#104
But asking if he’d dreamed about me would also be strange, so I decided to just ask directly about this situation.
“Don’t touch someone who’s sleeping, and if you want to do something, just say so.”
But Carlisle tilted his head.
“What for? That’s inefficient.”
“What?”
“Even if I tried to say something, you’re always asleep, and waking you up every time would just disturb your sleep for no reason. Wouldn’t that be more annoying?”
“No, but still…”
“I want to do it.”
A completely out-of-context statement suddenly popped out, leaving me bewildered.
“Suddenly what?”
“Not suddenly what…”
Carlisle reached out and suddenly pulled me, who had been staring stupidly, toward him. Having relaxed my strength, I was ridiculously dragged and found myself pinned beneath him.
“You just said it. If I want to do something, I should say so.”
“No, wait. That was about saying it at night… before going to sleep. It’s morning now! And today there’s so much to do… Agh!”
I tried to push against Carlisle’s shoulder to escape, but the hand that had somehow slipped between my legs savagely gripped my genitals.
“Either way, we need to take care of this before leaving. You said I caused it. Then I should take responsibility for it.”
“No, no. You don’t need to take responsibility. I can handle it myself, ugh…”
“Mmph…”
“Mmm…”
I finally escaped from the bed thirty minutes later.
Is it right to call this an escape…?
Standing under the shower, I was caught up in ambiguous feelings. In reality, it was Carlisle who’d left the bed first. Considering male nature, both he and I had finished what needed to be done.
Carlisle used his hands and mouth to drive me to the brink of climax, then slipped on a ring from who knows where to prevent me from ejaculating. In that state, he laid me face down and fucked me.
Damn bastard…
He breathed raggedly against my nape while thrusting painfully between my buttocks and thighs, but didn’t actually enter inside. Thinking about it now, it was embarrassingly shameful, but it was actually me who was desperately wiggling my hips, driven wild by the heightened arousal.
‘Shh, not today. Be good.’
Remembering how Carlisle had whispered low and sucked on my ear still made my lower back tingle.
Am I naturally weak to sexual stimulation?
I’d prided myself on being relatively plain sexually, but it seemed I didn’t know myself well. A subtle sense of self-loathing crept up.
In the end, Carlisle didn’t go all the way and instead spread my buttocks and poured his sticky semen between them. Only then was I allowed to climax in his hand, and though I collapsed exhausted, I definitely didn’t feel a refreshing satisfaction.
“What the hell was that?”
Though it was only one night, just from the experience of that first night, I couldn’t help but know that he enjoyed long, persistent sex. But compared to that, today felt like he’d finished too hastily, even for a morning session. Though it was a busy day, we had at least thirty more minutes of leisure.
Was he now trying to just quickly take what he needed and finish, rather than leisurely enjoying it? Come to think of it, today was the festival day, so there was a lot to do, and if we’d done it like that time, I would have been wrecked and unable to do anything…
Then he shouldn’t have started at all. Unnecessarily touching someone who was sleeping well…
Feeling pointlessly angry, I continued grumbling even while hurriedly showering.
“It’s not like I’m disappointed that we didn’t go all the way…”
No, I was disappointed. But it wasn’t that kind of disappointment—it was more like disappointment that Carlisle’s interest in me seemed to have cooled…
“What am I thinking about this early in the morning?”
I slapped my cheek with a smack. I couldn’t bring myself to hit hard, but it was enough intensity to scatter the useless thoughts.
Today I didn’t have the luxury to worry about such messy behavior. If I had time to spare, I should go to the plaza early and check again if there were any problems with the festival preparations…
Wait. Speaking of which, today Carlisle’s body temperature…
My thoughts scattered again. I suddenly realized that Carlisle’s body temperature wasn’t as high as before. Come to think of it, hadn’t the color of his body’s contamination changed somewhat too?
Should I say it’s gotten lighter… I can’t see his back, but his arms and chest seem to have definitely gotten lighter in color.
Was it because I’d collected three Fragments of the Sacred Tree? If I really collected all five, would all the contamination disappear? At this rate, even if traces remained, at least it wouldn’t be such an ugly color as now.
Then maybe the pain has decreased a little too.
Getting absorbed in such thoughts without getting tired of them, I almost ended up really being late this time.
Finally, the festival day dawned.
