A Confession in His Sleep
"Hahh... hahh..."
What on earth was this kid sleep-talking about?
For a second there, if I hadn't known he was talking in his sleep, I really would have gotten the wrong idea. And he'd said it while he was holding me, too. I nearly jumped out of my skin.
My heart was hammering. I didn't think I had ever been this shocked in my entire life — either of them. Kyle had his arms around me, and his body ran so hot that I was sweltering. Not that I could have wriggled free even if I'd wanted to. The difference in our strength was just too much.
"Hah..."
My heart was still going. I must have been more stunned than I realized, because it wouldn't settle down. A confession — from a man. Of course I'd been shocked. In my previous life I had never received a confession from a man; I had only ever been on the receiving end from women. And in this life I hadn't gotten one from a man either, so the surprise hit even harder.
"Awawawawawa..."
Sleep talk or not, I had been genuinely, thoroughly, spectacularly startled. It wasn't just anyone. It was Kyle, of all people, suddenly coming out with something that might as well have been a confession.
"He did say before that there was someone he liked."
It was probably that person, right? Not that I would know. I'd asked, and he had never given me anything resembling an answer.
"Hmm..."
Who could it be? The person Kyle liked...
Elin? Louise? Or maybe one of those three noble young ladies he'd met before? I had no idea. Aside from me, he didn't exactly have a wide social circle. The closest people to him would be Elin or Louise, but Louise didn't have anything to do with that sort of thing at all...
"Ah."
Come to think of it, she had been reading some strange romance novels lately. Had she gotten into that genre because of Kyle, too...? It was a reasonably plausible guess.
"Louise and Kyle as a couple..."
Well, Louise was pretty enough. Just looking at them, they wouldn't be a bad match.
"..."
Something about it felt off, though, so I set that one aside. They were teacher and student, if you thought about it. What kind of weird relationship would that be? On those same grounds, I crossed Elin off the list too. She and Kyle were teacher and student as well.
"Then..."
Catherine, and the other two. But the three noble young ladies were even harder to picture. Catherine and Lily had visited once, and there had been no contact of any kind since. Louise and Elin actually had more of a connection to him than those three did.
"Hmm..."
Kyle slept on without a care in the world, and I went on thinking, held against the warmth of his body. No conclusion presented itself. I had absolutely no idea who the person he'd said he liked was supposed to be. That sleep talk just now had probably been meant for her, too.
"I really have no idea who it is."
I couldn't even begin to guess. I'd ended up in his arms by accident and started turning it over in my head, but I was getting nowhere. I'd find out eventually, once Kyle sent me a wedding invitation. And just because he liked someone now didn't mean he was going to marry them, so there was no need to dwell on it.
If anything, someone like Kyle might end up with several concubines. There were noble houses that kept quite a few. If the women he liked numbered more than one, I was going to have to attend a lot of weddings.
"Heh..."
The thought of showing up to my little brother's wedding more than three times was so absurd it was actually funny. In my previous life, the only way you had a second wedding was after a divorce.
Then again — was it because Kyle still had his arms around me? My heart had not stopped pounding. And not just pounding. It was racing.
"Would you calm down already..."
It was going like mad. I had already been in a state of shock, and the heat was only making it worse. All told, it took more than five hours for Kyle — dead asleep and still drunk — to finally wake up. My heart did not properly settle for a single minute of that time.
"Hahh..."
When he came around he apologized, I waved it off, and I finally dragged myself to the bath.
"Wow..."
The moment I peeled my clothes off, I could see they were soaked through with sweat. And I do mean soaked through.
"How is there this much sweat..."
Not that I didn't understand. I had been lying on the bed in Kyle's room, which was already warm from the heating, wrapped in his arms for hours on end. It would have been stranger if I hadn't sweated. And I had been wearing my formal clothes the entire time.
"The shirt... there is no way I can wear this tomorrow."
This was going to need a wash, no question. If I didn't launder it, the smell of my own sweat would be coming off the fabric for sure.
"Even Kyle would wrinkle his nose at this."
Yeah. This was not happening. I would hand it off to a maid a little later.
"Hahh..."
I stripped the rest of the way, washed myself down with water and soap, and sank into the tub. Only once I was in the water and finally able to rest did my heart start to ease. Why had it been pounding like that in the first place? I couldn't make sense of it.
