With Lungmen's night behind her, Sora propped her cheek on her hand and looked at Li Lin, smiling.
It was nothing like the flustered, overwhelmed little idol from earlier. This was a mature smile—one that belonged to a girl with her own thoughts.
This was Sora's real smile.
A smile that wanted to break free from Siren Records' restraints; that wanted to chase the freedom of her own voice; that wanted to sing openly, as she pleased.
"You're totally exposed, Sen~ior."
"…Ahaha. You saw through me?"
"Yeah. Because the way you act makes it obvious you don't actually know how I met Texas, or what I'm genuinely good at, or what I truly like. You don't even know I already met Emperor a long time ago—I'm basically just 'completing the paperwork' now."
"..."
"If you really cared and wanted to ask, Texas would definitely tell you. We're good friends, after all. But you didn't. I kind of guessed it at the start, but seeing it for real is still a little disappointing. I thought more people knew me. Oh, and by the way—running into gangs isn't even my first time. I wasn't that nervous."
I actually do know.
But what would be the point of saying it out loud? Honestly, this was the effect he wanted.
Watching Sora—looking a bit sulky, but also oddly relieved—Li Lin sat on the balcony and quietly regarded her before speaking.
"Still, asking you to introduce me to some girls—yeah, I meant that."
"And wanting you to help me get closer to Texas—that's also true."
"Then nothing changed, did it?"
"…I guess not."
So what exactly was she expecting? Some idol-drama development?
Or did Texas put some strange idea in her head? He couldn't quite figure it out.
Sora sat there on the balcony, thinking. For some reason, she seemed to deflate a little.
Li Lin raised an eyebrow, confused.
"Don't forget. I'm counting on you for the happiness of the second half of my life."
"Of course I won't, Senior. If I'm your junior, I have to seriously consider your request. But I still have some questions."
"Go ahead."
"Why were you able to predict ahead of time… that something like that would happen?"
Holding her drink can, Sora tilted her head, looking at him with bright curiosity as she spoke softly.
"I really was scared at the time. Everything happened exactly the way you judged it would. Texas told me to trust you… but it really was exactly the same. You're amazing."
"Amazing? It was just common-sense thinking."
The way a girl tilts her head and shows her collarbones is really something…
Sora was tilting her head with curiosity, and because the Penguin Logistics uniform didn't fit perfectly, a bit of her shoulder and collarbone showed. Li Lin withdrew his gaze without giving anything away and swallowed a mouthful of his drink.
"Everyone knows Lungmen's public security is chaotic. Any action can be monitored by the gangs, and the Lungmen Guard Department is a mixed bag—some officers are even former gang members. Information leaking from the LGD is practically inevitable."
"Plus, if you open a public tracking system and mark a pickup, you'll obviously get surrounded fast. After that it's simple: wait for the counter-encirclement I told you about. Then they get broken. We win."
"But really, all of that was just bluffing and gambling. There's nothing reliable about it. It proves nothing except that their reaction logic isn't much better than animals."
"But I've never seen planning like that before!" Sora's eyes practically sparkled as she talked, thrilled.
"It was like you had everything calculated, no mistakes at all—and that tracking system at the beginning was part of it too, right?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Li Lin frowned.
"We had a combat advantage. So we just called people in. Without that premise, how could that garbage plan ever succeed?"
"G-garbage plan?"
"Of course it was."
He looked at Sora's blank expression and answered with genuine confusion.
"It was all imagination, almost no real logic. No evidence—just guesses. If the other side weren't stupid and overconfident, barely smarter than wild animals, the whole premise wouldn't even hold."
"And even executing it only worked because our side's fighting power was far stronger. One ambush and it's over."
"If they had enough morale and countermeasures—if they realized that warehouse area didn't actually have large-scale combustibles, and formed three-person teams with alternating cover—then we might've ended up on the back foot. Worse, because we were at the center of the encirclement, we could've been forced into a hostage situation."
"It was a high-stakes bet. A bet where you have nothing to rely on except praying the other side is full of idiots. Even if we won… what's there to be happy about?"
"…Oh…"
Sora made a face like she couldn't accept what she was hearing.
What was she even expecting?
Looking at Sora's visibly shaken expression, Li Lin found it hard to accept too.
In his eyes, this idol was a bit strange. She looked soft, and her voice was sweet and cute—but Sora's personality was the truly troublesome type.
Stubborn. Independent-minded. And once she latched onto something, she acted immediately without hesitation. She had her own logic for everything, her own way of interpreting people and events, and she didn't always think through consequences in detail.
But overall…
She was still a pretty good idol.
Especially if she could introduce him to someone.
His gaze slid, almost unconsciously, from the curve of her collarbone down toward the pale pink edge visible near her neckline—then he pulled it back at once and took another sip of the oddly flavored drink.
Sora, as if she hadn't noticed anything at all, lowered her head to think for a moment. Then she looked out at Lungmen's night.
Faced with that brilliantly colored sky and the streets below, the idol of Lungmen suddenly asked:
"Then, Senior… do you have a dream?"
"A dream? What is this, some variety show?"
"I'm just asking."
She swung her legs from the edge of the balcony, her tone casual.
"Because I already told Texas about my dream. I've told her what I want. But you never said anything, and I never got any sense of it. It feels like something's… off. So let's exchange."
"That's funny. Texas and Exusiai never asked me that. Croissant did, but that was more like a joke." Li Lin looked up at the dark sky, washed faintly by Lungmen's glow, and sighed.
"But if I have to answer… I don't think I have some lofty dream. And it's not really something I can say out loud as a 'dream,' either."
He stared at the darkness—dark, yet stained with the city's light—and let out a quiet breath.
"…To float."
"My dream is to float."
-------
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