The Answer to the Confession (3)
"Take care on your way in, Miss Lilith. If anything feels off at all, please come back and tell us right away."
The Academy chapel, which doubled as the building for Luminor Academy's Department of Theology, stood with Serista in front of its main doors. Both her hands clasped around mine, she was delivering the same string of cautions she had already repeated countless times, her expression earnest to the very end.
Having heard the words so many they were practically engraved into my ears, I could only nod and answer.
"Yes. Thank you for everything you've done for me, Saint Serista."
"Thank you for looking after Lilith, Saint Serista."
"No, it was simply my duty."
After somehow delivering her answer to Edan's confession and returning to the infirmary, Serista had sat down with the two of us, and the very first thing Edan and I did with her was arrange for my discharge from the chapel today.
The weekend had ended yesterday, after all, and lying in a sickbed while skipping both classes and my duties at the Academy was an unbearably uncomfortable thought. In my past life I might have cheered at a legally sanctioned excuse to skip school, but actually paying tuition at Luminor Academy made deliberate truancy something that required considerable courage.
And besides, with the group assignments I shared with Agnes and my student council work to think of, I couldn't very well rest like this indefinitely. Fortunately, I had escaped without any lasting injuries, which allowed me to go through the discharge procedure without incident—though Serista made a point, several times over, of emphasizing how close I had come to dying.
Was this the second time I'd owed a debt to the Church of Aurelia now? Both times I had very nearly died before crawling back to life, so I found myself idly wishing that this would be my last visit to the chapel.
"Well then, goodbye…."
"…Um, Miss Lilith."
"Yes?"
"This may be a rather delicate question, but might I ask you just one thing before you go?"
"And what would that question be, Saint Serista?"
"…One moment. Could you lean in close?"
Apparently this was something she didn't want Edan to hear, Serista carefully beckoned me toward her. I tilted my head down to match her height, and she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
'Miss Lilith… you are a noble, aren't you?'
'…I'm sorry?'
'You're the only daughter of the Rosewood baronetcy, a child of that house—is that correct?'
'…Yes, that's right. But may I ask what this is about?'
'Oh—no, it's nothing. I'm sorry for asking such a strange question….'
What on earth was with this girl, suddenly asking about my social standing?
As I'd explained before, my current identity was that of the only daughter of a baronetcy created by Edan and Seraphin for just this purpose: Lilith Rosewood, only daughter born to Ruis Rosewood and Marianne Rosewood. A fabricated noble house that didn't actually exist, and a false identity to match.
Only a handful of people knew the truth—Edan, Seraphin, and those close to Seraphin. Even Isabel and Katharina believed I had always been a baronet's daughter. It was a secret that had to be guarded that thoroughly.
I knew Serista wasn't one of the villains, but we weren't close enough for me to carelessly reveal it either.
'She's probably just curious because a noble is working as a maid, that's all.'
Like I'd said before, it was practically unheard of for a noble daughter to serve as a man's personal maid even after enrolling at the Academy. I could fully understand why she'd give me a suspicious look, and it didn't particularly offend me. I'd owed her my life for three days in this very chapel—this much was well within her right to ask.
With that thought, I waved goodbye to Serista, and once I'd put a fair distance between us and the chapel, a faintly awkward silence began to settle between Edan and me.
Tap, tap.
"……"
Tap, tap.
"……"
Maybe it was because the kiss from earlier kept flashing back to me, but it felt strange for me to be the one to speak first, and Edan had gone just as quiet, seemingly replaying everything that had happened in the infirmary. If this kept up, the awkwardness wouldn't just last the whole walk to the dormitory—it would probably carry through to tomorrow morning.
So it fell to me, the senior of the two, to break this uncomfortable mood.
"How was the student council under Princess Seraphin, Young Master Edan?"
"It was fine. Some people there you'd know, Lilith, and some you probably wouldn't."
"I see."
"Come check the council room yourself tomorrow. They said the real work doesn't start until tomorrow anyway."
"That's a relief. I was worried I might have caused trouble by lying around in a sickbed for no reason."
"Nobody's going to blame someone who nearly died for taking a little rest, Lilith."
…Well, I suppose that's true if it's Seraphin, or anyone whose notice she'd take.
After that single exchange, the conversation between us lapsed again, and only the quiet hush and the sound of our footsteps filled the air.
Tap, tap.
"……"
Tap, tap.
"……"
…Ugh, seriously.
It felt like no matter what topic I picked, we'd just slide right back into this awkwardness—so I decided to settle things properly right here and now. If we kept being embarrassed over this for no reason, we'd never manage anything like being temporary lovers.
"Young Master Edan."
"…Ah, yes. Lilith."
"If you're dwelling on that kiss we shared in the infirmary, there's really no need to fret over it."
"Ah—right. It's fine, Lilith. It's not like I'm dwelling on—"
"After all, that was only my second kiss. So there's no need for you to feel any burden over it, Young Master Edan."
