Xiao Xiao smiled at Madam Xiao.
Then he stepped forward.
"Hello. May I ask what happened?"
The boy had gone stiff all over at the first scream.
The girl's second scream made him shudder violently.
He hurriedly lowered his head and turned around.
The unfamiliar voice by his ear, along with the figure drawing closer...
Only made him increasingly nervous.
Seeing how tense the boy was, Xiao Xiao looked toward the two girls, who had started to calm down, and asked again, "Hello. May I ask what happened?"
The two girls looked at each other.
Then they looked at the boy with his back to them before turning to Xiao Xiao.
Holding hands, they deliberately turned sideways and awkwardly edged around the boy in front of them to stand beside Xiao Xiao.
"He..."
The two girls spoke in unison, then stopped at the same time.
"...He looks so scary..."
One girl murmured under her breath.
"We thought we'd seen a ghost..."
The other girl added in a tiny voice.
But now it seemed he was just a person.
Of course.
What ghosts were there in this world?
They had been so rude just now.
The two girls' expressions grew awkward as they realized what they'd done.
"...Sorry."
"Sorry."
The two girls apologized one after the other.
But they were apologizing to Xiao Xiao.
Xiao Xiao raised an eyebrow.
They did owe him an apology.
More precisely, they owed the customers in the teahouse an apology.
The customers had all been startled by them.
Still, though it had all been a misunderstanding, the two girls had indeed been frightened.
Even so, he thought the person who had been most frightened and hurt by what happened... was probably the boy in front of them, head bowed.
He