Chapter 103

Dezeb approached Erabelle as she stood motionless, tilted his head, and gave her a light kiss. His soft lips smelled of coffee.

“Coffee or beer?”

“Beer, please.”

“Why did I bother asking?”

Frowning, Dezeb took a cold bottle of beer from the refrigerator and handed it to her.

“Shall we watch TV for a change? Get all the frozen food out, too.”

“All of it...?”

“Oh, I nearly forgot. Wait here.”

Ships usually had two passages.

One was for passengers; the other was for cargo. Dezeb abruptly opened the cargo door.

Erabelle watched him with a gloomy expression.

Her bad feelings had an irritating habit of coming true. He cleared out an entire truckload of frozen food she had stored inside Miro.

“......”

She felt as though her soul had been emptied out along with it.

“Get the medicine out, too.”

“All of it...?”

“Yes. Every last bit.”

After even the perfectly good medicine had been loaded onto a disposal cart, Erabelle stared blankly at the few frozen meals he had left her and put them in the microwave.

“What movie should we watch?”

“Romantic 5...”

“You still have that sex video I recorded for you, don’t you? Put it on. Or should we make a new one?”

“A comedy would be nice.”

“All right.”

It felt just like an evening at Dezeb’s house. They set out a few frozen meals, watched TV and lingered for a while, then had sex, just as they had on those evenings.

“Ah...!”

Gripping her waist, he thrust hard. Erabelle fell back, trembling, and he leaned over her to give her a light kiss.

“Feel good?”

“...I ate t-too much...”

“What, can’t digest it?”

He tossed out the question, then gave a slight tremor. He moved inside her without withdrawing, making Erabelle shudder and moan.

“Honestly.”

Dezeb pushed himself up with a sigh.

“I told you not to make me laugh during sex. Are you trying to make me come on purpose?”

He grumbled, but he supported his weight on his arms and began to thrust slowly. Reaching out, he brushed Erabelle’s tearful cheek.

“You’re so consistent that you’ll keep ruining your life.”

“...What?”

What a horrible thing to say...

Before she could finish the thought, he rubbed against her deep inside. The wet sound seemed to sweep through her entire body. He drew back until the head slipped free, then slowly pushed it in again.

As the folds of her vagina rubbed and parted around him, a tingling sensation ran all the way to her toes. He kept up the slow rhythm, then suddenly drove into her with a hard slap of flesh, the thick head pressing so deep it felt as though it might punch through the back of her womb.

Erabelle’s head tipped back. Her eyes flew wide, and she gasped.

Dezeb resumed his slow thrusts and started lecturing her.

“You ate every single one without saving any. Of course you can’t digest it all. It’s not as though I’m forbidding you from eating them. Why do you have to stuff yourself with everything in sight whenever you get the chance?”

“Ah, uh...”

Could he please do one or the other? Lecture me or do this. Please—

“You need to show some restraint. I’ve told you several times already: cook yourself at least one meal a day. Cut back on the frozen food. Stop buying it and piling it up. And don’t touch the medicine at all.”

He followed her struggling body, pinned her firmly beneath him, and came.

“What did I just say?”

“Ahh, ah...”

What did he say...?

“I asked what I said.”

Pinned beneath him, his weight holding her lower body still, Erabelle pushed her feet against the sheets as she tried to endure his release. She mumbled an answer.

“...Ah, o-one meal a day... frozen food, medicine...”

“Hmm?”

“O-one meal a day, eat all the frozen food, e-every bit I can...”

“You really hear whatever you want to hear.”

He kept thrusting while he repeated himself until she got it right. Even after she managed to say it properly, Dezeb made her repeat it again and again. Enduring him inside her, she had to recite the same instructions over and over.

“Good girl.”

Propping himself up on his elbows, he parted the exhausted Erabelle’s lips, pushed his tongue into her mouth, and made her swallow his saliva. She trembled and tried to close her legs, momentarily forgetting that he was still inside her.

As if to remind her, he pressed his leg against her inner thigh, forced her legs apart, and started thrusting again.

“Keep being good for me.”

Dezeb’s low voice seemed to lick the inside of her ear. Erabelle struggled to focus her blurred eyes on him.

“It’ll only be a little while... Why are you crying?”

