The Second Awakening (2)
After the dinner Mom and my sister had set out, I came into the room with Franc, and she began to watch me with a long, steady gaze.
"Why? Got something to say?"
"No."
"...?"
"It is only... Having heard Father speak, I found myself wishing you might spare a little more care for your own safety, Seoha."
"I may not look it, but I really am being careful."
"No! You are acting precisely as children do when they have only just been made knights—drunk on the power they hold, and careless in the very moment their guard falls!"
At words I'd tossed out without a thought, Franc's face went grave and she raised her voice. I had seen her angry often enough, when Aberrants or other people attacked me and tore me down, but I had never once seen her this stern.
"With power like mine, something of this order is no trouble. I would be fine. With my ability, this much is nothing."
"Uh..."
"Your ability is certainly tremendous, Seoha. Spatial Perception, which within a given range might as well be called omniscience; reinforcement of the body, of course; and even the Mana Sieve, which may yet let you wield abilities beyond your own. In potential alone, your gifts stand unmatched among anyone I have ever seen. But... the more you come to know your own power, the more numb you seem to grow toward danger, and I..."
"H-have I been?"
"...I cannot say. At times you are keenly mindful of safety, and at others you spare no thought for your well-being at all. Watching from your side, my heart trembles so..."
She was right. Every time a fight with an Aberrant drew near, Franc had been beside herself. Unlike Mom and my sister, who worried over me without quite knowing why, her fear had reasons behind it.
"To me—to me, Seoha, you are everything. In this world, you are the only one who can see me. Were you gone, I... would have no reason left to exist."
"Don't say things like that."
"Then I beg you—carry a sense of danger with you...!"
Somewhere along the way the anger had left her. As if her chest were closing in, she pressed both hands hard against it. The tips of her brows trembled faintly, speaking her feelings more clearly than words, and it sat poorly with me.
Had I really been wringing her heart like that? I'd chosen those actions because they looked, to me, as if they had decent odds. Had they seemed that precarious to her?
"I'm... a newbie even among newbies. That's why."
"...?"
"When I get worked up, I can't think past what's right in front of me. So I'll listen to you, Franc. Whenever something looks dangerous to you, hit the brakes for me."
"..."
I reached out and stroked her cheek. Franc caught the hand against her face and looked at me with desperate eyes. When I met that gaze and simply held it, she lowered her lashes and, shyly, closed them.
Mm. Uh. So.
I'd never managed a single relationship in my life—a certified romantic disaster—but even I knew what that meant. After a moment's hesitation I leaned in as if spellbound and stole a light kiss from her lips.
It felt like touching a bead of moisture. Franc must have felt my lips as well; a faint light brightened her face.
"Nnh."
Overcome at once with embarrassment, she covered her face with both hands, spun once through the air like a dolphin, and dove straight into the bed.
I sat down beside her and took in the sight of her lying face-down.
Last night's dream came back to me. I was turning into more of a pervert by the minute. I dragged my eyes off the cleft of her by force, reached out, and gently stroked the back of her head. She flinched when my hand met her, shoulders jumping, and it was cute.
Where my palm touched her spirit-body, the sensation that came through was like cutting off a stream of water pouring from a showerhead.
I could feel Franc's presence now, and touch her besides, but I had no idea what her spirit-body was actually made of.
Search had evolved into Spatial Perception, but if this ability, too, was built on my own knowledge, then whatever I didn't know stayed unknowable no matter how I looked at it through Spatial Perception.
Hn...? I feel like I just missed something. What did I miss?
Whenever I got a feeling like this, it was always something about an ability, or a way of using one. Was it the Mana Sieve? Or Spatial Perception?
Hmm... Maybe there was some change in Spatial Perception I hadn't recognized yet. I spent a long while scanning my surroundings with it and cycling the Mana Sieve through my whole body, but I couldn't find a single thing that nagged at me.
Did I need to pile on more knowledge? I didn't have to hold every fact in the world, but I also couldn't stay so ignorant that Spatial Perception turned shabby.
Starting tomorrow, I ought to at least crack open an encyclopedia.
I stood and started changing into my sleepwear, and Spatial Perception caught Franc sneaking glances while I did.
So she was a little bold herself. When I finished changing and turned around, she whipped her head away and pretended nothing had happened.
I snickered inwardly at how lovable that was and lay down beside her.
It was late. I'd run the Mana Sieve and Spatial Perception a little longer, then sleep... Whoa. That couple is seriously hardcore!
Poke. Poke.
...Mmm. When had I fallen asleep? Something was poking my cheek, and the instant I woke, Spatial Perception brought me the state of everything around me.
