“Still, it’s a relief that we don’t get motion sickness, right?”
“Yeah, if we did, it would be really tough during the trip.”
I was looking outside the carriage with Kyle.
Without a phone or anything to do in the carriage, we were just… sitting there.
The only thing we had for entertainment was a travel scroll or something…?
“So, there’s about a week left, right?”
“Since it’s been about a week since we left, I guess so.”
“A long way to go then.”
“Yeah.”
We’ve already covered half the distance.
Honestly, it felt like I was just seeing the same scene every day, so I didn’t even notice.
I was just chatting with Kyle in the carriage all day, taking a little nap, and when we arrived at the inn, we would have dinner together and then go to sleep—repeating that for days on end.
Every day felt exactly the same.
Honestly, it would have been better to rest for a day or two in some city along the way.
“Kyle, what should we do today?”
“I don’t know either.”
“I’m so bored…. Is it just me?”
I said while leaning my head on Kyle’s shoulder.
Lying down was nice, but leaning like this wasn’t too bad either.
Kyle’s broad, muscular shoulder supported my head perfectly.
“I’m bored too.”
“Right?”
It wasn’t just me who was bored.
Kyle was just as tired of this situation as I was.
Logically, if we were just sitting in a carriage all this time without feeling bored, that would actually be strange.
“But I do like that it’s just the two of us like this.”
“Well… I guess that’s true.”
Spending time together in the carriage with Kyle wasn’t bad at all.
In fact, it could be considered nice if you exclude the boredom.
After all, chatting with Kyle was all we were really doing here.
There was no reason to feel bad about it.
“Or should we rest for a day in a nearby city?”
“….”
That was a tempting suggestion.
Since we were doing nothing but riding in the carriage lately, I was really bored.
So Kyle’s suggestion was the kind that was hard to resist.
Besides, it wasn’t just me who felt bored—Kyle felt the same.
Though I liked being with him, we didn’t need to spend our time being bored together.
Even though we were headed back to my hometown, there was no need to rush back.
“Let’s do that. It’s not good to just sit in the carriage all the time, and I bet you don’t want to just sit there either.”
Kyle could actually handle sitting in the carriage all day without any problem.
He was in great shape, so he wouldn’t feel sore from sitting in the carriage for too long.
If anything, it was just me who felt sore from sitting.
“How about we rest for a day or two?”
“Sounds good. I’ll let the coachman know.”
“Okay.”
Even though we decided to take a break in a nearby city, it was still quite a distance away.
Really far away.
And since we still had a long way to the lodging we were reaching today, I figured I would just chat with Kyle and fall asleep again.
*
“Oh…. Kyle, look at that.”
“It’s a circus.”
“I’m bored, wanna check that out?”
“Should we?”
We decided to take a break in the closest city while heading home.
We didn’t decide how long we would rest, but we were definitely resting.
Honestly, I was just happy.
Just getting out of the carriage was immensely satisfying!
“See? You need to move a bit, right? Being in the carriage the whole time is exhausting.”
“I’m glad to see you so happy, Sophia.”
“Come on, you’re happy to be out of the carriage too, right?”
“Haha, that’s true.”
I appreciated that Kyle thought of me, but sometimes I wished he would act on his own desires too.
I was truly grateful that he always prioritized me, but how many people could genuinely act like that in a relationship?
I tried to be considerate too, but I couldn’t do it as well as Kyle.
So, I hoped he would be a bit more selfish.
I wanted him to express what he wanted to do, what he wanted to eat.
Even if I said this, Kyle tended to brush it off, but still, I wished he wouldn’t hold back.
After all… he was still a kid.
Sure, he was an adult now, but he had just barely become one.
Naturally, he had a lot of immaturity and shortcomings in various ways.
Moreover, there were so many things he would want to do now that he was an adult.
I could still vividly recall how impactful it was when barriers were lifted the day I became an adult.
I still remembered my coming-of-age day with nostalgia.
“Kyle.”
“Yes?”
“Did I tell you a lot about my past back in the day?”
“Well… you didn’t really mention much besides when you were really little, did you?”
I see.
Then I felt comfortable sharing stories from the past.
Since we entered the circus during the middle of the show, it ended sooner than I expected.
Now that we were outside, sitting on a bench and resting for a bit, it was the perfect time to chat.
“Whenever I talked about my past, it was always about adventures, right?”
“That’s right. I always asked about that stuff, so…”
“Hehe… yeah.”
Kyle had always enjoyed those adventure stories when he was little.
Even during the slightly awkward times when we first met, he would perk up his ears and listen intently whenever I told those stories.
He was so cute back then.
I liked telling him about my experiences in dungeons, spending time weeding while accepting requests, and fighting monsters.
But today wouldn’t be about those adventurous tales; it would be about something that could help Kyle in his life.
Not stories from my adventure days, just tales from my past.
“It was when I was around your age, just super young. There was about a 5-kilogram difference between then and now.”
My chest was slightly smaller back then.
