Chapter 3.5: After the Bridal Course (Souma's Day)

Lately, Liscia and the others had been acting weird. Liscia, Aisha, Juna,
and Roroa... All of them had been acting a bit off.
If you were to ask me to put into words what exactly was off about it,
I’d have had a hard time answering; but for some reason they turned pink
whenever we met, turning and immediately walking off in the opposite
direction as if they were embarrassed. It wasn’t like they were deliberately
ignoring me, but it was a bit depressing to have them avoid me like that.
...Did I do something to offend them? I thought about that, but nothing
came to mind.
Lately, we’d had nothing but peaceful days, and I didn’t think I’d done
anything that would make them feel uneasy. I worried I might have done
something unintentionally, so I decided to broach the issue with the four of
them directly. When I did...
“I-It’s not your fault, Souma. Don’t worry,” Liscia assured me.
“Um... You could say I am embarrassed to look you in the eye, sire, or
something like that,” Aisha said.
“I’m sorry,” Juna told me. “It’s absolutely an issue on our side. You
don’t need to worry about it at all.”
“Well, let’s just say it’s a secret between us gals, and leave it at that,
’kay?” Roroa added.
...Those were the responses I got. Honestly, it didn’t make any sense.
Oh, right. And speaking of weird, there were other things about what
they were doing and saying that was a little off.
The first happened in the morning, when I was sitting across from Roroa
on a sofa in the governmental affairs office and we were having a budget
meeting. When we finished talking about state industries, the conversation
moved on to my personal businesses that Roroa’s company would be
sponsoring. It was mainly about production on the tokusatsu program.
“So, about Overman Silvan, do you think you could raise the budget a
little more?” I asked. “We can’t use the same monsters every time, and if
we are going to reuse them, we need a little more variety...”
“...Uh-huh...”
Hm? Was she just nodding along? That was when I noticed that Roroa
was staring at me, her mind clearly somewhere else.
“Roroa?”
“Huh?! Oh, yeah, I’m listenin’, I’m listenin’.”
...She was apparently not listening. What had her staring off into space
like that?
“Is something on your mind?” I asked. “If there’s anything I can do to
help, I will.”
“Nah, that’s not it, but... Sure. Let’s see if ya can play along.” Roroa
moved over next to me, close enough that our shoulders were touching.
Hm... Does she want me to dote on her? I started to think.
Then Roroa looked me straight in the eye and said, “Hey... Big Brother
Souma?”
“Whuh?!”
When she called me that with upturned eyes, my head shot back in
surprise. Wh-What was this, out of nowhere?!
“Seriously, what’s going on, Roroa?!” I cried.
I was worried she’d come down with a fever or something, so I tried
putting a hand on her forehead, but she didn’t seem especially feverish or
anything.
Roroa started kicking her legs and swinging her arms around in
frustration. “Aww... That’s not the reaction I was expectin’. You were sayin’
it made you happy the way I treat Big Sister Cia like a sister. So, I figured,
you like li’l sisters, don’t ya?”
“Little sisters?” I asked, baffled. “What are you even talking about?”
And what did she mean, I’d said that? I had no recollection of saying
that... Huh, no, wait, maybe I did. What was this weird feeling?
“Hmph! I don’t care anymore!” Roroa pouted and looked the other way.
I didn’t really get how, but I seemed to have upset her.
Hm, what should I do... I wondered, then plopped a hand down on
Roroa’s head.
“You’re my precious fiancée, so I don’t want you turning into a little
sister on me.”
“...Y’sure?” Roroa still had her head turned away from me, but she
peeked back my way as she asked that.
I gave her a big nod to reassure her, then patted her on the head. “Of
course. The way you were playing ‘little sister’ was cute, but I’d rather
have you as my wife instead. Just having you by my side always cheers me
up, after all.”
When I told her straight-up how I felt about her, Roroa’s face turned
bright red. I must have embarrassed her. When I saw her reaction, I felt
embarrassed, too.
“So, please, stop calling me Big Brother,” I said. “If you don’t...”
