A Narrow Bed And You, So Cute (2)

Startled by Ornis’s sudden change, Noi hurried to answer.

“By chance—I touched him. With my hand.”

“Did you see it?”

“I didn’t see.”

When Noi shook her head vigorously, Ornis set a hand to his chin and fell silent. An unpleasant hush stretched.

Bathed in the faint sunlight that slanted into the kitchen, Ornis’s handsome face twisted into a severe look. After a moment’s thought, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed coldly as he looked at Noi.

“Forget it.”

“Forget it…?”

“Master’s body has always been like that. But he does not wish us to know. He’s telling us to keep on pretending we don’t.”

In a hard tone, Ornis delivered the judgment of an elder.

(…Always, he says?)

Noi had once raised Kardia. Needless to say, the skin of that young Kardia had not been hardened.

So that rigid skin had indeed been deliberately hidden beneath that tight black garment.

“That isn’t something that happened naturally. It’s the sort of thing that requires someone’s deliberate work.”

“All the more reason there’s nothing you can do.”

Perhaps calming as he spoke, Ornis said it quietly.

But Noi did not nod.

“Whether it’s possible or not—I’ll decide.”

Word by word, Noi told Ornis clearly.

At the unusual force in her gaze, Ornis drew a brief breath.

“To do that, I need to go to the lord’s manor. Sneak me out—without telling him.”

She was certain that even if she asked Kardia, he would never allow it. And from what Ornis had just said, she must not even let Kardia realize she had noticed.

“Impossible. I don’t have the authority.”

“Please!”

“I’ll be the one to decide what’s impossible.”

Quoting Noi’s own line from moments earlier, Ornis rejected her out of hand.

Shocked, Noi clung to him desperately.

“Please, Ornis! I absolutely must go out with you—just the two of us!”

“No.”

“Even though your beloved me is begging you this much!?”

“No.”

There was no getting a foothold.

Noi dissolved into tears.

“Ornis! Ornis!”

“Good grief—thanks to your racket, the bread’s a little burnt! Go stand over there.”

“Ornis, pleaseee! Dear Ornis. Dashing Orniiiis…”

“Hey—out of the way! Keep fooling around and you’ll burn yourself!”

Shouting, Ornis thrust a long peel into the hearth to pull out the loaves. Between beloved bread and a gruff Ornis, Noi’s weeping echoed through the kitchen.

“Please, Ornis! I absolutely must go out with you—just the two of us!”

(…Huh?)

The instant he heard that voice, Kardia’s feet stopped dead.

Deep in the forest—in the mausoleum of his master, Noi Galenée—Kardia had been laboring to tune a magic circle currently in progress when he realized he had missed lunch.

He hadn’t cared about eating three meals a day before Noi arrived, but since then, because she wanted to eat every meal, he had naturally taken to eating along with her.

Perhaps for that reason, by a little past two he grew too hungry to focus, and so he had returned home.

It was still a bit early for snack time, so he thought he wouldn’t run into Noi.

—Yes. Kardia was avoiding Noi now.

When he was with Noi, his rhythm went awry.

It had been a very long time since he’d been willing to change his principles for someone else.

Back when he struck the late King Photizo, Fengalow’s son, he had decided never to return to the capital where trouble brewed without end—yet on the very day he thought Noi might be pleased, he contacted Kukuvaya.

And when that Noi, on a bed in the capital city under the cover of night when even the streets slept, said “I love you,” Kardia’s heart leapt.

That night, for the first time in decades, Kardia couldn’t sleep.

It had been so long since he felt that way, and he found the being snoring softly beside him unbearable.

And yet even at that sleeping face, something welled up in his heart.

He averted his eyes with all his might from naming the feeling with the word people so loved to use.

If, first thing in the morning, he confirmed last night’s words—then it was nothing after all. Just her all-purpose offering to potatoes, clouds, lakes, and every favorite thing in the whole world—merely “I love it.”

Disappointment outweighed relief, and he was shaken by his own disappointment.

Then he realized: he had been so happy he couldn’t sleep.

Such a thing must not be. He would not allow it.

And as her “I love you”s continued, he reacted like a fool and forced himself to treat her as a child. He knew Noi disliked it, but without doing so, he couldn’t steady his heart.

Before the unacceptable could happen, Kardia put distance between himself and Noi.

After returning to the floating isle, he conveniently threw himself into tuning the magic circle. If he kept away from Noi, peace of mind would come—or so he thought.

“Even though your beloved me is begging you this much!?”

He staggered without meaning to—and was startled at his own stagger.

(…What is that girl saying? Beloved? Me? This much? …To Ornis??)

Stunned, Kardia found himself back at the mausoleum. His hands were trembling; Noi’s words kept reverberating in his head; after that, he was in no state to adjust any magic.

His belly, which should have wanted lunch, growled, having only caught the scent of freshly baked bread.

Yet what was dire now was not his stomach—but his heart.

As a sharp pang shot through it, Kardia could only stare, dazed.