An Answer to the Confession (2)
After my answer to Ethan's confession was finally out, another round of awkward silence settled over the infirmary.
…Please tell me I didn't make some blunder with what I just said.
Accepting Ethan's confession conditionally, with the promise that I would give him a true answer if he still wanted to stay together by the time we graduated. That was the gist of it. Surely that was something Ethan could understand well enough. On top of that, it let me honor my own sense of the five years of loyalty between us. I was just starting to relax, thinking it was a fairly good answer, when Ethan posed a question I hadn't anticipated at all.
"Lilith."
"…Yes, Master Ethan?"
"So when you say we'll think of each other like lovers — how far does that go, exactly?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, like… holding hands is allowed, saying we love each other is allowed — you know, the things couples actually do."
"……."
"How far are you permitting, is what I'm asking."
"U-um, that is…."
…I hadn't thought that far ahead yet.
I'd been so focused on simply honoring my loyalty to Ethan that I'd never gotten around to those fine details. All I'd produced was a vague, off-the-cuff notion that being boyfriend-and-girlfriend meant behaving like one.
And the biggest problem of all was that I had never once had a lover in my previous life, either. Someone who knew nothing about romance could hardly establish some reasonable baseline for physical contact after agreeing to date. The moment I realized I'd boldly proposed being temporary lovers without understanding the first thing about what that entailed, a considerable panic washed over me.
"W-well, you see…. That…."
"……."
Avoiding Ethan's gaze as he quietly waited for my answer, I wracked my brain for all I was worth. F-first of all, allowing hand-holding would be a sensible place to start, right? No, wait — granting nothing more than hand-holding at this point would be absurdly chaste. I mean, we'd already held hands at the masquerade ball, and hands are something he could grab any time he wanted on a normal day anyway.
If not hand-holding, then hugging? But come to think of it, hugging is also something you can do plenty of without being a couple. I-if not that, then… don't tell me he means all the way up to kissing….
"A-aaugh, a, ah…."
"Lilith?! Are you okay? If you're feeling unwell, I can call for Saintess Serista—"
"N-no. It's nothing of that sort, Master Ethan. I'm quite all right."
"…Then I'm relieved."
The instant I pictured myself pressing my lips to Ethan's, my thoughts simply refused to cooperate. My first kiss was already long gone thanks to that CPR incident, so why did imagining kissing Ethan make my head throb all over again? No, hold on — technically that didn't count, since I'd been unconscious at the time. And besides, that was a purely medical procedure….
No — when I had my first kiss is not the issue here.
I swept aside the stray thoughts muddling my head and forced myself to seriously consider exactly how much I was willing to permit Ethan, starting now. First, of all the skinship we'd shared so far, the furthest we'd gone was undoubtedly the chest-groping. Originally I hadn't intended to allow it at all, and even if I did, I'd planned to grant it only on those special occasions when Ethan defeated Harold. But he'd beaten Harold in their sparring matches so often that it had simply become a routine occurrence.
So the most intimate contact we'd made in our master-and-personal-maid relationship was the chest-groping. Which meant that with our relationship stepping up one level to temporary lovers, shouldn't that also escalate by one step?
And if the next step beyond chest-groping on the ladder of skinship was, without a doubt….
"Th-th-th-that is absolutely NOT allowed!!"
"Wh-what?!"
"E-even if I have agreed to be your temporary lover, Master Ethan, I-I believe it would be improper for us, as students, to go that f-far—"
"…Lilith, calm down. And when you say 'that' or 'there,' I honestly have no idea what you mean."
"…My apologies."
I'd let my mind wander to the step beyond chest-groping and blurted out my flustered reaction before I could stop myself. Then again, speaking so vaguely, of course Ethan couldn't follow. I needed to pin down exactly what was off-limits in words he could actually understand… but that proved easier said than done.
Especially since I'd already bared my chest to him — how on earth was I supposed to explain to Ethan why he couldn't cross that final line?
…Well, if it's come to this, there's really no choice but to use that method. It's a bit of a stale excuse, but still.
"Sex…."
"…Sex?"
"N-no, I mean intercour— ah, no, c-co… ngh… ugh…."
"…It's all right, Lilith. I've roughly gathered what you're trying to say."
"…No. I will state it clearly."
It would be better to say it plainly now than to mumble something half-hearted here and invite some bizarre misunderstanding. I was done suffering embarrassment over other people's delusions.
"For the record, I believe that acts of physical union between a man and a woman are not appropriate."