“Wh-What if I don’t?”
“It’d be like I was deliberately having my own fiancée call me ‘Big
Brother,’” I said teasingly. “That’d feel kind of depraved.”
Roroa burst out laughing. “Ha ha! Maybe you’re right. Yeah, no more
callin’ you Big Brother. I didn’t get the reaction I was hopin’ for, but I don’t
feel bad ’bout how this went, either.”
When she said that, Roroa hugged my arm. It looked like she was in a
better mood now.
Well, I did mean it when I said she was cute as a little sister, though...
When the adorable Roroa had called me Big Brother with upturned eyes,
my heart had skipped a beat, after all. But I don’t want to go developing any
weird fetishes, so I was really glad she’d stopped.
The next weird thing that happened was in the afternoon. It was around
two o’clock, after I’d had a slightly late lunch.
I had been working since morning, so I was taking a short break at the
kotatsu table in my room. Aisha, who would normally have stood by the
door to guard me, came in to sit across from me at the kotatsu.
When I looked at Aisha’s face... I had no words. Aisha, for some reason,
was wearing a pair of cat ears.
...What the meow was going on here?
Aisha had turned into a cat-eared dark elf, something that made
absolutely no sense to me.
While I was still unable to find the words for this bizarre turn of events,
Aisha made fists with her two hands and held them up like a beckoning cat.
“M-Meow...”
She’s meowing?!
She had totally just let out a meow. No, seriously, what on Earth was
going on here?
Apparently unable to bear the silence, Aisha covered her face with her
hands. “Oh... This really is embarrassing.”
“You say that after doing it on your own?! What were you trying to
accomplish?!” I shouted.
“What, you ask? I wanted you to adore me, Your Majesty,” Aisha said.
“Like you would a pet.”
“Like a pet?! Not a person?!”
“I wanted to borrow the princess’s choker to wear in place of a collar,
but she refused because it was an important gift from you, sire. Removing a
slave collar would have been hard, so...”
“You’re trying to turn me into some kind of sexual deviant?!”
I’m not into making women wear collars! I exclaimed silently. ...Yeah, I
don’t think I am, at least.
While I was worrying about myself, Aisha tearfully said, “Ohh... I had
heard you thought of me like a pet, so I was hoping to at least have you
fawn over me like one.”
“I... do think that, yes, but could you at least let me fawn over you as a
human?!” I cried.
“...How might I get you to fawn over me?”
When Aisha looked at me with those pleading eyes, my brain started
firing on all cylinders as I tried to find an answer for her. If I didn’t give her
a plan here, Aisha was going to get dispirited again. I looked around and
spotted the accessory case where I kept nail clippers and other daily
necessities.
I know!
“How about I clean your ears?” I asked.
“Please do,” she responded instantly.
I got an ear cleaner out, and had Aisha sit next to me.
“Y’know, looking at those long ears of yours, I’ve always wanted to try
cleaning them at least once,” I said.
“U-Um, sire? That’s nice, but... when you clean someone’s ears, is it not
normal to have them rest their head in your lap?” she asked hesitantly.
“The earwax can fall in towards your eardrum if you do it that way, so
my grandma always said not to. The right way to do it is from right beside
the person, like this.”
“I-Is that right?” Aisha asked, then whispered, “Oh, I had my hopes up,
too.”
I brushed Aisha’s hair back behind her pointed ears and pushed the ear
cleaner inside.
“Eek!” Aisha’s body shuddered.
“It’s dangerous to move, you know,” I told her. “Stay put.”
“Y-Yesh... Ahhh!” While I was digging around inside, Aisha suddenly
started squirming. “Ah...! Oh... Hahh...”
For some reason, she was moaning in an incredibly sweet voice. I
started to feel like I was doing something naughty to her.
“D-Don’t let out weird moans,” I said.
“B-But... I’m sensitive there... Ahhhhh!”
I cleaned out her opposite ear while listening to her sweet sighs, and
then the ear cleaning was finished. By the end, Aisha’s face had completely
melted, but she seemed satisfied, so that was good.
