Dorothy's Bold Temptation
The reason I couldn't immediately respond to Dorothy's sweet temptation was, of course, because Nero and Scarlet were right beside me, intensely aware of how my answer would turn out. The voices only I could hear grew so noisy that I nearly burst out laughing.
"Haha..."
I barely managed to suppress it into a small chuckle and glanced at both sides. Last night I hadn't given it a second thought, but now that I was awake and fully sober, looking at the situation made my face flush with heat. Three women on the bed with whom I'd spent the night—if I died like this, it would be considered a good death. And one of them had even given permission to continue if I wanted more.
Refusing while standing at attention down there would be incredibly awkward...
"Um, Dorothy."
I gave a gentle refusal, saying she'd probably overdone it last night and we could do it next time, but she interpreted it as a promise to make time again soon. With a delighted expression, she helped Scarlet up and left. Because I'd hurriedly stripped her yesterday, clothes were scattered messily across the bedroom floor. I pulled the blanket over to shamelessly cover my erect manhood.
And then my gaze naturally drifted to the half-torn maid outfit Scarlet had thrown onto the bed before leaving. Decorated with that unmistakable white liquid... Even though it had only been worn once, it was probably better to throw it away.
"Nero, shall we get up and wash too?"
She flinched. After that, I took Nero—who'd been caught pretending to sleep and was now avoiding my eyes—into the bathroom for a warm shower together. She seemed a little deflated and kept acting spoiled, so I washed her myself, including carefully cleaning the endless trickle of white fluid from below. Since I'd impulsively dragged Dorothy and Scarlet into the time I was supposed to spend with her, this much was the least I could do. Thinking about it from her perspective... suddenly made me feel incredibly guilty.
"Then I'll go throw the laundry in the machine and come back."
"Mm... Thanks."
While Nero dried her hair, I rolled up the bedsheets we'd dirtied almost every day and headed to the living room. It didn't take long to notice that the living room looked different from usual.
This is...
"Coffee smell...?"
At first it just smelled nice, but it took a moment to place exactly what it was. Neither Nero nor I drank much coffee, and though we had some stocked, the scent had never been this strong in the house before, so it didn't register right away.
Who would be making coffee? Just as I wondered that, a familiar voice spoke up.
"Ah, have you finished washing up?"
Slurp...
She wasn't wearing her mask right now, but she still had the habit of sticking a straw into her mug and sipping something. The sight of the blue-haired angel sitting leisurely on our sofa with her legs crossed made me freeze for a moment. For one thing, I was only wearing underwear and some shorts I'd thrown on. For another... her sheer audacity.
...She rarely takes the mask off.
"There happened to be coffee here."
No, that wasn't what I was curious about right now.
"Also, please fill the freezer with ice. Or we should get an ice-dispensing water purifier. I prefer drinking iced coffee even in winter."
"No, Team Leader, why are you... in my house...?"
"Hmm, why don't you ask yourself that?"
It must have been too simplistic a question. If someone was sitting in your living room like it was their own home, even if they were an acquaintance, anyone would feel flustered. Still, following her pointed remark, I thought for a moment and realized there was indeed one obvious reason. Quite a few reasons, actually.
"...."
The most compelling one was that I'd taken Dorothy and Scarlet—both of whom weren't supposed to leave their designated areas without permission—back to my house and spent an extremely passionate night with them.
Slurp... slurp...
The sound of her sucking on the straw now felt like pressure directed at me.
"It seems you've finally started thinking. Do you have anything to say?"
"...I'm sorry."
I admitted full responsibility and apologized first. Even if endless apologies weren't exactly what Team Leader wanted, they weren't the wrong answer either.
"You've evolved a little from that lust-crazed monkey yesterday. Congratulations."
A lust-crazed monkey, huh. Was that how I looked...? Wait. Team Leader saw me like that? How? Thanks to Nero and Founder, there shouldn't be any surveillance cameras in my house.
"Oh."
Now that I thought about it, the room had been freshly ventilated when I woke up. It had felt pleasantly aired out, like someone had opened the windows beforehand. And Team Leader had enough time to brew coffee, wait for ice to freeze, and nearly finish the whole drink. Maybe she hadn't just slipped in when Dorothy and Scarlet left... Maybe she'd been here the whole time?
Did she see everything last night? But I hadn't sensed any presence at all. No, of course not—I'd been completely absorbed in embracing whoever was in front of me. Even if she'd been openly watching, I probably wouldn't have noticed.
"Well, the result is that your bonds with them have deepened considerably. You could call that a fruitful outcome."
"Is that... so?"
"Yes. I expected that if I placed them close to you, something like this would naturally happen. A bodyguard should be entrusted to someone trustworthy, after all."
So this was part of Team Leader's plan...? Was that why she'd put them in the apartment right across from mine? If so, then... that's a relief, but...
"Of course, I didn't expect it to happen this quickly. And I certainly didn't anticipate you boldly enjoying a foursome that included Dorothy as well."
Well, it wasn't exactly a foursome. More like they took turns wearing me out until they collapsed. But still.
"But I'm most concerned about Field Team Leader."
Field Team Leader...?
"Field Team Leader? Why her all of a sudden—"
"When I informed her that your condition seemed abnormal and requested to borrow the field team, she rushed straight here even though she was on her way back from an operation."
She came running because she was worried about me? But when she arrived and saw the scene...
...Yeah. Team Leader had already seen me in compromising situations several times because of Harpy, whether by choice or not, so I'd more or less given up on feeling embarrassed around her. But the thought that Field Team Leader had witnessed me like that made me dread our next meeting. According to Team Leader, I'd looked like a lust-crazed monkey. It would probably feel like running into an ex-girlfriend at a motel. I didn't actually know what that felt like, but I knew it would be extremely uncomfortable and awkward.
This is going to be troublesome...
"It seems the situation has more or less concluded. Shall we have some coffee while we sort things out?"
"Ah, before that, I should put on some clothes..."
Come to think of it, this was the more pressing issue right now. How embarrassing. At my words, she scanned me from head to toe, then curved her lips into that infuriatingly pretty smirk. My face burned, and I instinctively covered my bare chest with my arms.
"It's a little funny that you're getting embarrassed now."
"...I know, but... even so."
Her comment—that she'd already seen far more than this, so why be shy about something so small—only made the shame worse because I couldn't come up with a proper reply. Team Leader simply showed me that relaxed, beautiful face of hers.
"Then while you're at it, could you brew me another cup? I've already frozen fresh ice, so just add water when you refill it."
When she handed me the empty cup, I realized it was mine. One of the couple mugs Nero had picked out during our date, claiming they were matching, with half a heart on it. She must have known, yet deliberately chose this one out of all the cups. The audacity...
"Huh? Um... Team Leader."
"Yes?"
"I just noticed... Why is Arke sitting over there like that?"
When I happened to turn my head, I finally spotted Arke quietly kneeling in the corner of the living room with both hands raised. I hadn't expected another uninvited guest besides Team Leader. Since Team Leader hadn't even glanced her way, I hadn't noticed her earlier.
Hands raised high toward the ceiling... Kneeling meekly. Was it some kind of ritual offering something to the sky? Or... was she being punished? No one would choose that posture voluntarily.
"Go ahead and get changed first. You don't need to worry about her. She's simply expressing her apology for her mistake through action."
Now that I thought about it, the stamina potion she'd made was partly responsible for how things had escalated this far. But contrary to Team Leader's words, Arke's expression didn't look particularly remorseful.
Team Leader told me not to worry about it. If I paid attention anyway, it would probably just become annoying... For now, I should go put on some clothes. Yeah, that would be best.