How was this woman here?!
Shane's right foot, which had already stepped forward, froze awkwardly in midair. Putting it down felt wrong. Pulling it back felt even worse.
The thing was, the layout of his wooden house had no partition between the entryway and the living room.
In other words, if someone was lying on the sofa in the living room, they didn't even need to deliberately get up. They only had to tilt their head slightly…
and everything that had just happened on the steps outside would have been perfectly visible.
"Just when I press down one gourd, another ladle floats up…"
Shane wailed inwardly.
Mira had only just finished making trouble. He hadn't even had time to catch his breath before turning around and running straight into the most troublesome, hardest-to-handle woman of all.
This was worse than letting Kagura watch the whole thing and then run off happily to tattle to Erza!
"Ul… Ultear?"
At this point, pretending he hadn't seen her was obviously impossible.
Shane awkwardly set his foot back down, raised a hand, and forced out a smile uglier than crying.
"It's the middle of the night… couldn't you have told me before coming over?"
To hide his guilt, he added another pointless sentence.
"Uh… there seemed to be some weird noise outside just now. The wind was pretty strong. Did you hear it?"
"Heh."
Her only response was a very light nasal laugh.
Ultear sank into the soft sofa cushions without even changing her posture.
Her eyes were half-lowered. The bright wall lamp fell across the cold pallor of her cheek, forming a layer of frost that made her seem untouchable.
And yet her eyes were naturally long and alluring.
The slight upward curve at the corners of her eyes, paired with that sacred, ice-mountain-like expression, created an intensely contrasting sense of seduction.
It made one instinctively want to shatter that icy shell.
However, Shane felt nothing toward that rather remarkable beauty.
In the few seconds he spent briefly studying her, he quickly found one "comforting" point.
Even though they hadn't seen each other in four years, Ultear's attitude toward him was exactly the same as before.
Still as cold and unreadable as ever.
"That reaction… she absolutely saw everything!"
Seeing her remain silent, Shane felt a splitting headache coming on.
There was no escaping it now, so he could only brace himself and approach her, trying to give himself a way out with his own questions.
"Did you hear I'd just woken up, so you came all the way from the Council to see me? Thanks for going to the trouble!"
"I heard about it. You've become a councilor now, right?"
He sat down at the other end of the sofa, deliberately leaving one seat's worth of safe distance between them.
Looking at the empty cushion between them, Ultear's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.
Sensing the sudden drop in pressure, Shane tactfully shifted closer. Fabric rustled until their shoulders lightly touched.
A fragrance richer than it had been four years ago slipped into his nose through the difference in temperature.
Time had made that scent sweeter, and more invasive.
Ultear ignored the way he read the room. She naturally pulled one of his hands over and placed it on her folded legs.
Her pale, slender fingers idly played with his knuckles for a while before she finally spoke in a calm, hair-raising tone.
"I came to you for another matter. As for just now…"
She lifted her eyes slightly, and her fingertips suddenly pressed harder against his knuckles.
"You two weren't exactly trying to hide outside the door. It would've been difficult for me to pretend I didn't see anything, wouldn't it?"
Her ability to speak in veiled barbs had only improved since four years ago.
Shane inwardly grumbled, but faced with that thorny teasing, he didn't immediately snap back like he used to.
After a long period of training… no, after a long period of adjustment, he had gradually become capable of a certain degree of closeness with her.
His fingers closed naturally, reversing the situation and firmly trapping Ultear's cool little hand in his palm.
"Mira's thing… uh, it really was sudden. My head's a mess right now too."
Shane thought for a moment and decided to be honest.
"But I never intended to hide this from you. Instead of covering things up and letting misunderstandings pile up later, it's better to be open from the start."
"I just didn't expect my luck to be so 'good' that you happened to see it directly."
Feeling the warmth from his hand, the straight line of Ultear's lips curved upward almost imperceptibly.
After not seeing him for so long, she really had missed this person who always liked making people angry.
