206. Does it look good on me?
206. Does it look good on me?
"Heu-heung~~ heung~ heu-his♬"
She was delighted, clutching the shopping bag in her arms.
Her steps were light. She looked back at me, practically bouncing as if she was clearly in a great mood just from outward appearances.
"You wanna see?"
Bea-m!
She looked at me with a broad smile and asked.
"Not really."
"Aww, liar!"
"I mean it."
"I picked something a little naughty?"
Oh, if she was expecting a reaction like that might be a bit interesting—well, unfortunately, I already had my heart set on someone else.
"Stop flapping it around and put it away."
So stop flaunting your cleavage and shaking it around so distracting.
What are you, a pendulum? Sagging down and swaying?
When I sharply rebuked Hestia with a cold glare, she covered her chest with both hands and grumbled.
"I don't do this for just anyone...."
"From what I saw at the club, you only did it for just anyone."
"I'm not going to clubs anymore."
"? Then don't go."
Why are you telling me that?
"....Chrono."
As I kept pushing her away, Hestia furrowed her brow as if sulking.
But seeing how she angled her upper body at a perfect degree to show off her cleavage, as if worried about how she looked to me even at that moment...
—Smack!
"Ack! You really hit me!"
"Isn't it about time you started learning?"
I kept saying it, but I possessed the 'Eye of Cronus'.
What Hestia was thinking, what she was about to say—it was all plainly visible to me.
'It didn't used to be this visible before.'
Was this all the power of training?
No, there was no way. More than that, I surmised that the credit mostly went to the side effects of 'Advent' or having become the successor of Cronus.
And for good reason—if your abilities inflated this much just from training for a few days, what would this be, a game?
It'd be a bug-riddled file with cheat files forcibly jammed in.
"Huh."
And the point was, my current situation was hardly any different from such a bug-riddled save file.
How in the world had things flowed to this point?
It was so absurd that a laugh inadvertently leaked out of me, and Hestia, as if nothing had happened, beamed a smile and pointed her index finger at me.
"Ah! You smiled!"
"I did not."
"Chrono. They say a chuckle counts as a smile."
"Then will I just keep smiling every time I see Hestia?"
"...That sounded like a high-level roundabout diss and I don't like it."
Oh, how remarkably perceptive of you.
As if she didn't like this situation, Hestia tapped my shin with the tip of her front foot.
"And you're using honorifics again there."
"Ah."
This was, well, that.
Was it that I'd gotten so used to using honorifics that they were comfortable now?
Since I had to half-consciously think about using casual speech, the moment I zoned out, honorifics just came out immediately.
"I see. Is that how I appear to you, Chrono?"
Heu-heung. I get it. Well, it can't be helped.
Hestia came to some arbitrary understanding, then immediately approached me—and extended her hand?
"Hand. Let's hold hands and go."
"?"
There was nothing particularly difficult about it.
I took her hand literally.
"No, not like this....like this!"
"Uh-uh...?"
The hand I had grasped normally like a handshake began to intertwine more dizzily.
Fingers creeping in between fingers to interlock.
"Next is...flowers, right. Let's go buy flowers!"
Linked together as if in that way lovers do, Hestia stepped forward.
Her steps were still light.
...
..
.
"So many kinds of flowers. It couldn't be like this in the old days....isn't human development truly fascinating?"
A flower that was beautiful only because it bloomed for a moment—
if you just hand over money, you can turn it into a flower you can see in all four seasons.
"House farming methods, orchards, aren't they all so bewildering?"
It wasn't like that in the past.
So it was more meaningful and special.
"Should I call it human desire? Or the potential to deceive even the gods?"
On the contrary, perhaps it was because of that that these flowers held meaning.
To be honest, thinking about all this made my head hurt and got complicated.
"The point is, both good and evil just depend on how you use them! Ah, can you make a bouquet out of these tulips here?"
"Yes. ──It is 00 won."
Hestia seemed to browse without much thought before picking out red tulips.
She watched quietly as the bouquet was being made and carefully came closer to my side.
—Poke poke
"....Hm?"
"..........."
Without a word, she poked me in the side.
Wondering what was going on, I looked down and Hestia carefully opened her wallet and showed it to me.
"Chrono....."
A look that said 'buy it for me'.
She bought her wedding dress with her own money, but suddenly her money ran out?
"...Please ring this up for me."
"Sure~ Payment's done!"
For a moment, words rose up in my throat, but I just roughly paid with my card.
Be patient, be patient. It wasn't a proper history to begin with.
A nominal history that would vanish the moment I regressed.
On the premise of regression, I wasn't even afraid of co-signing a guarantee.
"Hooo——nice."
A bouquet full of red tulips.
While burying her face among the petals and inhaling the scent, Hestia flashed a lewd grin and pushed her face in among the flowers.
"Ta-da!"
"....What is it?"
"Where am I~~~!"
"............"
No way.
No, I really thought 'no way,' but...
"Just asking in case..."
You're not doing this expecting some kind of...