"……What?"
The moment I said he didn't need to dwell on it, Edan's gaze turned scorching as it locked onto me. Instinctively recognizing that I had just fumbled, I opened my mouth again—and he cut me off, glaring at me with a chilling expression.
"Did I say something wro—"
"…Who was it."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Who was the bastard who took your first kiss, Lilith."
"……"
…What is this?
My first kiss had been the Hero, obviously, and Edan had already known that, hadn't he? He'd been there at the lakeside when I came back from the dead through CPR—he should have watched Gehmajoshigi-gwat give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with his own eyes.
I couldn't easily make sense of this reaction, Edan practically radiating hostility toward the man who was, in a sense, the savior of my life.
'Could it be he only saw the chest compressions and missed the mouth-to-mouth?'
Edan had also fallen into the lake and barely made it out alive, so it was entirely possible his memories of that moment were patchy. My first kiss, above all, would have been a memory Edan would deliberately want to erase—maybe he had glimpsed it and immediately looked away.
Don't tell me I just tried to smooth the mood and ended up poking a hornet's nest instead….
"Please calm down, Young Master Edan. I believe I understand why you're angry, but he is the man who saved my life."
"…Saved your life? You're telling me someone rescued you, and as his reward, forced your first kiss out of you? That's the story?"
"It is not. I'm explaining that he performed something kiss-like out of necessity, in order to save my life."
"And who was this person who used some preposterous excuse to press his lips to Lilith's—when exactly—"
"It happened the day before yesterday, Young Master Edan!"
"……Huh?"
Edan tilted his head, puzzling over the words the day before yesterday. For whatever reason, I decided this was my chance and quickly launched into a fuller explanation of my first kiss.
"I already told the Saint everything. That when I fell into the lake and was pulled out, my heart stopped for a time and my life was in danger."
"…Yes, it was dangerous. I truly thought I was about to lose you."
"And I heard that in that situation, the Hero performed CPR to save me."
"…That's right, he did."
"I also heard that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was administered as part of it. And the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation I was taught is an act of sealing one's lips to another's and blowing air into their lungs."
"…Hold on, Lilith. So this first kiss you mentioned—"
"Yes. I considered the resuscitation from that day to be my first kiss, and that is what I told you, Young Master Edan. Naturally, since you were there at the scene as well, I assumed you had watched it happen."
What I hadn't anticipated, of course, was that Edan—who had swept me into his arms the instant I woke—hadn't known. I mean, how was I supposed to imagine that he'd failed to witness the scene of my first kiss… well, strictly speaking not a kiss, but the mouth-to-mouth all the same?
…Granted, it's partly my own fault for casually mentioning it on the assumption he knew.
"No, Lilith. If that's the case, then your first kiss is probably…."
"Yes. Judging by your reaction, you didn't see it. In any case, if it displeases you, Young Master Edan, I'm willing to forget the matter of the resuscitation entirely."
"…That's not it, Lilith. The person who gave you the resuscitation wasn't that Hero of yours."
"I'm sorry?"
"……The mouth-to-mouth on Lilith. I did that."
…Huh?
It wasn't Gehmajoshigi-gwat who gave me the resuscitation?
No, hold on. That makes no sense. How would Edan even know about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?
"Where in the world did you learn about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Young Master Edan…?"
"The Hero taught me right there at the scene. Pinch the nose shut, he said, seal lips over lips, and breathe air in."
"……"
"I was in the middle of it, lips on yours, when he came to. I thought you knew it was me. Turns out you had no idea I was the one who did it."
"…I— is— is that so…."
"And that chest—whatever resuscitation—that was me too. I wasn't particularly keen on another man's hands touching your body, Lilith."
"…I… I see. Well done."
"Not that I had any right to lay hands on you, of course…."
…So that's how it was.
Which meant that, unconscious as I was, my first kiss had been taken by Edan after all. And beyond that, no man's hands other than Edan's had ever touched my body.
Something I'd been quietly fretting over had just come loose, and I felt the tension drain out of me almost without my noticing.
…Still, thank goodness the person who took my first kiss was Edan.
"I see. Then I'm glad."
"…Glad?"
"……Ah."
"Lilith. You just said you were glad."
"…I beg your pardon? Whatever do you mean, Young Master Edan?"
"You just said it—glad, Lilith. And that word, the way you meant it—could it possibly mean what I think it—"
"No. I never said such a word, Young Master Edan. And even if I had, it would not have meant what you're imagining."
"No, you definitely—"
"I did not."
Seizing on my slip of the tongue, Edan pressed in close, doggedly refusing to let it go. Conceding anything now felt like handing him ammunition to tease me with forever, so I flatly refused to answer.
His relentless interrogation carried on the entire rest of the walk back to the dormitory.
…Honestly. Gets one little opening and suddenly he's king of the world.