It wasn't as if I were some girl whose heart raced at a confession while she slowly realized she was in love. There was no reason for my heart to pound over a man's confession in the first place, was there? Right. I had just been surprised, that was all. And it wasn't even just any man. It was Kyle. I had known him since he was twelve. I had raised him. There was no way I would have those kinds of feelings for him. And there was no way he would have those kinds of feelings for me, either.
"That doesn't make any sense..."
Kyle and I were close the way family was close.
"Sophia, would you happen to be free tomorrow?"
"Is something the matter?"
A few days had passed since Kyle's return. A few days, and not much of anything had actually changed. There had been a grand succession ceremony, but for the time being the family head was still handling affairs. Kyle's own rank had been formally raised from young lord to Grand Duke. The imperial family would probably send a gift before long. None of that had much to do with me — though I wouldn't have minded if it did. It would have been pretty entertaining if the gift they'd sent had been the princess.
At any rate, Kyle had stopped me in the middle of the corridor and asked the question out of nowhere.
"The promise we made last time. You remember it, I hope?"
"Ah. That."
Of course I remembered. I had been so worried about him that day there was no chance I would have forgotten a single thing that happened.
"Yes. So I was thinking we might go tomorrow."
Tomorrow? My schedule consisted of following Kyle around in any case, so that wasn't a problem. For the moment, at least.
"Yes, that's fine."
"Then would it be all right if we went together tomorrow?"
"Of course."
The way he was talking, he had already made the arrangements — the restaurant reservation and everything else. That was why he'd specified tomorrow. Backing out now would only wreck his plans for no reason. I had time to spare anyway, so I decided I would just go.
"Then let's head out together tomorrow morning. And please dress warmly."
"Yes."
I would have dressed warmly whether he'd said so or not. It was still winter. Still, it was nice that he was worrying about me.
That left the question of what to wear. I had more clothes now than I used to, which made choosing harder in an entirely different way.
"Hmm..."
After I finished my work for the day, I stood in front of the wardrobe by myself and thought it through. A dress was out — I had worn one before, and it didn't particularly appeal. As for trousers, I had plenty that weren't my usual suit pants. Some of them were skin-tight. Some of them weren't.
"Pants..."
I wasn't sure. They were the warm option, at least. I wore warm trousers all the time when I went outside. But was that really what I ought to wear on a day like tomorrow?
"A skirt..."
I had tried them a few times, and they were still uncomfortable. Not as bad as that dress Kyle had bought me, but some part of me still firmly believed they were a hassle. The air moving between my legs, for one thing. And my hips were wide enough that a short skirt sometimes flashed my underwear, which I hated. Honestly, I didn't particularly want to wear one.
But this was a promise I had made with Kyle. So it occurred to me that putting on something a little prettier this time might be the polite thing to do. He wasn't a child anymore. He was a Grand Duke. Maybe I ought to wear something that matched his station, at least a little.
"Nnnngh..."
Would it be so bad if I wore something like that, just this once? Kyle had told me once that skirts suited me — empty words, maybe, but he had said it. Not that short one he'd put on me back then, though. Absolutely not that.
"This kind should be all right..."
On top I would wear the coat Kyle had given me, same as always, so it wouldn't look bad. A long skirt and a coat actually went well together. I didn't wear skirts often, but I knew a fair bit about fashion. They had taught it at the boarding academy, after all.
"Young Master, how do I look...?"
Morning arrived. Kyle was dressed in a handsome formal suit that had something of the same feel as my usual attire. When we went down into town he ordinarily wore something more modest, closer to what ordinary people wore. Not today.
"You look beautiful."
"Do I...?"
Good. If that was how it looked, then I had done it right. I had picked everything with the specific goal of looking pretty for Kyle. Under the coat I had a knit sweater to keep me warm, and a long skirt below. Since he had said it was fine, it probably wasn't bad.
"Shall we go, then?"
"If that is what you wish, Young Master."
Kyle and I were inside the castle. There had been no reason to meet outside, so of course we had met in here.
"Then let's head out."
"Yes."
I followed behind him, and together we walked out of the castle.
"..."
"..."
And then, for some reason, a carriage was coming toward the castle gates. A single carriage, extravagantly decorated in purple.
I looked at it and had exactly one thought. Kyle's was probably not all that different from mine.
Oh, fuck.