Issei
I knew this day was going to be dangerous the second I got to the station.
Not because of Fallen Angels.
Not because of holy swords.
Because there were too many girls there, dressed too well, and I was only one man.
Asia was the first one I saw, and that alone almost ended me.
She was wearing a gothic-lolita outfit again—black lace, ribbons, frills, all of it impossibly cute in a way that made me want to thank every god, dead or otherwise, for putting her in my life.
“Issei-san.”
She smiled when she saw me.
I was blinded by the pure cuteness she exuded.
Then I noticed the rest of the group.
Yuuto-san was there, of course, looking elegant enough to make an ordinary station platform seem underdressed just by standing on it.
Koneko-chan was beside her, small, expressionless, and somehow still giving off the feeling that she would judge everybody in sight by the quality of their dessert choices.
Xenovia stood a little apart from the others, posture straight, taking in the whole station like she expected an ambush at any time.
Yuuto-san and Kusari-san had said they would explain to the others that Xenovia was a new transfer student.
Matsuda and Motohama had already arrived too, which meant my dignity had no chance from the start.
Kiryuu was with them, glasses catching the morning light just enough to make her look more dangerous than usual.
And beside her were Murayama-san and Katase-san, both of whom looked entirely too pleased by the fact that they had been invited into whatever nonsense this outing was about to become.
And then there was Kusari-san.
She stood near the middle of the group without quite claiming the center of it.
Simple clothes. A black and red t-shirt with a pair of jeans. Her tails and ears hidden.
Face calm in that careful way of hers. If someone didn’t know her, they’d think she was only quiet.
I knew better.
And, lately, I was starting to feel like I knew better in slightly different ways than before.
Kiryuu saw me and waved. “You’re late.”
“I’m not late,” I said immediately. “I’m arriving at the perfect timing.”
“Same thing boys say when they don’t want to admit they overslept,” Katase-san said.
Murayama-san laughed. “It really is.”
“Wow,” I said. “No support at all.”
“It’s alright Issei-san, we didn’t wait long!” Asia chimed in
“No Asia, he doesn’t deserve support,” Aika said.
That was rude.
Kusari-san glanced at me, then at the station clock, and said, “You’re four minutes late.”
I stared at her.
“Why can’t you back me up like Asia did?”
I pointed accusingly.
“I had to even out the Occult Research Club bias.”
The annoying part was that it was also funny.
And the more annoying part was that, a little while ago, I wasn’t sure she would have said it aloud.
That was happening more now.
Small things. Dry remarks.
A sharper edge slipping through. Nothing huge.
Just enough that every now and then it felt like I was seeing the shape of more of her instead of only the parts she chose to let the rest of us deal with.
She had been making comments and opening up to us more before, but after the fight with Kokabiel she had been even more present in the group instead of just there.
Xenovia looked between all of us and frowned. “Do friends always begin by insulting each other?”
“Yes,” Matsuda said.
“No,” Asia said at the same time.
Xenovia turned to Asia. “Then which is correct?”
Asia hesitated.
Kiryuu saved her by adjusting her glasses and saying, “Both, depending on the quality of the friendship.”
Xenovia stared at Kiryuu for a moment.
“I was warned not to listen to you.”
“Oh? Was it Hyoudou that is slandering me?”
Xenovia glanced at Kusari-san.
“So it was you Kusari-san? I thought that we were friends? You’ve listened to my advice before.”
Kiryuu leaned towards Kusari-san and clutched her chest dramatically
“That’s exactly why I warned her.”
Kiryuu turned back to Xenovia.
“Well you can just come to me for anything. Asia does all the time and I’d be happy to help you out with anything.”
That woman was impossible.
We got moving after that.
Bowling was first.
Apparently not everything about it was obvious to everyone.
I only realized Kusari didn’t know that renting bowling shoes was normal when she stared at the counter display for half a second too long and then asked me quietly, “Why are they giving us used shoes?”
I looked at her.
Then at the row of rental shoes.
Then back at her.
“What?”
“Why do we need to wear the shoes they give us for the game?”
I actually choked on my own laugh.
“Because, we’re supposed to wear them.”
Her expression didn’t change. “Why?”
“Because… that’s how bowling works.”
“That answer explains nothing.”
“So you expect Hyoudou to explain things properly but not me?,” Kiryuu muttered from beside us.
Kusari-san ignored her completely and looked back at me.
“You change your shoes for the sport,” I explained. “Everybody does. It protects the lanes or something.”
“Or something?”
“I’m not an expert on bowling, Kusari-san.”
“That much is obvious.”
I was starting to think she’d decided I was fun to bully.
Which was unfair.
She accepted the shoes after that, though she still looked faintly suspicious of them the entire time she put them on.
None of the non-peerage girls thought anything of it.
Why would they? To them, she was just a quiet classmate who maybe hadn’t bowled much before.
That fit the truth closely enough to work.
I don’t know if she’d ever done anything recreationally in the human world.
The game itself was a success and a disaster in the usual ways.
Asia’s first throw was timid and adorable and went straight into the gutter.
Murayama-san bowled like she wanted to physically intimidate the lane into cooperating.