“I-I don’t know...”

Erabelle didn’t understand.

Why am I doing this...? I don’t know, but I can’t stop...

Dezeb cupped her face in both hands and kept asking.

“Why all of a sudden? Hmm? Why are you crying?”

“I-I’m not sure...”

“...You’re not crying because you’re happy I’m going to forget you, are you?”

At that, her vision blurred completely. He wiped away the tears spilling down her cheeks with his fingertips, looking a little flustered.

“Tell me why you’re crying.”

I don’t know.

“Nothing’s going to happen. It’s all right. It’s nothing serious. You don’t have to worry. Hmm? Nothing’s going to happen.”

He wrapped both arms around her, holding her small body close, and repeated that she would be all right. Everything would be fine. Nothing would happen. Holding her without leaving the slightest space between them, he kept patting her back.

Huuuuummm—

The sound seemed louder somehow, and Erabelle couldn’t sleep. She lay awake until dawn, when Dezeb received a message and rose from the bed.

He had watched her languidly from where he lay as she dressed. Unlike usual, she had been bitten all over; the aching, throbbing, slightly stinging spots made her hands move slowly. He watched without so much as blinking, as though he could never grow bored of it.

When she fastened the last button, he finally got up, threw on a robe, and left the bedroom, his crotch still wet.

“It makes me feel a little better.”

She couldn’t tell in what way, but that was what he said as he went out.

“When the work’s done, the Dogs will take you home to the capital.”

Erabelle followed him out of the bedroom. As soon as the door closed, the cabin’s components flipped and rearranged like the colored faces of a cube, transforming it into a speedboat.

The Dogs were already waiting by the exit.

She noticed the case Aries was carrying. It was the same briefcase she had seen at the Imperial Palace.

“Oh, and don’t cheat on me.”

After the speedboat left the ship and landed on the uninhabited planet where it had been moored, Dezeb smoothed a stray lock of her hair as he spoke.

“If you cheat, I’ll bankrupt the entire Vermilion domain in the divorce settlement. Don’t forget I’m your legal fiancé. Even if my memories disappear, the prenuptial agreement won’t.”

He pressed a light kiss to her eyelid.

“And I consider an emotional affair cheating, too.”

With a declaration that would put the most conservative country to shame, he nibbled her cheek and left another bite mark. Then he pressed his lips gently to hers once more.

“Dezeb.”

At the Dogs’ cautious call, he sighed.

“Take care of yourself.”

Erabelle stood there watching him walk away for a long time. Her cheek still throbbed, yet he was already far away.

Then, in the distance, he suddenly turned to look back.

“......”

Meeting his gaze, Erabelle pressed her lips together. The tip of her nose grew hot. Her vision blurred again, and all she could do was draw a deep breath.

Dezeb looked at her for a long while before turning away again. Erabelle let the breath out slowly and pressed her palm hard against her burning eyes.

He would lose his memories today.

He had said it was nothing serious.

“Please contact us if anything happens.”

A member of the management team had brought her all the way to her home in the capital. They could have dropped her anywhere convenient in the city, but they had insisted on taking her to her door.

“Whenever you need us, at any hour, please don’t hesitate to call.”

“Yes...”

The employee was kind, but Erabelle wasn’t so oblivious that she would detain him with questions. She could hardly ask an ordinary employee to explain what even Ol had refused to tell her.

She thanked him and went upstairs.

The villa was just as she remembered it.

Quiet and clean.

Erabelle went inside, closed the front door with a click, then leaned against it and slid to the floor.

“......”

On the uninhabited planet where the Antares had been moored, Erabelle had seen millions of Dogs standing in formation.

The sight had frozen her legs in place.

Everyone from the 41st Division was there, along with the entire staffs of Refeisa, ETAP Energy, and Chronos Operation. She had sensed nothing of the preparations for an assembly on that scale.

They were silent.

So silent she couldn’t hear anyone breathe. All of them faced the center.

Dezeb stood there alone.

From the shadow stretching beneath his feet, something like the tangled blood vessels of an enormous living creature rose out of the ground and sank back again, throbbing—thump, thump-thump-thump.

Aries Cedar carried a briefcase to him. The same briefcase Erabelle had seen at the Imperial Palace.