Is That From Experience?

"Kyahahaha! Phantom Thief Red Hare! I've chosen you! Run like you've lost your mind!"

"Hee—heeeee!!!"

I hauled on the child's hair as if it were a horse's reins. He squealed like a horse slapped across the rump and bolted, utterly frantic. His footprints stamped themselves along the switchbacking trail, and up the path that climbed straight toward the heights, the traces he left grew thick and dark.

"This is all the speed you've got? You can't run any harder?!"

"Heeeng!"

I ground my cheek against his ear and drove him on. His gasping breath skimmed just beneath my nose, and the heat of it set my body aching.

"Wah?! Wh-what the—!"

"A p-person? They're running this trail with a kid on their back?"

A couple, man and woman paired off together, startled hard at the sight of the child. I waved an arm at them.

"Pardon us! Our kid's just coming through!"

Weightlessness took me. He had leapt high to avoid the couple standing in his path, and a branch grazed the crown of my head by a hair. Strength gathered in the arm braced beneath my rear. Even now, the child was taking care that I not fall.

You look after me even while I tease you and handle you this roughly.

Asking him to be my pet had been far too steep a price for a debt. The humiliations put on display all the way here were too many to laugh off as simple mischief—as many as the stars in the night sky. How many people had seen us? How many had whispered? What did the two of us look like to them?

Right. No different from that couple staring up from below. Strange, surely, and perhaps they would find us revolting.

"Keup!"

The child groaned and landed with care. The recoil rising into me was cut off halfway: a near-paranoid consideration that would not permit me even a little discomfort.

This bewitching brat...!

I slid my arms in beneath his armpits and pressed myself closer still, grinding the two soft rises of flesh against him the way a washing machine tumbles a load. A pitiful size beside my true body—but this dainty volume, still growing, would come to him as a charm he could not refuse.

"Ahem."

The child, who did not so much as fluster when I showed him my naked body, cleared his throat. The skin pressed to mine grew a little warmer.

"Feeling it, are you? Sneaky."

At a reaction straight out of some virgin boy, I could not hold the mischief in. I gave up on subtlety altogether and undulated against him, snapping my hips in the open.

"You're not reacting to this scrawny body, are you? I didn't know the Child of Man had a taste for death-row inmates."

"...I like an ordinary, glamorous woman. I am not a pervert who gets aroused by little children."

"For someone who says that, your body's being awfully honest."

"Gyah! Where do you think you're touching?!"

I kneaded the child's firm chest without mercy. A perfect upper body, no softness to grab and not even a pinch of muscle—a physique the child who wielded Life could never hope to match, as if a god had carved it. And the thighs and waist I felt through the soles of my ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feet? That thick, springy rear set into his pelvis—not a single part of him fell short. The scent of skin breathing from pores just barely open was a drug that kneaded the mind itself.

If I were the me from before, this would have been a disaster.

In my wild-girl prime, before I was sealed, I would have used any means at all to make him mine, ignoring what he wanted and serving no desire but my own.

I want him. Badly.

It was not that the urge was absent. No—I wanted him this very instant. But I held back.

"Pele! Please stop touching me! This is sexual harassment! Not the nipples! I'm sensitive there!"

"Hah! It's because you're too damn hot! I touch you because you turn me on—what's the problem? Just endure it until a person is satisfied!"

"That is a straight-up criminal's line!"

"Be grateful I'm doing it with permission! If this were my true body, you wouldn't have gotten so much as the broth!"

"In what world is this permission?! You're just announcing it!"

"A pet doesn't get an opinion! Shut your mouth and get us to the summit!"

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

By the time I had cultivated that parched inner hunger into a rich stretch of grain country, the trees blocking the view were gone, and a beautifully open sky lay before me.

"Hah. Hah."

A suit with its buttons torn away, a dress shirt crumpled past saving, collarbones bared in secret between the lapels, a navel left defenseless to the air. Such was the result of the child fighting tooth and nail to keep his chastity against a god's hands.

"Tch. A shame."

A little longer, and I could have gotten his pants off too...!

"Uhehehe—I'm aliiive!!!"

The child flung his head back and roared. Had my lovely touch really been so unwelcome?

"Put me down."

"Yes, ma'am!"

He bent at the waist and lowered me. I had tormented him without restraint, and still he was a gentleman about it, without a shred of resentment.

"Nnngh! That climb wore me out."

"...I crossed the line between life and death."

"Be quiet."

"Yes..."

I was the one who had suffered, holding ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it in, and he was the one whining. If I had been serious, he would have been a bed.

From the observation deck at the summit I craned my neck and took in the view. Hikers on the trails. People in the village just beginning their day. Cars rolling on past the horizon. Clouds set in place as if they had been painted there. The sun climbing toward its zenith.

