The weather was nice at the moment—not too hot, not too cold. It did not matter even if they went without blankets. Rita lay on the sofa, hugging one of its cushions, and drifted off to sleep without realizing it...
Rita slept quietly in the living room, while upstairs, Mashiro Shiina still held her brush beneath the daylight lamp, painstakingly drawing stroke by stroke.
Even Rita admired this quality in Mashiro. She could devote all her attention to the work beneath her hands, remaining so earnest no matter the time.
As the clock hands slowly crossed into the early hours, sometime after midnight, Mashiro Shiina's internal clock finally kicked in. It was as though she had been startled awake after returning from another world. Her mind finally left the work in her hands, and subconsciously, she habitually turned to look at the bed behind her.
Seeing that it was empty, she stared blankly for quite a while before suddenly standing up. She looked around the room, but did not see the person she had expected to find.
Ever since some time ago, she had been sharing a bedroom with Rita. Rita should have been in the room now.
Rita rarely stayed out overnight...
But Mashiro Shiina suddenly remembered that Rita had said at noon that she would return later. Yet it was already so late...
A panic unlike anything she had ever felt before suddenly rose from the depths of Mashiro Shiina's heart. She hurriedly opened the door and walked out, but when she saw that the lights in the first-floor living room were still on, she could not help relaxing a little. The panic in her heart gradually faded away!
Mashiro Shiina's expression returned to its usual sleepy, placid look, as if she never showed any emotion at all.