novelEtcetera Beginning With a Kiss
| ← Ch.64 | Ch.66 → |
Something was odd.
Four weeks had passed since Mutsuki noticed his body's abnormality.
He had a very young sister back home, so he was more sensitive than most to signs of poor health. If he felt even a little ill, he would take his temperature and some medicine. He put in an effort to not spread anything to his family. That had not changed once the angels began protecting him, so he had been worried about a cold for four weeks now.
But this abnormality was not an issue of poor health.
In fact...
"What is it, Avalon?"
It was caused by this dream.
Or so it seemed.
He had no proof and a dream was just a dream.
The dream was probably causing the abnormality.
"Aaavaaalon. What is it?"
"It's nothing, Lucya."
Mutsuki smiled back at the girl who curled up her back like a kitten to peer down at his face.
Technically, it was a boy named Avalon who Mutsuki's mind resided within.
The scarlet of sunset dyed a grassy field. The isolated location was surrounded by trees and gave a view of a distant village. There he played with a girl named Lucya.
They were sitting on a bed made from reaped straw, so the sweet aroma of wheat hung in the air.
They were a little too close together. His heart pounded because he could smell the sweat of the girl whose skin was darker than the wheat.
They would chat or play by chasing after each other. They were always together in the dream.
"Look, look. I took this from the old man's orchard?"
And sometimes, they were mischievous. The girl pulled out a single red apple and grinned.
"Took it? ...Not again. He's going to be mad."
"Who cares. We take him wheat, so this just a little reward."
Lucya narrowed her feline eyes and the boy smiled bitterly.
He chopped it in two using the stone knife in his boot.
"Eh heh heh~"
Lucya did not hesitate to take the bigger half.
She took a big bite and began chewing happily, but she seemed to have taken too big a bite and gotten some seeds. She began rudely spitting them out.
The boy took a bite too.
"I invited Lilith, but she didn't come yet again."
"Nn..."
It must not have been ripe because a strong sour flavor spread through his mouth.
"Why is it always like that recently? The three of us used to always be together."
She gave a displeased look toward the village. No, toward a garden a short distance away from it.
A few people could still be seen working between the trees bearing apples, grapes, and figs.
They seemed to be collecting the past-ripe grapes, probably to make wine.
Among them, they spotted a girl with very long blonde hair.
A sourness even stronger than the apple quickly spread through the boy's chest...
Mutsuki opened his eyes.
It was a pleasantly fresh awakening, but he also felt a sense of loss at being driven from the dream world.
It was always like that when he had this dream. He stayed there lying on his side.
He would wake up with not a hint of sleepiness remaining, but he hated that he could not see more of the dream. He tried shutting his eyes, but the sleepiness would not return.
"Tch."
It was not enough. He sighed and got up.
This moment was the abnormality.
He felt as great as he would if he had slept for ten hours. There was no hint of sleepiness and his body was brimming with energy.
"Nn... Oh, you're up? Morning."
"Good morning, Micha-san."
Micha was in the same bed and she woke up too. The sheets stirred and the tissues scattered across the bed fell down.
She looked quite sleepy and had not gotten her eyes fully opened yet.
"Yawn... Seven o'clock? You didn't even sleep four hours."
"Yes. I'll be going to school, but what will you do about breakfast?"
"I'll eat it later, so make one for me."
Her voice sounded like sleepiness itself and she curled back up in the sheets.
Just as Micha had said, he had only slept for four hours.
As the scattered tissues suggested, they had been up until three in the morning having wild sex. He should have been both sleep-deprived and exhausted.
And yet he had never felt better. Micha was a top-tier angel and she should have had more stamina than the boy, but even she was down.
Lately, sex was not wearing him out at all.
No matter what kind of wild sex he had, an unlimited supply of energy welled up within him.
(Is this a side effect of the Serpent's Eye?)
It had been five months now. While thinking about that greatest abnormality of his body, he smiled bitterly and got out of bed.
He started cleaning up the tissues before leaving the room, but...
"Nnn."
Micha rolled over to go back to sleep and the sheet fell away.
She was not wearing any clothes and her defenseless butt was now exposed.
That delicious chocolate-colored ass had plenty of feminine roundness.
"..."
The boy trembled from the urge to attack it.
He knew he did not have time for that this morning, but the lust boiling up inside him just about overpowered that reasonable side of his mind. And that was after everything he had done up to four hours ago.
"...Yes?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I'll be going."
The urge dulling his rational mind lasted an awfully long time and he simply stood there for several seconds. Micha opened her eyes curiously.
The boy stroked her cheek to get her to close her eyes and then he left the room.
He tried to act natural to hide his lustfulness.
"..."
But Mutsuki did not know that the true oddity was occurring behind him.
