After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark - Chapter 24

Chapter 24

“Kyoya Hibari, the control center has finished scheduling. The plane is preparing to enter the runway. Please be sure to pay attention to safety.”

The calm voice of Tetsuya Kusakabe from the cockpit came through the cabin’s small speaker.

Kyoya Hibari looked down at the person who was still clutching the corner of his suit. She was wearing a silk nightgown with a complicated lace pattern, and a slipper with a cat on it was half-hanging from her foot. A few strands of messy hair were stuck to her slightly flushed cheeks, her violet eyes were hazy, and she was stubbornly waiting for him to give an answer.

“Let go. Sit properly.”

He said calmly.

Jin Chaoyan stared at him for a while, as if she had just processed his words. She let out an “oh” and released the corner of his suit. She put her hands on the beige sofa, placed her legs together, and put her palms on her knees, sitting as neatly as a child listening to a lesson in kindergarten.

The man’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He hadn’t expected her to be so obedient when drunk. So he leaned down, found the hidden seatbelt in the back of the sofa, pulled it across her shoulder, and with a “click,” buckled her into the seat. He then turned around and walked towards a nearby single seat.

“Why are you leaving?”

Jin Chaoyan looked at him longingly. She grabbed the seatbelt in front of her with one hand and patted the empty space on the long sofa with the other. “Sit here.”

Hibird, which had been startled by her movements, now looked back and forth between them with its beady black eyes, as if it, too, had a sudden realization. It called out “Kyoya~” and then flapped its wings, biting the wrinkled sleeve of Kyoya Hibari’s suit with its beak, trying its best to fly towards the sofa.

The little bird certainly didn’t have the strength to pull him, but its determined posture was enough to show its stance.

Kyoya Hibari’s eyes narrowed slightly. He looked at his pet, which had completely betrayed him. A few seconds later, he finally changed his mind and walked back to the sofa to sit down.

Hibird flew to the shoulder closer to Jin Chaoyan. It turned its little head left and right, finding itself surrounded by its owners. It happily flapped its wings, calling “Kyoya~” to the left and “Chaoyan~” to the right.

Jin Chaoyan heard the little bird’s voice and answered enthusiastically, “Mmm!”

So as the plane sped down the runway, the roar of the landing gear’s high-speed friction with the ground became a backdrop to the two particularly cheerful voices repeatedly answering each other in Kyoya Hibari’s ears:

“Chaoyan~”

“Mmm!”

“Chao-yan~”

“Mmm!”

The man, who was about to close his eyes for a rest, expressionlessly tilted his head. His gray-blue eyes stared at the woman beside him, who was childishly singing a duet with Hibird. Just as he was about to tell her to be quiet, the plane left the runway, its body rising into the dark night sky.

As the gravity changed, Hibird flew up to his head, its claws grabbing a handful of his hair for better leverage. Jin Chaoyan unconsciously leaned towards him. To steady herself, she instinctively reached out and hugged his arm. As she fought against the force, she mumbled with a little dissatisfaction:

“So dizzy…”

A warm, alcohol-laced breath accompanied by a muffled voice spilled onto his neck. As her soft body pressed against him through the thin nightgown and suit fabric, Kyoya Hibari instinctively raised the other arm she wasn’t holding. But as she swayed her head back and forth from the dizziness, he finally placed his hand on top of her head:

“Don’t move.”

“But I’m so dizzy…” The person whose head was being held was like a kitten whose scruff had been picked up. She did indeed stop moving, but she still protested in a small voice.

Kyoya Hibari didn’t reply. It wasn’t until the view outside the window changed from the tilting airport scenery to the pitch-black night and the flight altitude was stable that he released his hand. In the rare silence, he closed his eyes.

But the person who was practically half-hugging his arm wasn’t being honest. Her fingertips poked his shoulder through the suit fabric, completely unaware that she was poking a tiger. She interrupted him very seriously: “Didn’t you have a question you didn’t answer just now?”

The man, whose facial features were delicate but whose aura was incredibly cold, suddenly opened his eyes. A flash of displeasure appeared in his phoenix-like eyes. He stared at her for a few seconds. Even Hibird on top of his head flapped its wings uneasily, ready to fly away, but the drunk woman didn’t notice the ominous feeling in the air at all:

“You’re this drunk. If I tell you, will you even remember?”

Jin Chaoyan thought for a moment, then shook her head honestly: “No.”

The danger in the air suddenly calmed down.

The man let out a small laugh, a smile spreading on his lips. He seemed to be amused by her honesty.

Kyoya Hibari looked at her and asked unhurriedly, “You’ve held back your curiosity for so long and pretended for so long. Why do you suddenly want to know?”

Before Jin Chaoyan’s sluggish brain could process his question, he mused to himself with a sudden realization, “You saw that document.”

Kyoya Hibari of course remembered the night he met that Chao-yan Kin.

—It was that Jin Chaoyan who had a congenital heart condition that had not yet been cured.

