kscans

Chapter 760 - Captives Together

────Click. I heard a sound, and my consciousness surfaced.

Before I could shake off the drowsiness, the first thing I registered was the coldness of my body. Then, its warmth. And a dull, pervasive ache in my joints, like muscle soreness.

Slowly, I lifted my eyelids...

"........................What are you doing, Itsuki-san?"

"That is my line, is it not? Knight-sama."

My eyes fell upon a beautiful woman in a yukata, smiling as she held a camera.

I took in her vaguely returned words, processed them────and then saw the warm reason why my body hadn't completely frozen over despite having fallen asleep against the wall without a blanket. I let out a sigh.

"...My sincerest apologies. A careless mistake on my part."

"Well, I do not mind it at all, you see."

"I think you probably should mind... whoa, there."

As we continued our conversation, it seemed one or both of us had shifted. The girl, still on my lap, stirred, her head resting on my chest as she breathed softly. I gently steadied her.

No sign of waking up...

"Fufu... ────If it were just a nap, perhaps, but when she is this sound asleep, she absolutely will not wake until morning. You have my guarantee as both her big sister and her maid."

"Hah..."

"Incidentally, if you were to wake her forcefully, you would be treated to the sight of her all groggy and soft, which is quite adorable. ...So, with that said, what shall you do?"

"I'm not doing anything. Let her sleep."

I found myself talking at a normal volume, following Itsuki-san's lead, but my partner in my arms didn't even twitch. Her guarantee was no joke.

In any case,

"Oh, but you could leave her as she is."

"No, I really couldn't. Her body will ache."

Since she wasn't waking up, I lifted her without hesitation and performed a meticulously careful landing onto the fluffy futon.

............I had to roll her around rather unceremoniously to get her properly between the mattress and the comforter, but her breathing didn't falter in the slightest. The 'absolute' guarantee was indeed absolute.

A sleeping child grows well. A good thing, I suppose.

"...Apparently, she has not changed since she was young. Her father told me a legendary tale of how, at the age of five, she did not even wake up after a spectacular fall from her bed."

"Ehh..."

"In short, Sora's sleeping posture was... fufu, quite unrestrained. While that has calmed down a little, I still couldn't call it ladylike────"

"Why are you casually spilling a maiden's top-secret information? I'm pretending I didn't hear that, so please, for the love of god, stop. And that wasn't an invitation to continue, you damn maid."

And so, after our usual, hard-to-describe exchange...

"...So, Itsuki-san, you haven't been with her since she was a child, then?"

"Oh, how unusual."

I threw out the question on a whim, expecting to be teased and dismissed──

"────Three years... no, it will be nearly four soon. It was around the time the door to the virtual world opened in reality that she became my 'master'."

──or so I thought. Sitting down beside the sleeping Sora, she began to gently stroke the girl's hair, her calm voice weaving a story.

"When he... Kazuharu Chitose-san, first approached me out of the blue, I was so bewildered by what he was saying that I actually considered reporting him as a suspicious person."

"Huh? Kazuharu-san... ah, as an agent for Togo-shi?"

"Rather, he was the one who recommended me to the Master. The Chitose family, you see, has for generations been a line of 'attendants,' and the Master had initially approached his father for a consultation."

"I, I see..."

It seemed a rather long story was beginning... but, well, that's fine.

We were on a trip, after all. There was no more meaningful way to spend the time than to leisurely fill the gaps in my knowledge about an acquaintance.

"And so, to get to the root of it, I too was once a proper 'young lady'."

"You just casually dropped a huge piece of information."

"In that case, it was only natural that we had our own staff of servants... and that is how the Natsume and Chitose families were connected. And at the time, the head of the Yotsuya family... Yotsuya Togo-sama, who desired the most exceptional 'attendant' available, had the Chitose family trace their vast network, which eventually led them to me."

"..."

"It was, of course, an outrageous affair. We may not have been nobles, but to demand that the daughter of a prominent family be sent over as a servant... My father and mother were, at the time, absolutely furious────or so you might think, but that was not particularly the case."

"It wasn't?!"

I had no idea what state of mind I was supposed to be in while listening to this. As ever, she was, in a way, a terrifyingly good storyteller, this maid (former young lady).

"To begin with, I was a problem child who never listened to my parents, even from a young age. By the time I decided on my own to study abroad, they had more or less given up on me."

"On your own... eh? W-wait... hmm???"

"I believe I was just over ten years old. It was the result of my trying every possible means to make the impossible a reality... fufu, it was quite an amusing experience."

"This person is terrifying..."

I couldn't understand a single word she was saying. Which meant, much like her parents, it would be best for me to give up trying to understand early on.

"In any case, that is why. My father apparently introduced me, saying that if they desired an 'exceptionally talented eccentric,' they could have me. He told them to handle all the scouting and persuading themselves."

"Is your relationship with your parents okay?"

"They have not disowned me. When I do show my face on rare occasions, both my father and mother are delighted to see me."

"'Rare occasions'... I'll just content myself with the fact that you have a unique family."

Everyone is different. The world must be full of all kinds of families. As long as she says there's no problem and speaks of it so cheerfully, it's probably none of my business to think too much about it.

"And then...────this is getting tedious, so I will just skip to the end."

"Because it's tedious???"

"They had me meet Sora, and I was utterly captivated at first sight. I thought I could devote my life to supporting and helping this child. ...At least, in my eyes."

She brushed off my interjection as if it were nothing, as always.

"This child seemed more dazzling, more brilliant... and more fragile than anything else in the world."

Just as her words described, she gazed upon her most precious treasure, with all her heart and soul.

"I knew that I had to be the one to protect her. I was convinced of it in a single glance────and I was confident I could fulfill that role."

She smiled, as if cherishing the present that was spun from the past.

"For you see, I was... the 'exceptionally talented eccentric who could make the impossible possible'."

"..."

As I fell silent, feeling the weight of her emotions, her truly mature eyes turned to me. As if to say, it's a dramatic story, you may laugh if you wish... which is precisely why,

"I can't laugh at that."

Indeed, who could possibly laugh at her?

"If Itsuki-san is 'Captive Number One' in the real world, then I am 'Captive Number One' in the virtual world."

Fellow captives, both of us smitten at first sight.

I am the one person who can wholeheartedly nod and say, I completely understand, to her 'dramatic story.' When I said that, Itsuki-san made a rare expression... looking at me as if she were seeing something strange.

It's a bit late for that.

I think of myself as having a fundamentally normal mentality and way of thinking, but────at the same time, I am fully aware that I am a profoundly odd eccentric.

"........................Is that so. ...────Nozomi-san."

"Yes. ...Huh, yes? Nozo... why all of a sudden?"

"Hinting at a shared position to feign sympathy is a classic move to get closer to a woman... could it be that I am being courted right now?"

"Save the sleep-talking for when you're asleep. I'll be taking my leave now."

Alas, trying to act like a friend to this woman was, for me, a challenge of far too high a difficulty. And so, for a while longer, I would have to resort to fleeing from her skillful teasing.

"Goodnight, Itsuki-san."

"Fufu...────Yes. Goodnight, Kasuga-san."

And as I left, once again...

Seeing her perfectly serene smile, I was certain that 'a while' would continue for a very distant future... and yet, for some reason.

I didn't mind it at all.