I headed to the plaza in front of city hall, the assembly point. The village was wrapped in an excited atmosphere for the first time in a long while. The plaza was bustling with residents who had gathered from early morning, most of them volunteers who’d come to sow seeds and plant fruit trees.
Other events were scheduled to take place in the evening in the form of a night market after work was done, but some volunteers participating in food preparation had come out from morning to start distributing simple breakfast items to residents participating in the tree-planting event.
The aroma of bread made from desert exploration harvests, freshly brewed coffee, and drinks made from coconut fruits sweetly and fragrantly filled the morning air of the plaza.
As the person responsible for the event, standing among them, one of the volunteers who’d been going around distributing bread and coffee came and stood before me.
“…Raon.”
I tensed up. The person who stood before me with a stern face was one of my ex-wives who’d slapped my cheek in front of the bakery not long ago—it was Rosie.
“Ah… hello, Rosie.”
I greeted her while subtly stepping back. I unconsciously tensed up, putting strength in my shoulders. I might need to raise my arms in defense if necessary. Actually, she was holding a tray with bread and coffee, so there seemed to be no possibility of getting slapped, but I could get coffee poured on me instead.
“……”
Rosie stood there looking at me with a sullen face without saying anything. She didn’t pour out curses at me like before, but she didn’t offer me anything to eat either, and I couldn’t bring myself to reach out, just standing there awkwardly.
Silence spread around us like a contagious disease. Under the interested gazes of people around us, I became increasingly embarrassed. I was thinking it would be better if she would just slap me or splash coffee on me—anything to quickly get it over with—when Rosie finally moved.
She switched the hand supporting the tray and suddenly held something out. I thought I was finally being attacked and reflexively stepped back, but what was dangling and swaying in her hand was a shopping bag with Kevin Bakery’s logo.
“Uh… huh?”
As I looked back and forth between that bag and Rosie’s face in confusion, Rosie said in a sullen voice.
“My arm hurts, so take it quickly.”
“Huh? Oh, right.”
I quickly took the shopping bag. I glimpsed several breads and what looked like a tumbler. But I had no idea why she was giving me this, whether it was really for me, or if she needed her hands free to slap my cheek and was just having me hold it temporarily.
“Don’t get the wrong idea just because I’m giving you this.”
Rosie said coldly. I didn’t know what wrong idea she meant, but overwhelmed by the atmosphere, I obediently nodded.
“My personal thoughts about you haven’t changed. This is this, and that is that. I still think what you did to me was trashy behavior without basic courtesy.”
One thing I understood. She was still angry and unforgiving about ‘the fact that I had unilaterally dumped her.’ I swallowed and nodded. But what was this shopping bag about?
“Separately from that.”
Rosie continued with a bitter expression.
“It’s also true that the village has come back to life a lot thanks to you risking your life to go to dangerous places. I heard that my brother and my shop… being able to restart business, and us being able to eat real bread and coffee again was largely thanks to you. Well, as one of the residents, I’m grateful to you for that. This is just…”
Rosie gestured at the shopping bag.
“A small token of appreciation for that.”
“I, I see.”
I nodded in a dazed state.
“Oh, they made up, they made up!”
Someone beside us started shouting and clapping. It was Taro. This bastard—when Rosie stood in front of me with a menacing expression, he’d disappeared into the crowd in the blink of an eye, and when had he come back to my side? I glared at Taro out of the corner of my eye.
“Right, right. Just do well from now on.”
“Good thinking, Rosie. Rosie is magnanimous!”
Applause poured out. I wanted to hide somewhere from embarrassment. Even in dramas, I couldn’t stand such scenes and would change the channel, and now I was the protagonist. Blood started rushing to my face.
“We didn’t make up! I said this is this and that is that!”
Fortunately, Rosie snapped irritably instead of me, then glared at me.
“Don’t you get the wrong idea either! It’s absolutely not about becoming friends again.”
“Got it.”
I nodded earnestly.
“But from now on, you can come to our shop to buy bread or coffee. You don’t need to deliberately take detours to avoid it.”
Rosie added in a prim tone. Whether from excitement, her pale face was slightly flushed.
“If you want to, that is. Anyway, now you’ll be eating more delicious bread and coffee at Carlisle Lightinger’s house, so you probably won’t need it.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
