Behind the Teacher
I couldn't remember the cool line Philia the Blood had told me. All I could do was endlessly list the words tangled up inside my heart.
“Muerangde, so you don't have to worry about it. I like you, Muerangde.”
Muerangde, who had been leaning against the sofa, slowly sat up. She let out a long sigh.
“So, Muerangde...”
“Enough.”
Muerangde's voice rang out coldly. A chill hung in the air above the sunlit sofa.
“Personal matters and matters that go beyond the personal are clearly different. Even if there's someone you like personally, we can never remain purely as individuals. You know that, don't you? Marei, you have a family too. Some people might look down on it as childish play, but in reality, this is everything.”
Muerangde, who had been showing her back, turned to face Marei. Her red eyes were filled with thick, sticky pity. It wasn't the gaze of an older sister looking at her one-year-younger brother, but the sorrowful look of an adult gazing down at a child.
“You can't be friends with the enemy, Marei.”
“.....Are we enemies?”
“Well… Your family would be our enemy, I suppose.”
So there's nothing good that can come from it. Muerangde smiled as if she might crumble at any moment. Dust danced wildly in the light leaking through the window gap.
“...I don't know much about families. The only thing my adoptive mother taught me was etiquette.”
“There might be a few families on good terms with the Pawen family… but especially not with the Principality. It's a story over a hundred years old… and there was that incident during the Great War.”
Muerangde made a groaning sound, as if asking why she was talking about history. She swept a hand down her face with another faint sigh.
“I've heard about it. That Labella de Pawen took in an adopted son. I only realized it was you during this recent matter…..”
“Is that important?”
Muerangde nodded.
“I told you. It may look like nothing, but that's everything.”
“....Not most people. To you, Muerangde.”
Well. Muerangde, who had shortened her words, hugged her own knees. She buried her head and mumbled something unintelligible. Then she lifted her head, seemed about to say something, but let out a small sigh and couldn't continue.
So Marei pressed her, asking again.
“What about you, Muerangde?”
“Me? I… well, what about me…”
Her arms, wrapped around her knees, trembled. Muerangde, curled up like that, was clearly a year older than Marei, yet she looked like a child on the verge of bursting into tears.
“Are you okay, Muerangde?”
Yes. Muerangde nodded obediently. How many people would accept her weak, mechanical movements as being “okay”? No matter how many times he asked, Muerangde only repeated that she was fine. Like a broken radio.
Marei could only press his lips tightly together.
“If this was something that could end with just a word or two, would I be acting like this?”
Lee Ha-eun leaned her shoulders back against the chair like a cat stretched out in the sun. Her lazy expression and meltingly languid face somehow looked irritating. The weather was cool, but sitting for long in a place without shade would surely make one sweat.
“Teacher Lee Ha-eun.”
“Do you know what the defining trait of those little brats is? They think the world revolves around them, and they dream according to what they understand, what they want to see, what they want to think. Terribly realistic dreams that look just like reality.”
That's why it's so difficult. Lee Ha-eun swept her bangs upward. Her sweat-glistening forehead was visible.
“From a mother's perspective, I'd love for you to keep following that little brat around and fix her rotten attitude… but I know it's an unrealistic request…”
Even as her beast-like yellow eyes licked over his face, Marei didn't look away from Lee Ha-eun.
“It's a relief that you already look like you plan to follow her around anyway, even without me asking. If you have something you want to say to her, come find me. I'll bring her out no matter what it takes. A prince who hasn't given up needs a supporter to match, and supporting is always my specialty.”
Lee Ha-eun lifted her bandaged arm and let out a giggling laugh. Her white tail swayed as if it might sweep the floor.
A shadow stopped over Marei, who had been sitting for a long time in the spot Lee Ha-eun had left.
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
“A little…”
Philia, who placed a hand on his shoulder, had one eye gently closed. Her sparkling red eyes were the same as Muerangde's yet completely different. Her silver-purple hair, shining in the shade, carried a pleasant floral scent.
Philia remained silent, and so did Marei, as they gazed into each other's eyes for a long time. Philia let out a light snort and gently massaged Marei's shoulder.
