Carnivore (2)

……What am I even looking at.

"Hm? Does it look strange to you, Seoha~?"

The east wing of the third floor was off-limits—the Madam's bedroom—so I had given the first and second floors a rough once-over and come back to the reception room downstairs. She was waiting there in an outfit that knocked the sense clean out of my head, looking down at herself with a little shrug.

A dark chestnut zip-up hoodie bore a cutely stylized bear face, and below it she wore black-brown wool shorts, her silk-smooth hair let down to fall as it pleased. Less a president than the devastatingly pretty older girl from next door.

This was bad. The simple bear-eyes on the hoodie lined up exactly with her breasts, and the way they shoved the print out into three dimensions was impossible to ignore. My gaze kept trying to drop to her chest!

Stubby, adorable bear-paw pockets sat at both hips, and little bear ears on the shoulders bobbed back and forth every time she moved. The clothes were ridiculously cute. And the real killing blow was the fluffy wool shorts, every strand of yarn on full display—the short, stubby-legged pants of a mascot costume, finished with furry slippers shaped like bear paws. She looked like a two-heads-tall teddy toddling around the room.

Whoa…… dangerous. Dangerously cute! No. The person inside those clothes is terrifying. Do not get fooled by the packaging!

"Kyaa~! The outfit is too cute! What do I do~!"

……And Franc, it seemed, was already halfway gone. The one who was supposed to be watching my back was like this, and my unease only piled higher.

"Uh, um. It's c-cute. It isn't weird."

"Really? What a relief. I was afraid you'd scold me for not acting my age. Hohoho."

Of course any mockery stays inside your head. Say it to her face and there's no telling what happens to you.

She hadn't the faintest guess what I was thinking. Delighted, she kept breaking into smiles, linked her arm through mine, and steered us toward the dining room.

B-but the breast against my arm—the feel of it……!

That remembered sensation made Spatial Perception instinctively scan straight through her clothes, and I nearly choked on a cough.

Sexy—sexy lingerie!

There was far too little cloth, and the black strings that belonged to the underwear crossed her voluptuous waist and hips and bit in just slightly, obscenely sensual. Worse, the fabric itself was a fine semi-transparent mesh that failed to hide a single thing it was supposed to hide. Shameless beyond words!

Emergency! Emergen—cy!

I felt the blood flooding one particular region and clawed desperately after dark thoughts.

This person is Hwayeon's mother. This person is a seventy-year-old grandmother. This person looks at me the same way she looks at a liquid asset…… looks at me……!

Aaaah! Same face, similar figure, like identical twins—even self-hypnosis won't take!

The moment I remembered that the woman who might become my mother-in-law was the Madam herself, I barely scraped past the crisis. No…… if anything, my mind took serious damage.

Getting hard for someone who might be my mother-in-law. She could look exactly like Hwayeon and it still wouldn't make this all right for a human being……

I tried to rationalize it. She isn't confirmed as my mother-in-law yet, so it's fine. She looks exactly like Hwayeon, so I can't help it. But the other thoughts kept surfacing—and you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠still call that loving Hwayeon? This is betraying her!—and my composure shaved away by the second.

The meal waiting for us was plain, a simple home-cooked spread put together with care.

Honestly, I had expected her to be cutting steak, or serving something elegant and refined, so this caught me off guard. Not that it was bad. It was genuinely good, and there was plenty of it. More than anything, a restaurant course still felt awkward on me…… Given the choice, I liked this better.

Over the meal the Madam asked about this and that—how school was going. A chairwoman taking an interest in a student's school life was hardly strange, so I answered readily, finished eating, and we shifted back to the reception room. The conversation never broke. It ran on and on, back through my childhood, all the way to middle school and elementary school.

Middle school was, quite literally, the era of my dark history, so I exaggerated where I could and buried the secrets I wanted buried.

Hwayeon's way of talking is to say only what is necessary. She is careful, and her tone runs stiff. Franc, if I tease her, gets hooked and squeals and flails, but even she is careful in conversation, with a deep habit of saying only what needs saying.

