mu Ye, who was always submissive to her, would never refuse; she simply nodded with her head down.

As childhood sweethearts who could talk about anything, Xiangzi naturally recounted the bizarre encounter that day to Mu in its entirety, and Mu also knew that Xiangzi's constant surveillance of him was a form of protection.

but.

"Xiang, you don't have enough money for a meal."

According to Ruoye Mutsu's original schedule for today, she was going to dine at a high-end restaurant near a bustling commercial street.

Chapter Sixteen: Do you have a fetish for love?

"Uh...is that so?"

Xiangzi's originally proud and arrogant demeanor instantly turned into an awkward and dejected state.

Former heiress of the Toyokawa family, Shoko Toyokawa, has only recently become a customer service representative, and she is still finding it difficult to adjust to the downgrade in terms of consumption.

"It's okay, I'll treat you."

Mu blinked as she looked at Xiangzi, her expression unchanged. Of course, she knew the difficulties her childhood sweetheart, whose family had fallen on hard times, was facing.

"No, no need! Then I don't need to eat. You can eat by yourself, Mu! I was thinking of losing weight anyway..."

However, as the saying goes, "He who eats another's food is bound to do his bidding," and given that Toyokawa Shoko was a proud woman who didn't want to owe even her childhood sweetheart any favors, she could only use this pretentious excuse to shirk responsibility—while her eyes were already glancing at the fast food restaurant next door to see if they had any discounted meals.

Wait, there seems to be a set of three-in-one rice balls over there that can be taken home for only 500 yen?

She made up an excuse to leave Mu's side and quietly went to a convenience store to buy this limited-time special offer.

Just as Xiangzi was happily thinking about "saving some money on food" and walking out of the convenience store with a plastic bag in his hand, he bumped into a scene that she had never expected.

Because Mu was left alone after she left midway, a boy grabbed her wrist, and the two were locked in a stalemate...

And why does this guy look so familiar the more I look at him?

—The above is a summary of the background story of how Toyokawa Shoko appeared in front of Akatsuki and blocked Mutsu's way.

She waved the plastic bag containing rice balls in her hand as if she were wielding a meteor hammer, using it as a "weapon" for self-defense.

Xiao, who was being so wary of her, didn't care at all. Her eyes were fixed on Mu, who was hiding behind Xiangzi and peeking out half of his head to look at him.

"...Wait, what is Auntie Mud Stick?"

Is this what you're focusing on?

It took him a long time to realize that he seemed to have been scolded, but Xiangzi was even more furious when she saw how slow he was to turn around and talk to her.

"Because I didn't sneak into a girl's room under the cover of night like some sleazy thieves, just to say, 'Hehehe, I'm going to kidnap your auntie'..."

"Who broke into my house out of nowhere and ransacked it? And kept calling me 'Auntie'... If you don't give me a reasonable explanation, I don't mind calling the police again!"

Generally speaking, Toyokawa Shoko wouldn't behave so rudely and disrespectfully towards strangers. However, even a well-mannered young lady wouldn't give a friendly look to a thief who had broken into her home and offended her several times before.

Not to mention that this guy is brazenly trying to argue his way out of this mess.

"Alright, let's not change the subject. How do you know Mu's name? Please give me a reasonable explanation!"

"How did you know...?"

It seemed they had no choice but to confront this problem directly. While Xiao was agonizing over it, she glanced at Mu, who had quickly hidden behind Xiangzi after being discovered, and suddenly a brilliant idea struck her—

"...I saw her at the gardening market."

"………ha?"

Not to mention Xiangzi, even Mu was a little stunned.

"She bought a big bag of cucumber seeds, so I remember it very well."

Xiao made a gesture in the air with her hand, and Xiangzi was still skeptical. Only Mu, who was still hiding behind her, knew that it was true.

"Mu, you've met at the garden market...?"

"I, I have indeed bought a very large bag of seeds... many times."

"But Mu probably hasn't seen me before, which is normal, since she probably only had eyes for cucumbers at the time."

Xiao spoke up promptly, offering an explanation for her mother, who was not good with words and even less adept at explaining.

He had never seen Mu at any gardening market, but he remembered that Aunt Su Shi had once told him about her mother's cucumber-growing experience, so he simply put his knowledge into practice in this situation.

This doesn't count as lying, does it?

"What you said seems to make sense... but it doesn't convince me at all! Right, Mutsu!"

Shoko, whose stance had begun to waver slightly, turned her head, wanting to get support from Mutsu.

"It makes sense."

To everyone's surprise, this guy nodded thoughtfully and, very unusually, offered an opinion that contradicted Xiangzi's.

"Mu?!"

Xiangzi stood frozen in place, and Mu, seeing this, shrank back a little guiltily.

“I’m sorry, Xiang… cannot refute this.”

Generally speaking, Wakaba Mutsu is someone who will always stand on the same side as Toyokawa Shoko. Shoko's friends are her comrades-in-arms, and Shoko's enemies are her targets.

But this time it's slightly different.

“I don’t know why… I feel,” she glanced quickly at Xiao, who was blinking innocently, with a slightly evasive look, “he doesn’t seem like… a bad person…”

For some reason, she couldn't sense any ill intent in the boy's eyes.

The look in his eyes was filled with a very familiar emotion, yet it was far warmer and gentler than the same person in his memory.

"What are you saying, Mu?! This guy is Auntie Nibang, who broke into my house and plotted against me!"

"I've already said I'm not some kind of auntie, I haven't kidnapped anyone's auntie...hehe."

Seeing Toyokawa Shoko's panicked state and Wakaba Mutsu's somewhat guilty look with her head down, Xiaolian lost all will to defend herself. After offering a perfunctory explanation, she just kept smiling foolishly.

Sure enough, even in another time and space, his mother would subconsciously side with him.

"...Don't give Mutsu that kind of smile! You perverted bastard!"

Unable to gain Mu's approval, Xiangzi felt embarrassed and became even more annoyed when he saw Xiao's wide smile.

Of course, Xiao paid no attention to Xiangzi, who was having a brainstorming session; his focus was entirely on the taciturn Mu.

My mom's teenage form is really cute. It would be worth it to travel back in time just to see her.

If Ye Mu is not good at expressing herself, even as Xiao's mother, she would find it difficult to frankly show concern and care for her child. However, she would always express her love through her actions without words.

If Toyokawa Shoko had just accused a complete stranger she had never met, she would probably have stood by Shoko's side without hesitation and supported all her decisions.