The Taste of Dawn
The wind sliding through the open window just before dawn was sharp enough to cut, and it was what woke Aria. The dregs of sleep still whispered in her ear, coaxing her to stay under a little longer, but she made up her mind to force herself up all the same.
Today her major — the Magic Department — had class starting first thing in the morning.
...So in the end, I fell asleep here.
It wasn't as though this were the first time they'd shared a bed.
She turned her head to look at Rohen, still dead asleep beside her, and decided there was nothing worth being surprised about anymore. Shoving the heavy hand draped across her chest aside, she sat up.
We did dry off, but... somehow it still feels damp.
With weather like this, the bedding had probably spent the whole night drinking in moisture. At least the musty smell hadn't seeped in, she thought, and turned her head to the side.
"Ah..."
She'd expected as much, to a degree — but seeing the kiss marks stamped all over her body made it sink in. He hadn't gone all the way inside her, and yet she had unmistakably been ravished in this very bed, by the man still sleeping so peacefully in it.
The marks around her neck in particular were barely concealable even beneath the long curtain of her hair.
Should I wake him...?
If she asked, Rohen could erase them in seconds — but after wrestling with the thought for a while, she folded it away and made for the washroom instead. It might have seemed a little petty, but a well-loved item wears its owner's fingerprints.
These traces etched into every corner of her body felt like a brand of belonging — proof that she was Rohen's woman — and she found she didn't want to erase them.
"...They sting."
Sitting in the washroom, she prodded tentatively at her nipple with a fingertip, and a faint ache rose up. Only natural, after all the biting and sucking and finger-play it had endured. Whether she should count herself lucky it wasn't swollen and throbbing was anyone's guess.
A quick shower later, she stepped out to find the sun, driving back the darkness, slowly beginning to light the world.
"You're up?"
"I heard the water. And then the warmth next to me suddenly vanished — that felt strange too."
Rohen yawned and scratched his head quietly.
"You have a morning class?"
"Do you?"
"I don't, for now... but there's still time before yours, so wouldn't it be better to wait a bit and head out together?"
"I never imagined I'd hear that from you."
Them being seen together was no problem in itself — but two students who were supposed to be in their dormitories walking out of an inn side by side, strolling to the Academy in perfect harmony? That was a picture that didn't quite add up. She herself was confident enough not to care what rumors followed, but Rohen, with Lapis watching him so closely, surely wouldn't risk it.
"Ah..."
Rohen belatedly arrived at the same conclusion and shut his mouth with a short groan.
Honestly, if he'd agreed, she wouldn't have minded — but even so, she probably would have refused. Lapis was the one officially designated as future Empress, and she had entered the stage of lovers first, too. Nothing said the latecomer couldn't overtake, but a mud fight tangled up in romantic jealousy was something Aria wanted to avoid at all costs. Compared to a true drama of passion, a vague contest of nerves was nothing more than a nick on a fingertip.
She had never intended to push Lapis aside in the first place. She just wanted her own place acknowledged — second was fine, as long as it was hers.
So, busying herself with her underclothes and uniform and pinning her hair into order, Aria spoke to Rohen.
"If you understand, then kill the time however you see fit and come out after."
"..."
"And take care of that thing, standing at full attention first thing in the morning."
She hadn't even done anything to provoke it.
Watching Rohen harden at nothing more than the sight of her bare body, Aria felt a strange pride swelling in her chest.
"This is just a simple physiological reaction... I'm not so much of a beast that I go into heat at the sight of you at all hours, before or after anything."
"Oh. Is that so?"
Well, that was news to her.
Though apparently he'd already forgotten everything about last night.
When she saw him calling her not Aria but nuna, her mood curdled on the spot. The hands that had handled her yesterday had treated her, unmistakably, as a female. Dragging the brother-and-sister frame back into the picture now — wasn't that just cheating?
"If it's not because of me, then I don't need to help you with it, do I."
"If you say it's because of you..."
"I don't take care of my little brother's sex drive."
"Because of Aria, then..."
"Idiot."
Thinking him a barometer less reliable than a reed, Aria let out a soft laugh. Then she undid the top buttons of her uniform shirt, drew out her left breast, and went to sit beside Rohen. She tilted his head down to press his face against her chest, slid one hand lower, and gently stroked the insistent thing nudging against her.
"I'm warning you now — no biting. I'm sore."
"..."
Obedient.
Unlike yesterday, Rohen sucked at her breast like a well-behaved child, meekly receiving her favor. Compared to yesterday, when he'd taken greedy mouthfuls and gnawed at her with his teeth, it was an impossible repentance.
But apparently that wasn't enough for him — he slipped a hand inside her shirt to knead her other breast, and Aria found herself thinking, what is it with this lump of flesh that he loves it this much?
It was oversized enough that it caught on her shoulders more days than not. Still, watching the man she loved adore it this thoroughly, maybe it wasn't so bad.
...Yet no matter how much time passed, he showed no sign of finishing.
The hourglass set out in the inn was already announcing the busy hours of morning. If she didn't leave now, she'd be running into swarms of students on the road. Unlike yesterday, no rain was falling, which meant far more eyes, too — and even if Rohen left the inn with a careful gap between them, strange rumors could still take root.