...cringey comment like you're hiding among the flowers so you can't be seen, are you?
"..............."
"Ah."
What I suspected was indeed the case.
Hestia wordlessly pulled her head back and tidied the flowers.
"I hate you."
"........."
This, humbly, made me feel a twinge of guilt.
...
..
.
We chose the clothes.
We also chose the bouquet.
What would be needed next?
Things like guests,
or a buffet,
and beyond that, it seemed like there was still an overflowing amount left, but
"The marriage registration form is on the right side, placed under the desk. And....please make sure to read the precautions as well."
"Yes~!"
Shouldn't we take care of the marriage registration first?
Of course, the timing of when people file for marriage registration varies, but these were things that had to be finished all in one day today.
"Honestly...in the old days, everything was fine without stuff like this."
"..........."
Could it be that by 'everyone' you didn't literally mean 'everyone'?
That, well, that thing, you know.
Like a case where you're a son yesterday but a husband today,
or today's siblings become tomorrow's married couple,
or the peaceful town by day turns into a pleasure district by night,
what if it was an ending where everyone was all hole-in-laws and pillar-sisters, making the whole village one family?
"...Chrono. You were just thinking something weird, weren't you."
"I wasn't."
I was just having a Greece-friendly thought.
"Haah. Fine. It's understandable for Chrono to have such delusions."
And for good reason—it was an era where chaos and good and evil were all mixed together.
Because it was a time when everyone pretended to be pure on the outside, but in reality acted even filthier than now.
"But the stories Chrono knows have all been refined and filtered, you know? The reality is completely different."
"Ack."
What I knew wasn't the spicy version but the mild version?
When I asked if she was serious, Hestia nodded and affirmed it.
"Some were distorted, some were lost, some were rumors deliberately made....it's complicated if you try to pick it apart."
"It's a mess."
Should I call it amazing Greece after all.
As I shuddered once more at the power of Greece, Hestia chuckled.
"And isn't it the same now? If you think about it, what you and I are going through and doing right now is an incredibly vicious story too."
"Certainly...."
Regression was an experience that came once in a lifetime, something that shouldn't even come once—no no, not that.—Huh?
"Chrono. What do people usually call a man who meets and marries a woman 12 years younger?"
"A thief, obviously."
"What about 20 years?"
"....A capable man?"
Marrying a woman 20 years younger?
Even if he's in his 60s or 40s, that's a capable man.
Or it's a shady marriage or something.
Ultimately, it was something only possible with some kind of capability, so 'capable man' fit.
"Then...."
And then, Hestia spoke.
"What about me, who has lived for dozens of centuries, doing it with you, who's barely past 20?"
".........Uh..."
To call it a crime, the scale had already far exceeded that—
If we were to actually argue it, that would be fuc....
"Chrono."
"..........."
"No matter how true it is, there are things you should say and things you shouldn't."
"......Yep."
I decided not to think about what came after.
After all, in doujins or manga, a grandmother (a legal loli, she claims) shows up and says since she doesn't have her period(menstruation), the grandson can go wild all he wants — stuff like that existed.
The conclusion was that the madness of humans was deep and wide, and an ordinary guy like me couldn't even handle it.
***********************
All preparations were finished.
We hadn't bought that much, but moving around here and there, the sun was already setting.
In terms of time, it was nearly 8 PM.
"So this is 'that place'...."
Hestia looked around blankly.
It was bright and white.
A place that even felt somewhat sacred.
Reminiscent of a church, a place that seemed as if it would hold everyone's congratulations and the god's blessing—this place was...
"If I'd known a love hotel was this kind of place, maybe I should've come sooner!"
"They're usually not like this."
It was a love hotel.
Not an ordinary love hotel, but a wedding-themed VVIP room—still, it was definitely a love hotel.
'But there's no other choice.'
So do it at my place?
I wasn't a crazy bastard who'd do this sort of thing where all the kids could see.
Then do it at Hestia's?
Could I handle it with Theia watching wide-eyed?
Ultimately, after going round and round, the only place that was somewhat decent and doable was this love hotel's themed room.
"Even coming all the way here, what do we...?"
There was no forcing it as much as this.
Still, I was glad it felt somewhat plausible...but the fact that it only 'felt somewhat plausible' was a problem in itself.
"Um...Chrono."
"Yes?"
Hestia approached me hesitantly.
Hugging the wedding dress in the shopping bag to her chest tightly, she made a request to me.
"Could you maybe...change in the bathroom...?"
".....Ahh."
Indeed.
A tuxedo suit might be one thing, but a woman's wedding dress looked like it would be a struggle to put on in a bathroom.
I took the bag with my clothes and changed inside the bathroom.
"I'll come out now."
"No! Just a little....um....20 minutes!"
"That's not just a little."
Ultimately, since the zipper got stuck partway through, I waited for 30 minutes.
And the result of that waiting.
"H-How....is it? Does it suit me...?"
".......Yes."
I had my eyes stolen away by Hestia.