"Oops, I'm the Heiress?!"

Montreal wasn't exactly the kind of place where big, life-changing things happened. At least, not to people like Myraa Hana Lee. For as long as she could remember, her life had been about as thrilling as a snow shovel in July. She wasn't the class clown, the valedictorian, or even the quirky kid who wore animal hats to school. She was the kind of person who teachers forgot to call on, the person who wasn't invited to group chats until three months after they stopped being relevant.

Myraa wasn't bitter about it—okay, maybe she was a little bitter—but she liked to think of herself as "low-maintenance." Who needed drama, anyway? Drama was for extroverts.

"Drama is what happens when people don't own noise-canceling headphones," she muttered to herself as she scrolled through her classmates' latest party posts on social media. A party, of course, she hadn't been invited to. Again. She popped a potato chip into her mouth with the philosophical resignation of someone who knew this was her lane in life and had decided to own it. She was invisible wallpaper. Painfully ordinary.

Or at least, she was.

Everything changed one Wednesday morning, when her mother, Lisa Anne Lee—a.k.a. Montreal's queen of cryptic behavior—breezed into the kitchen with the kind of energy that only comes from caffeine and the promise of getting someone else to deal with a problem.

"You're going to Japan to visit your grandmother," she said, slapping a plane ticket on the table next to Myraa's half-eaten Pop-Tart.

Myraa blinked. She'd been scrolling through memes and was pretty sure she'd misheard. "I'm going where to visit who now?"

"Japan. Your grandmother. You leave next week." Lisa grabbed a coffee mug and took a swig, as if announcing international travel plans was just another Tuesday thing.

Myraa frowned. "Wait. Since when do I have a grandmother in Japan? I thought she was, like… a concept. Like the Easter Bunny."

Lisa waved her hand dismissively, her signature move when she wanted to dodge questions. "Of course you have a grandmother. It's just… complicated."

There it was. The dreaded C-word. Myraa hated that word more than she hated parallel parking. Why didn't they have a dad around? Complicated. Why did Lisa cancel their Netflix subscription in the middle of binge-watching? Complicated. Why did their Wi-Fi buffer every 30 seconds? Okay, that one wasn't complicated, just cheap.

"Why now?" Myraa pressed, still trying to process. "Why am I suddenly being shipped across the planet to meet a grandmother you've never mentioned before?"

Lisa didn't answer. Instead, she plopped a suitcase in front of her and smiled the way dentists smile right before they say, "This will only pinch a little."

"You'll love it. Trust me."

---

Fast-forward to Myraa dragging herself through Hamamatsu Airport, looking like she'd just crawled out of a disaster movie. Her hoodie hung off her like a deflated parachute, her hair stuck up in directions gravity didn't approve of, and her eyes carried the defeated look of someone who'd endured a 13-hour flight, two layovers, and a coffee that tasted like regret.

If there were an award for "Most Tourist-y Tourist," Myraa would've been crowned on the spot. Between the broken wheel on her suitcase and the oversized travel pillow dangling around her neck like a weird scarf, she looked like the contestant on Lost in Translation who gets eliminated in the first round. Every thunk of her suitcase echoed across the pristine airport floor, drawing disapproving stares from the impeccably dressed locals.

"Don't mind me," she muttered under her breath. "Just your average Canadian traveler with a suitcase that's about two seconds away from declaring mutiny."

As if on cue, the zipper on her suitcase decided it had had enough of life. With a loud POP, it exploded, scattering her clothes across the terminal.

And, because the universe apparently hated her, her most humiliating possession—a bright yellow T-shirt that read I Love Poutine in Comic Sans—took flight and landed squarely on the head of a suited businessman.

"Oh no, no, no, no!" Myraa scrambled to grab it as the man peeled it off his head with the same expression one might use for peeling gum off their shoe. He muttered something in Japanese, probably a curse, and stalked off.

"Well, that's great. Thanks, universe," Myraa mumbled, cheeks burning as she stuffed her belongings back into her rebellious suitcase.

Once she'd salvaged what little dignity she had left, she scanned the arrivals area for someone holding a sign with her name. She spotted it almost immediately, though "spot" didn't seem like the right word. It was impossible to miss.

The sign was bright pink, covered in glitter, and read Myraa Hana Lee ❤️ in obnoxiously large letters. But it wasn't just the sign that caught her attention—it was the person holding it.

Standing there like she'd walked straight out of a Netflix drama was a tall, impossibly elegant girl. Her black hair was long and silky, tied half-up in a style that looked effortless but was probably the result of hours of wizardry. She wore a perfectly tailored black pantsuit with a sleek gray waistcoat, and her polished shoes looked like they could double as mirrors. She radiated an aura of cool confidence, the kind that screamed Domineering CEO, and yet… she couldn't have been much older than Myraa herself.

Myraa froze. "Am I hallucinating? Did I step into the set of My Domineering CEO? Is Ashton Kutcher about to jump out and tell me I've been punk'd?"

The girl strode toward her, lowering the sign with a flick of her wrist. Her piercing dark eyes scanned Myraa from head to toe, her expression unreadable—except for the faintest flicker of amusement when she saw the travel pillow.

"Welcome home, Princess," she said smoothly, her voice low and melodic, like she'd just been paid millions to narrate a luxury car commercial.

"Wha—Princess?!" Myraa sputtered, clutching her suitcase protectively as if this elegant stranger might try to confiscate it.

The girl didn't answer immediately, instead giving her a once-over that made Myraa feel like a mildly interesting insect under a magnifying glass. "You're… a mess," the girl said finally, her lips twitching in a way that suggested she found this observation deeply entertaining.

"Excuse me?!" Myraa snapped, but before she could gather enough indignation to defend herself, the girl grabbed her suitcase (effortlessly dragging it along, despite its broken wheel) and started walking.

"Come. The car's waiting," she said over her shoulder, like this was all perfectly normal.

"Wait, who are you?! What's going on?!" Myraa demanded, stumbling after her.

The girl glanced back, her smirk widening. "Kyra Reizei. Your cousin. And, apparently, your knight."