Two Years Later
Another two years had passed.
Two years, and yet so little had actually changed. The one thing that had was Kyle's age. By the old Korean count, he was eighteen now. His birthday hadn't come yet, though, which meant he was seventeen in truth.
Having grown up using both systems side by side, I still found it a little odd to tally someone's years the Western way. It wasn't hard — just unfamiliar. The boy I'd thought of as fifteen had been sixteen by Korean reckoning, which made him eighteen after two more years... or rather, seventeen. This world had no concept of counting age from one at birth, so seventeen was the number that counted.
And then there were the things that two years had failed to change. Two years wasn't a long time, so perhaps that was to be expected... but some things really ought to have changed by now, and hadn't.
"Louise..."
"I-I seriously wasn't gonna do it this time?!"
"You've been saying that for two years."
"Th-that may be true! But still!! At least I'm not dumping my entire paycheck into it anymore!!"
Well. At least she wasn't throwing her whole salary away. But the idea of the mage hired to teach His Grace's son gambling it all away...
"Haaah..."
"D-don't hit me?! You never used to hit me back when we were adventurers!"
Back when we were adventurers, I'd never had a reason to hit her. I did now. I was Kyle's personal attendant, and she was, depending on how you looked at it, a gambling addict bleeding his household dry. Technically it wasn't gambling she was addicted to so much as games of chance in general — but still.
"Fine... whatever."
At least she wasn't betting her entire wage. That was something. Honestly, I'd been worried she'd keep at it until she landed herself in debt. She was a little crazy — no, extremely crazy — but she was still my friend, and worrying about her came with the territory. You had to worry about someone that far gone.
"Oh, right. Kyle's gotten crazy tall lately, huh?"
"I know."
Of course I knew. I knew better than Louise ever could. I was the one who went to wake him every morning. I was the one who helped him change. I spent more time at Kyle's side than anyone else. On the days Elin ran him into the ground until he could barely move, I was even the one who washed him. Naturally, I was the first to notice he'd grown.
How he'd shot up so much in just two years, I had no idea. He was just shy of six feet now. In two years, I'd gone from looking him in the eye to looking up at him.
Well. I had a woman's body and he had a man's, so I'd always known this day would come. I'd known... I just hadn't expected him to overtake me in two years flat!
Growing that much in two years was just unfair, wasn't it?! I remembered scraping and stretching in my last life just to crack five-seven... and he'd put on nearly a foot in two years.
"At this rate, he's gonna hit six-three, don't you think?"
"Probably...?"
Nearly six feet at seventeen, and men kept growing well past that — I remembered boys shooting up even after they enlisted. By the time he finished, six-three seemed likely. That was too tall... Six-three would put almost two heads between us. I was barely five-three. The difference would be real.
"He won't get as big as that six-foot-seven guy we used to know, though, right?"
I genuinely did not want Kyle getting that tall. Yes. Six-three, and not an inch more. That would be plenty. Being too tall came with its own set of problems.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Young Master, it's time for your morning training."
"Yes. I'll be right out."
Kyle and I had started doing morning exercises together lately. He already trained with Elin, so I wasn't sure why he insisted on doing this with me as well. Because we were close, maybe?
Two years of sword lessons with Elin had brought them closer, I supposed, but apparently not as close as he was with me.
"Heh heh."
Well. Of course. I'd spent far more time with Kyle than Elin ever had. It wasn't just lessons — I stuck to his side wherever he went. That was bound to count for something.
"Shall we go, then?"
"Yes."
Kyle stepped out. Training meant leaving his rooms, naturally, and the two of us made our way to the practice hall.
I'd thought it every time we came here: the place was far too stifling. Yes, it was cold outside, but did the indoor hall really need to have no windows at all? Lock the entrance and you had a perfect sealed chamber. Stone walls, a smooth floor, and sand scattered across it to keep anyone from slipping.
"One... two... three..."
I counted Kyle through his reps. Nobody had asked me to, and nothing would have gone wrong if I hadn't, but I didn't have anything else to do, so I figured I might as well. Whether this even counted as exercising together was debatable... but Kyle had wanted it this way, so I went along. I was his personal attendant, after all.
"Hoo... nngh..."
I watched him work and thought, not for the first time, that his body was ridiculous. No exaggeration, no lie tacked on for flavor — the boy was built like a sculpture. The thought even crossed my mind that if he walked into a brothel looking like that, the working girls would probably pay him. That was how impressive Kyle's physique had become. The height, the muscle, the pale skin, the handsome face.
