"All right, Sonoko. Mr. Doi may not be quite what you imagined, but at least this villa is actually pretty nice. Look, such a huge backyard."
Sonoko Suzuki propped up her cheek and looked listlessly at the ground covered in a thin layer of snow, pursing her lips.
Her family owned every sort of residence imaginable all across Japan. A neat little mountain villa was hardly enough to amaze her.
"Only the suspension bridge and valley scenery deserve to be called distinctive." She waved a critical hand. "And it's not like my family doesn't have places like this. My sister has one under her name. I'll take you there next time."
"Sure." Ran Mouri knew she did not truly have any complaints about the house. She was only changing the subject because of her disappointment, so Ran merely smiled. "Still, from this angle, the yard and trees are very beautiful. The view is nice. They gave us a pretty good room, too."
That was because they had originally expected the Disciple of the Magician to be a young girl, so they had taken her feelings into consideration and assigned them a relatively nice room.
Thinking of that, Sonoko sighed. "All right, the gathering is pretty nice. They really did see through my actual situation, though. Seriously, am I that easy to figure out?"
Well...
Unable to directly crush her best friend's spirits, Ran Mouri could only offer a tolerant smile. "That just means you've made friends who understand you very well. They didn't mind letting you join, and they even invited you to the gathering. Isn't that a good thing?"
When she thought about it, that did make sense. Easy to placate as ever, Sonoko Suzuki was immediately cheered up, and a smile bloomed on her face again. "Ran, you