The Madam, though, must have been gifted at talk, because she led even stories with nothing pleasant in them until I could tell them easily and enjoy myself doing it. And because of that……

"Pfft, so in eighth grade you were in the terminal stage of chuunibyou…… Ahahahaha!"

"Krghh……"

I got too comfortable, walked straight into her leading questions, and confessed the whole thing—early chuunibyou symptoms in sixth grade, past the middle stage by seventh, and by eighth grade it was terminal!

Even Franc, who had been fretting and fidgeting a moment ago, sank into the conversation at my side as if she had never worried at all, and now she was squealing with delight right along with the Madam.

Hey, Franc. A little backup, maybe? At this rate it feels like I'm taking on the Madam and Franc at the same time……

"Huh? What do you mean, me too—you had chuunibyou as well, Madam?"

Still giggling, she set her elbows on the table, laced her fingers, and rested the tip of her nose lightly atop them. Her gaze hardened, and she spoke.

"You would raise lies and shallow sophistry to defile your truth. I…… dislike that sort of thing, you know……?"

"Hhk……"

"Kyahahaha! Goodness, trying to do this at my age is incredibly embarrassing!"

"Ah, you're making even me embarrassed just watching!"

"But the Blue Genius is a present-tense condition, isn't he? Auntie graduated ages ago!"

"Urk!"

The blow landed in my head and my heart at once. I clutched my chest and planted my face on the table, and her laughter—thin, as if she might choke on it—poured into my ears……

She had been watching me go hik, hik, and only just managed to swallow the laugh before that mischievous smile came back and her mouth opened again!

"Well then! Can the so-called Blue Genius wash the filth from this world with his teal Eyes of Discernment—the Seeing-Through Eyes—and blue pupils like scattering foxfire?!"

Ghk……! She's flagging her chuunibyou by sticking the plain word right after the fancy one that means the exact same thing!

M-my hands and feet are curling……!

"Stop!"

I couldn't even lift the face I'd slammed into the table. She laughed hard enough to squeeze out a tear, clutching her stomach.

"So Seoha thinks he's graduated from chuunibyou, does he? Listen carefully to what this Auntie has to say."

"Uwaaaah!"

"Pfft—ahahahaha!!"

I flinched every time another item got added, and she could barely get the words out through a face that refused to hold still. When I finally couldn't take it and started shrieking and rolling on the floor, she burst out laughing and pounded the table without mercy.

How does this person know all that?! Sure, the accuracy is only about eighty percent, but a single item is enough to take you past blushing and straight into detonation!

"I'm just that kind of guy anyway! I'm the Blue ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Genius!!"

I whimpered in a full despair pose and smacked the reception-room floor, and she laughed as if the wind had gotten into her lungs, wheezing out heek, hik! Franc, whom I had trusted, laughed herself exhausted in midair and hung there limp.

The Madam's legs must have given out. She crawled toward me with difficulty, patted my shoulder—and then she saw my face and exploded all over again!

"Ahihihihi!"

"That's too much!"

"S-Seoha—hah, hik—are you trying to laugh Auntie to death?! Pahahahaha!!"

I am going to die of shame!!

I got her up and moved us to the living room. I had no mental spare left for dignity, so I flopped face-down on the sofa, and the Madam collapsed on top of me.

The killing blow to my sanity hadn't come from the Madam, or from Franc.

Butler Grandpa had stepped into the reception room, taken one look at the Madam clutching me and laughing like a madwoman and at me lying there in despair, then quietly shut the door and gone back out.

"Ugh. Butler Grandpa saw everything. He closed the door without a sound and left, like an assassin who'd seen something he was never meant to see."

"Pfft. Hoo, hooo. Juhan is a child I took in and raised from the time I was young, so it's fine. He already knows Auntie had chuunibyou!"

"Getting caught with chuunibyou is not something to brag about!"

"Pihihihihik."

……Don't laugh while you're lying on my back.

I wanted to shove her off, but I couldn't be bothered to move a finger. She had buried her face in my shoulder, laughing in little hiks, and then she turned toward me with an expression of genuine suffering.