“You said 'a little,' yet you've been sitting there completely spaced out? What happened?”
Philia was still smiling. Excluding the fact that they'd mingled their bodies, she was a girl he'd only met recently. Yet for some strange reason, she made him want to lean on her. That's why he wanted to talk about Muerangde. The image of Philia casually saying those cool words kept coming to mind, and somehow he felt like she would casually solve his worries too.
But he couldn't judge whether it was right to receive help from someone else like this to navigate his relationship with Muerangde. The image of Muerangde, who wasn't even here, kept flickering before his eyes. Her retreating figure, which seemed like it might scatter at any moment, kept haunting him.
“It's… actually…”
Marei tried hard to speak calmly. About Muerangde, about himself, and about what she had said. Since he couldn't reveal who she was, he wrapped her in the name of “friend” and poured out all his thoughts and feelings to Philia. It felt truly shameful.
She had closed her eyes midway through, but Marei knew she was listening attentively, so he continued speaking. Philia didn't say a word until the story was over.
“Hmmm~.”
Philia nodded.
“And?”
“Huh?”
The answer that came from Philia's mouth, when he'd expected her to give him a solution, made Marei unconsciously ask again.
“So… and? What do you want to do? Do you want to get closer to that friend? Or do you not want to accept what that friend said? Or are you thinking something else?”
There was no emotion in Philia's red eyes. That felt incredibly trustworthy.
“...I just want to get closer. I can't leave her alone.”
He couldn't just leave those small shoulders be.
“And I don't want to accept it either.”
The image of Philia, who seemed like she might break at any moment, wouldn't leave his head.
“I want to see her smile.”
Just that. He wanted to see that.
Philia tucked her side hair behind her ear.
“This friend of yours… is it a girl?”
“Ah, yes? Yes…”
Philia let out a small nasal sound and sighed softly. Then she immediately grabbed Marei's shirt and pulled him toward her.
“This kind of consultation…”
Her white forehead wrinkled slightly. The red eyes that held his reflection resembled the sunset. As if they might burst into flames at any moment. No, that didn't quite fit with the word sunset. They were burning like the red sky at sunrise. For some reason he couldn't understand, he couldn't look away. It was as if he could see the faint shape of something.
What was he looking at right now? Was it an illusion? When he looked around, something was there before his eyes. Something whose form couldn't even be seen in the darkness. It seemed visible yet invisible. It existed in the gap of an ambiguous boundary.
He wasn't afraid. He simply couldn't look away. Driven by an unknown emotion, Marei unconsciously reached out toward that shape.
“....No, no. Forget it.”
Philia's voice rippled out and shattered the illusion. At some point, Marei's hand had grasped Philia's cheek. He gently moved his thumb, stroking the cheek that was beginning to lose its baby fat. Philia turned her face away, her cheeks flushed deep red.
“Philia?”
“Aww… it's nothing. Forget it.”
She looked angry. But more than angry, she looked embarrassed. That was so cute he couldn't stand it. He gently stroked her neck and pressed his lips to her small mouth.
“Mmph… s-stop… we're outside…”
Philia pounded on Marei's chest in embarrassment. There was no one around. He didn't know why, but he knew. Even if someone was there, it wouldn't matter. He simply wanted to kiss this girl.
He recalled the faint outline he'd seen moments ago. As the emotions that had settled like sediment in his chest made his heart feel tight, he couldn't tell what it was.
“I like you, Philia.”
He wanted to forget the emotions that had settled and been forgotten. Yet at the same time, he wanted to kiss the girl in his arms. With that thought, Marei's mouth moved on its own.
Philia looked at Marei silently, then gave a small nod. Their lips met, and he slowly pushed his tongue inside. Deep and precise, like a blade. Philia, clutching Marei's shirt tightly, cautiously accepted his tongue.
Unlike the elf who was trained every day or his mother, her clumsy tongue movements and inability to control her breathing, causing her to pant intermittently, were adorable. Slurp… sluuuurp… smooch… As if she hadn't forgotten the kiss he'd taught her back in the Principality, she moved with utterly clumsy motions, sucking and drinking his saliva, then carefully swallowing it down. Her soft tongue followed his, which explored every corner of her teeth, and gently intertwined with it.