I'd been spectating some couple's extremely hardcore S&M, gotten bored, and started copying the patterns I'd seen running through the bodies of the female ability users at the entrance of the Alliance Hospital... and somewhere in the middle I'd dozed off without realizing it.
The thing that had been gently prodding my cheek all this while was Franc. At some point she had woken, and now she was smiling a smile as dazzling as morning sunlight while she poked at me.
I opened my eyes, and there she was, seated at my bedside, looking down at me.
Uh... If I can touch Franc now, does that mean she can touch me too? More to the point—the first thing I see when I open my eyes is a peerless beauty's gentle, lovely smile... Khh~!
"Did you sleep well?"
The clock read seven in the morning. Out in the kitchen Mom was making breakfast, my sister was doing her makeup in her room, and Dad was in the dressing room, putting on a suit for work.
Long live an ordinary life!
"Mmmnnngh."
I buried my face in the pillow and squirmed, then looked up at Franc again. She sat with her upper body leaned toward me, watching my fidgeting as if she found it cute.
Franc's naked body, lit by the sun, was blinding. Perhaps because of the glare, the Mana Sieve kicked in on its own, and I felt Phase Power shift into my eyes to shield them.
"Can't I get a morning kiss?"
"Oh, honestly."
I said it wheedlingly, rubbing my eyes and leaning in a little, and Franc's face colored faintly... Huh? Her skin looked flesh-toned. Wait. Was that a blush on her cheek just now?!
Franc leaned close and pressed a light kiss to my lips.
Starting the morning with a beauty's greeting and a kiss left me in an excellent mood, but I was curious what was going on, so I sat up and examined her face and body through Spatial Perception.
In the brilliant morning sun spilling through the window, her platinum-blonde hair, let down naturally to her shoulders, glittered like threads of gold. Fine, long brows washed with gold; lashes tinged a faint gray; deep blue eyes as clear and blue as a cloudless noon sky.
White cheeks and small pink lips I could never tire of, no matter how long I looked, and a face in which eyes, nose, mouth, and hair came together with an air that belonged to an angel. Her skin gave off a light as white as pure jade, and the perfect teardrop of her breasts, crowned at their tips with nipples of an achingly vivid pink, made me swallow before I knew I was doing it.
Below those full breasts, a flat line of abdominal muscle and a cute navel, and pubic hair like platinum thread that only barely veiled her pubic bone and the area around her clitoris. Beneath that, thighs stretching long and white as porcelain. Truly...
Franc in full natural color, seen for the first time, was beautiful past the point where pretty could reach. The longer I looked, the more it felt as if my heart were being wrung in a fist.
I thought I finally understood why she had received so many proposals and love letters!
When I stared at her in a daze, Franc flushed and covered her breasts and her sex with both hands, and the sight struck hard enough to make reason difficult to hold.
In high school art class, the teacher had once shown us William Bouguereau's and Alexandre Cabanel's masterpieces, both titled The Birth of Venus.
Among the most famous paintings in the world is Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. Say those words, and most people will picture his. Even people with no interest in art have seen it at least once, and my first impression of that masterpiece had been, "This is Venus? She's not even pretty..."
Botticelli's Venus had simply fallen that far outside my idea of beauty.
But the other Venus our art teacher showed us that day—Alexandre Cabanel's—had been so beautiful I truly could not look away.
Reclining upon the waves, that pose, the milk-brown hair spilling down! It was a painting that chased the alluring color and line of a woman's body to the absolute limit!
Franc was that Venus with the breasts a little fuller, the waist a little more slender, the thighs a little firmer.
I'm going to lose my mind.
Even as a spirit-body of gray-white, she had been too beautiful to look away from. Now that color had been laid over her skin as if she were a living person, this was... this was...
Before the figure of Franc, which in a single instant turned an ordinary high schooler's room into the descent of a goddess, I opened my mouth without thinking.
"Franc."
"Yes?"
"Mind if I touch you? Just a little?"
Franc, twisting where she sat and covering the embarrassing parts with both hands, looked flustered at how serious my face was.
"Y-yeees?"
"Thanks."
"Aah?!"
She said yes. She definitely said yeees.
I slowly reached out and set a fingertip, lightly, against Franc's slender shoulder. She froze, not knowing what to do, and when my finger met her she shrank back just a little...
Grrr. I can't hold back, Franc!
I reached out with both hands and carefully took hold of her shoulders. I put a little strength into the grip, and my hands sank in with a soft give. What came back through them was the feeling of plunging my hands into water.
Through Spatial Perception I felt the Phase Power in my hands ripple and raise a faint reaction. Was that reaction the source of the sensation?
Franc wore a face on the verge of tears, looking back and forth between my hands inside her body and my face.
Good.
I drew my hands back out and spoke to her with the most serious expression in the world.
"Franc."