"Ah, Auntie's stomach hurts from laughing so much."

"I've awakened as the Blue Genius, so I can still hold out."

"Pahahaha! S-stop~! Pfft, hihihihik!"

I had said it as obnoxiously as I knew how, and she still burst out laughing. The laugh switch was stuck in the on position.

Even while she laughed she looked miserable, one hand clamped to her forehead and the other to her lower belly, groaning through a face you couldn't sort into laughter or tears.

I wish she'd just pass out like that.

……

By the time she had finally, finally caught her breath and calmed down, the butler came back. He set the tea table as if he had seen nothing at all, and poured tea into cups of an elegant make.

"Thank you……"

Ugh, I can't look Grandpa in the face…… I want to go home.

……? The color of the tea, strangely enough, was a watery light very close to the color of Phase Power. It had no scent either. I took a sip. Mmm…… a faint sweetness, and a bitterness that pleasantly prickled the tip of the tongue.

I was staring round-eyed down into the cup when the Madam smiled and explained.

"It's a tea called Blue Mellow. It has many good effects, but it's especially good when your throat hurts from laughing."

With that she lifted a rather thick slice of lemon from a small plate and sprinkled a little of the juice into the tea.

"Oh my!"

"Whoa."

A color like a southern sea turned a pretty pink—like Franc's nipples!

Curious, I sprinkled lemon juice into mine as well, and over several seconds it slowly shifted to pale pink. Wow. What kind of chemical reaction was that?

"Huh?! The bitterness is gone?"

"Waaah. Did the lemon's sourness catch the bitterness?"

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes. Soft, and gently sweet."

The butler set the tea service on a wooden cart, wheeled it out, and for a while the Madam and I said nothing, only tasting the Blue Mellow.

She sipped, smiled with her eyes, and looked straight into mine. Then she let out a small sigh and opened her mouth.

"Seoha, did you hear from Hwayeon about the talks that took place on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday?"

"Yes. I got a progress update once on Sunday and once on Tuesday."

"Could Auntie know what you heard from that child?"

I could just hear it from Hwayeon later, so why……? Ah. Because Hwayeon set herself against her.

"Mmm. So—after I went into the Phase World the second time, Time River, with your help, worked out their own way to answer the Alliance. And I heard that you took a different course of action."

"And?"

"Once we actually reached the deliberation room, she said what Time River had prepared would only get in the way of what you'd prepared, so they watched and did nothing. And after that, the Alliance's response got revised a little because I got angry?"

"Is there still more?"

"……That you'd set a standard of economic value on my ability, and that you'd talked with the Alliance about the scale of support for me—and about shares, market percentages, that sort of thing, for when I officially started activities later."

I had brought up the parts that could serve as weaknesses, wanting to see how she would react. She didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.

"You heard nearly all of it. So you avoided me because you thought Auntie had treated our Seoha like a thing?"

"……Yes. Hearing that, honestly, I was disappointed in you."

She smiled again at the honest answer.

"The president's seat looks, if you only glance at it, like a place where one can wield absolute power, doesn't it?"

No? I'm not some little kid. There's no way I'd think a single king swings all the power.

I kept the thought behind my teeth and stared at her blankly. She gave a small, bitter smile and went on.

"Every act recorded as the business of the state comes to begin with numbers and end with numbers. For any enterprise above a certain scale, that is a fate you cannot escape. Treating our Seoha as a unit was something I could not help, if I was to secure as many of those numbers as possible. This Auntie would never treat our Seoha—Korea's future, and its treasure—like some object, now would she?"

Laying it on a bit thick…… I pouted, letting the dissatisfaction show, and she went on, smiling in bright little circles.

"Seoha's ability is a kind of orchid. You keep the other, vulgar pests from coming near. You mix nutrients into the soil so it can open as beautifully as possible, you change the earth, and you raise it with obsessive care so it never takes sick—only then does it bloom in earnest. Plant it in just any ground and it may fail to adapt and wither, or it may grow with difficulty and turn out tough. But it will never be able to open those beautiful flowers all the way. It is the same thing."

