Who Gets the First Bite
"Ehehe!"
"Is it really that wonderful?"
"Yes! I love it!"
Kotori broke into a brilliant smile. She spun in place to show herself off, and her black ponytail lashed back and forth like a puppy's tail.
"A date with the husband I've dreamed of all this time! How could I not be happy!"
"You've dreamed of it?"
"Of course! You have no idea, my lord, how far a woman can fall once she falls deep."
"In that sense, my lord is a terribly wicked man. You didn't just drown me. You dragged me all the way down to the Dragon Palace. You didn't stop at stealing the rabbit's liver. You cooked it through and ate every last bite."
"If it's come to that, then I have no choice but to take responsibility...!"
"You mean it?!"
She seized him tight.
"Then let's book a room at that hotel right now!"
"Kotori, you are moving much too fast."
"These days, if you're slow, you get scolded! So what if we're fast...!"
"Kotori, no. If we do that, the world ends in more ways than one!"
"Even a ruined world, I'll protect it for you!"
From now on, my lord's house is my room! Forever!
"Kotori's eyes have glazed over. Somebody save me."
"Hmph! Men talk too much!"
Just follow along quietly, I said!
"Hyah!"
Thock!
"Eek!"
"You mustn't tease your elders."
"I was serious..."
"Even so, no. Come back when you're older."
"Hnn..."
Kotori clutched her struck forehead and pushed her lips into a pout. Phantom gave a bitter smile.
"Kotori."
Slowly, slowly, his broad palm stroked her hair.
"It isn't that I don't understand how you feel."
"...Yes?"
What is he saying?
At the blank look on her face, Phantom glanced back along the road they had just walked. Watching him in profile, Kotori felt her chest slowly stop up.
Ah.
She understood it then, as a woman in love. Someone else had already taken the first move. There was an empty place in this man's heart, yes, but that emptiness was only what remained after the rest had been filled to overflowing.
She could not tell how vastly it had been filled. She could not tell how precious that fullness was. The time she had spent with him was far too short for knowing.
It was unfair that she had met him so late. If she had been there from the very beginning... could she have taken that place instead?
Anger rose in her. She was standing right in front of him, and still he thought of someone else first.
Jealousy followed. The person who remained in his memory was not her.
I could do better. I could love him more. I could be the one who remembers him.
Time itself seemed to crawl. A hot fury climbed her throat.
Calm down. Stay calm.
She pressed the dark feelings down, just as Amaterasu had taught her to cultivate the mind. If she truly wanted something, she must not grow anxious, and she must not be greedy.
Oni blood boiled up, trying to seize her emotions, but the fear of being hated was greater still.
I came to have fun. I came to have fun. I came to have fun...
Three times, she told herself so. Three times each, she pictured the sun, the moon, and the sea.
Begone, oni!
Flash!
A gleam of inner light swept through her eyes, and Kotori found her calm again.
"Kotori?"
"It's nothing."
She gave herself a light pat.
"Let's go. If we stand here all day, we might get back late."
"..."
Phantom swallowed the rest of what he had meant to say. He was a man given to eccentric habits, but he was not oblivious.
The girl's shoulders were trembling, little by little. That alone said enough.
He deliberately did not walk ahead until Kotori turned back to him. And that lasted for quite some time.
"We're back."
"You're earlier than I expected."
"Maybe because it's cold. There weren't many people out."
"We just ate. We can go out again tomorrow."
"Yeah?"
Pele craned only her long neck up from the sofa and looked Phantom and Kotori over.
"Little bird stays. Child of Man, you go to the dragon."
"The Dragon Mother?"
"She probably just wants to see your face. Quit dawdling and go. She's in the backyard."
"All right."
Phantom trotted off and vanished.
Kotori made for the living room.
Pele, Hong Yumin, Kana, and Sipsado had each already claimed a seat.
She swallowed.
The tension came over her of its own accord.
Every one of these people is a jackal after my lord?
She stole a look.
Kana and Sipsado. Those two, she could beat. Kana belonged to the same organization, and Kotori outranked her there. Sipsado carried the sin of Heavenly Punishment. It was a cheap way of thinking, pride hauled up by force, but love was on the line. She could not retreat.
The problem was the god and the immortal.
Which one?
Which of the two had taken her lord's heart?
She could not imagine winning. Birth, background, power, ability. Neither of them lacked a single thing.
The immortal was a being who received Heaven's blessing and attention in full. Thought of that way, she might as well be called a successor, or even a child.
And a god. What was there even to say? A chief deity, and the earth-mother goddess who had made Hawaii. Her authority and power could settle the countless troubles of humankind with a single cough.
My strengths are background and age.
Heir to Japan's Shrine, and child of the Three Noble Gods. And her youth.
