A Sincere Kiss
"Ugh… mmh…"
While I was wiping her body down with a damp towel, she opened her eyes. I’ve always thought it’s exhausting to bathe someone who’s unconscious, so I couldn’t help but feel relieved that she woke up right on time.
"You’re awake?"
Though I hadn’t reached every nook and cranny, I had at least rinsed her body once over. I helped her, whose eyes were still blinking slowly, turn her head toward me and guided her toward the bath.
Leaning against me, she obediently stepped into the tub. She sank in up to just below her shoulders, shivered with a soft moan, and finally looked at me with clearer awareness.
"I… mmh…"
She hesitated for a moment, but I already knew what she wanted to ask.
"You passed out for a bit. I didn’t want to leave you like that, so I washed you instead."
"Ah, right… Thanks…"
She thanked me without any fuss.
"…No, you’re the one who made this mess in the first place."
After thinking it over, she seemed to realize it was basically a case of causing the injury and then offering the cure. She added the remark timidly, but didn’t press the issue any further. She didn’t complain directly to me, yet her dissatisfied voice kept reaching my ears.
"…My legs have no strength. They’re definitely swollen down there."
"I admit I went a little overboard, but you’re the one who kept enduring until it got to this point, Scarlet."
"…I don’t know."
If only she hadn’t been so stubborn and had apologized earlier instead. She wasn’t a child, yet she abruptly turned her head away. If her legs had been fine, she probably would have moved to a spot far away from me.
"I’ll get in with you for a moment."
"…Do whatever you want."
It almost seemed like she was sulking, yet she was still mostly compliant. Since she had turned her head, I took off my outer clothes, felt the pleasant shiver as my body entered water of just the right temperature, and sat down beside her. I was still wearing my underwear underneath. There were various reasons for that, but the main one was something unavoidable as a man.
"Scarlet, could you give me your hand?"
"…Even if I say no, you’re just going to do whatever you want anyway."
This… yeah, she was definitely sulking. Still, her voice lacked its usual sharpness, probably because she had no energy left.
"Haha… Then I’ll do as I please."
"…Hmph."
I took her hand, pulled one arm toward me, and slowly stroked down from her shoulder with my hand dipped in the hot spring water. She had told me to do whatever I wanted, but right now I was hoping things would go the way I wanted, too.
"Ugh…"
"Does it hurt?"
"…It doesn’t… hurt. It just… tickles…? Hn."
I moved very slowly and carefully along her arm, which was covered in rough burn scars that didn’t feel like a woman’s skin at all. Even though it was somewhat forced, she had taken a step forward, so I wanted to offer her some kind of reward in return. The reward she wanted from me was the relatively direct affection she felt through physical intimacy, and she didn’t seem very interested in anything else, so this was the best I could come up with. Still, I hoped it would work out well.
"Your touch… is still gentle."
So… kind… Even now…
"Because I apologized to No. 13."
"What, I…?"
Her head snapped toward me. I had half-expected something like this, but… she really didn’t remember. Even though her mind had been half-gone, she had clearly crawled all the way to No. 13, grabbed her wrist, and spoken those words herself, so I thought she would remember.
"Ah."
This was the reaction of someone whose memory had just returned. It seemed the memory hadn’t surfaced right after she woke up from fainting.
"…"
Her face flushed with unmistakable shame. The memory of just before she lost consciousness must have come back to her, albeit belatedly.
"Would you like me to help you remember?"
When I pressed a little further, her reaction was quite something to behold. Even though her legs wouldn’t move, she tried to pull her upper body away from me however she could.
"No, no, no… I was wrong, so…!"
"…You’re a good girl, Scarlet."
At my light threat, she immediately looked down at my hand. It left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, but given what had happened, it couldn’t be helped.
"You… ugh…"
What is this…? Why am I happy again?
"…Don’t give me that half-baked praise… It’s fine."
Calling me a good girl or whatever… Am I really reacting like this just because I heard that lame compliment? Seriously?
She looked like she was about to say something but gave up. From what I could hear of her inner thoughts, though, she wasn’t actually in a bad mood. Fortunately, there was still no sign of regret over apologizing to No. 13 or any stronger resentment. It seemed things could still be salvaged. In the end, what mattered most was whether No. 13 forgave her or not… but I felt like it was still possible. That expectation rose within me. So I found myself hoping for a little more. I really hoped things would work out the way I wanted.
"What…?"
She must have noticed something strange midway through, because she looked down at the shoulder I was stroking. There, a blue, viscous liquid was slowly seeping into her burn scars.
"This… It’s definitely from back then…"
Come to think of it, she had seen it once before. It was the same substance that had melted the iron bars confining her and undone the shackles on her limbs.
"Since you granted my request, Scarlet, I thought I should show some sincerity as well."
"You really have the nerve to call that a request…"
"Haha…"
It was good that the blue liquid from Undine had appeared from my palm again this time, but honestly, I was a little anxious about whether it would work on these wide, seemingly old burn scars. However, her ability to restore anything to its original, purest, and most flawless state could not be ignored.