Katase-san had way better aim than I wanted her to have, which became unbearable once she realized it and started looking smug after every good roll.
Kiryuu was strangely good and picked up a lot of spares.
Yuuto-san was graceful even while bowling, which made watching someone bowl a lot more distracting than it should be.
Matsuda stared at the girls instead of playing the game.
Motohama would shout with each throw and only hit a few pins each time.
Koneko-chan launched the ball straight down the middle of the lane and barely reacted when she got a strike, which somehow made it feel more impressive.
Xenovia treated every turn like a training exercise and asked at least three questions about scoring with enough seriousness to the staff to make them glance over at us for help.
Kusari-san started off looking at the lane like it was a puzzle rather than a game.
That made sense, really.
Her first roll was too careful, too precise. The ball curved late and clipped more pins than it should have based on the angle alone.
“Lucky,” I said.
She glanced at me. “No.”
“It shouldn’t have gotten that many pins!”
“Correct.”
Her second roll was better.
Her third was weirdly good.
Not showy.
Just exact in that way everything she did seemed to become if you gave her long enough to watch it first.
Murayama-san leaned over her lane and grinned. “You’re secretly competitive, aren’t you?”
“No,” Kusari-san said.
Katase-san folded her arms. “That sounded like a lie.”
Kusari-san looked at the monitor. Then at her own score.
Then back at Katase-san
“…Only if I’m losing.”
That got a few laughs from the group.
I looked at her a second too long after that.
Again.
Not because the line was anything special.
Because she let it land.
She stayed with the moment instead of withdrawing from it.
Maybe that shouldn’t have felt important.
It did anyway.
Karaoke was next.
This was somehow more dangerous than bowling.
Not in the sense that anybody was likely to die.
In the sense that Asia was still in that gothic-lolita outfit, Yuuto-san looked unfairly good in her button up shirt and dress pants, and Kusari-san had now entered the phase of the outing where she was more relaxed and quietly commenting more.
I wasn’t built to survive this.
The room got loud fast.
Matsuda and Motohama wanted to commandeer the machine immediately, which meant Kiryuu had to seize control before they could break something.
Katase-san and Murayama-san backed her up, mostly because they enjoyed seeing those two suffer.
Koneko-chan ignored the entire concept of music and focused on food instead, which honestly wasn’t surprising at all.
Xenovia looked at the song-selection screen with a frown.
“There are too many.”
“That,” I told her, “is the whole point.”
“No. A proper selection should have fewer choices.”
“That is not how karaoke works.”
She gave me a flat look. “That doesn’t make sense. How can I pick a good choice if there are hundreds of bad ones?”
That actually made sense and I didn’t have an answer for her.
Asia got pushed into singing first.
Pushed gently, of course, because nobody there had enough of a death wish to be rough with Asia when she looked nervous.
Still, she ended up with the microphone in both hands, standing in front of the screen with her face pink and her voice so sweet that even Matsuda and Motohama shut up to listen.
“I-I’ll try singing some prayer hymns.”
I quickly moved to her and helped her pick a simpler and catchy song she would like.
If she sung Church hymns every Devil in the room would be in pain and I didn’t want to try and explain that.
When she finished, the whole room applauded. Asia hid behind her own hair on the way back to her seat.
I told her she was amazing because I’m not stupid enough to miss a chance to compliment her.
Then Kiryuu sang.
Then Katase-san.
Then Murayama-san.
Yuuto-san too, because apparently she was not content with being good at combat and tea and looking elegant while breathing.
No, she had to sing well too.
Xenovia’s attempt sounded like a solemn church hymn had wandered into karaoke by mistake and decided to commit to the bit.
Nobody had the courage to laugh to her face, though Kiryuu had to physically turn away from the screen to recover.
Motohama and Matsuda were barred from singing after Matsuda mentioned wanting to sing a song from an AV he saw recently.
Though they got to watch girls from our class sing so they didn’t really complain too hard.
I stuck to songs from anime I liked and a few popular songs I knew.
Then, of course, attention shifted to Kusari-san.
Kiryuu was the one who did it.
“Kusari-san.”
“No.”
“That was too fast.”
“It was meant to be.”
“You’re singing at least one line.”
“No.”
Kiryuu held out the microphone toward her.
Kusari-san stared at it like it might be dangerous, which… it might have been.
“You’ve already bowled and survived,” I told her. “This is basically the same.”
“It absolutely isn’t.”
“Coward.”
Her eyes moved to me immediately. “Bold from someone whose score was tragic.”
The room laughed before I could defend myself.
Traitors.
Still, she took the microphone.
“One line,” she said.
Asia leaned forward at once. “Please, Kusari-san.”
That probably mattered more than anything else said in the room.
Kusari-san glanced at her, then at the screen, then sighed so softly it almost disappeared.
And decided to sing.
She looked at Asia and saw that she looked excited to hear her.
So she sang the whole song.
Her voice was soft, lower than Asia’s, quiet in a way that made everyone else shut up without needing to be told.
She wasn’t dramatic or flashy.
She was good but not amazing.
But her voice had a depth to it that was lacking when everyone else sang.