"Y-yes?"
"I'm going to try a little experiment. If you feel any pain, or anything strange in your body, you tell me right away. All right?"
"Ah—yes!"
Only then, perhaps deciding this wasn't mere teasing but something meant for investigation, did Franc compose her face and answer with resolve.
Sorry! This experiment is because of my desires. I'm sorry!!
If the Phase Power flowing through my arms was too thin, and that was why I only felt a weak response from her spirit-body, then what would happen if I used the Mana Sieve to concentrate it there?
With a focus desperate enough to call the first of its kind in eighteen years of life, I drove the Mana Sieve and gathered Phase Power into both hands.
I don't need anything above the wrists! Concentrate it in the hands!
...Ah. The moment the Phase Power drained from my eyes, Franc's body turned gray-white again. So that was it. Concentrating Phase Power in my eyes was what had laid color over her!
I couldn't give up Colorful Franc. I left Phase Power in both eyes and poured all the rest into my hands, and while the watery sheen across my body dimmed, my hands began to glow blue, bright enough to call Cherenkov radiation to mind.
Franc's gaze had been stolen by my hands. I followed her expression with both eyes.
Slowly, I reached out.
And took hold of her shoulder.
"—!"
I can touch her. I'm touching her!! Faintly warm, soft, and smooth, the feel of her shoulder came through against my palms!
Not Archimedes' joy at discovering specific gravity, nor Newton's delight at discovering gravity, could touch what I felt in that moment!
"Ah... aah?"
Franc looked down at my hand on her shoulder, then up at me with trembling eyes.
"I can... touch you, Franc. Can you feel me touching you?"
"Yes. Yes!"
On the verge of tears, she lifted a slightly trembling hand and took hold of my right one, glowing the color of water.
"Hic..."
I felt Franc's slender fingers stroking my hand.
"I can... feel you...!"
Unable to hold the tears back, Franc wept and looked at me with a face I had no words for. I wiped the tracks from her cheeks again and slowly began to trace her face.
Her cheek felt like the finest silk, and her lips, soft and yielding, gave me a thirst that burned. Each time I brushed her soft hair or the fine line of her brows, the nerves in my hand seemed to burst.
My chest swelled tight with joy. Not only to look at a Franc this beautiful, but to be able to touch her...
My obscene brain and my cock were raving at me to grab her breasts this instant, but my heart shouted back that I ought to comfort the Franc who was crying, and not do that.
"I... I, too. I wish to touch your face as well, Seoha."
"Uh, yeah."
At her words I sent a little of the Phase Power gathered in my hands up past my shoulders, and the sensation of touching a person faded in a rush.
Ugh. I don't have enough Phase Power... I need to gather more. Enough to touch Franc as much as I want!
With no choice, I gave up on touching her myself and drew all the Phase Power up above my shoulders. When I told her it was all right now, Franc slowly raised a trembling hand and lightly touched my cheek. The moment I felt the quiver of her fingers against my skin, she cupped my cheek with careful movements, as if afraid she might hurt me.
Franc's palm—warm, and cool, and soft—traced my cheek, pressed the bridge of my nose, tickled my eyelids, stroked my hair, and brushed my lips.
"Hic. Hnn."
Tracing my face through her tears, Franc seemed unable to contain the feeling surging up in her, and all at once she began to kiss me with passion!
A soft peck. A wet pull.
Uwaaaah—!
Crying, she licked my lips, nipped them lightly, sucked at them, then slipped her tongue into my parted mouth and sought out mine!
An adult's kiss. I got excited enough for my reason to blow clean away. I sucked at Franc's tongue and bit it, then pushed mine into her mouth, and she wrapped it softly and tickled the tip with her own...
The door flew open.
"Still asleep? It's morning. Get up alrea—"
!!!
My sister, throwing the door open and coming in, nearly stopped my heart dead. The cock that had been standing rigidly erect shrank in a rush, and cold sweat ran down my spine.
Franc, lost in the kiss, startled just as hard and went stiff.
The one mercy in the disaster was that my back had been to the door.
Her tongue was still in my mouth, so I had no choice. I returned the Mana Sieve I'd concentrated above my shoulders to its usual flow, drew my head back a little, and spoke.
"...I'm up, actually?"
"Ah? Oh! S-sorry!"
I answered without turning my face, and my sister reacted a little oddly before slamming the door with a bang and leaving.
I'd been sitting cross-legged with my back straight, so however ghost-sharp her instincts were, she couldn't have known I'd been kissing Franc.
Franc looked as if the fright had sucked the tears and the feeling right out of her. Even so, her face was deeply flushed, so she seemed aware she'd been the one to start the kiss.
Feeling a little shy, I smiled.
"Coming in without knocking. That startled me."