At the time, he had just met with other Tokyo conglomerates at a banquet. Kusakabe had gone to the underground parking lot to get the car keys, while he left the deserted rear courtyard of the banquet hall alone.

But on his inevitable path, there was an unexpected little animal. The woman was covered in red wine and glass shards, looking more disheveled than ever. When he first found her, she first hugged her arms in a helpless defensive posture. But then, for some reason, she relaxed and called to him blankly:

“Hibari-senpai…?”

He narrowed his eyes. After a long time, he was a little surprised to recognize the girl who had once attended Namimori Middle School.

Although he had never remembered the person’s name, her solitary situation felt familiar to him. In Namimori, Hibari had seen countless herbivores huddle together. Because of his existence as the apex predator, no other being could threaten the little animals of Namimori.

But this student, in particular, made him wonder if there were other evil forces he didn’t know about secretly existing in Namimori. On the first day he caught her wearing a winter uniform to school, there were scars all over her arm under her sleeve.

Because of this, Hibari even investigated for a few days and, while he was at it, cleaned out a few underground gambling dens that had secretly been established in Namimori. He ultimately found that this little animal was simply a weak individual who had been cast out by her family.

Namimori wasn’t big, but it wasn’t so small that there weren’t a few students from broken homes. But Jin Chaoyan was truly the only one who had suffered such severe domestic violence.

And now, she looked even weaker and her life force was more fragile than she was ten years ago. If it weren’t for the intense light in her eyes as she looked at him, like a candle flame in the dark, he would have no doubt that she would die on the side of this road at any moment.

“It’s you.”

He stood in place, not getting closer.

Ten years ago, for the honor of Namimori, Hibari had seriously planned to bite to death the parents of a student who had harmed her and challenged his authority. But his actions were halted by this solitary little animal’s plea. The other party still seemed to have a fantasy of a good family. Even after being harmed a thousand times, she still wanted to return to her family.

The choices of a weak animal would never be beyond his expectations.

And his pity for this solitary herbivore only extended to allowing her to wear a winter uniform in the summer.

But ten years later, this little animal seemed to have made some progress. She took the initiative to walk towards Hibari. Even though she was trembling and fear was written all over her body, she mustered her courage and asked him a question that even he found unexpected.

“No offense, Hibari-senpai… Are you married?”

Before he could answer, the other person, who was terrified of being close to him, explained a lot with a trembling voice, finally making him understand what she meant.

This little animal was seeking his protection.

Perhaps it was because she looked so weak that she would die if she wasn’t helped immediately, or perhaps her appearance tonight reminded Hibari of his middle school days. In any case, he was in the mood and agreed to her request.

As for the sanctity of marriage, having to spend it with someone you love, and other societal agreements, he didn’t put them in his eyes.

For Hibari, it was just another incredibly boring night when he hadn’t found an opponent to fight.

But for that woman, the meaning seemed to be different—

The few words and a simple decision that night seemed to have exhausted her life’s courage and fulfilled her life’s expectations and joy, so much so that after she got married, her life force drained away even faster. It was like a flower on a branch that was late to bloom, timidly opening its petals to look at the world, then contentedly and quickly withering away.

She didn’t even dare to hope for more. The day after they got married, she brought a Marriage Agreement, and, being timid, she only dared to have Kusakabe pass it on. In the initial agreement, she didn’t take any advantage at all, setting the duration of the marriage to only three years.

But the medical report the head of the medical department gave him said that this woman could live for five years.

Looking at this little animal who was afraid of even dying and bothering others, Kyoya Hibari belatedly realized that he had picked up a hamster.

A timid hamster that could be scared to death by a little noise and couldn’t withstand any kind of threat.

A beast shouldn’t keep a hamster by his side.

Kyoya Hibari pulled back his thoughts. He looked at the woman who was practically pressed against him, her eyebrows furrowed, still struggling to think about his earlier question. He suddenly spoke, “So, who are you?”

Jin Chaoyan hadn’t expected him to throw another question at her. She replied in a daze, “Wait a minute… you have so many questions.”

“Answer this one first.”

Kyoya Hibari commanded briefly.

“Oh…” The drunk person unconsciously frowned. After thinking for a while, she looked at him with a strange look, as if she couldn’t understand why he didn’t know her. But since she was asked, she still obediently replied, “I’m Jin Chaoyan.”

As she introduced her name, she suddenly switched to Chinese.

Speaking of this, she suddenly remembered the self-introductions she used to make every time she went to a new environment. So she continued fluently, “Hello, my name is Jin Chaoyan. I’m from Z province, S city, xx district—”

She paused for a moment and asked, “Do I need to tell you which neighborhood I live in?”

“…”

Suddenly hearing such fluent Chinese, Kyoya Hibari raised an eyebrow. If he hadn’t been traveling around the world in recent years to study boxes, he would have barely understood her language.

From Huaxia?