"This… Why…"
Even though the burn scars had already healed naturally once and could be considered a natural state in a way, they were being wiped away cleanly, as if responding to my wish. The sight of the burn marks being gradually erased from the shoulder where the liquid had seeped in, replaced by smooth skin, was astonishing even to me, the one who had started all this. I continued the healing from her shoulder down to her elbow, then her wrist, slowly moving downward. Finally, I held her hand and finished the treatment. About thirty minutes must have passed. Her left arm, which I had carefully tended to, was now completely free of burn scars. The marks had vanished without a trace, leaving behind soft, elastic skin just like the rest of her body.
"I’m not seeing things, am I…?"
"You’re seeing it correctly."
"…Even Sarakael’s authority probably can’t erase scars that have already healed."
She casually dropped new information in the middle of it all. The Grand Angel of the Inquisition, Sarakael—did her authority include the ability to heal others? Well, more importantly right now…
"Then, could you give me your other arm this time?"
"…Yeah, mm-hm."
"I know it’s petty to say this now, but… please apologize properly to No. 13."
"…"
She pressed her lips together, but she seemed to understand that what I was saying wasn’t just a simple request.
"I originally planned to try this after you apologized properly… but more than that, I want you to be happy right now."
"…Why…?"
"I told you. I won’t hate you."
At the very least, I shouldn’t hate her. Even while counseling was ongoing, the team leader had gone out of her way to prepare and show me the files on Scarlet for a reason. It wasn’t to make me hate her after reading them. It was to ask if I was prepared to handle it.
"No matter what sins Scarlet committed in the past, if you’re willing to face them now and try to turn things around… I’ll stay by your side until the end and help you with anything."
"…"
"So this is a promise. I’m showing my sincerity first because I believe in you, Scarlet."
I also thought it had been too much to corner her like that in front of No. 13, so I said these slightly embarrassing words in the hope that she wouldn’t feel too down because of it. Just as I carefully took hold of her shoulder after she turned slightly toward me and offered her other arm, something happened.
"…"
Unlike when I had healed her closer arm, to bring the opposite arm toward me she had to either turn her back to me or face me directly. In the end, we ended up sitting face-to-face, close to each other. Maybe because I had just said those things, the eye contact felt awkward, and if I lowered my gaze even a little, her cleavage was completely visible—a troublesome situation—but I needed to focus and finish this quickly…
"…Can I kiss you?"
"Excuse me?"
…?
At that completely unexpected timing, the question caught me off guard, and for a moment I couldn’t react, as if something had short-circuited. And Scarlet’s personality gave me no reason to wait for a response.
"…!"
My eyes widened. It was because her face had drawn close, and her plump lips had pressed against mine. Her tongue tapped against my closed lips as if knocking, and the moment I unconsciously parted them slightly, it skillfully slipped inside.
"Wait… mmph…!"
It wasn’t just a simple kiss—she pushed her tongue in right away, so I wanted to tell her to wait, but no proper voice came out. Her expression itself looked incredibly calm, yet her lips and tongue, which seemed highly skilled at kissing, boldly pressed against me.
"Mmm… mmph…"
Moreover, the unfamiliar sensation I felt on her tongue as it intertwined with mine was definitely the stigma I had seen once before. Realizing that made my head feel strangely hotter for some reason. Still, to think I was just taking it like this… The reason I, who had once been able to freely ravish her with just my fingers, couldn’t even put up any resistance now was…
Because she had spent that much time in bed with No. 13 and had never once kissed her, and because I hadn’t received that memory through sharing, I hadn’t had any time to mentally prepare myself in advance.
"Chup… mm-chuh…"
Was this… a difference in skill level? Seriously… it was too different.
"Jjuup… chup, mmph… Stay still… Yeah, stay still… mmph…"
With her red eyes staring straight at me, she actively used her lips and tongue as if she were going to devour me. The stimulating sounds coming from where our mouths met and the dense kiss that seemed to stir up my mind made blood rush downward in an instant, and I could feel my lower body standing stiff and aching. So this is what it feels like to be kissed… I thought to myself, and before I knew it, I could see that she was wearing a very satisfied expression.
"…That was delicious."
I hadn’t even noticed when she had pulled her face away. Only after belatedly closing my mouth, which had been left hanging open even though her lips had long since parted, did a wave of embarrassment wash over me. But for some reason, while her face had looked calm during the kiss, once our lips separated, I could see a faint blush rising on her cheeks. Of course… I probably wasn’t much different, and if anything, I was probably even redder.
"This is… well… I was just showing my sincerity too, so…"
"…Yeah."
"For now… it didn’t feel bad, right…?"
…My mind was blank. The one thing I could tell for sure was that, in response to her question about whether that deep kiss earlier had felt bad, my head had nodded on its own.
"…"
Right now, with both of us naked and in the bath together, countless desires, hesitations, thoughts, and lingering attachments flashed rapidly through my mind…
…But in the end, the next thing I did was once again borrow Undine’s power to heal her other arm.