One More Week
“Are you awake?”
In the early hours just shy of dawn, I opened my eyes to a sight that had already become familiar.
Selian lay beside me under the covers, offering her morning greeting the moment I stirred. Even though the bed was vastly wider than anything in the dorms, she was pressed right up against me.
“…Morning.”
Every night we said goodnight and went to our separate rooms. So how, exactly, did she end up inside my blankets?
The first morning I woke in Selian’s mansion, I had bolted upright in pure shock the instant my eyes met a pair of clear blue ones staring straight at me. Only after realizing those eyes belonged to Selian did I finally exhale and ask how she had gotten into my bed.
According to her, she had gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night and, half-asleep, wandered into my room by mistake.
When I asked why the bathroom she sleepwalked to wasn’t the private one in her own chambers, or why she hadn’t returned to her own bed, she simply said she didn’t know.
And it hadn’t been just that first night. It happened every single day after.
On the second night I locked the door just in case. The next morning, the moment I opened it, Selian—who had been leaning against it—toppled straight onto the floor and looked up at me with dark circles under hollow eyes. Apparently she had tried to come in after another bathroom trip, found the door locked, and simply fallen asleep in the hallway.
Even if I was her employee, letting the eldest daughter of a marquis’s house sleep in a corridor didn’t sit right with me. So from then on I left the door unlocked, just in case her sleepwalking habits kicked in again. After that, she was under the covers with me every morning.
The first time had startled me, sure. But after the second, third, and then several more days of the same routine, I managed to keep a straight face even while my heart still jumped a little inside.
At this point I was starting to wonder if my senses had gone completely dull. Whether it was Yuri burrowing into my blankets during tutoring sessions back then, or Selian doing the same now, I never noticed a thing and just kept dreaming away.
Maybe I’ve gotten soft. Or maybe I simply trust the two of them that much. I’ll go with the latter for now.
“You’re up early again today.”
I had never once woken first. Every morning Selian was already awake and watching me.
I’d told her more than once that if she was up she should just wake me, and she always agreed—yet she never did. She never went back to sleep either. She simply stared.
Surely she wasn’t waking dozens of minutes or hours ahead of me. At most it was only a few minutes’ difference. Even if it happened every day it was a little uncanny, but circadian rhythms are like that. Just as I always rose at this hour, she simply rose a tiny bit earlier. That was all.
“Hehe. I only woke up a little while ago myself.”
I threw off the covers, got out of bed, and headed for the dressing room. Selian rose right after me and followed me in.
I changed out of the nightclothes I’d slept in and into comfortable daywear. Selian did the same, shedding a set of sleepwear that was frankly too revealing to keep staring at.
Why was she changing in my room instead of her own?
At some point—probably the day after I gave up locking the door—she had quietly moved several of her outfits into my dressing room without my noticing.
Well, better that than having her wander the mansion corridors at dawn in skimpy nightclothes while the servants were already about. I decided not to make a fuss.
The rest of our day unfolded much like the ones before it.
Morning sparring that doubled as training, breakfast, a short rest for digestion, then more training. We usually wrapped up the day’s regimen between ten and eleven and sat down to lunch. After that it was pure free time.
Sometimes we shopped in the commercial district. Sometimes we took long walks outside the castle walls. Sometimes we had tea in the garden. Sometimes we simply sat across a table in the room and read in companionable silence.
Aside from bathroom breaks and bathing, we were essentially glued together twenty-four hours a day.
One of the things I learned while stuck to Selian’s side was just how much she loved showers and baths. Even when I took my time I finished in thirty minutes at most. Selian’s minimum was an hour; sometimes, like the other day, she went past two.
From a woman’s perspective I was probably the strange one. I really didn’t understand girls at all.
Today, too, we laughed and chattered the whole day away until night had fallen before I knew it.
Since she was going to crawl into my bed anyway and I’d already given up trying to stop her, I decided we might as well sleep together on this last night.
While Selian was bathing in her own room, I finished washing first and began packing the simple things while I waited.
I divided the clothes hanging in the dressing room between two bags, then filled a third with the belongings I’d brought from the academy. There hadn’t been much to begin with. The bulk of it was clothing—uniforms, training wear, casual outfits, a few simple shirts, and underwear.