……

"Laying the foundation on which that ability can be used to its limit, and supporting you without stint, so that Seoha can grow twice over, three times over, and come to possess the finest detection ability in the world. Helping you grow again and again, step past your own limits, bloom in full, and set foot in a realm of detection no one in history has ever reached. Is that not what the head of this country ought to do?"

Her eyes and her expression as she said it were so clear, so transparent, that I could tell—not only through Spatial Perception, but from my own point of view—that this was not a lie. It was sincerity.

"Many countries have their eyes on your ability. America, the strongest in the world. China, close on its heels. Russia ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and Britain, competing with China, and the European countries that follow after them. The great states of capital around the Arabian Sea. And Japan, which envies us and hates us."

She took a mouthful of Blue Mellow, swallowed, and continued.

"Until now the world's Phase ability power structure had healers out in front, with tankers and dealers forming the other two corners of a triangle. That is changing. Special-type ability users are stepping to the front and pressing the other three types down."

These days, she said, psychic lines were rising that could match the power of elemental types, and attention was gathering on special types specialized in raw strength without being Physical Reinforcement at all, or on near-variant abilities specialized in stamina or speed. I pricked up my ears.

"And among those special types, the one whose importance is rising fastest is detection. Detection cannot be swapped out for any other ability. Seoha, who holds both that exceptional instinct and that gift for analysis, is—uncut, and already throwing a brilliant light—a red diamond of several thousand carats."

I had heard that a red diamond was the most expensive gem on earth. A single carat ran into the millions of dollars. Diamonds swell in price exponentially as they grow, so several thousand carats…… you probably couldn't buy one if you brought every coin on the planet. Literally priceless.

Which is to say they're drooling, and they're aiming at me.

Mid-sentence she let out a small sigh, and I felt on her the same worn, tired air as before.

"And yet that girl Hwayeon still hasn't come to her senses. She doesn't even know what the priority is, and she goes off to join a raid—this Auntie is past dumbfounded and well into angry! The most urgent thing is support for our Seoha!"

Uh. Umm. She's been thinking of me that much……?

The force of it overwhelmed me, and I only blinked. She mastered the anger and quietly went on.

"Anyway, understand this. Auntie did not do it because she dislikes our Seoha, or because she saw you as a mere number. She had no choice but to deal in that fashion. You cannot meet people who come at you with reason and numbers using nothing but feeling."

Well…… fair.

I nodded as if I understood, and she breathed out softly, relieved, and continued.

"And the position of the Phase Ability User Alliance is already beyond the level of nations. Even America, the greatest power in the world, cannot go against the Ability User Alliance. If the Alliance had not approached you in a friendly way, this Auntie would have used any means at all to hide you and protect you. And yet that girl Hwayeon is out participating in a mere High Grade aberrant raid. Does she even understand how dangerous things are right now…… and the escorts she attached are worthless besides…… goodness."

She pressed thumb and middle finger around her eyes, genuinely at her wits' end. If Hwayeon had been standing in front of her, I had the feeling the Madam would have talked her to death on the spot.

So in the end she moved for my sake, and took that position, while knowing nothing about my abilities except the detection?

"Bu~t~. When Auntie saw our Seoha trying to run away like that, her heart hurt, you know? Auntie worked so hard for our Seoha, and you didn't send a single call or a single text, and then you drove a spike into Auntie's heart by saying you were disappointed…… Sob, sob."

"Ah—ah. I-I'm sorry."

I thought she was putting on the sobs, and then she actually shed tears and I startled! Franc only stared at the Madam with a complicated face, which made it feel even more like I was the one in the wrong!

Ugh. These aren't even my clothes. I don't have a handkerchief.

She covered her eyes with little cat-paws and let the tears fall, then glanced at me standing there in an awkward stammer, sniffled, and spoke.

"Sniff. Has being disappointed in Auntie been resolved?"

She drew her brows into a pitiful peak and looked up at me with eyes brimming. Making that face with Hwayeon's face is cheating……!

"……I think I should have heard the whole of both sides, instead of judging from only one."

"You think so?"