The proprietor's kid had been right—it was worth the trip. The scenery really was fine. Unlike Hawaii, the energy peculiar to this land stood out, and so did the mountain's own growth.

"Ooh."

Even the child, gone limp with exhaustion, brightened at the beautiful scene. His ruined clothes had already been restored, neat as ever.

The time... Mm. Once we get down, we'll have to head back.

I judged the hour by the sun. Perhaps because the mountain was high, it had eaten more of the day than I expected.

Still, it's just the two ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of us. Isn't that enough?

Little by little I sidled closer and snatched his hand. The child flinched, but he did not pull away.

A thin, chilly wind came in. My heated body was rinsed clean as it passed, and into the warmth streaming off me, my true heart leaked out.

When all of this was over, would I be able to be with you again? Would I be able to keep from holding this uneasy heart a second time? How long could a relationship like ours last? Would it grow kinder, or worse?

Child. Beloved child. I am frightened enough to lose my mind.

Am I even allowed to look at you? Am I even allowed to love you?

I had taken love into myself many times. Every one of those loves had come back as pain. A thoughtless goddess, I had been followed by humans, and still I had never been joined to one. There was the child who refused me because I frightened him, the child who chose my younger sister, the child who already had a mate. What was true in the love was paid out as nothing but longing from afar.

Body and spirit were always fervent. One corner of my heart was always lonely.

I could raise hundreds of volcanoes. I was certain I could burn hotter than anyone. Only this place would not come back to life. It endured like an extinct volcano. The magma cooled. The crater closed. The trembling of the earth had lived out its span, and because no one came and no one cared to wonder, the volcano drifted in a vast, empty sea.

I drew my knees in and gave up. I watched the hollow corner, and I grieved. It stood before my eyes, and still I could not reach it. I stretched out my hand, and it scattered like a reflection on the water. Only looking on had been the freedom granted to me.

"What has you thinking for so long?"

He gave my hand a firm squeeze.

"It's nothing. Just... my heart feels easy, for the first time in ages."

"That is the face of several centuries of worry packed into one expression. But very well. I'll accept it."

"Honestly. You notice a thing like that, and you just say it out loud?"

I was happy. This moment, together with him. I could not stop the corners of my mouth. I could not govern them. I could not take my eyes off him.

Ah, why was I like this? I had not been like this when I could not see him. I had only missed him in an ordinary way. ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The thirst I had turned my face from seeped out, thick and relentless, like magma.

This was poison. Poison spreading from the heart. Poison that brought a volcano back to life. Poison that was eating me alive.

I praised myself for not letting it show. This child's eye was keen. The moment I was caught, I could not predict what I might turn into.

Let it end here. There would be a next time. There would be a tomorrow. I had not given up. I simply was not ready.

"We've seen enough. Shall we head down?"

I set the regret behind me and forced feet that would not leave to turn.

"Pele."

"Hm?"

"My body reacted for no reason other than that it was you, Pele. Please don't misunderstand my tastes."

"........."

Seriously...

If he was saying that on purpose, knowing exactly what it would do, then he was no amateur at this game.

"Krrrrk! I can't hold it anymore!"

"Pele?"

Rrrrrrip!!!

"Kyaaaaaah!!!"

I tore the troublesome clothes apart. Lush breast-flesh was bared to all the world under heaven.

"Pele! No! If we're going to, I'd rather it be just the two of us!"

"Shut up! You seduced me first!"

"I didn't do a thing!"

"Don't run! Lie down and count the clouds in the sky!"

"This is a public place!"

I had to seize him before he opened the distance. His hands were sealed. If I just didn't let this chance slip...!

"Damn it! Since when?!"

"Ha ha ha! It's past noon! The pet game is over!"

The child leapt from the summit with perfect grace.

"Farewell, Pele! I cast off your bonds and your yoke, and I depart in search of my freedom!"

"Graaaaaah!!!"

I hurled the skin-colored gloves at the ground. A little more would have been enough! I had been too hasty!

"Haa..."

With the child gone, the strength drained straight out of me.

"Let's head down. We can't be late..."

"And you—stop peeking, and come along."

"...You noticed?"

The Child of Heaven and the Heavenly Tiger, concealed in the nature around us, crept out.

"A mountain is one of my domains. It isn't a volcano, but I can tell well enough when someone is tailing me."

"We miscalculated. I thought we had hidden well."

"If you mean to surpass me, you are several centuries too early."

The Child of Heaven's lips stirred.

"Something you want to say?"

"I do not believe he is ignorant of your heart, Pele."

"What? Are you picking a fight?"

You just finished your own sweet little date, and now this...!

"He is not an insensitive man. He is only clumsy at showing what he feels."

And if he hadn't known, would he have gone out of his way to say a thing like that?

"...I'm going to lose my mind."