...Maybe I’ll do this for her again sometime, I thought.
By the way, Aisha’s voice had been heard outside while we were doing
that, so one of the maids who passed by at the time started a rumor that,
“His Majesty and Madam Aisha were [censored] in his room.” When he
heard, Chamberlain Marx declared, “At last, we’ll have an heir,” and
danced for joy.
On the other hand, when Liscia, Juna, and Roroa heard the rumor, they
told me off, saying, “Hey, that’s not the right order!” (If I was going to start
laying my hands on them, Liscia, as candidate to be my first primary queen,
should have been first.)
Thankfully, Aisha had explained the situation, so I was spared their
wrath, but it was an incident that showed me if I neglected any of my future
queens, the others would get angry, too.
Naturally, I had no intention of mistreating any of them, but... it was
something to keep firmly in mind.
Evening.
Having done paperwork in the morning and afternoon, I invited Liscia
who had been helping me to finally come take a break with me, and we
were enjoying afternoon tea.
Every day was a battle with my heavy responsibilities as king, so just
being able to relax with Liscia and have aimless conversations like this was
fun.
During our conversation, something weird came up, just like with my
earlier encounters with Roroa and Aisha today. After we finished talking
about everything that came to mind, Liscia nodded as if she was satisfied
about something.
“I see... Those two are putting it to use right away, huh.”
“Putting what to use?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.” Liscia played it off with a vague
smile.
No, really... what was it?
Liscia chuckled. “But I’ll bet you didn’t mind their attempts to get your
attention, huh?”
“Well... No, I didn’t,” I said. “I mean, they were both cute.”
When I honestly admitted it, Liscia brought a finger to her lips with a
look on her face like she was pondering something. She murmured
something under her breath that I couldn’t make out. “(They’ve got it easy,
having actual hints to go on. I got told he had nothing particular on his mind
for me. I was happy about that, but it makes it hard to decide how to get his
attention.)”
“Hm? Did you say something?” I asked.
Liscia shook her head, saying, “It’s nothing, really,” then clapped her
hands as if she had just thought of something. “I know. Hey, Souma. Is
there anything you’d like me to do for you?”
“What’s this, all of a sudden?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Come on, give me a heart-racing
scenario like the one you had with the other two.”
Hm, a scenario I want to play through with Liscia... I tried thinking of
one... but it was harder to come up with than you’d think. Liscia was like a
super-mainstream orthodox-style heroine, so adding any unnecessary bells
and whistles to give her extra character felt redundant. That being the case,
rather than do something to change Liscia herself, maybe we could do
something with the relationship between us.
“Hey, Liscia, we got betrothed without knowing much of anything about
each other, right?” I said. “On top of that, it wasn’t something we decided
on for ourselves, it was something Sir Albert just decided on his own.”
“Well... Yeah, it was.”
“I’m not sore about it anymore, and I’m even grateful to him for
bringing the two of us together, but... what do you think it’d have been like
if we’d known each other all along? If we’d been childhood friends, like
Hal and Kaede.”
Liscia got a look on her face like she was pondering the idea. “Hm... I
wouldn’t have gotten confused and thought Souma was your first name,
maybe? I might be calling you Kazuya.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I nodded. “We’d have a lot of shared memories from
when we were kids, too.”
So we decided to try holding a conversation as if we were childhood
friends.
“‘Come to think of it, Kazuya, you’ve always been hiding away in your
room, sewing like a girl,’” Liscia roleplayed. “‘If you don’t get out in the
sun more, your body’s going to start growing mold, you know?’”
“‘Well, you’re as tomboyish as ever, too,’” I told her. “‘Elisha’s worried
she’ll never find a husband willing to take you.’”
“‘Well, that’s just fine with me. When the time comes, I was planning to
have you take me as your wife anyway.’”
“‘Don’t make it sound like you’re marrying me because you have no
other choice. When you were little, you were always saying, “When I grow
up, I’m going to marry Kazuya,” weren’t you?’”