"May I ask why? Ah — not that I have any complaint about your decision, I'm just curious."
"That is… because I was raised to uphold premarital chastity, as my mother taught me."
"…Premarital chastity?"
"It was my mother's teaching from my earliest childhood. My mother was a devout believer of the Aurelia Church, and so she had me take a vow of premarital chastity as well."
"…I see. If it's your mother's teaching, Lilith, then there's nothing to be done about it."
For a moment I felt a twinge of self-disgust at dodging the situation with yet another lie — but it had been the only choice available. If I hadn't resorted to an excuse on this level, there was a genuine chance Ethan and I might have crossed the line without either of us planning to. If only I didn't carry the latent potential of a saintess, I wouldn't have needed to go to such lengths — but this potential, which might very well prove useful to Ethan and me in the future, was far too precious to throw away on a whim. And I certainly couldn't confess to him, I'm the saintess, that's why.
"Got it. For now, regarding that se— ahem, regarding acts of physical union between men and women, I'll be careful."
"Thank you for your consideration, Master Ethan."
Ethan, being reasonably understanding, mercifully accepted my improvised premarital-chastity excuse without protest. And no sooner had I heard his answer than he leaned his face in closer toward me.
"Master Ethan? Your face is rather close…."
"So, is that the end of the restrictions, Lilith?"
"…Pardon?"
"I'm asking whether, aside from acts of physical union, everything else is permitted."
"…Y-yes?"
W-wait a moment.
Come to think of it — is that really how this conversation is going?
No, I genuinely never permitted that much? Saying that acts of physical union were forbidden was purely my way of marking the absolute final line, the one thing that must never be crossed. I never actually gave permission for anything else—
"……."
"……."
Ethan had pulled his face right up to mine, close enough that our noses nearly touched. Just as the thought crossed my mind that our lips might genuinely end up meeting, I tensed up and quietly squeezed my eyes shut — and felt something against my lips. A slightly firm patch of skin. Not the sensation of lips. Which meant this was probably….
"Just kidding, Lilith."
"…I beg your pardon?"
When I carefully opened my eyes again, there was Ethan, pressing a single finger firmly against my lips. In his eyes I could read a calm, settled emotion — almost as if he understood me completely.
"I won't rush things, so you don't need to worry."
"…I'm sorry, what?"
"You don't need to be anxious, Lilith. I have no intention of accelerating things from the very start."
"……."
"Let's say our relationship as lovers begins today, separate from everything we've shared before. That'll be easier on your heart too, won't it? Right?"
"…Yes. Yes, it would."
…Whew.
For a second there I honestly thought he was about to kiss me, and it nearly frightened me out of my skin. It wasn't as though I hadn't anticipated situations like this when I proposed the temporary-lovers arrangement — but even so, the idea that we'd start exchanging kisses as of today was more than a little overwhelming. It was still too soon. Too soon. Something like a kiss required a certain amount of emotional preparation—
"I never expected Lilith to get this worked up over a mere kiss."
"…I'm sorry, what?"
"Well, it's true, isn't it? We've gone plenty further than kissing already, yet here you are, weak to kisses alone. I just find it a little fascinating."
"……."
"Ah — I don't mean that in a bad way, Lilith. I've always wanted to get close to you slowly, from the ground up, whenever possible. All I meant was that I'm happy to discover an unexpected side of you."
"…Master Ethan."
"Hmm?"
-Mwah.
Something about Ethan's grinning, self-satisfied face irritated me beyond reason — so, seizing the split second his head was turned, I planted a single, feather-light kiss on his lips.
…Truly, genuinely light. The barest brush.
"……."
Amid the awkward silence that followed, Ethan stared at me with a blank, dumbfounded expression. For my part, a feverish heat bloomed through my body and I desperately wanted to bolt from the room on the spot — but I was the one who'd had the audacity to kiss him first, which meant I had no choice but to play it cool, at least on the surface.
"…Don't misunderstand, Master Ethan."
"Lilith? What did you just—"
"I am not so weak that a mere kiss would make me tremble."
"……."
"…I did it purely to make that point known. There is no other meaning to it."
…Surely that got the message across. That I was not some woman who quivered at a simple kiss.
"Right, Lilith. I see…."
"…Yes. Exactly."
"……."
"……."
And so the two of us, atmosphere hopelessly frozen over, did nothing but steal furtive glances at each other. By the time Serista finally returned to the infirmary, several minutes had passed — minutes during which Ethan and I couldn't meet each other's eyes at all, sharing nothing but that excruciatingly awkward silence.