“Kyle.”
“Why?”
“Um… I think we really messed up.”
After assigning a servant to let my parents roam around comfortably, I came to the library with Kyle.
Sure, my parents were here, but we still had work to do.
Deciding to speed things up a bit, we were diligently working on our tasks.
In the middle of it all, I decided to bring up a bit of an issue with Kyle.
It might not just be a minor one… but anyway.
“You didn’t tell my father everything about me, did you?”
“Uh… Right?”
“Yeah… I thought so.”
I really felt like we had messed up.
With only a month left until the wedding, the fact that we hadn’t said anything to the Duke until now was pretty alarming.
“How are we going to explain the succubus thing to my father…?”
“Ah.”
“….”
“….”
It seemed we really did screw up.
Kyle and I were both totally oblivious.
If mom hadn’t said anything, we definitely would have forgotten about it again.
We both knew how to think, so why did this happen?
I guess we had just gotten too comfortable lately.
“…I should probably say something, right?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
“….”
“….”
“It’s still my problem, right? It makes more sense for me to handle it than for you.”
“But I’m your son. It’s better for me to handle it than for Sophia.”
“No way!”
“Yeah, that’s not true.”
This was clearly going to take a bit of time to sort out.
We were discussing it a lot more than I expected.
Since it was obviously something that related to me the most, I thought I should deal with it.
Kyle didn’t seem to agree.
“…Let’s finish up our work quickly. It wouldn’t be nice to leave our parents hanging just because we’re busy.”
“Got it.”
For now, work came first.
After all, I wasn’t going to run to the Duke and shout, “By the way, I’m a descendant of a succubus!”
“But… if I say that, it won’t lead to some disaster, right?”
“…I doubt it. I don’t think he’ll care about that… right?”
“…The way you said that… sounds strange?”
“…Haha.”
“….”
Normally, I would just brush it off and think positively.
After all, this wasn’t really an issue at all; it was something trivial.
So trivial, in fact, that it was almost hard to call it a problem.
But this was anything but trivial.
Both Kyle and I should be worried and talking about this.
*
“Louise, what are you doing?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“Um… reading?”
After finishing up, I found my way to Louise’s room.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t her sleeping room but a classroom, but it was basically the same.
You could tell just by the bed near the window.
“So why did you suddenly come here? Planning to brag about your boyfriend again?”
“No?”
The reason I barged into Louise’s room was simple.
“Do you want to greet my parents?”
“Shall we go together?”
And Elin was with me, just so you know.
The reason was simple.
I just asked if she wanted to meet my parents but she agreed.
We had known each other for a long time, so it wasn’t strange at all.
“…Let’s go!”
“Yay~!”
“Woohoo!”
And so, I ended up dragging my friends to meet my parents.
I didn’t even think for a moment that Louise wouldn’t come.
I just assumed she would, and she actually did.
After all, she was someone who would jump at anything fun, so there was no way she would pass on this.
And it was my parents, so surely she would be curious?
Not in a weird way, but meeting a friend’s parents… that’s bound to be slightly interesting.
“Mom, here are my friends.”
“Oh….”
“Hello!”
“Nice to meet you.”
I brought my friends to my parents, who were relaxing with tea in the reception room.
When my mom opened the door and saw my friends, her expression was… just whatever.
After all, it wasn’t like I brought a new guy; they were just friends.
I’m not some seven-year-old kid; I’m a regular in my mid-twenties.
There wasn’t really anything odd about it.
“Honey… Sophia’s making friends normally…”
“…Mom?”
“She used to run around like crazy and beat up the boys!”
“Ha….”
Mom suddenly started joking.
If she had done it with a serious face, I might have said something, but she was clearly just messing around.
Her hand was over her mouth, but she couldn’t hide the joy in her eyes.
Thanks to that, my friends weren’t taking things too seriously, just laughing it off.
If she had been serious… wouldn’t they have been sneaking glances at my face?
“Ugh… Anyway, this is Louise, and this is Elin.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Sophia’s mom, and this is my husband.”
“Oh, nice to meet you…!”
“Hello.”
We greeted each other while shaking hands and took a seat.
In reality, there wasn’t much to do; we were just trying to chat.
Anyway, we spent our time talking.
Most of the topics were… about me.
Seriously.
It was pretty awkward to bring up topics other than me.
It wouldn’t have made much sense for Elin to bring up the knights, and it would have been weird for Louise to talk about the mage tower.
Those were fields my parents had zero interest in.
“So Sophia, the other day Kyle and….”
“….”
While we were chatting, all of a sudden, Kyle’s name came up.
I was sipping tea, but instantly my ears perked up.
It wasn’t just about anyone; it was about Kyle.
More specifically, it was about Kyle and me, which of course would make me even more interested.
“We kissed and did pretty much everything except for the main event, and then we said we weren’t dating…”
“Hey!!!”
I shot up from my seat and stopped Louise.
That was absolutely off-limits.
Even I thought that was incredibly embarrassing.
Sure, it was in the past, but still… that was really… really not okay!!!
“Don’t say that?!”