His eyes shimmered with interest. He reached out and picked up a tablet from the table in front of the sofa, opened the map app, and handed it to the woman next to him. He didn’t feel that it was wrong to trick her into talking while she was drunk. Instead, he said, “Type it in.”

Jin Chaoyan also stared at the map app for a while, as if she was itching to try. But in the end, she just curled her fingertips and slowly shook her head. “It’s not… I can’t find it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not in the same world,” she replied as if it were the most obvious thing. She looked at Hibari with that “how do you not know this” look.

…Not in the same world?

The light in the man’s phoenix-like eyes grew brighter. It even startled Hibird, which had been resting peacefully on top of his head. The little bird fluttered its wings, flew to the desktop, and looked left and right at the two of them close together. As if in a good mood, it suddenly burst into song:

“Lush green Namimori~ Moderation is best, not too big, not too small~”

And the woman, who had been seriously answering his questions, smiled, her eyes curved. She raised a hand to beat time for Hibird and even hummed along.

The moment Hibird finished its song, Kyoya Hibari seamlessly linked his next question:

“Then, what about the original Jin Chaoyan?”

After he spoke, the cabin fell silent. Only the rumbling sound of the plane’s engine as it moved through the clouds could be heard.

But the person who had been quiet and well-behaved now had a crestfallen expression. Her eyes became much dimmer. She even released his arm, only giving him a strange, accusing look. And then another.

He raised an eyebrow.

In the quiet wait, the woman seemed to have finally made a decision. She murmured to herself, “I can tell him… I have to tell him…”

“She…”

Her expression was tinged with a strange sorrow, as if the question had stirred up some lingering emotion deep within her body. “She passed away.”

“When I came, she had already passed away,” Jin Chaoyan said, word by word, meeting his eyes. She told him this with such seriousness and focus.

…Is that so?

So that little hamster only lived for two and a half years?

Kyoya Hibari remembered the medical report that had been faxed to him. Upon hearing this news, he only felt a sense of calm finality.

—A solitary little animal, even if it finds a beast’s protection, will eventually die of melancholy. This is the fate of a herbivore from birth.

So he stared at the woman in front of him. Thinking of all the vitality she had shown since she appeared, he couldn’t help but wonder, Will she also be like that hamster?

“Why didn’t you go see her?”

The drunk woman couldn’t read his gaze. Her mind was sluggish and could only process one question at a time. So she spoke whatever came to mind, without any filter.

Hearing her question, the man finally understood the reason for her earlier, inexplicable, accusing look. But he didn’t plan to answer. Instead, he continued to ask:

“Why are the people who kidnapped you still in a vegetative state?”

As expected, Jin Chaoyan immediately forgot her accusation. Her voice was soft and obedient, and she even unconsciously switched back to Japanese. “Because I used Tsukuyomi.”

He repeated in confusion: “Tsukuyomi?”

“And Amaterasu. It’s Itachi’s ability… The dog-mall lent it to me. The Mangekyo Sharingan is the coolest. Hehe.”

“…”

Faced with a jumble of random words, Kyoya Hibari’s reaction was simple. “Show me.”

“No~”

Jin Chaoyan kept shaking her head. Every part of her, down to a single strand of hair, was screaming rejection. “It’s too expensive, wuwu. That dog-mall isn’t going to trick me out of my money again!”

“I’ll give you money,” Kyoya repeated with a smile. “Show me.”

Hearing the first half of the sentence, the woman suddenly looked up, her eyes lighting up with the shine of someone who loves money. But after she looked at Kyoya’s face carefully, the light in her eyes gradually faded.

She even pouted, and her eyes started to get red.

Her already thin eyelids turned even redder, and even her fair nose was infected by this feeling of being wronged, looking like a pink peach blossom bud. “Are you lying to me again, wuwuwu—”

“Last time you, you said you’d give me money, but you didn’t. You even made me lose three properties. You’re trying to trick me out of my houses again, wuwuwu!”

Kyoya Hibari: “…”

He looked at the person who suddenly started to sob uncontrollably when money was mentioned with a complicated expression. Before he could react further, Hibird, who had been hopping around on the table watching them, suddenly flapped its wings and said, “Chaoyan~ Chaoyan~”

It used its beak to pull a tissue from the box on the corner of the table. It flew to the woman’s lap and, after putting it down, it said, “Chaoyan~”

Jin Chaoyan choked out a thank you to Hibird. She instinctively picked up the tissue to dab her tears. She noticed that his gaze was still on her, and her shoulders trembled. She glared at him with her reddish eyes and muttered in a small voice: “…Dog-man.”

The dog-man who tricked her out of her feelings with money. The dog-man who almost made her lose three properties.

Hibird, which was looking at her from her lap with its beady black eyes, looked back and forth, flapped its wings, and repeated to Kyoya in a high-pitched, clear voice:

“Dog-man~ Dog-man~”

Support After Transmigrating to Become Lady Skylark