Saintess, You Mustn't Do This (2): Bird Kiss
The Saintess. You mustn’t do this. (2) Bird Kiss. A fresh, innocent kiss where you simply pressed your lips together lightly, like small birds tapping their beaks against each other. Whoever coined the name, I had to admit it was well chosen. The way she kept pecking at my skin with those ripe-cherry lips of soft pink made her look exactly like a newborn chick. Except it wasn’t an adorable parrot. In my eyes, she was a crow feasting on a corpse.
“Oh Lord. I am your finger. A mere young—”
“Chu.”
“Under your divine authority… I shall grant rest to every being upon this land…”
“Chu.”
“That glory is—ugh, all…!”
“Chu.”
“I offer it to you—Kgh! Saintess! Please stay still for one moment!”
“Chu.”
I was losing my mind. Every time I tried to recite the healing prayer, a strange, seductive ripple would interrupt, constantly disturbing my concentration. Those clumsy kisses were mysteriously sensual, laced with a pitiful tenderness that tickled down my spine. Every single motion carried a decadent allure that felt too perfect for this world, as if some god were deliberately trying to melt what little reason I still possessed.
Her silk-like white hair lay tangled carelessly across my body yet still retained every bit of its radiant glory. The seductive weight pressing on my thighs kept stimulating the lust buried inside me, relentlessly awakening senses that were trying to scatter. It felt like someone was forcibly digging up the underground spring of desire I had long ago sealed away, leaving me floating in ecstasy. Had I not undergone emotional suppression training during my priesthood, I would never have endured this trial of temptation.
“Saintess!”
I sat up in a hurry to wipe away the impure thoughts flooding my head. The moment I did, the Saintess yanked her bright-red hand—stained with terrible scars—behind her back like a child caught sneaking snacks. She watched me carefully, gauging my reaction.
That sullen attitude. The dissatisfied look in her eyes. I knew exactly what it meant. It was a desperate declaration: If you don’t lower yourself so I can kiss you, I won’t let you heal this hand either.
I was truly going insane.
“Saintess. Didn’t we have an agreement? I said I would overlook it if you kissed anywhere on my body except the lips. In return, you promised to cooperate with the treatment of your hand.”
“……”
“Yet you won’t even give me time to finish the prayer and keep pressing your lips against me like this. Isn’t that going too far? On top of that, you’ve been subtly angling toward my lips the whole time. If you keep doing that, I can’t concentrate. If we keep wasting treatment time and an indelible scar remains on your hand, what exactly do you plan to—”
“……”
Unaccustomed to raising my voice, my already depleted mental strength dried up even further. A stinging pain throbbed in my gut. If word got out that a scar had been carved into the noble Saintess’s body, the punishment awaiting me would plunge into an abyss far beyond anything my meager imagination could conjure.
Therefore, I had to heal the scar on her hand as quickly as possible and erase every last trace of evidence left in this room. Even if I claimed the Saintess had harmed herself and I had done nothing, the believers would never accept it at face value. And even if they did believe me, they would still accuse me of abetting her self-harm and try to tear my limbs apart. The result would be the same.
“Chuu… I’m going to…”
“Haa…”
Whether she understood my anxiety or not, watching the Saintess charge at me like a bulldozer to satisfy only her own greed brought a surge of irritation. Along with it came a nightmare phrase from my younger days that used to torment me.
Oppa, is this why you’re meeting me?
Yes. So this was the feeling.
If gaining even a fragment of understanding about a woman’s heart—something I couldn’t even guess at in my previous life—counted as a silver lining, then it was one. But since the current situation causing these thoughts remained unchanged, it brought little comfort. More than that, I simply could not fathom why she was so obsessed with something as worthless as my lips.
The Saintess had shown unreasonable stubbornness before, but those episodes had always been resolved within the compromise lines I drew. This was the first time I had ever seen her express her will so rigidly. It was a completely new side of her.
Perhaps she had awakened that childish frog-like instinct—the one that makes children want something even more the moment they’re told they can’t have it because they’re not adults yet. I prayed she would at least be spared that.
“…Saintess. This should be enough, shouldn’t it? Please give me your hand…”
“I’m going to… Chuu… I’m going to…”
She flinched at my firm tone and shuffled backward, yet she showed no sign of yielding. Anyone watching would think I was trying to steal her most precious treasure. In truth, I was the one having my precious breakfast time stolen.
Ah, damn it. Looked like I would be stuck with a single potato for breakfast again. Living like this was so delightful I could go mad. Truly.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Despite my pounding heart, the wristwatch continued its steady rhythm. Nine thirty. Breakfast time had ended long ago; I could delay no longer.
It couldn’t be helped. I would have to use the final resort.
“Welna. You promised Oppa, didn’t you?”
“…!”
Under normal circumstances, a guardian priest sworn to protect the Saintess’s safety and authority with his life speaking to her informally—let alone calling himself Oppa and acting like family—would constitute a grave blasphemy. His title would be stripped and his head severed on the spot without question. Yet for me, the word Oppa carried enough merit to outweigh those demerits. It was, quite literally, a magic spell.
“A promise must be kept unless there are unavoidable circumstances. Oppa did what Welna wanted, so now Welna has to do what Oppa wants. Oppa would really like it if Welna quietly let him treat her hand.”
“Aah…”
“Oppa hates Welna when she breaks her promises.”
“Ah, aah…! Aaaaah!”
For the first time, my words and actions drew a clear flicker of agitation from her. It showed just how much weight my words carried when I spoke as Oppa.
She kept glancing back and forth between her injured hand and my face, her pitiful fidgeting stirring my protective instincts. But the irritation from having my precious breakfast time stolen easily overpowered any such positive feelings.
I reached out.
“…Fine.”
She should have done that from the beginning.
Her voice still carried a slight stutter, but the Saintess finally extended her injured hand toward me obediently. After that, everything went smoothly. I offered the prayer and performed the healing. No interference came this time. The wound closed cleanly, and I wiped away every trace of blood. It was, by all accounts, a perfect resolution.
Someone might ask why I hadn’t simply used the Oppa card from the start. It was a fair question. My own thoughts were not much different. However.
At my age, constantly nagging a girl with a huge age gap using Oppa this and Oppa that honestly felt like the behavior of a parasite who lives off women or a male prostitute. The mental resistance was no joke. It gave me the same visceral feeling I got when watching acquaintances who overdid their pretentious acts or Japanese idols who referred to themselves in the third person.
How should I describe it? It felt like a perfectly healthy adult with the mental age of a five-year-old playing house. This mysterious, spine-tickling sensation was probably impossible to fully understand without experiencing it firsthand.
Anyway, I had safely overcome what might have been the greatest crisis of this life. Today’s kissing commotion had been nothing more than a small mishap caused by choosing the wrong fairy tale book. If I simply paid more attention to screening the books from now on, such an incident would never happen again.
Above all, children lost interest in things quickly. The events of today would surely be wiped clean from the Saintess’s mind by tomorrow.
That carefree thought of mine was shattered into pieces without a trace left behind, only a few days later.
“Saintess… It’s time for breakfast…”
“I’m going to chu.”
Dear Lord.