The Hot Spring Inn

Unlike bustling Shinjuku, Haiming City was a laid-back city, even though it was also part of the Greater Tokyo Area.

It lay in the mountain-ringed Tama region, home to hot spring lodges and resort hotels.

Getting to Haiming City from Shinjuku required a transfer. After a half-hour ride to Tachikawa Station, they could board the Haiming Line and ride straight to Haiming at the terminus.

As they rode the train, they could clearly feel busy Tokyo falling away behind them. The scenery around them grew steadily greener.

Huo Lin had not disguised herself or worn her height-increasing shoes.

So she and Hayate now looked like a completely identical pair of twins.

"What's gotten into you? You're grinning like a fool."

"Nothing. I just thought this was nice, too." Hayate leaned against Huo Lin, feeling as though she were another version of herself.

She even had the illusion that Huo Lin had always looked like this, more familiar and warmer to her. Her former male appearance seemed like the illusion instead.

Huo Lin had no idea what Hayate was thinking, but she did not mind Hayate snuggling so close to her.

After all, they were each other's closest family in the world.

As the sun sank in the west, its crimson final rays spilled through the train windows. The two school-beauty-level twin girls-ranked fourth-nestled together, making a rather picturesque scene.

The train arrived at Haiming Station after night had fully fallen.

The city lights had just come on. Haiming City was quiet, but being part of the Greater Tokyo Area, it was hardly remote.

Having lived here for a while, Huo Lin and Hayate were no strangers to the city.

"What should we have for dinner? Since we agreed on barbecue... Oh, how about that place next to the middle school?"

"Isn't that meant for students? I don't think it's very good value."

Most businesses around schools catered to students, focusing on cheap, decent food. It was hard to call it truly good cuisine.

"You're a bit picky, Huo Lin." Hayate thought for a moment, then suddenly gave a mischievous smile. "How about Fumeikan? Didn't Uncle take us there once before? Their barbecue was pretty good, right?"

True, she remembered them saying they would come back next time, but that was not the issue!

Huo Lin suspected Hayate was teasing her.

"A hot spring inn? Are you telling me to go into the women's bath naked?"

"Of course. Were you planning to go into the men's bath naked?" Hayate asked in surprise.

Wait, that's not the issue, is it?

Nine-year-olds did not actually have a particularly strong awareness of gender yet.

But Huo Lin had nearly twenty years of experience from her previous life. Suddenly asking her to bathe in the women's bath was still too much of a challenge to her sense of what was normal.

Yet twenty minutes later, they still arrived at the entrance to Fumeikan.

Huo Lin simply could not win against Hayate's persistence.

"Welcome." A young woman at the front desk bowed.

At this point, Huo Lin could only step through Fumeikan's doors.

"Do you have any private baths?" This was her last stand.

A private bath meant a private hot spring pool. Huo Lin remembered that Fumeikan had indeed had three of them on their last visit. They cost a little more, but with her manuscript payment in hand, she had nothing to fear.

Money was earned to be spent. It was only a tool for exchange. Having too little was a problem, but having extra sitting around was useless, too. Now that she had an income, there was no need to worry.

Money, however, was not all-powerful.

"I'm sorry, but our private baths require reservations, and they're all fully booked."

"Ugh..." A complete defeat!

"Come on, Huo Lin. Let's go in." Hayate paid the hundred-yen bathing tax for the two of them and collected her numbered tag first, picking one up for Huo Lin as well.

Both were for the women's bath, of course.

Apart from the separate bathing tax, the hot spring visit, private dining room, and meals would all be settled at the end.

Hayate pulled Huo Lin into the changing room. This was a hot spring inn, not a public bathhouse, and there were not many guests. No one else was in the changing room.

"Don't you feel awkward bathing with me?"

"Why would I?" Hayate genuinely did not understand.

She really thought nothing of it. After all, she and Huo Lin were both only nine.

In the Island Nation, it was not uncommon for girls younger than eleven or twelve to bathe with male family members such as their fathers or brothers.

Now that Huo Lin was a girl through and through, standing in front of her was like looking in a mirror. Naturally, there was even less of a problem.

This was not Hayate's fault. It was simply the local culture, and Huo Lin, an "outsider" who had only come here to study in her previous life, could not adapt to the local customs.

Their family no longer had any male members anyway, so they would not run into that situation.

Since Hayate did not mind, Huo Lin stopped making a fuss. She put her clothes in the basket after taking them off. The bath provided only a single bath towel.

"Don't they have swimsuits here?"

"Who wears a swimsuit in a hot spring? It's not a mixed bath." Hayate draped her towel around herself and pushed Huo Lin out of the changing room.

They met no one along the way. It was summer, which was not peak hot spring season the way winter was. Hayate just happened to have been sensitive to cold rather than heat since childhood.

As for Huo Lin, neither heat nor cold bothered her. A hot spring soak or a cool shower-it made no difference.

Only when they reached the pool did they finally see other people.

There were not many people in the communal hot spring pool, just a few scattered groups of elderly and middle-aged women, without a single young person. That helped Huo Lin relax, though she also felt a faint, peculiar disappointment.

But those feelings soon vanished. As the forty-six- or forty-seven-degree water rose around her body, a shiver ran through her nerves, followed by a blissful comfort that swept away all the little troubles of daily life.

She did not need to think about anything. She tucked the Book of the Night Sky behind her neck as a pillow. Whatever its pages were made of, they were waterproof, and the hot spring water had warmed its metal cover as well.

Hot springs really are nice.

"I told you it was nice, didn't I?" Hayate sat beside her, feeling the hot water envelop her body.

Although Huo Lin had completely cut off the means by which the Book of the Night Sky affected her, she had still spent several months paralyzed.

The hot spring could improve her circulation and clear stagnation from her meridians. Her doctor had recommended it, too; it was good for her health.

"Yeah."

Just then, more people approached from the changing room entrance: several high school girls draped in bath towels. They chattered and played around, making no effort to cover themselves, bright with youthful beauty.

Huo Lin was no longer in the mood to look. She did not even have male hormones anymore. It was only a psychological effect, a way of fooling herself. In truth, she did not care at all.

She simply soaked in the hot water, calm and at ease.

After the bath came the promised barbecue.

In their private dining room, a server brought over the grill and dishes.

"Excuse me, are there no adults with you?"

When they entered the hot spring inn, Huo Lin had used mental suggestion to make the receptionist think they had come with adults. Otherwise, the inn would not have admitted two unaccompanied minors.

It was simple, not even magic. As long as her mental power far exceeded the other person's, she could easily implant a suggestion. It was just a little trick.

If the other person was a Mage, however, a suggestion like that might alert them.

Fortunately, most people on Earth were ordinary people, and encounters with magic were virtually unheard of.

"Yes, they're probably still in the bath," Huo Lin said, continuing her suggestion.

The server therefore suspected nothing.

"In that case, let me help you grill the food."

"Yes, please."

Of course, Huo Lin knew how to grill food herself, but the server would not let two small children operate the grill.

A suggestion still needed a reasonable explanation, making people overlook coincidences and chance occurrences without considering other possibilities.

Letting minors operate the grill would be asking to lose her job. It flatly violated safety rules and was already beyond what suggestion could accomplish.