In many ways, I was very different from how I am now.
“It was that special time right before I became an adult, where I kept that youthful brightness.”
It was a story from a year after I had met Kyle.
I was recounting a memory from my own childhood, back when Kyle was 13 and I was 19. Anyway, I was going to talk about my 19th birthday—the day I became an adult.
“I had just gotten used to teaching you by then, and we had built a friendship.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, you might not remember, but you were super shy back then. It was a bit hard to get close right away.”
But after a year, I got closer to Kyle.
We could carry on ordinary conversations without issues, and in class, he would even raise his hand to ask me questions.
I thought it was really cute back then.
Seeing that little kid raise his hand and say, “Miss Sophia, I have a question,” was incredibly adorable.
“Anyway, I became an adult that August, you know? I didn’t really have anyone other than you to celebrate with, but still.”
Since I left the castle, I didn’t have anyone super close.
Louise came along much later, and I met Elin around that time too.
“Thanks to that, there weren’t many people to celebrate my adulthood. You only knew it was my birthday, Kyle, and you wished me happy birthday, not because I became an adult.”
“Haha….”
Kyle chuckled awkwardly.
Well, who would pay attention to a 13-year-old becoming an adult?
To them, it was just a day to eat, play, and sleep.
“After finishing classes with you that day, I came to my room after putting you to bed. Suddenly it hit me: ‘Oh, I’m an adult now.’ It was so routine—getting up early to wake you, making you bathe, taking you to eat, doing classes, eating again, and then some more lessons. I really didn’t realize until dinner.”
Of course, I was a bit confused on my birthday in the following years too.
If Kyle hadn’t celebrated it, I wouldn’t have even remembered it.
That was just how similar my life in the castle was day to day.
“After looking at the calendar in bed and finally realizing I was an adult, do you know what I did?”
“Umm… I can’t possibly know that?”
“Really? It seemed guessable.”
What do you do when you finally become an adult?
There was a clear answer for that.
There were things kids couldn’t do, but adults could.
“Well, I lit a magic cigarette to celebrate.”
“…Huh?”
“I thought it looked really cool since my dad smoked them. So I wanted to try, but my mom said I had to wait until I was an adult.”
It wasn’t something harmful like cigarettes, so I didn’t get why she prohibited it.
Well, I wasn’t the type to stubbornly keep doing what my mom said not to do, so I refrained but now that I was an adult, it was fine.
Plus, my mom wasn’t exactly monitoring me.
It was totally legitimate.
“But… I didn’t really get why I was smoking it.”
I had never smoked before in my previous life and had never tried anything like that before either.
So I had a bit of an unrealistic expectation.
Don’t you think smoking characters in movies and dramas look super cool?
They seem hard-boiled, cool, and sexy.
I wanted to feel a bit like that.
“Honestly… it just tasted bad. My dad smoked them regularly. I still have no clue why he does.”
“You know it probably doesn’t taste good, right?”
“That’s true, but if he smokes all the time, there must be some reason, right?”
So I tried it, and it was… kind of minty? Or maybe lime?
It was an oddly refreshing taste.
I realized how terrible it actually tasted when I lit my first one alone in my room.
It was gross enough that I never smoked again.
I heard later on that there were stamina benefits or whatever, but I was too young back then.
Honestly, I wasn’t interested in such things.
“And after that, I never smoked again.”
“So… why are you suddenly bringing this up?”
“The conclusion of this story is… if there’s something you want to do, just go ahead and try it. Not just dreams or that kind of talk—if you see a restaurant that looks good, just ask me to go with you. If you want to buy something nice, just tell me you want to check it out together.”
Kyle always prioritized what I wanted to do over his own wishes.
More accurately, he focused on places he thought I would like when we went out.
Both the restaurants and the date spots.
So I felt a bit disappointed.
I was wishing to be in a situation where I was the one receiving everything. It was sad to see Kyle not thinking about himself as he always put me first.
It bothered me that such a freshly-minted 19-year-old was always thinking of me before himself.
“You always seem to forget that I’m an adult too. Not just any adult—a six-year-older adult. I can at least speak up for myself, unlike someone else. I like being considerate. I enjoy it when you ask me what I want.”
Even if it wasn’t a place Kyle particularly wanted to go and he was saying we should go just for me, it was still nice that he had those thoughts for me.
After all, I liked him, since he was my partner.
Naturally, it would be good.
“And you, even though you call yourself an adult, you’re still a kid who hasn’t even been an adult for four months. Honestly, from the way you act, you’re like an old man! You always just ask me what I want, but you never say what you want to do.”
Kyle was a person too.
A young person and still somewhat immature.
You might think that there aren’t many mentally mature people in this world, but among 19-year-olds, there are probably barely any.
“So, next time you have something you want to do, make sure to tell me, okay?”
“…Yeah.”
Somehow, it turned into a serious conversation, but I had to say this.
We would be spending years, maybe even decades together, so it wouldn’t be right if he couldn’t even handle the basics.
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