"Mm... mm..."
Some sensation, like I was being held in someone’s arms, wrapped around me.
As I savored that very soft, very warm feeling, the light spilling through the crack in my closed eyelids was enough to make me frown.
"Ugh..."
I wanted to stay like this a little longer.
That thought took over my brain, and I tried to keep sleeping with my eyes shut, but the sunlight had already grown strong enough to force them open.
"Haaah~ Tch. It’s already morning?"
I looked out the window where sunlight was coming in and recalled what happened yesterday.
"We got back way too late."
Maria said she wanted to see the stars, so I stayed with her and looked up at them, then came home far too late.
Thanks to that, I’d been put through a bit of hell by everyone else.
"I should get up soon."
After a little while, the sleepiness had mostly worn off, and since it was about time for everyone else to wake up too, I decided to get out of bed and start making breakfast.
"...Hm?"
As I moved my arm to get up, something touched it.
Too hard to be a pillow, too soft to be a wall.
Something like that had brushed against my arm.
I figured it was probably a person.
"Could it be Yoshino?"
That was my first guess.
She did have a track record of climbing into my bed with the Fire Keeper during Mayuri’s incident.
But somehow, it didn’t seem like Yoshino.
Yoshino wore pajamas to sleep, but what I felt when I touched it wasn’t the texture of pajamas.
"Just who..."
I turned my head to see who was lying beside me, and immediately lost the ability to speak.
"What am I looking at?"
Maria was sleeping soundly right next to me.
And in a very relaxed pose, with her knees pulled up close to her chest.
On top of that, because of what she was wearing, she wasn’t in pants, so I could see her thighs and even a sliver of white underwear.
I wondered if I was dreaming, so I closed my eyes, rubbed them a few times, and opened them again.
Even after all that effort, my situation didn’t change.
"This is the kind of thing that would make anyone misunderstand—"
"Hieta! You awake!?"
"Hero! Are you awake!?"
While I was flustered by Maria sleeping softly beside me, the door opened and two women barged into the room.
"Oh! Just in time, you woke up..."
One of them was Mayuri, and
"..."
the other was the Fire Keeper.
The two of them looked back and forth between me and Maria beside me, then widened their eyes and did exactly what I had just done.
"What? Did I see wrong?"
"Is my health getting worse lately...?"
Even after rubbing their eyes and looking again, the situation didn’t change, and they were horrified.
"Hieta, even so..."
"Hero. Even someone as lacking in knowledge about this world as I am has heard that this sort of thing is not acceptable..."
"What are you talking about!"
To the two of them, who were clearly misunderstanding something, I insisted that I had absolutely not done this.
"You mean you couldn’t resist your momentary desire and ended up using ‘that kind of method’?"
"Do I look like that kind of person to you?!"
"Indeed, you don’t seem like that sort of person..."
"See? Even Sachi said—"
"But, there’s always the possibility..."
"Sachi!?"
The Fire Keeper looked worried.
"I’m starting to worry that you might be a lolicon."
"Where did you even learn that word...?"
"Kotori told me."
Damn it, Commander Shichi, for real!
What the hell are you teaching the Fire Keeper!
"Anyway, I am absolutely not into that sort of thing, and this was not something I did. I just woke up and found Maria lying beside me, that’s all."
I complained bitterly and told them the whole truth.
But for some reason, the expressions on their faces darkened a little after hearing me out.
What, did I mess up?
"Hee~ ‘Maria,’ huh?"
"Your way of addressing her changed, didn’t it?"
"A."
Come to think of it, I hadn’t told anyone Maria’s name yesterday.
In other words, the two of them glaring at me now didn’t know Maria’s name.
"What’s this all about~?"
"Wait, wait. Please give me a chance to explain."
Breaking out in a cold sweat, I told them I had given Maria her name yesterday.
"If that’s the case, then..."
"So Arus has a name now."