“‘Th-That was so long ago, I’ve forgotten it!’”
“‘You were more honest with yourself, and cute back then.’”
“‘What do you mean, “back then”?! Ugh, Kazuya, you dummy!’”
“‘...’”
“‘...’”
Wow, this is super embarrassing! we both thought.
Not even a minute into our little act, Liscia and I were both red in the
face.
“Oh geez, my face is burning up,” I admitted. “Do you think childhood
friends actually talk like this?”
“I’m so embarrassed I could die,” Liscia said. “I think our current
relationship suits us better.”
While we were both fanning our burning cheeks...
“No, Master,” Carla interrupted. “I think I’m the one who was most
embarrassed, being forced to watch that, you know?”
Carla, who turned out to have been watching this whole exchange, said
that with an awkward look on her face, making us writhe in shame even
more badly.
Then came that night.
When the broadcast ended for the nightly song program, Juna and I had
our post-show meeting and then headed to the Ishizuka Cafeteria in the
castle.
This place was open until late at night, so when we missed meals
because of meetings, the two of us often came here to eat and get drinks
together. We had our own private room here, so we could drink without
worrying about the prying eyes of my retainers.
Of course, when it was earlier in the day, we sometimes came in a group
with all my other fiancées, but on those occasions, there was no drinking.
Roroa would want to drink if the rest of us did, after all. Though technically
a 16-year-old with adult supervision (or an 18-year-old on their own) could
drink in this world, no good came from starting to drink at an early age.
That was why we’d decided, at a family meeting about the future, to not let
Roroa drink, and to not drink in front of her. That being the case, about the
only time I drank was on nights when work ran late like this.
“Well then, cheers,” I said.
“Cheers, sire,” Juna agreed.
In our private room, Juna and I toasted with wooden mugs filled with
wine. When I poured wine into my body that was exhausted mentally and
physically from work, I was finally able to get the sense that my day’s work
was over. I know, I was thinking like a salaryman, but the work I was doing
really was intensely difficult, so you could hardly blame me.
“Your singing voice was as lovely as it always is, Juna,” I said.
“Hee hee! I’m honored by the compliment, sire.”
While drinking our wine and snacking on a salad of spaghetti, vegetable,
and fried octopus dressed with mayonnaise, we talked about our days. I was
having such a good time.
However, when I mentioned how Roroa, Aisha, and Liscia had acted
today, Juna narrowed her eyes slightly. It didn’t break her smile, but I felt
like I saw a moment of panic there. While I looked at her, wondering what
was up, Juna suddenly got up.
“Let me come sit beside you,” she said, and came over next to me.
This was just like with Roroa. Was Juna going to start calling me “Big
Brother” now, too?
Juna knocked back her wine and chugged it all down, then leaned in and
rested her head on my shoulder.
Huh? What was going on here?
“Um... are you drunk?” I ventured.
“Yes. A little,” she said. “I’m sorry, but could you let me stay like this a
while?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
For a while, we both stayed silent. With neither of us saying a thing to
the other, we just snuggled and drank. Even though that was all we were
doing, it was strangely dizzying. With her face so close to mine, the smell
of Juna’s hair tickled my nostrils, and I felt like I was getting intoxicated by
something other than the alcohol.
Then, without looking at me, Juna said, “Am I... doing a good job of
letting you indulge me?”
“Huh?”
“I know I’m bad at letting others indulge me,” she said. “I want to
respond to the expectations placed on me the best that I can, and it makes
me happy when that pleases everyone. But I want to have you indulge me,
too, sire. Because I admire you, I want to accept it when you indulge me.”
Maybe she really was drunk, because Juna looked a little out of it. Juna
was so capable at everything she did, but when it came to this sort of stuff,
maybe she was a little clumsy.
“Please, let me indulge you,” I said. “I’ll do my best to make it easy for
you to let me.”
Then I patted her head, and Juna gave me a satisfied smile.
And so, the day came to an end. There was a lot that happened, but on
the whole it was a good day.

Chapter end