The carefree, nervous, and energetic feeling that everyone else had while singing wasn’t there.
When she finished she handed the microphone back immediately.
“There, I’m done.”
“That was evil,” I said.
“What was?”
“Hiding that.”
She looked blankly at me. “I wasn’t hiding anything. I just wasn’t volunteering to participate.”
Kiryu smiled. “That sounds like the same thing.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Does too.”
Kusari-san exhaled through her nose and leaned back into her seat, clearly done with all of us.
And yet she stayed there. She didn’t slide farther from the group. She didn’t use the song as an excuse to vanish into silence for the rest of the outing.
Small things. It was all small things.
While I was taking a break from karaoke I got a text from Buchou.
She and Akeno-san were out swimsuit shopping.
It was getting warmer out and Buchou had said that the club would be taking a day to relax at the pool together soon.
And she just sent me a photo of her trying on a swimsuit in a changing room.
“…Issei-senpai, your nose is bleeding.”
Koneko-chan told me while looking at me suspiciously.
She was right. I quickly wiped the blood away and tried to look composed.
“Were you imagining something lewd about Rias-Buchou?”
Asia asked me while pouting slightly.
“I-I, well— that’s not—”
I scrambled to come up with an excuse when Kusari-san threw me under the bus.
“Akeno-senpai told me that she and Rias-Buchou would be swimsuit shopping today.”
“….Perverted-senpai…”
Koneko-chan's suspicious gaze turned into a judgmental one.
“Issei-san…”
Asia looked slightly annoyed.
Kiryuu looked at me with a mean smirk before shifting closer to sit right next to Asia.
Kiryuu decided to start “teaching” Asia again.
“You know,” Kiryuu said, adjusting her glasses, “karaoke dates can get very intimate.”
Asia turned red instantly. “W-What does that mean?”
“No,” I said immediately.
Kiryuu ignored me.
“Well you’re alone in a closed room. So you have privacy to do some more adult things.”
Asia made a small panicked sound.
I nearly fell over lunging across the table. “Stop corrupting her!”
Kiryuu finally looked at me. “Your existence isn’t any better.”
“What do you mean!?.”
“Oppai boy. Member of the Perverted Trio. Caught peeping.”
Kiryuu listed things out to prove her point.
Murayama-san laughed so hard she had to put down her drink.
Katase-san nodded like this was all obvious.
Xenovia, to my horror, looked interested.
“What adult things?”
“No!” I said louder.
Koneko-chan glanced up from her dessert. “Too late.”
“Whose side are you on!?”
“….No one’s….”
Fair.
Kusaria-san, who had been watching the scene with one hand near her glass, chose that exact moment to say, “If Kiryuu-san explains it, Asia might actually melt.”
Asia pouted.
Kiryuu smiled proudly.
Motohama and Matsuda cursed me.
Yuuto-san chuckled.
Xenovia looked confused.
I stared at Kusari-san again.
That was definitely more of her.
Not a huge reveal.
Not some dramatic personality shift.
Just a little more willingness to let small jokes out instead of cutting them off before they got anywhere.
And the weird part?
She seemed almost surprised by it too.
As if the lines slipped out before she could decide whether they were safe.
I wondered again what the Kokabiel battle had done to her.
I still had no answer.
Just more little signs of change.
Later, I stepped out into the hall to breathe for a second and bumped into Yuuto-san.
She was leaning against the wall with coffee in one hand, looking more relaxed than she had a right to after everything that happened and still somehow carrying the aftermath in the way she held herself.
“Ise-kun.”
“Yuuto-san.”
I stopped beside her.
“You escaping?”
“I’m recovering.”
“From the songs?”
“From your classmates.”
“That’s fair.”
For a second we just stood there in a silence that didn’t feel strained.
Then I said what I’d been meaning to say.
“You really are doing better.”
Yuuto-san looked at me.
“With what?”
“Everything.” I shrugged. “The battle. Excalibur. All of it.”
Her eyes softened a little.
“Maybe.”
I glanced back toward the karaoke room door.
“Kusari-san seems different too.”
That got her attention properly.
Yuuto-san looked at the closed door, then back at me.
“She does.”
“You noticed too.”
“Of course I noticed.”
That sounded obvious coming from her.
I rubbed the back of my head. “I can’t tell what it is.”
Yuuto-san thought for a second.
“Maybe she’s just… less interested in pretending that she’s not really a part of the peerage. Or maybe she finally realized she is.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because it felt like it could be right.
Maybe.
And when we went back into the room, I think I started seeing it more clearly.
Kusari-san wasn’t transformed.
She wasn’t suddenly open or easy or unguarded.
She was still careful.
Still quiet.
Still hard to read.
But there was less of that feeling that she was making herself fit into a shape the room would tolerate.
A little more of the sense that she was simply there, whether the room had adjusted to her yet or not.
That was new.
And I liked it.
Probably too much.
When our eyes met across the table and she said, “If you’re finished having a meaningful conversation in the hallway, Kiryuu-san is trying to ruin Asia again.”
I answered immediately and with panic.
“What!?”
Kusari-san looked away.
But I could swear she was hiding a tiny smile.
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