Leticia (3)
Night had fallen.
It was well past the hour my sister would normally have come and gone, the hour when I would usually have been settling into bed.
I waited. In truth, I was even a little excited. I glanced down at the things I had prepared. What had Daisy been thinking as she carried them over? For the sake of later pleasures, I tucked them away into the drawer.
Knock, knock.
Right on cue, a knock sounded at the door. Then, in a voice trembling all over—
“C-Can I come in?”
She asked permission, yet the door opened before I could even answer.
She wore the same outfit I had seen earlier in the dining hall. The robe she had thrown on out of embarrassment was nowhere in sight. Instead she stood in a thin camisole that bared her shoulders, collarbones, and navel, paired with dolphin shorts that flaunted her white thighs and long legs as if on deliberate display.
“…Why did you call for me?”
She had spent so much blood that her slender, willowy body seemed to shimmer right before my eyes. Deliberately, almost provocatively, she flexed her thighs as she walked slowly toward me.
She kept a careful distance. Whether from nerves or something else, she could not bring herself close the way she usually did, only watching my face for cues. It was both adorable and faintly amusing.
“Sister.”
“…Mm.”
My voice came out soft. Soft enough that I wondered whether I had ever been capable of sounding like that.
I had always been chased by something. Always gripped by restlessness. Even when I teased her, the undercurrent of my voice had carried a sharp edge, as if the stress might burst free at any moment.
No one else might have noticed, but I had known it myself.
My voice now was nothing like that. Even to my own ears it was a pleasant, beautiful tone—gentle and sweet.
Perhaps it was because I was a vampire. That, too.
“I have something to say.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Not ‘mm-hmm.’ Come closer.”
“….”
Instead of answering, she scurried over and plopped down on the bed.
Up close, her white skin glowed even more vividly under the moonlight.
Platinum hair that caught the moonlight and sparkled as if it held starlight itself.
Trembling crimson eyes. Flushed cheeks.
“You’re beautiful.”
“…Hic. I-Is that what you called me here to say?”
“Don’t cut me off. Listen.”
When I scolded her firmly, she pressed her lips shut again and nodded rapidly.
In place of her former voluptuous, smooth figure sat a neatly slender body that stirred every protective instinct I possessed.
I had told her to listen quietly, yet instead of continuing I simply let my eyes roam over every inch of her.
No—I stared openly.
“… ….”
Even under such blatant scrutiny she kept her mouth dutifully closed, a model of obedience.
She even closed her eyes a little and slid the arms that had been covering her chest behind her back, as if offering herself more fully.
What a perverted sister.
“Listen.”
“…Y-Yes. Go on.”
Only after teasing her thoroughly with my gaze did I finally open my mouth. She nodded eagerly, as if she had been waiting for this.
“I’ve been thinking. A lot.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Whether it’s all right for me to love you.”
“….”
For a moment her breath caught, a sharp little intake of air. She clearly had never expected me to say it so directly. Panic was written all over her face; she could not decide how to respond, and her pure white body flushed red.
Camisole and dolphin shorts—so much skin was exposed that the color change was impossible to miss.
“I can’t tell you the details, but there are… circumstances.”
“Mm. Yeah…”
She still seemed dazed, yet I pressed on.
“I’ve decided to make you my woman.”
“Hic.”
“But I wasn’t sure whether that feeling was truly mine.”
I lowered my head. I chose my words carefully. Before letting them leave my mouth I wondered whether it was all right to speak them at all.
There was no guarantee that laying everything bare would end well, that we would simply celebrate and live happily ever after.
I had decided to be honest. But I had no intention of telling her everything.
How could I possibly say, I’m not originally from this world. I came into a game from another world. This whole place is a game and you’re a game character?
And—
To me, she was my sister. Not the villainess of some game, but the sister I loved.
I had decided to accept myself as Scarlet Tepes.
Only then could I finally acknowledge that she was not some capture target, but the woman I loved.
I spoke.
“I thought it might be a filthy feeling. That I was just using you for my own convenience, trampling on your heart however I pleased.”
At my words she forgot her embarrassment and listened with complete seriousness.
There was no turning back now.
“I couldn’t tell which was the real me—the me who loves you, or the me who wants to use you.”
I had decided to be honest. At the very least, I could not hide from her the doubts I had wrestled with. I would tell her everything I could and become genuine.
That was the least courtesy I owed the sister who had been my benefactor.
“Someone once said that even if it wasn’t my intention, people could still become happy because of me.”
“…The incident in the Hailey territory?”
I nodded at her trembling question.
“Yes. That’s when I understood.”
She wasn’t a game character. Until then my world had been so unreal that I could not even properly decide whether this place was a game or reality. That moment changed everything.
This was not a game that simply followed predetermined choices. It was a reality that could change because of my words and actions.
