Not proactive enough?
Watching Miko and Lumine walk away, Wendy couldn't help turning that thought over in her mind.
Her original plan had been simple: hang back and see what Miko and Lumine got up to after Kaito left, then make a brief appearance so they'd know that Wendy and Acheron weren't completely indifferent to how things were going on Kaito's end. She hadn't expected to overhear something like that.
If she was being honest, Kaito had been pretty proactive these past few times.
But Wendy also understood that what Miko clearly meant was that Kaito tended to hold back when it came to certain… quirky interests.
The thing was, though — it wasn't as if Kaito went in for that kind of play every single time.
And more importantly, Kaito would need to actually know what kinds of play Miko and Lumine liked before he could do anything about it. It wasn't fair to expect him to carry that entirely on his own.
Oh well...
Wendy supposed she could be the one to go ask him...
With that settled in her mind, she already had a plan.
Wait...
If Miko asks me what kind of weird play I'm into, how am I supposed to answer that?
Normally when she was together with Kaito, things were already exciting enough on their own, so they'd always just done things the regular way — no unusual play involved.
I could just pretend I don't know what she's talking about..
No, no, that won't work...
If I'm playing dumb, I can't exactly ask questions either...
Deciding not to overthink it for now, Wendy let her form dissolve from where she stood and reappeared behind Miko and Lumine, who were in the middle of figuring out what to get for breakfast.
"What do you want to eat, Lumine?"
"Anything's fine."
The moment she materialized behind them, Wendy caught the tail end of their exchange.
"Congee and youtiao, then." Wendy spoke up out of nowhere.
"Congee and you— hm?"
Miko, who had assumed it was Lumine talking, immediately sensed something was off and spun around.
"You little gremlin — would it kill you to stop materializing out of thin air?" Miko turned to find Wendy standing there, having appeared at some point without anyone noticing, and put her hands on her hips.
She couldn't help it — in her mind, Wendy was always pulling this.
"Wendy?" Lumine turned as well, and fixed Wendy with a curious look. "Didn't you run into Kaito?"
Even though Kaito had only pretended to leave, Wendy should have crossed paths with him.
Wait...
They might have already met.
The thought flashed through Lumine's mind and she scrambled to think of something to say to redirect the conversation.
But before she could get a word in, Wendy had already spoken. "I didn't — where did he go? How come he's not with you two?"
Since Wendy's cover story was that she'd been waiting in Inazuma for Kaito and had come to Liyue to track him down, it made sense for her to say she hadn't seen him and had no idea what he was up to.
"Oh, that — he's already headed back to Inazuma," Miko said, filling Wendy in on the situation.
Wendy was undeniably capable, but since she didn't know about Kaito's plan, it was better not to let anything slip — no point in throwing a wrench into whatever he had in motion.
"He went back?" Wendy blinked, looking genuinely surprised. "Aren't you going back with him?"
"We'll head back a little later," Lumine answered.
"Right — we still want to wander around Liyue a bit more. It's so lively here, we can't just leave yet." Miko picked up where Lumine left off.
"Then bring me along."
Wendy gave a small nod, inviting herself into their plans.
She'd originally only planned to show her face and then disappear again, but now it seemed she'd be sticking around with these two for a while.
"You're not going to go find Kaito? He might already be back in Inazuma by now."
Miko was a little surprised that this little gremlin actually wanted to stay and tag along.
Not that she minded having Wendy around — it was more that she'd assumed Wendy would leave the moment she heard Kaito had gone. After all, Wendy had obviously come to Liyue to find him, and now he wasn't here anymore.
"I'll hang out with you two for a bit first, then head back." Wendy, knowing exactly what Miko was thinking, kept her answer light.
Whatever the real reason was, she certainly wasn't going to say it out loud.
"Of course, no problem at all — but did you come all this way without having breakfast yet?" Miko had no objection to Wendy joining them; she was just a little surprised to find that Wendy apparently hadn't eaten yet.
"Not yet, not yet — take me to get something, please." Wendy shook her head and immediately looked up at them with big, expectant eyes.
"For the congee — do we need to go back and make it ourselves, or can we just buy it somewhere? Not sure if there's any available, but the youtiao we can definitely just pick up."
Since Wendy had mentioned congee and youtiao earlier, Lumine naturally assumed that was what she wanted.
"Just send Wendy home to cook her own congee — we can go get youtiao." And with that, Miko grabbed Lumine and made to leave.
She couldn't resist teasing Wendy at least a little.
"Excuse me? I don't even know how to make congee — how am I supposed to cook it?" Wendy immediately fell into step behind them, making absolutely no move to go home and cook anything.
Besides — and more to the point — this was obviously Miko singling her out on purpose, which meant there was no way she was going to comply.
"Let's just buy from somewhere outside. Cooking it ourselves is too much hassle." Lumine glanced back at Wendy trailing behind them and offered her take.
Honestly, she didn't really mind either way — making it themselves or buying it both seemed fine to her — but given the situation, going out to buy was clearly the only real option.
"Lumine's the nice one. Miko, you little fox — you're always targeting me."
After hearing Lumine's response, Wendy immediately piped up from behind them.
Lumine: "..."
Lumine could already feel it coming — Wendy and Miko were about to kick off another round of their endless war.
"You little gremlin — you have absolutely zero respect for your big sister."
Suddenly hearing Wendy call her 'little fox' again, Miko instantly assumed the air of an older sister sternly reprimanding her younger sibling.
Whatever the case — she was the big sister, Wendy was the little sister, and a bratty little sister at that. That was simply the way things were.
"Little fox, I'm way older than you — and you actually have the nerve to call yourself my big sister."
Wendy was, admittedly, a great deal younger than Miko in terms of lived years — but she was the Anemo Archon, which made her definitively the senior party by any measure, in any situation.
"Can we just eat breakfast first? We're going to starve at this rate." Lumine felt like she really had to say something, and stepped in.
Whatever happened, she couldn't just stand there doing absolutely nothing.
"Oh, you're right." Wendy suddenly patted her stomach, gave a nod, and looked like she was in complete agreement with Lumine.
Of course, the main thing was that she didn't really want to keep going back and forth with Miko right now.
After all, she still needed to ask the two of them something later — getting into too heated a squabble right now was a bad idea.
This little gremlin...
Just dropped it like that...
Miko hadn't expected Wendy to suddenly let it go, and found herself caught off guard.
____
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