This Kind of Thing... Is the Latest Craze in High Society? (1)
This Kind of Thing... Is the Latest Craze in High Society? (1)
I'm ten now. Two years since I awakened Ryu Si-u's memories, one year since I met Chloe.
Unlike my first year, which I spent entirely in a sickbed, my second year brought a fair number of developments.
I started seriously learning magic under a private instructor. I hoarded every elixir I could get my hands on through the merchant company. I played with my older sisters now and then, and I taught Chloe a few things about common sense too.
Looking back, though, it was really just a peaceful year of quiet everyday life. Happy days surrounded by family.
So calm and happy, in fact, that I started wondering whether it would be okay if I never became an adventurer at all.
The day Mother brought him in, I was forced to realize the truth.
The only way I'll ever taste real freedom in this world is by becoming an adventurer.
The reward for getting too comfortable with the status quo is just... a bulging crotch.
* * * * * *
After my morning magic lesson, I indulged in the luxury of eating lunch and immediately flopping down for a nap.
My tranquil slumber shattered the moment a knock came at the door.
—Knock, knock.
"Mmm... who is it...?"
—It is Chloe. The Head of House is calling for you.
Even through my groggy post-nap haze, the words "Head of House's Office" rang perfectly clear.
What's going on? Why's Mother calling for me all of a sudden?
'Is she summoning me just so she can pet me again? If that's the case, I'll just fall back asleep in her arms.'
"Hwaaahm. I'm coming."
I let out a long yawn and pulled the door open right then and there.
"Let's go, Chloe...."
"Young Master. Perhaps you should straighten your attire a little."
Chloe was flustered the instant she saw me standing in the doorway.
I wondered what her deal was and glanced at the mirror, but...
'...Is there even anything to straighten in this outfit?'
My usual look, unwavering in its comfort: short sleeves and shorts.
My hair was a bit of a mess since I'd been asleep, but that wasn't exactly a major problem.
"What's there to straighten? Come on, let's hurry, Chloe."
"...Pardon me for a moment, Young Master."
Despite my urging, Chloe's face went red as she brushed off my clothes with quick pats.
"There. That will do, Young Master."
"Was there something on me?"
"No... Hoo. When will the Young Master ever grow up?"
"You're the one saying that? The girl who didn't hesitate to poke me in the cheek?"
"Th-That was back when I was still young."
"It happened one year ago."
Chloe and I bickered back and forth—we'd gotten pretty close over the past year, after all.
I headed to the Head of House's Office with her.
* * * * * *
Feline beastkin. Chloe. She let out a deep inward sigh as she watched her master Yune walking beside her.
'Seriously. When is this kid ever going to grow up?'
Unlike a year ago, when she'd been completely clueless about the ways of the world, working at the estate had taught her what "common sense" really meant.
She'd learned through the reactions of the other servants just how immense the position of a Northern Grand Duchess's child truly was. She'd realized just how insane her own behavior toward Yune a year ago had been.
And yet, in her heart, she still called Yune "this kid." A term with zero reverence behind it—as if she were addressing a little brother of her own. But one she weighed down with a thick, clinging affection.
'A boy walking around dressed like that. I'm telling you, it's unbearable.'
The reason she called him that in her head went back to their very first meeting.
That first day in the north: Yune had looked at her with heavy disappointment, then run off. Chloe, totally bewildered, had followed Margarete to search for him.
The moment she found him hiding in the storage room, munching on cookies with a gloomy face, he'd been fixed in her mind forever—as "someone infinitely more tender and fragile than me. A being I have to protect." That impression left no room for reverence toward him whatsoever.
From then on, she'd looked after him with all the affection she'd show a real younger brother... but.
As she learned common sense. As she picked up knowledge about sex. All sorts of complications bloomed in her service toward him.
Margarete had started giving her sex education on and off after that sparring match, at Yune's suggestion.
The further Margarete's lessons went, the more Chloe grasped just how thoroughly the existence called "men" could stir up a woman's heart.
Part of it was the sexual knowledge she'd absorbed. Part of it was the beastkin heat cycle that had begun slowly creeping up on her.
Every time he exposed bare skin in front of her without the slightest wariness, sweet saliva pooled thick under her tongue.
The sensations she felt whenever he claimed his legs were tired and climbed onto her back always made her nights sleepless.
When she kept breathing in the soft scent from his skin, her reason slowly dissolved into a sense of transgression.
Lick his cheek like she did the day they met? Absolutely out of the question. If she ever licked him again, she was dead certain she wouldn't be able to stop at just his cheek.
So she'd taken to telling him things at every chance. "Men are supposed to be embarrassed about baring their skin." "You mustn't go around in an outfit that's practically underwear."
