A Senior's Junior

"Is there a doorbell?"

Lin Xiaolu, who had originally been cupping her chin in her hands, lifted her head and straightened up. "At this time?"

Xia Liang poked her head out from the side and asked, "Is it a delivery?"

"I don't know, I didn't buy anything." Lin Xiaolu denied it outright.

"Then did your dad buy it?" Xia Liang brought up another possibility.

"Him? I've never seen him buy anything online."

Still holding a negative attitude toward this, Lin Xiaolu had just finished saying that when she hesitated a bit. "Though I suppose that possibility isn't completely ruled out..."

"So, should we open it?"

Looking at the front door in the entryway, Xia Liang looked eager to try. "It's daytime anyway, so it should be fine, right?"

"Regardless of whether it's daytime, the security in our neighborhood should be fine." Lin Xiaolu seemed persuaded.

Xia Liang reached out and summoned purple magic that condensed into a wand in her hand. "Then I'll transform into a Magical Girl and stand to the side. If it's a bad guy, I'll hit them?"

Dropping her eyelids to stare at her for a moment, Lin Xiaolu originally wanted to ask Why don't you go, but remembering this was her own house, she ought to show some responsibility. So she pushed down that thought and stood up from the sofa. "Seems like we can."

Waving her hand to cancel her Magical Girl transformation, Lin Xiaolu shuffled in her slippers and walked with small steps toward the entryway. Meanwhile, Xia Liang held her wand and knelt on the sofa, exposing only her head as she secretly observed the situation.

Frowning, Lin Xiaolu walked up to the door, her hand lingering on the doorknob for a moment before she pressed down and cautiously opened it.

--An entirely unfamiliar woman came into view.

The woman looked to be in her early twenties, relatively tall with bright facial features and dark hair styled into a clean C-curl blowout. She wore a printed white open-front T-shirt on her upper body, high-waisted denim maxi skirt on her lower body, and carried a small crossbody bag, giving off the impression of a capable female white-collar worker.

"Who are you?" Lin Xiaolu was somewhat dumbfounded.

"Ah, so this is the senior's... how cute!"

Yet the woman in front of her didn't seem unfamiliar with her at all. Seeing Lin Xiaolu, her eyes lit up. "I only saw photos before, but in person you're even a little cuter than the pictures!"

Her unconcerned self-proclamation made Lin Xiaolu even more confused. "So who even are you?"

"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is seeing you for the first time—Lin Xiaolu, right? Come give aunty a hug!" The woman enthusiastically opened her arms.

"Why? No way!" Lin Xiaolu couldn't help but take two steps back.

The intense confusion left her temporarily unsure of what to say, and the bustling commotion made Xia Liang and Moko in the living room unable to resist coming over.

Seeing the two of them at a stalemate, Xia Liang first paused, then quickly sorted out the train of thought and addressed the woman at the door with a smile:

"Ah, hello older sister? Who are you looking for?"

Her posture and etiquette were quite proper, making it impossible for anyone to pick out a flaw, as if she were the child of this household.

And these words of hers instantly made the woman at the door blossom with joy. "Ah? You actually called me older sister? Hahaha, this child's mouth is so sweet."

Because she was wearing outdoor shoes, she couldn't step into the room and could only stand in the hallway, gesturing with her hand. "Come over here too, let older sister give you a kiss!"

"Um, about that..."

Intimidated by the other person's excessive enthusiasm, even Xia Liang couldn't help showing a troubled expression.

"So who on earth are you!" Lin Xiaolu, pushed off to the side, asked once more.

Not until she asked this question for the third time did the woman at the door finally seem to wake up from her state of excessive enthusiasm. She carefully looked over the two girls in front of her, and seeing that they both wore at-a-loss expressions, she realized she hadn't introduced herself yet.

Indeed, having a stranger come up and act so overly familiar would make anyone unsure of what to do. So she gave a soft cough and slightly reined in her expression.

"Ahem, it seems neither of you knows who I am, so I should explain briefly first."

Raising the crossbody bag in her hand, she fished out a small black identification card and waved it in the air. "I am Hong Siyu, a liaison for the Anomaly Countermeasures Bureau, responsible for coordinating with your senior, Larkspur. Aside from that, ten years ago I was also Fangting City's resident Magical Girl, you know."

Her movements were quite brisk and refreshing, and her smile carried a great deal of warmth, but the simple sentence spoken with such an expression contained a massive amount of information that left both girls behind the door somewhat dazed.

"Larkspur's... liaison?"

"A Magical Girl from ten years ago?"

Naturally, the girls' respective points of focus were different.

Of course Lin Xiaolu cared more about Larkspur's interpersonal relationships; it was impossible to say she wasn't curious about what kind of person Larkspur's liaison was.

As for Xia Liang, she naturally thought of the same questions as Lin Xiaolu, but the information in the second half of what Hong Siyu said was clearly much more important.

Seeing that this self-introduction successfully piqued the two girls' interest, Hong Siyu at the door knocked on the doorframe. No longer overly enthusiastic like when they first met, she asked suggestively:

"Having said all this, don't you plan to let me go inside and sit down?"

The two girls exchanged glances. Xia Liang blinked, and then Lin Xiaolu rather reluctantly fished a pair of shoe covers out of the entryway shoe cabinet and handed them to Hong Siyu. "Here."

"Hehe, then older sister will gratefully accept."

Accepting the shoe covers from Lin Xiaolu's hands, Hong Siyu nimbly slipped them over the square-toed shoes on her feet, walking through the apartment door with a kind of skip in her step that others couldn't quite understand.

Stepping into Lin Xiaolu's home, she subconsciously looked around, her gaze shifting from the dining area to the living room, taking in the dining table, the clock, the cabinet... and then seeing the sofa neatly placed there, a trace of nostalgic emotion flashing across her face.

It really has been a long time.

She murmured to herself in her heart.

This strange behavior made Lin Xiaolu stare at her somewhat quizzically, and Xia Liang was equally perplexed. Yet out of courtesy, they quickly led Hong Siyu to the living room.

Xia Liang turned to go to the kitchen to brew tea, while Lin Xiaolu casually pointed toward the sofa, her expression somewhat tight as she said, "Right here, please sit."

"Are you shy around strangers?" Hong Siyu turned back to ask her.

"Not at all."

Lin Xiaolu replied with a stiff expression, "Please don't treat me like a child."

"Shyness around strangers isn't actually a trait exclusive to children."

Hong Siyu found an empty spot on the sofa and sat down casually. "We adults get like that too, you know? And we even give ourselves a more serious-sounding name for it: social anxiety."

"...If I don't have it, I don't have it."

"All right, all right, you don't."

Hong Siyu smiled somewhat teasingly while patting the empty space beside her. "Then can you come sit next to older sister and let me get a good look at you?"

"Um..." At this request, Lin Xiaolu remained frozen in place, unmoving.