Fortunately, the two of them accepted my explanation and dropped the misunderstanding.
"...Mm, mm. ...Mm."
"Oh, she’s awake."
Maybe because of our conversation, or maybe because she’d finished sleeping, Maria rubbed her eyes and sat up.
"...Hi. Good morning."
"H-Hai!?"
"As expected, the two of you really did become that kind of relationship overnight..."
Looks like the misunderstanding still wasn’t cleared up.
Mayuri was shocked that Maria had called me by name.
"We still don’t even call you by name...!"
"I-I don’t mind being called by my name, though?"
In truth, it wasn’t that other people refused to call me by name; I just didn’t really care if they did.
Everyone just called me Hieta, so I’d left it alone.
"Th-Then, I guess I can too..."
"Feel free to call the Fire Keeper by name too."
Once I gave my permission, the Fire Keeper’s face brightened.
Was it really that big a deal?
"I can call you that too, right?"
"Of course."
I left the two of them happily chatting and turned to Maria.
"Well, anyway, yes. I slept well. Did you sleep well too, Maria?"
"Yes. I slept well too."
"Sorry to ask this right after waking up, but why were you sleeping here...?"
I needed to know this.
Why Maria had been sleeping beside me.
"Why... do you think?"
No, if you put it like that.
"H-Hey, you really did drag Arus over in her sleep...!"
"Please stop...! How far are you planning to take this nonsense!"
Thanks to Mayuri, who kept trying to pin this on me, I was getting more and more frustrated.
"Maria! You know I didn’t do this, right!"
To clear up my frustration, I turned to Maria, who would know the whole story.
"Yes. I entered Hai’s bed on my own. It was a voluntary action."
"See? I told you I didn’t—"
"Ghh! I’m jealous!"
"Next time I want to be by the hero’s side too..."
"No, these people are seriously unbelievable."
The two of them were jealous after hearing that Maria had climbed into my bed of her own accord.
I was at a loss looking at them.
And more importantly, Fire Keeper, you already have a track record!
"Jealous... I am. You, who love Higakieta Hai, do you want to share a bed with Higakieta Hai?"
"Th-That..."
"A little, yes..."
At Maria’s sudden question, Mayuri and the Fire Keeper answered with red faces, and I was dumbfounded all over again.
They’d been showing every last bit of jealousy a second ago, and now they wanted to act shy about it?
"Sigh. So why were you sleeping beside me, Maria?"
"...Come to think of it. Was it... not a simulation of actions related to love?"
Maria asked back as if even she wasn’t sure, despite it being her own action.
I thought, as expected.
"Anyway, I need to eat breakfast, so could everyone please leave my room?"
I needed to eat breakfast, and I also had to change clothes, so I sent everyone out of my room.
After that, Maria and the Fire Keeper went downstairs, and Mayuri waited for me by the door.
"Hieta."
"Yes?"
"Has Arus’s behavior changed somehow? It feels different from before."
"You felt that too, Mayuri?"
Mayuri said Maria seemed somehow different.
And I agreed with that thought.
"I think Maria may be starting to feel emotions little by little."
Yesterday, when she looked up at the night sky and said it was strange, and said it was beautiful.
All of that was proof Maria was changing.
"I see."
"Yes. It doesn’t seem like she can express it yet, though."
"Well, it seems like she’s changing in a good direction. I’ll head out too."
"I’ll just change clothes and head downstairs too."
After my conversation with Mayuri ended, I changed clothes and went downstairs.
"Hieta! Is what I heard true!?"
"What is?"
"That you let those three call you by your name!"
"Hieta! Is that true!?"
"Please. Yuzuru would also like to call Hieta by name."
"Darling! Why didn’t you allow me to..."
And then I got bombarded with questions about names from everyone surrounding me, which I definitely hadn’t expected.
"I don’t mind being called by my name, you know?"
"Huh?"
Of course, I solved everything with one line.
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