Chapter 83

“Would you like one...?”

“Enough. Come here.”

Turning away, Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion carefully tucked the half-eaten hot dog into Miro.

“Why are you putting that away? So you can take it back out and finish it later?”

“Yes...”

“Get your pajamas.”

Commander Dezeb Avganis sighed again and placed a call.

“Bring some food up to the room.”

As Erabelle pulled a cotton T-shirt over her head, she stole a glance at him.

“Staring at me won’t change anything.”

He shrugged off his jacket and vest, tossed them over a chair, and flopped onto the bed.

Thank goodness.

Any more than this and her back really might have snapped.

“When is your stamina ever going to improve?”

Once she obediently lay down beside him, he pressed her cheek between his fingers like a fish.

“And when are you finally going to score an eighty?”

“I still think the machine must be broken.”

“No chance.”

Propping his head on one hand, he let out another sigh.

“Were you so uncomfortable that you couldn’t even eat today?”

“Yes. My lower back felt tight...”

“...”

Dezeb rolled his eyes.

Then, for some reason, he started laughing again.

What on earth does he find so funny?

For someone who looked like him, he had an unexpectedly low threshold for laughter.

After chuckling for a while, he lowered his gaze, his expression softening, and rested his cheek against his arm.

“How do you like the marquisate?”

“Ah... it seems beautiful.”

Caught off guard, Erabelle blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

Fortunately, he let the vague answer pass.

“Good.”

Trying not to be distracted by how unfairly beautiful he looked, Erabelle paused to choose her words.

“Um... about yesterday.”

“Mm?”

“Thank you. For saving the Count.”

At her cautious gratitude, he raised an eyebrow.

“I was so flustered that I’m only saying it now...”

Her voice slowly died away.

He was looking at her with that strangely pitying expression again.

By now, she had learned to recognize it.

That look meant exactly one thing.

“Am I digging my own grave again?”

“It seems to have become a habit.”

He caught her by her narrow shoulders, pushed her onto her back, and bit lightly at her closed lips.

Startled, Erabelle swallowed a breath.

Leaning over her, Dezeb slipped out his tongue and slowly traced the swollen curve of her mouth.

“...Open.”

He teased her lips, then nipped at them when she stubbornly kept them closed.

Soon, they parted obediently.

He swept over the softness inside her mouth, then turned his head and grazed his teeth along the rim of her ear and down the nape of her neck.

“D-Dezeb, I’m still at seventy-nine...!”

At her plaintive protest, he froze.

Then he groaned and sagged over her.

Pinned beneath his weight, Erabelle let out a muffled grunt.

“...When are you going to hit eighty?”

With another miserable groan, Dezeb rolled onto his back.

He looked at her flushed face with open dissatisfaction before finally saying,

“If we’re not going to do anything, we might as well plan tomorrow’s sightseeing route.”

“A... sightseeing route?”

Now?

“Unless you’d rather spend the entire day in bed tomorrow.”

“I’ll get the pad.”

That answer clearly displeased him.

He grumbled under his breath.

“It’ll take a few days to repair the ship. Clearing the residual smog is work too. While we’re waiting, let’s take the Count sightseeing. We can earn a few points with my future in-laws while we’re at it.”

He brought up system information on the pad and began tapping through possible destinations.

“How about this one? NE44. It’s a young star, so we can observe a primitive ecosystem. SW1120 is good too. Supernova tours depend on timing, though.”

For someone from a house whose entire domain consisted of only three planets, sightseeing in the Avganis marquisate operated on an entirely different scale.

“I think this one looks fine too—”

“Don’t just pick whichever is closest.”

Before the food he had ordered even arrived, Erabelle began to nod off.

She tried to stay awake, but with stamina this hopeless, too much had happened both yesterday and today.

Curled against his side, feeling his hand slowly sweep down her back, Erabelle slipped into a deep sleep.

His side had become so familiar that by now, even pretending to feel uncomfortable there was becoming difficult.

***

“...N..., N29, E31...”

It was the New Year Festival.

Counting the seconds, Erabelle slipped out of the Imperial Palace ballroom and hid in the servants’ quarters.

In the darkness of someone else’s room, she struggled out of her dress, wriggled into a short gym outfit, and shoved her feet into a pair of student sneakers.

Then she scrambled out the window in such a hurry that she nearly twisted her ankle—

except...

“...?”

The ground beneath her was soft.

“...Cushions?”

A mountain of white rabbit cushions, large and small, had been piled below the window.