I had been dancing to the game system’s tune, doing nothing but stupid things.
“Only then did I truly see you. All the mistakes I had been making while looking away, as if escaping reality, finally came into focus.”
The time I had deliberately aroused Daisy right in front of her just to provoke her jealousy and raise her affection.
The way I had fretted over how to unlock the affection lock while barely paying attention to the sister who actually mattered.
How she had been so happy whenever I suggested a spar, yet I only fretted that the lock still hadn’t opened and never once looked at how much joy it brought her.
All of those failures of mine.
“You always devoted yourself to me, yet I only ever thought of myself.”
I bowed my head.
“I’m sorry.”
Time seemed to freeze. Neither of us spoke; the seconds simply slipped by.
And then—
“Heh. So that’s what you were going on about…”
In a trembling voice she reached out and cupped my lowered cheek.
I lifted my head, following her hand. Tears welled in her large eyes.
“You’re the little brother I love. Why are you apologizing…?”
A single tear rolled down, glittering like a jewel.
No—it was simply that she was so beautiful in that moment.
The curtains fluttering in the breeze, the hair reflecting the moonlight so brightly, the falling tears, her eyes, the merciful smile—
Everything was so beautiful I wished time itself would stop.
“I’m happy that you worried so much for my sake…”
I stared, utterly dazed.
“Heh. Heh… I thought I was the only one fretting…”
Quietly.
“I thought I was just a perverted woman… getting aroused by my weakened little brother, the worst kind of person…”
“What are you—”
“Just listen. I listened to everything you said, didn’t I?”
Shh. Her index finger, stretched out with unusual sensuality, pressed firmly against my lips.
“Mm… Honestly, I don’t really understand. Those ‘circumstances’ of yours… They’re the kind you can’t talk about, right?”
“….”
I nodded.
“You’ve always been like that. You would just disappear somewhere without a word to me. Maybe that’s why I got so used to handling your work as your proxy.”
It was the first I had heard of it. Still, I stayed silent.
Somewhere deep inside, something itched. As if a memory were about to surface.
“Whenever you came back, you had always grown so much in that short time. It was never more than a few months, yet what on earth had you been doing out there…?”
She spoke in a soft, gentle cadence.
“That’s when I thought, ‘You’re someone I don’t even dare harbor improper feelings toward…’ O-Of course I didn’t have those feelings from the very beginning. We were both still young then.”
She hastily added the excuse, flustered by her own words. Even so, I had no idea how old we had actually been at the time.
“Mm, mm… Anyway. From then on I think I started looking up to you. Someone truly outstanding, truly magnificent… the head of the house I would serve for the rest of my life.”
She even added “especially.”
“Honestly, our parents weren’t exactly wonderful parents, were they?”
Were they?
“So when you usurped the headship, stole both of their shadows, blood, and authority, and turned them into ghouls, I felt a little satisfied.”
“Y-You did?”
“Yes. You probably don’t remember.”
Wasn’t that patricide?
“If you hadn’t done it, Nosferatu or Draculea would have made a move. They would have whittled away our family’s power and influence. They were terrible people either way. Deserved to die, if you ask me.”
I nodded. Something else felt ready to surface.
“Anyway… Then one day, just like always, you came back after being gone for months and collapsed the very next day. Do you have any idea how panicked I was?”
I shook my head.
“You woke up after only a day, but when you said you had no memories I was so shocked.”
Having said that much, she cleared her throat awkwardly, as if embarrassed.
“And what shocked me even more was that I was happy to see you like that.”
She looked as though she were exposing her own shame—partly embarrassed, partly guilty.
“Whether it was aftereffects or whatever, seeing you with no memories and a body so terribly weak… you were so terribly lovable.”
It was a confession.
“I had never seen the little brother I had looked up to my whole life looking so pitiful. At first I thought it was maternal instinct.”
But it wasn’t, she said.
“I was so perverted that I got wet down there, you know?”
Look, she seemed to say, spreading her fingers as if something were still clinging to them, then closed her eyes.
“That’s when I realized. I was harboring completely absurd feelings for my little brother.”
Whether it was love or lust, she hadn’t known. Either way it was the same.
“Once I became aware of it, I decided I had to hold back. During the day it was manageable.”
But at night it was unbearable, she sighed.
“I thought I was going crazy. So at night I’d put you to sleep and come to your room. And… you can roughly imagine the rest, right?”
“Yes.”
When I nodded she gave a bitter smile.
“I’m sorry.”
“Leticia.”
“H-Huh?”
“That’s not it.”
She tilted her head, clearly not understanding. Honestly.
“I’ll say it first, then.”
“W-What. No, wait. You’re the one who just apologized to me…”
I ignored her babbling. I steadied my breathing. I refused to look pathetic in front of her.
“I love you.”
“…Ugh.”
“Please go out with me.”