Micha opened her eyes once more. She opened them wide as if all sleepiness had vanished from her.
"...Hhh."
Her stroked cheek was red and all four limbs trembled.
Below the sheets, her nipples were erect and the chocolate-colored ass that had so charmed the boy was so full of sticky nectar that it threatened to bring out all of the milky liquid that had been pumped into her the night before.
After just a few seconds' exposure to that lustful gaze, a female reaction overwhelmed her body.
"I guess he can't remain an adolescent forever." Micha's voice shook."He has to grow up eventually."
Fortunately, the abnormality was a positive thing when not in a hidden space like his room.
"~? It's finally starting to feel like fall."
As October approached, the blue of midsummer still remained in the sky, but the temperature was quite cool in the mornings.
With so much excess energy, Mutsuki's pace was naturally light on the way to school.
"Right, Ange?"
"It's still too hot if you ask me."
The girl next to him saw things differently.
Her long red hair must have made her sensitive to the heat. She had it tied up in a ponytail, but he could still see the sweat on her.
"You don't like it when it's cold, but you don't like it when it's hot either."
"No, I don't. I want air-conditioning."
"I thought angels could take the heat since they're made from fire."
"What's wrong with fire thinking the sun is too hot?"
She seemed to be irritated. Mutsuki smiled bitterly and shut his mouth so she would not yell at him.
This bodyguard had accompanied him to school for five months now, so it was not awkward even if they said nothing.
Ange generally had a sullen lopsided frown on her face even when she was not irritated, but Mutsuki was enjoying himself more than usual.
"What's that grin for? It's creepy."
"It just feels like so long since we've done this together."
He stretched as he said that.
Until recently, Mutsuki had been working for the student council, so he had woken up and gone to school at five each morning to help prepare for the cultural festival.
He had only just been released from that duty a few days before, so it had been a while since he walked to school with his bodyguard like this.
"Wh-what does that matter? Are you stupid?"
Even when they had gone to school separately, they still lived together and were in the same class. They were together for more than twelve hours every day and that had only been reduced by one hour. Ange blushed and pouted her lips when the boy celebrated the end of that.
"Well, I can understand being happy you don't have to see that awful girl."
"Awful girl? Shirohara-senpai isn't that bad."
"Hah. She used any excuse she could to restrict your actions. And for what? Who even knows. She's a stalker."
She sure is mad, thought Mutsuki with a bitter smile.
For him, waking up at five had been difficult, but preparing for the cultural festival with the student council had been fun.
"You shouldn't talk about people behind their back, Jiyuuni Ange."
"Wah! Sh-Shirohara-senpai."
They had just reached the last stretch to the school at the top of the hill and someone had caught up from the other side.
It was Shirohara Ren, the one person Mutsuki did not want to meet now. So he panicked.
Ange, however, frowned in annoyance and then smiled belligerently.
"Oh? I thought 'stalker' was how the human world referred to girls who restrain their target of observation without considering his feelings."
"I was educating Fujita Mutsuki to correct his depraved ways, not restraining him. It is true I had him help with my duties, but he agreed to it."
Ren's expression did not change, but she too was belligerent.
"And even if I hypothetically did restrain him, any complaints about it should be directed at me. Doing it when you know I am not around is still the act of a coward."
"What!?"
"You heard me!"
"C-calm down, you two."
The two glared at each other and were ready to start fighting at any moment.
Mutsuki tried to stop them, but taking neither side only got him ignored here.
"Hi, Mutsuki. And Jiyuuni too....Oh, President."
"Ah, g-good morning, Sakae."
Luckily, his friend saved him. His childhood friend, Tomono Sakae, caught up and slapped him on the back.
Ange was to be expected, but he was surprised to find the beautiful Student Council President here. Sakae grew more timid, but the dangerous atmosphere had been swept away all the same.
The four of them continued on to school. Ren was a third year, so she parted with the other three on the way to their classroom.
"I see you're friends with the President now."
"Y-yeah. Seems that way."
"Introduce me next time. As the man who will one day stand in the center of the world, I must first join the student council that stands at the center of the school."
"I'm pretty sure you can get in without using any connections."
The more they talked about the President, the more upset Ange looked, which was scaring Mutsuki.
It was true they were friends now.
Not long ago, Shirohara Ren had seemed entirely out of his league, but they had been in contact more often recently.
——Mutsuki was being targeted by a new enemy, the Kurosaki family.
Ren had to be acting as his bodyguard too. The problem was how she and Ange, his guardian angel, did not get along. There was no change in the hostile relationship between FeTUS and the angels.
Mutsuki did not want to be mean to either one, but he could not stand this strained atmosphere either.
If possible...
"Oh, ha ha. Right on time again."