After struggling her way out, Erabelle hesitated.

They look like they were just thrown away, but if I gathered them up and sold them, that would cover two days of living expenses...

No.

Not now.

For the first time in eight years, a rift leading to Earth had appeared.

Erabelle snapped back to herself and ran.

“5, 512...”

Her breath scraped painfully through her throat.

The Imperial Palace garden.

A restricted area where entry was forbidden.

Checking the coordinates on the display over her hand as she ran, Erabelle suddenly stopped.

There, glinting beneath the moonlight—

“‘Romantic 1’ First-Press Limited Edition!!”

It came with a twelve-card photocard set and three entire postcards.

Even the poses were different from the standard edition.

In the regular one, James was standing.

But in the limited edition, he was lying down.

If he’s lying down, I can’t resist!

She dashed over and scooped it up.

And directly in front of it—

a signed copy.

Further ahead—

the scarf from the premiere.

Then the sunglasses from the fan signing event.

Erabelle frantically gathered everything she saw as she ran, until at last she found someone standing in her path.

“I already knew, but seeing it again is making me angry all over.”

He was a beautiful man.

“One day, I’m going to sell every last one of these. Or burn them.”

“W-Why are you... here...?”

Dezeb Avganis.

The protagonist of this world.

A psychopath who killed people without a second thought.

And the man in front of her was wearing bunny ears.

Bunny ears?

They were far too adorable to pretend she had not noticed them.

“Sit.”

He flicked his gaze toward a table.

In the middle of a moonlit forest stood a table draped in white linen.

It was covered with food.

Smoked sausages.

Fried chicken.

Frozen pizza and lasagna.

Several sets of beer.

“...”

A strange compulsion seized her.

If she did not eat now, she felt as though she might never get another chance.

“I said sit.”

As though the command had been programmed directly into her body, Erabelle sat down and began eating, awkwardly but with complete sincerity.

“I don’t understand the bunny thing.”

Neither do I.

The man seated across from her crossed his legs elegantly and complained.

“Taking the path of least resistance is fine. But couldn’t you at least settle for being a guest?”

He hooked a pocket watch around one finger and began to swing it.

Perhaps that was why her thoughts slowly became hazy.

“Um... c-could I ask who you are...?”

Playing dumb, she asked.

He answered with the expression of someone utterly incapable of lying convincingly.

“Research staff.”

The next Marquis?

“Fill out the survey.”

Only then did she notice the thick stack of papers wedged between the plates of smoked sausages.

“...Do I have to fill out all of this...?”

“Yes. Slowly. Every page.”

Leisurely checking his pocket watch, he spoke in a tone far too calm for the contents of the questions.

“How many times per week do you consider appropriate for relations? How many hours per session do you think would be appropriate...”

The unit seemed wrong.

Shouldn’t it be minutes rather than hours...?

Erabelle stared blankly at the form.

Then she caught the curve of his gaze and hurriedly lowered her head.

There was something indecent in his eyes.

Just meeting them made her feel strange.

And frightened.

But with a face like his, he could get away with practically anything.

In this otherworld, all natural beauties seemed to be walking weapons of mass destruction, and even among them, Dezeb stood at the very top.

In other words, anyone with functioning eyesight was doomed.

Grateful to have something else to focus on, Erabelle diligently filled out the survey.

Dezeb took the completed form and graded it.

“Seventy-nine.”

Why?

“If you’d just add one more point...”

“Try harder. One hour? Who exactly are you trying to starve to death?”

So the answers were predetermined!

Then why bother with a survey at all...?

“Finish the rest. That last page only needs your signature.”

Erabelle had thought she was done.

But just as he said, one page remained.

Startled and still half-dazed, she signed where he indicated.

Only afterward did she realize that the document was a prenuptial agreement.

“It’s a provisional contract. It still carries legal force.”

Dezeb smiled.

“Which means I’m legally your fiancé now.”

If I try to have it annulled...

“Do you think that would work?”

Did I say that out loud?

“We’ll review the formal contract after the family heads finish negotiating it. The Count must be worried. He’s refusing quite a few clauses.”

For some reason, Erabelle felt strangely deflated.

A breeze from the river stirred the leaves.

The tablecloth rippled gently.

Grass whispered beneath it.

Across from her sat a breathtakingly beautiful man, lazily flipping through a stack of survey papers...

A breathtakingly beautiful man who was still complaining that four times a week was far too little.

Erabelle felt oddly unsettled.