It was an answer I gave while reluctantly yielding a step, but it must not have been a bad one. She smiled with eyes still full of water. The tears rolled down her cheeks because of it, and my conscience pricked me until I couldn't look at her straight.

Uuuuum.

Something full and soft was resting against my forearm, and concentrating on the conversation was difficult. The cherry scent, thicker still since she had come out of the bath, had my heart thumping……

"So it was a thoroughly unpleasant feeling?"

"Yes. At first it was just the sense that something was grating on me, and then at some point a dislike hit me all at once."

The subject moved to what had happened at the Central Museum. When it changed, she sat down beside me, gathered my arm in against her chest, and leaned in a little…… which left me at a complete loss.

The clothes only looked plush and cozy from the outside. Pressed close, every curve of the body came through. And there was something strange about the way she kept looking at my eyes. The longer she held my gaze, the bolder her movements seemed to get.

……!

Just now, from the breast against my arm, something unnaturally firm had brushed past…… Th-that couldn't be what I thought, could it?

"Hmm. So you left the museum in a bad mood, and then an eerie cry spread along with a vibration, and people collapsed. A moment later the collapsed people staggered like zombies and moved underground."

"Yes. Movements like the ones I'd seen in zombie movies."

"I received a brief report before I left work. The aberrant that appeared at the museum was a Soul Reaper, and the Alliance ability users who arrived first wrapped the situation up—that was what I was told. By the time the government's ability users reached the scene it was already over, so I thought the Alliance children had moved strangely fast. I didn't know our Seoha's information had played a part."

Ah. So that was it. Well, ability users arrived within five minutes of the incident, and inside twenty they had started the operation and put the Soul Reaper down in a flash.

"I heard the Fire Chariot unit was deployed, and I was surprised they had stopped a Soul Reaper without casualties—but if our Seoha was there, it makes sense. There is a great difference between going in already prepared and answering a situation on the spot."

Fire Chariot? Is that Mr. Hwa Joong-kang's nickname, maybe?

"You received reports on all of that?"

"Of cou~rse. Soul-type aberrants are a dangerous sort, for the most part, so the first response matters. We can't waste the golden window on useless flailing, can we? While the Fire Chariot unit was fighting, our children and the raiders sent out by each raid team had Yongsan surrounded."

So the people who traded those fierce looks with Mr. Hwa Joong-kang back then were government?

"But something that big happened, and you left early? Not even on time?"

"……"

Ah. She looked away.

She turned her head from me and pouted, and the look was somehow cute. I grinned without meaning to, and she flared up and started pinching my cheek.

"A-Auntie went ten days without being able to leave work, running between the Blue House and the National Assembly doing nothing but the job! Even when I did leave, it was after I had given precise instructions for the follow-up, you know?!"

"Abububub?!"

Mid-pinch, her finger slipped into my mouth and brushed my tongue. I startled at the soft, yielding feel of it, and her bristling voice kept stabbing at my ear.

"I was going to rest after leaving in the morning, and then I got the report that an aberrant had appeared at the museum, so I waited until eleven giving instructions and only then went home—and you're asking why I left early?! Is this impudent little mouth the one saying that?!"

"I-I'm sowwy!"

I grabbed her hand with a tearful face, the pain bright in my mouth, and her blazing eyes suddenly filled my vision in extreme close-up. That look was the one Hwayeon gets when she gets worked up……

Uh. Uh?

And the face filling everything in front of me was Hwayeon's…… no. The Madam's.

Chu.

"—?!"

……My head went white. D-did the Madam just kiss me?

"This is punishment for teasing Auntie."

"Uuuu. Seoha. You mustn't be unfaithful~!"

I was too scrambled for whatever Franc was saying to settle in my head. No—I heard it. Understanding it was the problem.

"Mmm~."

The Madam looked at the index finger of her right hand, the one that had been in my mouth, and a suggestive smile curved her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lips…… She met my eyes, put the finger in her mouth, and sucked, long and slow.

……

"Hup."

Huh?! I was shoved back without warning, flat on the sofa, and the Madam climbed up over me!

"W-wait a moment! Madam!?"