Hearing Sakae, Mutsuki looked out the window.
The school gate had just closed and Ibekusa Machina had passed through just as it did.
"That's so incredible. Lately, she's not even off by a single second."
"Yeah."
As always, her behavior was as accurate as a clock or a machine.
Just like a machine, Machina spent every day exactly the same.
...If possible, he wished Ange and Ren could be their usual selves like that.
(Not that mentioning it would help. )
Mutsuki continued on to their classroom.
"Good morning, Ange-chan. Mutsuki-kun and the rest too."
"Morning, Mutsuki-kun."
"Good morning, Kurikara-san and Lucia-kun."
He exchanged greetings with his classmates like normal.
Saya energetically waved and Lucia leaped at him as he walked to his desk.
"Hey, hey, Mutsuki-kun. I'll be doing a costume check for that band today."
"Really?"
They naturally split into a girl group and a boy group.
They mostly talked about the cultural festival that was coming up soon.
Ange was representing the class in a play. Lucia had been invited to perform the vocals for a band.
With the festival so close, the class was full of energy even in the morning. Even cynical Ange seemed to be looking forward to it, so the strained atmosphere faded.
With the activation of the Serpent's Eye and a war between heaven, earth, and hell, he had a lot more to worry about than half a year ago, but recent days had been enough fun to forget all about those things.
He wished things could stay like this forever.
He wished Ange, Lucia, Ren, and the rest of FeTUS, the angels, and the demons could stay the way they were.
If only they could all be as unchanging as Machina...
"Oh, good morning, Ibekusa-san."
"Good morning."
Exactly five minutes after passing through the gate, Machina reached the classroom.
She arrived at her desk like normal and set down her things like normal.
"..."
"...? What is it?"
But one thing was different today.
She would normally sit down and wait for their teacher without speaking a word. But today, she did not sit down and she instead approached Mutsuki's neighboring desk.
The boy, Lucia and Sakae who had gathered with him, and Ange and Saya who were at the desk behind them were all shocked.
This girl rarely tried to interact with others, but she bent her hips like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Hm? What is it, Ibeku-..."
She invaded the boy's most delicate area.
A sweet and soft sensation sucked at his lips. He froze in place, initially unsure what had happened.
"Huh!?"
"Ah!?"
"Ehhhhh!?"
After one second, everyone around him leaped to their feet.
"Pwahhh! Wh-wh-wh-wh-what!? What, Ibekusa-san!? What!?"
And a second after that, the boy shook free of the lips that had stolen his for a total of two seconds.
Machina said nothing and simply stared at him.
She was always taciturn, but things were different today. Mutsuki simply panicked.
"..."
He failed to escape when her lips approached once more.
"Fujita-kun..."
"Ah..."
She completely ignored everyone's eyes on them.
And their lips came together once more...
"Stooooooooooooooooooooop!!"
But Ange and Lucia stopped her first.
"Pant, pant."
Everyone in the class settled on the story that Machina had "collapsed from anemia" and her lips had "coincidentally landed on" Mutsuki's. Ange, Lucia, and Mutsuki himself accompanied her out of the classroom.
"Just write me up a report later."
They were lucky the school doctor was so lax. Without asking many questions, the four of them were given some time in the infirmary together.
"What were you doing back there!?"
Ange instantly snapped at the girl.
Machina was as emotionless as ever.
"Kissing."
"I could see that! But why did you suddenly kiss him!?"
"..."
"Don't fall silent! Mutsuki! You say something too!"
Ange called over to Mutsuki.
"Nmphh... L-Lucia-kun, not now."
"I've gotta overwrite that. Nnn~?"
"Not you too!"
Lucia was clinging to Mutsuki, so Ange mercilessly knocked him away with her holy flame wings.
Ange's anger and Lucia's passion were hardly new, but...
"I-Ibekusa-san. Um, what was that earlier?"
Machina was clearly acting weird. She was usually the taciturn and sensible one in the classroom.
"Did you not like it?"
"Well, I wouldn't say that. But, um..."
She really was acting weird.
The two of them quietly stared at each other.
"Nn..."
"Nn..."
They naturally ended up embracing and kissing.
Of course, Mutsuki was immediately kicked away by Ange.
"What do you think you're doing!?"
As Mutsuki rolled along the bed, the girl stood protectively in front of him and glared at Machina."..."
Unsurprisingly, Machina remained silent.
But the way she avoided looking them in the eye showed she was a bit apologetic.
They had fought and saved each other a few times before, so Ange and Lucia realized she could not explain what this was about. They both sighed.
"U-um, I won't ask what this is about." Mutsuki tried to calm everyone down."But this is...a problem."
| ← Ch. 64 | Ch. 66 → |