But that smile vanished in a flash, quickly hidden away.
"How popular you are. The way she looked, she cares quite a lot about you…" Her tone was flat. "And you? What's your attitude toward her now?"
The words were clearly mocking, but from Ultear's mouth, they always sounded like stiff, plain statements.
Fortunately, Shane had long since grown used to her troublesome way of communicating.
Asked about the painful point, he instinctively wanted to raise his right hand and hold his chin to think.
Only then did he realize his hand was being firmly held by Ultear.
The moment he tried to pull it back experimentally, she immediately tightened her grip and forcefully dragged his wrist back into place.
Shane had no choice but to give up and let her keep holding him tightly as he sank into thought.
To be fair, he had always had a good impression of Mira.
Although that girl was always disrespectful and had a few bad habits of acting recklessly, her devotion to her family and her bright, shadowless personality were genuinely attractive.
But that affection had only been as a companion and a disciple.
Alright…
Thinking of that wet, hot, reckless bite-like kiss outside just now, Shane sighed inwardly and had to admit that his feelings toward Mira had indeed changed a little.
But this is definitely still within the range that can be controlled through reason!
Shane raised three fingers in his heart and swore with great confidence.
And besides, the one whose feelings had changed more seriously was obviously that rebellious disciple who had attacked her teacher.
He didn't understand why Mira had suddenly "erupted" tonight. Before this, the two of them had gotten along normally enough.
"Sure enough… at the root of it, is this just rebellion against Erza? I shouldn't take it too—"
Wait!
The smug smile Mira wore before leaving, like a little fox that had stolen food, suddenly flashed through Shane's mind.
That girl had been so happy just now… could she have thought that because she took my first kiss before Erza did, she had won?
At that thought, Shane's expression immediately turned extremely strange.
From a certain perspective, it wasn't exactly wrong for Mira to think that. She had indeed forcibly gotten one step ahead of Erza.
But if they were talking about "sneaking ahead without declaring war"…
He turned his head, his gaze falling on the frost-faced woman beside him.
This one was the true ancestor.
"I… actually haven't fully reacted yet. I don't know how to handle it."
Shane answered, his voice inevitably a little dry.
"I plan to calm down over the next few days, then find a chance to talk properly with Mira."
After all, even if he had been the forced party tonight, being caught in the act in front of Ultear meant he didn't have much ground to stand on.
"Mm."
Unexpectedly, the confrontation he had anticipated did not happen. Ultear only gave an extremely perfunctory little nod, then said nothing more.
Her reaction was so calm that Shane was at a loss instead.
"You're… not angry?" he asked tentatively.
"Why would I be angry?"
Ultear lowered her eyes halfway. Those dark pupils, like thin ice, quietly watched him.
"Including Erza, from the beginning, what existed between us was already a messy arrangement of 'three people.'"
"Even if Mira is added now, to me, it doesn't make any fundamental difference."
"So as for how you handle it, just discuss it properly with Erza."
That was the truth.
To Ultear, she did not dislike Mira's greed of wanting to seize what she liked.
Because she herself was the same kind of person.
They were both wicked thieves who had stolen treasure from Erza's hands.
"Mm…"
Shane stared fixedly into her eyes, trying to find some clue on that flawless, beautiful face.
The atmosphere had been so heavy just now that he had never expected her to let it go so lightly.
But after studying her for quite a while, he helplessly realized that she did not seem to be joking.
"I feel like you were messing with me just now."
Shane could only accept this answer with a complicated mood.
"Was I?"
Ultear narrowed her eyes, looking rather pleased.
"Tch."
Shane exhaled in defeat and decided to set Mira's matter aside for now, leaving it for him to suffer over together with Erza once she came back.
But since Erza had been mentioned…
A thought stirred in Shane's mind, and he remembered something Mira had casually brought up earlier.
He lightly squeezed Ultear's fingers and asked,
"By the way, I heard that a year ago, you and Erza had some strange public confrontation at the guild… what exactly was that about?"