But Yune just stuck to his clothes with maddening lines like "This is comfy!" Short sleeves and shorts. An outfit far too revealing for a man to wear—one that barely hid even such intimate areas as his armpits or navel.
He strutted through the estate in attire that made him look as though he had absolutely no self-awareness of being male. Watching him, she heaved another sigh.
'The Northern Grand Duchess ought to be stopping this... but the boy wears that on purpose, so no one can stop him.'
She'd even started relying on the Northern Grand Duchess, whom she'd normally found terrifying.
And as if in answer to her thoughts...
The Northern Grand Duchess. Erengard was, indeed, gradually beginning to correct that very aspect of him.
* * * * * *
Chloe and I reached the Head of House's Office.
Since I had no idea how long this would take, I sent Chloe back first, then swung the door open and walked right in.
"Mother, you called for me... huh...?"
The scene inside the office was a little different from usual.
Mother wasn't at her work desk; she was seated at the guest reception table. And across from her, face to face, sat a middle-aged man.
He wore a shirt decked out in fluttering lace and tight leggings that clung to his legs, and he smiled at me with his eyes crinkled.
"Oh my. What an adorable young master we have here."
'...Eeeek.'
He even spoke with a nasal tone. My face crumpled hard. Good god. That outfit and that manner of speaking? What is this? Is he gay?
Unlike me, busy being personally horrified, Mother calmly opened her mouth.
"Yune himself is my pride. At any rate. Sir Max. As you can see, he has utterly no sense of how a noble son should conduct himself. Will you be able to educate him by year's end?"
"Of course. Heh heh."
"Good. Then introduce yourself, Yune. This is Sir Max, who will teach you the proper etiquette for a debutante before the Founding Festival."
"I look forward to working with you, Young Master."
"Ah... yes...?"
The man called Sir Max offered a polite, soft-spoken greeting, and I returned it grudgingly. Even while exchanging pleasantries, my head was a mess of confusion.
I forcibly shook off my drowsiness and got my brain turning to figure out the situation.
Debutante. The term for a young noble son making his first entrance into high society.
A debutante's first debut was a huge deal that could dictate his entire social life. One mistake at your debut, I'd heard, and you'd be a laughingstock for decades.
I hadn't been worrying about a social debut at all.
So what if I make a mistake? Who's going to insult the Northern Grand Duchess's youngest son to his face? At worst, people would talk behind my back and I'd get the cold shoulder from society. That's about it.
Of course, if I were a normal noble son, the humiliation might be enough to make me want to bite my own tongue off, but... what was my future dream again? Grand Mage Adventurer, wasn't it?
I was planning to run away the moment I graduated from the Academy anyway, so high society and my social debut were completely trivial matters to me.
'But not from Mother's perspective.'
Every time she'd tried to stuff me into stuffy clothes or called in an etiquette tutor so far, I'd defused it with the full force of my cuteness. But it seemed Mother had grown anxious about my debut being continuously delayed and had gone ahead and hired an etiquette teacher without telling me.
I'd missed last year's year-end Founding Festival due to a sudden fever. This year, she fully intended to make that ball my debutante event.
'Mm. I can't leave Mother worrying, so I'll learn just enough to save some face.'
"So what does this etiquette involve learning? Flower arrangement?"
"Everything. From the very steps you take when entering the ballroom to the social dance that is the highlight of the ball. I shall personally teach you all of it. I will see to it that no one in that ballroom dares treat the Young Master with anything less than respect."
This Max fellow was burning with some truly needless enthusiasm.
He then produced something—a piece of white cloth—from a box on the table and held it out to me.
"Young Master. Please accept this."
"What is it?"
"It is the garment you will use for dance practice. Once you return to your room, change into this, and come back, I will begin instructing you in dance immediately."
"Right away...?"
"Yes. Time is short if I am to teach you everything by winter, so the sooner we begin, the better."
He explained that it was a garment for dance practice. I took it with zero enthusiasm and inspected it front and back.
Soon I spotted something strange.
"Huh? Why is the crotch part bulging out like this? Is it defective?"
"That is called a codpiece. It is meant to accentuate the male groin. It is the latest fashion."
"......Excuse me?"
"Heh heh. To emphasize one's masculinity, it makes a man's groin appear more pronounced."
Sir Max then launched into a full explanation of what he called the pouch-like thing attached to the trousers' crotch—this "codpiece."
Listening to him, the perfect comparison popped into my head.
'So it's like a padded bra. But as underwear padding. A dick pad.'
After hearing that the "codpiece" was currently the trend dominating the Empire's high society—
—Fwoop. Patter-patter-patter!
"Oh? Young Master!?"
"Yune?"
I threw the garment aside and bolted.
Wear that? That? And then enjoy a bulging-crotch party alongside a bunch of guys decked out in the same thing?
No way. I'd rather die.