Catherine was... finished, as far as I was concerned. She'd come to Eristirol for me, not for him, which meant she was already out of the running as his wife. Elin, who drilled him in swordsmanship every day, probably had better odds. She had that cute way of carrying herself, and she was pretty — not a bad match, all things considered. Being a knight, she even held a title of some kind.
Of course... she still wasn't a suitable partner for the young master and heir of Eristirol. And once I started thinking along those lines, finding someone of Kyle's station began to look like a nearly impossible task. His standing was simply too high. At minimum, you'd need someone like Catherine — a Count's daughter — or an imperial princess. That was the caliber it would take, wasn't it?
There were other ducal houses besides Eristirol, but I didn't know much about those. They were a wildly varied bunch. House White, for instance, currently had a woman as its head. And her wife was a woman too. Meaning they were lesbians!
I'd learned that while studying the great houses at the boarding academy, and it had hit me like a hammer to the skull. I'd known homosexuality existed even in a world like this — the papers ran stories every year about the monasteries making a fuss over it. But a ducal house being lesbian? That had been a genuine shock.
There were plenty of other ducal families besides, and while their rank was high enough... none of them quite worked as a bride.
"Hoo...! Miss Sophia?"
Kyle set down his dumbbell and called over to me. Had he already finished? I'd been lost in thought, but even so, we'd only started thirty minutes ago.
"Yes, Young Master. What is it?"
"Would you like to exercise with me?"
"Pardon?"
Exercise together? What did that even mean? Lift dumbbells side by side? Or... what else was there. Exercises you could do with someone.
"I was thinking we could move around a little, just as a stretch. Would that be all right?"
"Ah — yes. Of course."
Stretching I could do. If Kyle asked, I'd do just about anything. I'd grown up an only child, and I'd always wanted a younger sibling. I'd even daydreamed about it back at the academy. Maybe that was why I was so soft on him. A boy younger than me, looking up to me and following me around — if that wasn't a little brother, what was?
Right?
"What should I do?"
"First, sit on the floor, like this — and give me your hands."
Kyle sat, then spread his legs into a V so the soles of our feet pressed together. From there, he'd pull on my hands to loosen us up, I assumed. I held my hands out as instructed, and Kyle took them.
Mm... warm. Warmer than my own, actually — bordering on hot. Normal body temperature was supposed to be ninety-eight-point-six. His had to be closer to ninety-nine.
"Hyat—"
Then he pulled my arms toward him. No warning, just a sudden tug, and I startled.
"Nngh... hah... hooh..."
It had been so long since I'd done anything like this that the sounds came out on their own. Adventurer or not, a few years of sitting idle would do that to anyone.
Wait. He was pulling a little hard.
"Nnh... haaah..."
"....."
Twenty seconds or so, and Kyle eased my hands back to where they'd started.
"All right — your turn, Young Master."
"Y-yes..."
I said it, then hauled on those warm hands of his, pulling them toward me.
"Nngh...!"
I pulled.
"Nngh...!"
I pul...led.
"....."
"....."
I had yanked as hard as I possibly could, and Kyle's torso had not budged. If it had moved at all, it was by a fraction of an inch.
"Uh..."
Had I gotten this weak? A few years ago I could have scooped Kyle up without breaking a sweat, and now I couldn't even pull his upper body toward me. That couldn't be right.
"Let's... move on to the next one."
"...Yes, Young Master..."
I had no choice but to agree. If I couldn't even manage a partner stretch that required pulling, there wasn't much else to do.
"Next, I'll get on my hands and knees, and you can lie on top and stretch your back out as much as you like."
"All right."
That, at least, I could handle. My strength had faded, not my body itself... right? I was still in my early twenties! Twenty-three! There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I'd just gone a little soft from skipping training, that was all.
"Nngh..."
I lay back across Kyle's back and stretched my spine long, breathing slowly as I worked the line of my waist. It felt surprisingly good. Kyle was underneath me, yes... but I was light. He'd be fine.
"My turn, then."
Kyle's turn. I dropped to my knees and bent forward so he could stretch his back across mine — a posture not unlike a full prostration.
"Urgh..."
The moment Kyle settled on top of me, the sounds started coming out on their own. Come to think of it, there were nearly eight inches between us now. Five-three and just under six feet. Of course his weight would have gone up accordingly...
"Nngh... hah... hooh..."
It had.