[ Ai's well aware that Rinne's taller and broader than she is (much like basically everyone else in the world is, too) but she hadn't quite realized how much bigger and stronger his hands were than hers until his fingers had curled around hers. It's warm, too — she'd hadn't realized how cold her hand had been until it'd been wrapped up in Rinne's touch. ... it's nice. And he's blushing all the way up to his ears — this trip is already worth all the hassle it's taken to get things arranged and they're not even at the ryokan yet.

With her luggage trundling along behind them, she sets off hand in hand with Rinne. ]

Well, his blood pressure went up so fast when I told him what was happening, he passed out before he got a chance to say anything.

[ A beat. Then she giggles. ]

No, just kidding. As far as he knows, this is a totally above board sponsorship that I'm enjoying all by myself. In fact, he actually got all excited about it... he was talking about making a whole thing of having me stay at different spots around Japan and hyping them up if this one worked out, but that's like twenty steps too far ahead, right?