A year or two might matter. A gap of several centuries might not mean much at all...
Because the distance was so far from ordinary sense, it might even come off as charming.
"Little bird."
"Yes?"
"Your thoughts are all over your face."
"Mmph."
Under Pele's smiling eyes, Kotori broke into a cold sweat.
This is a battle of presence!
"It's not what you think, you know? We're all looking at the same person, so I figured we should get together."
"......"
Kotori chose silence over an answer. Pele snorted at the cute little rebellion.
"What's this. Where'd the kid go who declared at the airport that she was the principal wife?"
"Th-that was—!"
"Embarrassed, now that you remember?"
"Ugh..."
Kotori's cheeks went red.
"Go on. Be the principal wife."
"What?"
For a moment she thought she had misheard.
"D-don't joke."
"Where's the joke in love?"
She blinked.
"Really?"
"On one condition!"
Pele lifted her index finger, and Kotori snapped back to herself. Right! There was no way a deal this good came free!
But for my lord, I'll do anything!
Wearing a sly smile, Pele pointed at the others one by one, and last of all tapped herself.
Kotori's head tilted at the meaningless gesture.
"Everyone I pointed at is a principal wife too."
"What?!"
"Why so shocked? You want to start sorting out concubines in this day and age?"
"No, I thought only one person could be..."
"Can you handle him by yourself?"
"Uh..."
"Picture it. That guy's the type to show up to his own wedding in a mask."
"That much is fine, though?"
"He could be the one officiating, and the one singing the congratulatory song, and the chef."
"Huh?"
"Bride and groom, kindly don your masks and kiss."
"Yes! Phantom, baby!!!"
"Tonight's menu is Phantom Thief, wedding style."
That's horrifying.
"...No matter how unique my lord's personality is, he wouldn't go that far."
"Who knows. It would at least be a wedding no one could ever forget, right?"
"Even if something like that happened, I would still love my lord."
"Same here."
But!
"One person's love can't handle the madness. The bed, either, while we're at it."
"The b-bed?! Has my lord already, with the people here..."
"Not that."
Pele jolted the dying-eyed Kotori back awake.
"I mean one person probably couldn't handle his stamina."
"Isn't that just a guess?"
"You haven't seen it, so you don't know."
Pele raised both hands.
"About this big."
"That big...?"
Wasn't the average for East Asian men twelve to fifteen centimeters?
"That's the estimate for when it's up. It could actually be bigger."
"Hhk—!"
If I take that in, I'll die!
"Understand?"
"Yes..."
Kotori's voice trailed off.
"...Size and stamina don't scale together, do they?"
"What scares me more is that he might adjust his stamina however he likes."
Cut his head off and the body sticks it right back on. He isn't bound by the frame of flesh.
"Don't worry. There are this many of us. We can handle it."
"Ugh."
Kotori's head spun. The far future had been hammered into her in such a short span that she wondered whether any of this was right.
"Haa."
Hong Yumin sighed.
"I'll be going."
"Why leave? We're just getting started."
"Soryeong told me to come out. The rest of you can finish the talk among yourselves."
Hong Yumin left without a backward glance.
"I said we should get along, all of us after the same person. Way to kill the mood."
"I also think it is too soon."
"Huh?"
"I am not saying the gathering itself is bad. But he has not reached a conclusion with his own mouth, has he? I believe it will not be too late to speak of it again then."
Pele clicked her tongue. With no one willing to play along, she could not beat the drum all by herself.
"There is only one thing that matters."
"What."
Sipsado's draconic eyes flashed.
"Who gets the first bite."
"Oh ho..."
"For the record, I am a virgin."
"How novel."
I'm a virgin too.
The corner of Pele's mouth split into a grin.
"No need to overthink it."
Her gaze went to the calendar. A holiday the whole world shared was drawing near.
"There's a perfect excuse, as it happens. And here I've been hoarding my body like a miser. Still, you know there's no ranking among people who love the same man, right?"
"Yes. I will not do anything he would dislike."
But.
"I will not yield the first time."
"Now I'm excited."
Agreement was all well and good. A fight was better.
At the murderous turn the two had taken, Kotori squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
"I will return to Japan today."
"Wasn't it three days and two nights?"
"No. A day trip."
Kotori turned her back.
"I will return on the day we settle this."
Pele read the resolve coiled across the girl's back.
"Go. I'll see you that day."
"I ask that you wait for me!"
Kotori returned to Japan that very day. They say that when the priests of the Shrine and the Three Noble Gods met the fire burning in her eyes, their knees went weak.
And Kana, who had been standing there like a folding screen—
"There'll still be a chance at the very end, right?"
They say she knew her place, and made herself small.