When the sticky saliva overflowed and she could no longer take it, Philia slightly lifted her head upward and swallowed it with audible gulps. In the ecstatic deep kiss, Philia kept moving her tongue as if in rapture, but the limit soon came.
“Mmph… mmph… mmph…!”
Unable to hold her breath any longer, Philia pounded on Marei's chest several times with her palm before urgently pulling her lips away. A silver thread of saliva stretched long between their lips before snapping, falling onto her shirt and leaving a mark.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
The princess of the Principality, her face flushed crimson, barely catching her breath with a face that looked like it might melt. He began to gently knead her slightly swollen bottom. Unlike the Ksakru sisters' buttocks where his fingers sank in, or Labella and Erden's buttocks that filled his grasp like rice cakes, this was mature yet still lacking flesh that filled his hand completely.
At the caress-like touch, Philia instinctively leaned her body against him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. The space between their thighs gradually widened. Perhaps focused on breathing, Philia showed little reaction to the hand stroking her bottom. No, while it might be short for Marei, by ordinary standards the kiss had been so long and suffocating that Philia's body was moving toward ecstasy on its own.
More precisely, the pleasure from that day was so immense for a young girl that it made her mind go distant. So perhaps she was hesitating at the edge of climax out of fear. Even so, her elegantly extended arms wrapped around the shoulders of the boy younger than her, and she offered her tongue once more.
“More… you want more…? Mmm… mmph… mmph… slurp… smooch… hng…”
The girl, her eyes half-lidded, drenched from the repeated kisses. Yet she made sounds like a seductive woman and began sucking on Marei's tongue again, swallowing the thoroughly mixed saliva that could no longer be distinguished as anyone's. Perhaps growing accustomed to the deep kiss, she occasionally drew in breath, repeatedly pressing and releasing her soft lips.
At Philia's increasingly aggressive behavior, Marei gently licked her tender lips and drew her in with an even deeper, richer kiss.
“Mmm… mmm… smooch… sluuuurp… smooch… mwah…”
Like a baby bird begging for food, she stretched her neck long to push her tongue in deeper. Philia, having accepted it, swallowed the thickened saliva one last time, gently sucked on Marei's tongue, and finally pulled her lips away.
“Haa…. We're outside… so this is the end.”
Her pale face was now flushed red. Philia had fully bloomed into a woman's form. Between her slightly parted upper and lower lips, sticky saliva stretched like threads. Marei's hand, already experienced in outdoor play several times through his mother and teacher's bodies, naturally moved toward the young princess's mound that was beginning to grow damp.
“Kyaa…!”
At the touch stroking her mound, Philia let out a small startled cry and pushed Marei away. She covered her mouth with both hands and looked around to see if anyone had heard or seen.
“You… I told you we're outside…”
Was it shame, or embarrassment? With her face flushed from an unknown emotion, small tears hung at the corners of Philia's eyes. He was confident he could make the princess before him sob in pleasure right now. Should he push her down? Marei hurriedly shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts. The memory from the previous day had been too intense, making him do something ridiculous.
Marei pulled Philia into a tight embrace. The desire to stuff his thing into that small mouth kept flickering in his mind. Even though he knew he shouldn't.
“I know men only think about things like that, but still, you should distinguish between time and place. I'm not some convenient pussy for you to use whenever you want.”
Philia stepped back from Marei as if fleeing. She straightened her disheveled clothes and wiped the saliva from her mouth with a handkerchief. Her body was trembling slightly, but Marei knew well that it wasn't from fear.
What would happen if he did it just one more time? Wouldn't she say it was okay? Wouldn't she respond by being led along? Such thoughts came to him. Because when he'd touched the flower bud that hadn't fully bloomed yet, it had been sticky and wet.
“I'm sorry.”
“....Yeah.”
The princess of the Principality nodded. With a small sigh, she patted Marei's shoulder, then glanced at her watch to check the time.