"Hmm? Why?"

A chill went through me and I caught her arm, but she took my arm and pressed it back down, smiling sweetly.

Her pupils glistened with want. Her reason looked as if half of it had blown away all at once, and a sense of crisis came down on me hard.

What. Why is the Madam suddenly doing this?

Of all places, she had settled right over my dick, and the strangely soft, yielding feel of her against me threatened a reaction down there. I hurried to shove her off.

Kgh—she didn't budge! It was like being lashed tight to steel rebar!

Grrrrk……!

The moment I thrashed with everything I had, she clamped my hips between her thighs and sealed both my arms with a single hand, then smiled and stroked my cheek. That look seemed to have boiled off more than half my reason……!

"Hehe. Chinese martial arts has quite a lot that's useful, if you bother to learn it, you know~? Take the principle of the Thousand-Catty Weight, the way Auntie is using it now, and add Physical Reinforcement. Well? You can't move, can you?"

"Why—why are you suddenly doing this?!"

I shouted and kicked both legs, wriggling to get a hand free, and still I couldn't move an inch. I-is this really what a C-Class body can do?

She paid my struggling no attention at all. She gazed into my eyes as if entranced.

"Hmm, what do you suppose Auntie is trying to do~? Want to guess?"

"Heek!?"

Her hand slipped in under my shirt and started roaming over my stomach!

"Oh my? This is……"

Tud-ud-ud-uk.

"Heek?!"

She couldn't even be bothered to undo the buttons. She ran her hand from collar to hem, tore every one of them off, and flung the front of the shirt wide.

"Heh. So it wasn't that you'd taken no measures at all."

She looked inside the Phase Stone vest, felt along the Phase Stones set into the lining, and licked her lips again with languid eyes gone cloudy with want.

"Not bad at all."

"M-Madam, what are you doing! Let me go!!"

Do I spin up Mana Mode?! B-but the Madam is a mid-grade C-Class. Even if I accelerate Mana Mode, that's only four times. She holds something like ten times as a constant, so all I'd do is expose the ability……!

If I tell Franc to loose her lightning……! No. A moderate shot obviously won't work. It didn't even work on Hwayeon! And if I raise the output any higher, I won't be able to take it myself……

"Our Seoha. How many times does he think Auntie has slept with a man, up to now?"

……?!

"H-how would I know something like that! Grrk!"

Shocking question, shocking situation. I writhed and looked up at Franc for any way out of this, and Franc was wearing the face of a woman whose lover had just been stolen!

No, don't give up! Franc has to help me!

"Try answering. Get it right, and I'll let you go."

"……Uh."

Mmm. Even at once every two years, given her age, it would be past thirty. And with a personality like this, at the very least……

"A hundred times?"

"Hmm~? Seoha thinks this Auntie has slept with men a hundred times?"

"Heek?!"

At my answer she put on an expression scarily like my sister's, like something had possessed her. This was actually dangerous!

"A th-thousand times?"

"Why is the number going up?!"

She flared and smacked my chest. Slap!

"Ow! Th-then fifty?"

"Wrong! Wrong!"

Slap, slap!

Ugh, come on! Why does getting hit feel good?!

"May I take it that our Seoha wants to become an adult, so he's missing on purpose~?"

Her face had flushed a pretty red. She traced my nipple with a fingertip, slow and light, and brought her head in close to mine, burning with lust.

The nearer her face came, the larger those black-pearl eyes grew, and in the irises I could see my own eyes reflected, shining blue.

Stay like this and she was going to take me. I whipped my head aside and shouted with everything I had, begging her to come to her senses. She wouldn't pounce on me when I was dating her daughter!

"I'm—I'm dating Hwayeon! You really can't, come on!"

She didn't stop. Far from it. Greed and jealousy filled her face, and she caught my ear between her teeth and bit.

"I see. Did you do that with Yeon too, by any chance?"

"Th-that?"

"Sex."

……

If I say we did, she'll give up, right?

"We di……"

……!!

She cut me off and spoke as if handing down a sentence, and her eyes were shining like a beast's.