"Sorry, but I have to go now. I have a lecture. If too many eyes fill the streets, it becomes a problem for you and Lapis both."
She'd expected him to cling like a leech and refuse to let go.
Instead, Rohen — surprisingly — lifted his face and hand away cleanly and released her.
The disappointment was plain in the way that needy thing strained after her.
...
It was endearing, and yet why did it irritate her so much?
Calmly buttoning her shirt back up, she caught her own expression in the mirror — remarkably curt and sour — and, looking down at Rohen, knelt.
"Finish fast. This is the only time."
Crouched between his legs, Aria took hold of the straining length and brought it to her small lips.
A strange sour tang pricked at the tip of her nose and made her flinch, but as she slowly pushed it into her mouth, the head, unexpectedly, felt soft against her tongue, and she wrapped it in a gentle embrace.
"Ngh!"
Clumsy — hopelessly clumsy.
When the head brushed against her teeth, Rohen shuddered — but since Aria herself was the one offering to do this for him, he didn't bother pointing out her inexperience.
A wet pop. Then a lewd, sucking sound escaped her lips as she fumbled at taking him in, and the way she jolted with embarrassment at her own noise — why was it so unbearably cute, so lovable?
Thanks to that, with release surging up fast, Rohen pressed a hand to the back of Aria's head and tensed his hips.
"Hurgh...!"
When something nearly half its length suddenly invaded her mouth, Aria's eyes went wide with shock and she shoved at his thigh — but the release that followed swept every ounce of consideration for her clean away.
A hot pulse.
Then semen thick enough to be the worst texture imaginable, and fishy enough to be the worst taste, began flooding Aria's mouth.
The soft flesh of her tongue, with nowhere to retreat, fluttered in confusion and tapped at the head — but even her tongue was pinned down as the head, still spilling the last of what it held, was withdrawn cleanly from her mouth.
"Khh... cough!"
Should she spit it out, or swallow?
No — before that, the unpleasant sensation of it tapping against the bridge of her nose made Aria push the thing away and look up at Rohen with tear-glazed eyes.
There wasn't a trace of apology anywhere on his face.
Those red eyes greeted her instead with a strange, unmistakable expectation — the hope that she would swallow what filled her mouth.
Stunned by the sheer nerve of it, Aria held the semen in her mouth for a long moment. Then she rose up, took Rohen by the nape, and pressed her lips to his. The motion of her tongue was awkward, but she managed without difficulty to pass along, with her saliva, a portion of what he'd emptied into her mouth.
"Guh!"
At that briny taste, Rohen hastily spat it out into his palm.
The man couldn't even swallow his own — and yet he'd wanted her to take it for him.
Absolutely the worst, Aria thought, heading for the door — and then moved her throat, and swallowed.
"Hk...!"
Truly the worst texture. The worst taste.
It didn't go down in one; it clung to her throat, slimy and stubborn — why was it so tenacious?
"Never ask me to eat this again."
Click!
"It's disgusting."
Thud!
And so Aria opened the door and stepped out of the inn.
The moment she was gone, Rohen was left in the room, dragging a hand down his face with an awkward laugh. The thought that she had swallowed the semen he'd impulsively spilled into her mouth filled him with a satisfaction that words could hardly hold.
...They say eating lots of vegetables and fruit kills most of the bitterness.
Perhaps it was time to change his diet.
Step.
Step.
Having walked the silent streets back to the Academy dormitory, Aria changed into her uniform at once. She didn't forget to pick up her graduation thesis from the desk, either.
This morning's class was for her major, the Magic Department — a day when the professor's counsel could help her patch the weak points in her thesis, and when students whose research overlapped could join forces and form groups.
Before that, though...
She really ought to brush her teeth first.
That fishy taste kept welling back up. Maybe it was all in her head, but it wasn't as though it would take long — so Aria rinsed her mouth thoroughly and left the dormitory.
"You have a morning class too, I take it?"
It was Lapis she ran into at the fork in the road.
"I take so many courses that there's hardly a gap anywhere in my schedule."
Rubbing at the fatigue beneath her eyes, Lapis offered her a lovely smile.
"You'll ruin your health. You are the future Empress, you know."
"How rare. To have you worry about me — I assure you, I manage myself quite properly."
"Right. Then I suppose I worried over nothing."
Seeing the crowd of students streaming in from the distance, all searching for Lapis, Aria resumed walking.
Somehow, merely looking at the girl left a bitter taste of inferiority in her mouth. Lapis surely wanted to be loved by the man she loved just as much as anyone did — and there she was, swallowing that want for a little while longer and working this hard.
Meanwhile Aria, like a thieving cat, was eyeing all that effort and stealing away the hours Rohen spent with her. Looked at one way, it was pathetic.
She's worthy of the Empress's seat, all right.
Aria never tore others down; what deserved acknowledgment, she acknowledged.
Of course, that was only ever relative — it wasn't as though Aria herself didn't work. She had never once lost the top seat in her department, and the vessel of her mana was still growing with no sign of stopping, a situation that let her aim for the very pinnacle of Overlord.
Where talent alone was concerned, her one clear edge over Lapis was her aptitude as a mage.
And so Aria believed that this alone was reason enough to hone it, properly and relentlessly.