"Nnh... M-me too..."
To get that excited over a first kiss and not even notice my sister coming. That's a disqualification for a detection-type. Time to reflect.
Franc must have been truly embarrassed. Whenever I ate, she used to hang from my shoulder and watch me; today she wouldn't even leave the room, and rolled back and forth across the bed.
Come to think of it, Franc didn't know I could sense her now, did she? I hadn't told her.
...Right. I won't tell her. A sight that cute, squirming around like that—you couldn't buy it for a fortune.
My sister kept sneaking glances at me even while she ate, and she couldn't take her eyes off me until she'd changed and come out to leave for school.
Her face was strangely flushed... Don't tell me she caught me kissing Franc?!
No. If she had, she'd have called me a little pervert or something and kicked me in the shin.
"Seoha. Earlier, you..."
"Huh? Earlier what?"
"Earlier, that blue halo... Ah, it's nothing!"
She mumbled that and fled, bursting out the front door as if she were running away. A blue halo? I had no idea what she meant.
The clock read eight. I ought to get going too.
"I'm off to school."
"Okay~. Study hard!"
Hearing my voice, Franc came out of the room, and when we left the apartment together the morning air was fresh.
I walked among the people starting their mornings and heading off to work, and checked on Franc through Spatial Perception. She was floating with a hand braced on my shoulder, and—embarrassed, perhaps, that she had kissed me first—she kept stealing glances down at the crown of my head, her face flushed.
And Franc, at present, was naked. Just as an apple falling under gravity is a law of nature, my attention settled, naturally, between her thighs.
Ooh, ( i ) ooh...
Ghk. I felt like that dazzling valley was going to purify my eyes. Maybe because I'd never been free to take it in like this, the impact hit twice as hard. And those two enormous peaks, yielding little by little to gravity, swaying and bobbing—a boy's composure swayed right along with them.
Viva, Spatial Perception!
Being able to see and feel, with nothing filtered out, the naked Franc as she rested a hand on my shoulder in a swimming pose made me extremely, extremely happy... but strength kept gathering in my cock, and that was a bit of a problem.
There was an elementary school nearby, and the kids were chirping their way to class. If anyone caught me with my cock standing at attention here, it would cause a serious problem for a social reputation I hadn't even started building.
Ah. If I run Phase Power through it, maybe I can calm it down?
The thought had barely formed before I tested it.
...Eek! It got bigger?!
Waaah. The girth grew. The length grew!!
As Phase Power flowed into Little Buddy while he slowly stretched awake, his length grew to eight inches and his thickness to a diameter of an inch and a half. He wasn't even fully erect. Stretched all the way, might he reach ten inches, and two and a half across?
A spec fit to stand beside the Alabama blacksnakes of the men in porn videos. If these numbers got out, wouldn't they start calling me the Yellow Serpent of Gyeonggi?
Confidence and self-regard surged up so fast I nearly got excited, but the place was what it was, so I hurriedly pulled myself together and checked my surroundings. Fortunately, people were too busy going where they needed to go to pay any mind to the terrifying swell at the front of my pants.
I quickly returned the Phase Power to normal and rearranged things so Franc wouldn't notice either.
"?"
From above, it seemed she thought I was fidgeting at something. I could see her about to lean her head slightly forward!
"Ah, Franc! Now that I think of it, you've started looking like an ordinary person instead of gray-white!"
"What? Ah—how?"
When I blurted it out on reflex, Franc, who had been about to lean forward, paused and took an interest in what I'd said. That was close! I'd nearly shown her the unsightly tent I'd pitched!
"How do you see yourself, Franc?"
"I simply appear gray and opaque."
Ah. So even when Franc looked down at her own body, that was what she saw. I hadn't known.
"Is that right? Before I got the Mana Sieve, you looked bright gray-white to me too. But when I woke up this morning, Phase Power happened to flow into my eyes. Once it did, I could see all of it—your platinum-blonde hair, your sky-blue eyes, your snow-white skin. No different from a living person!"
"Ah. Auh. Auuu..."
Franc suddenly twisted her body as if overcome with shame. Of course she was doing it behind my back, where my eyes couldn't see—but thanks to Spatial Perception, I saw every bit of it, like watching an opera from the best seat in the house.
"Clothes... ...a way... find..."
"Huh? What'd you say?"
Perhaps because I was absorbed in the valley carved at her sex, I failed, for that instant, to read the whisper-faint movement of her lips.
"Nnh?! Ah, it is nothing! I was speaking to myself!"
"...?"
She said it was to herself, so pressing her would be a breach of manners, wouldn't it?
The moment I thought about breaches of manners, my entire existence started to feel like one, but whatever. I only have to be rude to Franc! She said she'd accept everything I do!