The searing summer heat flowed like an airy hot spring through Mieko’s open bedroom window. Strewn before her on the back of a chair were two finely embroidered obi, each vying for her good graces for the day to come.

  「It really is not wise to change with the window open, Miss.」

  Takako fiddled with the dried hydrangeas nestled atop Mieko’s vanity, her alert brown eyes catching glimpses of the young girl pointing a slender finger towards one obi before abruptly flying it over the other.

  「If a girl can’t put a kimono on over her underclothes in this dreadful, deathly heat without the worry of lecherous eyes from below, I’d say that fact is an indication of society's shortcomings, and not my own.」

  Mieko huffed and nodded her head resolutely, finally making the difficult decision to don her waist with the light green obi over her summery yellow kimono.

  Takako sighed, quietly plucking off a blue petal from one of the dried blooms before pulling the curtains over the window.

  「I’m one to agree with you, but look men will and talk people shall.」

  She crossed her arms, refusing this time to be swayed by Mieko’s charms and rosy puffed cheeks.

  「And to prove my fears to you miss, I shall give you a bit of gossip I received yesterday evening in Shinsekai.」

  Halfway through tying her obi after many a groan and wrist ache, Mieko gulped as Takako’s words stabbed her in the gut.

  「Oh, Takako, please-」

  「That Touma man at the Ishikawa fish market really has the hardest time keeping secrets, I’ve come to learn.」

  Takako couldn’t help the smirk crawling through her lips as she raised a hand to cease Mieko’s plea. In a low voice, careful not to rouse any attention from Mister Takahara down below, Takako continued.

  「But I have to wonder, what are you thinking, Mieko? Running around with that unkempt girl, going to the fish market, to that boy-」

  「Lucy’s not unkempt, and Ryu-kun is not just ‘that boy’ to me.」

  Mieko snapped back in an equally low hiss, hastily finishing up her obi knot before swishing it to the small of her back.

  「Kazuma says it’s fine.」

  「It seems to me Kazuma has a propensity to say anything that has to do with Lucy is ‘fine.’」

  Takako scoffed, as if no scruple of logic could be found in Mieko’s reasoning.

  「For reasons I don’t think you truly grasp. And Ryusuke-」

  She shook her head as Mieko slunk over to sit on her bed.

  「Kazuma doesn’t even know about that little bit, now does he?」

  「He doesn’t, and he never will.」

  Mieko shot back with a cocked brow, determined not to display a single inkling of unease, neither about Kazuma nor at her helper’s saucy, unsolicited commentary about two of her closest friends.

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  「No, I suppose he won’t.」

  Takako sighed, the innate, girlish recesses of her starved heart still harboring a relentless desire to push more details out of the little heiress.

  「I give you my word. Therefore, I hope you won’t spare me the details of your star-crossed meeting, Miss.」

  Glossy eyes rising from the floor to study the softened smile on Takako’s face, Mieko decided that divulging some (only some!) bits and pieces from her mental scrapbook of her talk with Ryusuke wouldn’t hurt her..

  「He asked me if I was going to any gatherings recently.」

  「Oh, well such a question can only mean he’s sniffing out the competition.」

  Takako declared without a second thought, standing straight as a flagpole beside the bedpost with her hands laced together.

  「There is no competition. There never will be.」

  Mieko murmured, suddenly rising from her bed and flinging open the window curtain.

  Even with her head turned, Mieko could not escape the suffocating pressure of Takako’s watchful gaze.

  「There’s no competition for the heart, Miss, but there is for money. And I’m afraid your father is only concerned with victory for one.」

  Takako would never be one to overstep and consider herself a friend of Mieko’s, but there would be a sliver of doubt if she were to deny the presence of a sisterly duty silently held towards her employer’s naive, wistful daughter. Whether it was her place or not, Takako couldn’t help the gnaw plaguing her heart to guide Mieko through her stormy temptations and towards safer, smoother waters.

  「Kazuma will take over his business, so we’re not going to be losing anything if I marry for love.」

  Mieko sighed.

  「I’m not going to need any more money. I want love.」

  「Miss-」

  With the slight crack in Mieko’s final declaration, Takako wrestled with herself whether or not to shed light on a neglected, or in Mieko’s case, completely denied, fact of life that should have been obvious.

  「Mister Kamoi someday will have his own family to care for-」

  「I’m his family.」

  Mieko snipped.

  「Yes, and I know he will care for you too, but-」

  「But what?」

  Mieko quipped again.

  「Somehow that horrid snake is going to find her way into our home, and try to run me out?」

  The thought, rather the fear, hadn’t failed to cross Takako’s mind - besides Mieko, only Takako knew how skillfully Sanae masked her poisonous agenda of marrying into the family under rehearsed pleasantries and poise.

  Mieko’s hunger for Intel had become so demanding during Sanae’s relationship with Kazuma that Takako, often tasked with overhearing any protected information regarding the two from Mister Takahara, had second thoughts about renewing her contract for the following year - after all, undercover detective work was not in the calling ad for when she had applied to the position. It was only Kazuma’s long-awaited trip overseas that calmed Mieko’s hatred, Sanae no longer having a motive to pester her family for the time being.

  “The time being” had passed, however, with a new era of loathing and sabotage coming to fruition with a vengeance.

  「Mister Kamoi is a smart man, Mieko. I definitely can’t picture him with someone as daft as an Iwagami.」

  A warm palm rested on Mieko’s slumped shoulder, Takako catching a glimpse of a teary face reflected off the window in front of them.

  「You know that better than anyone. And besides-」

  Takako let out a drawn sigh, grinning as a stream of sunlight splashed down onto their faces.

  「With how taken he is with Lucy, as wild as she is, I believe it’s safe to say that Sanae is old news by now.」

  「What? What do you mean?」

  Mieko swung around to meet Takako’s grin-turned-smirk.

  「Do you really think-」

  「You told me yourself the other day, he took her for dinner in Namba.」

  「But that was only because their meeting near Dotombori ran late!」

  Takako laughed at the innocence still steadily provided by Mieko’s youth.

  If only I could remember what such a luxury felt like.

  「Pardon my manners, Miss, but despite your pining for Ryusuke, I don’t think you know much about the workings of men.」

  「I do too!」

  Mieko wagged a fist in the air defiantly.

  「Lucy would make a much better inlaw than Sanae, so if your suspicions are true, I say-」

  Nudging her way past Takako and slowly creaking the bedroom door open, Mieko led the two of them out to the hallway and towards the awaiting day.

  「Welcome to the family.」

  Takako hushed Mieko immediately.

  「Enough now. No more about this during flower arrangement.」

  Although, as the pair descended the stairs, Takako found herself itching for the thrills of gossip rather than a pile of cut orchids.