“Huh? Did I only bring six pairs of underwear?”
We did laundry in between, so it wasn’t a crisis, but I distinctly remembered packing seven—one for each day of the planned week-long stay.
Yet the bag held only six. Had it been the same when I left Anne’s mansion? I hadn’t paid attention then, so I had no memory either way.
I checked the laundry basket in the changing area just in case. Empty. The pair I’d put in today had already been washed and packed.
My underwear all looked more or less the same—I’d bought them without much thought—so I couldn’t even tell which one was missing.
“Oh? What’s with the bags?”
“Today’s the last day. Figured I’d pack ahead instead of rushing tomorrow morning.”
“Ah… has it already been a full week? Is something wrong, though?”
She must have noticed me taking things out and putting them back.
“It’s just… I thought I packed seven pairs of underwear when we left the academy, but I can only find six.”
“R-really?”
“Not in the laundry basket either. Where could it have gone? Hmm…”
“W-well, look carefully. It’s bound to turn up. It’s not like anyone would steal someone else’s underwear.”
“Right? That’d be pretty perverted.”
Who would even want a guy’s underwear in the first place… ah. I’m a girl now, so that doesn’t apply.
“Cough! Cough!”
“Hm? You okay, Seli?”
“Cough… I-I’m fine. Just… something went down the wrong way… cough!”
“Hang on. I’ll get you some water.”
This was Selian’s mansion, but the room was mine as well. I left the coughing girl, fetched a glass from the sitting area, and handed it to her.
“Here. Wait—you’re sweating too? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I… it’s just hot! Why is it so warm in here? Maybe the temperature control’s broken?”
Was it because we’d been cooped up in my room all day? I didn’t feel particularly warm. Selian, though, was fanning herself with one hand and drained the entire glass in one go.
“Anyway, where on earth did it go?”
No matter how thoroughly I searched, the missing pair refused to appear.
“Hmm… maybe I just miscounted.”
After looking this hard and still finding nothing, that was entirely possible.
“Y-yeah, maybe. Or… ah! Counting the one you’re wearing right now, that makes seven, doesn’t it?”
Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. That would bring the total to seven.
“Ah, that must be it. How did I forget something so simple?”
“I-it happens. Nobody remembers every little thing. It’s only one pair of underwear. Don’t worry about it too much.”
“Yeah. Then we’re all set… done!”
Everything else was already packed, so I simply stuffed the items I’d pulled out while searching back into the bags and finished.
“Haa…”
A soft sigh of relief escaped Selian; whatever had caught in her throat seemed to have settled at last.
“Still… this easy life ends today.”
“I had no idea it was already the last day. Time really does fly.”
“Tell me about it. Feels like we only just started vacation.”
If I’d spent the whole break alone in the dorms instead of staying a week each with Yuri, Anne, and Selian, the days would have stretched out at least twice as long.
“How did you like living in the mansion?”
“Obviously I loved it. The dorms are fine too, but having people looking after everything is nice. No need to worry about credits or demerits either.”
“Then how about staying just one more week?”
“Huh?”
The moment I voiced a little regret, Selian suggested I stay longer.
It was comfortable for me, sure, but to the rest of her family it would probably be an imposition.
“No, it’s fine. You don’t have to go out of your way.”
I turned her down. Selian herself was one thing—we were close—but her family would inevitably feel some awkwardness no matter how much she called me a friend.
“Do you have something urgent waiting at the academy? There’s still plenty of vacation left…”
I did have other plans, but nothing urgent. She was right; more than a month remained until classes resumed.
“I just… want to spend a little more time with El. Is that not okay?”
Selian looked up at me with slightly upturned eyes. Meeting that gaze, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse out loud.
“Well… maybe?”
“Hehe. Then shall we unpack these bags again?”
Delighted, she scooped up my clothing bag and disappeared into the dressing room.
Well, it should be fine. Selian’s mansion was the last stop on the itinerary anyway, and a quick trip to the guild hideout wouldn’t take that much time.
Still… if today wasn’t the last day after all, maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to share the bed tonight.