“What’s going on? Louise, tell us. I can’t do anything while I’m sitting here anyway.”
“Hey!”
As mom said, I couldn’t do anything, really.
It wasn’t like I could just hit a friend in front of my parents.
Especially with Elin right there, I would have just been stopped immediately… so all I could do was shout!
*
“…. ”
“Wow….”
“…. Sophia, you really are a succubus… aren’t you?”
“….”
Damn it.
I cursed silently and looked down at the floor.
Louise went on to unveil everything she had said back then, and I had no choice but to listen.
It was impossible to stop her, and even if I blocked my ears, I could still hear her.
In the end, all I could do was stare at the ground.
If I looked up, I would see my mom and dad laughing at what they were hearing.
“No! It could happen!”
“It’s just too pathetic to say that.”
“…. ”
“How could an adult play with a kid’s feelings like that….”
“W-Wait, I didn’t play with them!?”
I strongly rebutted my mom’s words.
Sure, I might have been a bit clueless back then, but that didn’t mean I was just messing around!
I always felt sorry for Kyle, and I even thought I needed to sort this out as fast as I could.
“Just saying, you kissed him and, according to Louise, did everything except for dating.”
“No! I mean… we were sort of dating temporarily…”
“Sophia, that’s usually what they mean by ‘messing around’.”
“No, that’s seriously not what it was!”
I couldn’t find the words to argue.
Sadly, I really had no counterarguments.
I definitely hadn’t just been messing around with Kyle, but it wasn’t easy to refute my mom’s claim.
*
“….”
“Sophia, why are you looking so gloomy today?”
“Uh, what?”
After the whole day had ended, I found myself alone with Kyle in his room.
There was no special reason for this; we just happened to be in the same room.
I thought I had comfortably hidden my thoughts about the day’s events, but it seemed I’d been caught.
After all, Kyle knew me pretty well.
Plus, I had been acting like this for more than just a day or two, so he could probably tell just by looking at my face…
“Your expression has been a bit off since dinner. You’re not sick, are you?”
“Ah… no, it’s just that I have some things on my mind…”
Kyle was such a fool for worrying about me.
I hadn’t even shown it, yet he could tell just from my expression.
Normally, I would consider that a good thing, but because of the chat we had earlier today… I felt even guiltier towards Kyle.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. You’re not thinking about something strange, are you?”
“Uh, eh? W-What do you mean?”
As I answered, I realized something.
That was the fact that while I had thought Kyle was dense, I was the actual fool here.
I had stupidly answered the question that caught me off guard, realizing how foolish I truly was.
I felt so foolish that I couldn’t hardly believe I had said that.
“….”
“So what’s up this time?”
“Um… it’s nothing really strange, I guess…”
Kyle moved closer to me, making it hard for me to answer easily.
His face was so close to mine that all it would take was a small sneeze to hit him.
Given how awkward it was to speak, this closeness made things even harder.
“Sophia.”
“….”
“You’re probably thinking something odd like always, so just tell me.”
“….”
I couldn’t easily refute Kyle’s words.
After all, the thoughts I had right now were already old news, and Kyle wouldn’t be concerned with them anymore.
“So, um…”
So I decided to just go ahead and tell him as he suggested.
“Back when we were, um… sort of in a temporary relationship, I started to worry that I acted too much on my own….”
“….”
“And so…. I’m really sorry…”
I found it hard to meet Kyle’s eyes as I spoke.
Typically, I could have looked him in the eye without a second thought, but now it was incredibly difficult.
In a situation where expressing myself was hard, doing anything that would require eye contact was entirely out of the question.
“Um… if that hurt you back then… I’m really sorry…”
Right now, I must’ve looked really foolish.
Not that I was about to cry or anything, but I definitely felt like it must have looked weird.
“Sophia.”
“Yeah…?”
Kyle called my name and, as I answered, I slowly met his gaze.
“Eep!?”
And just like that, our lips met.
It was so sudden that I was taken aback.
It was such a surprise that I could hardly keep up with how it happened.
My previous experiences had me lost in the moment too, but this was especially overwhelming.
“Eep… slurp… h-ha… slurp….”
The kiss continued despite being sudden and messy, but Kyle held my chin as he kissed me, and I remained still, entirely accepting the kiss.
My hands had nowhere to go and remained idly on my knees.
“Mm… slurp….”
Our lips mingled, and our salivas exchanged during the kiss.
I was used to this by now, but that didn’t mean I was good at it.
Keeping up with Kyle’s kisses had always been a challenge for me.
“Phew… haah… haah… w-what was with that sudden kiss…?”
Once the kiss ended, I asked Kyle.
I hadn’t been able to question him earlier due to the surprise, but now that it was over, it seemed appropriate to ask.
I was slightly serious before it all happened, but that mood was entirely shattered.
“I never said I disliked it back then. So don’t worry about it.”
“….”
“If I was going to dislike you because of that, I’d have already lost my feelings for you long ago when we were kids.”
Kyle said that while giving me a gentle smile.
It was such a sweet smile that anyone who saw it would feel good just looking at it.
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