Chapter 58

“Ah.”

I woke up early in the morning as usual and started preparing.

As always, just like usual.

As usual, I washed my body in the bath.

I washed my hair, and starting from my arms, I washed my chest, stomach, thighs, groin, legs, back, buttocks, and so on.

And after coming out, I wiped the moisture from my body and put on my formal attire.

I wore a thin undergarment, a shirt over it, and a blazer over the shirt.

The pants were, as always, formal pants made of a slightly fitting material.

And I walked down the hallway.

The destination was the front of Kyle’s door.

It was then that I realized.

“Kyle isn’t here yet.”

There was still a week left before Kyle would return.

Why did I do this even though I knew?

Has 8 years of time had such a big impact?

Yes, because I did this every day for almost 8 years.

Of course, I couldn’t help but move my body reflexively like this.

I did this every day.

From weekdays to weekends, from my first meeting with Kyle to the day before Kyle left, I spent every day like that.

I could fix it, but it didn’t seem easy.

Just looking at today, I reflexively did this from the morning.

While doing it, I didn’t have any doubts or think it was a problem.

How should I put it, it was close to a designated command in my head.

Was it because I did it every day that my brain recognized it that way?

I don’t know.

I’m not an expert on the brain.

I was in the humanities in my past life too, so how would I know?

The only time I ever read anything related to that field was when it appeared in non-literary passages.

“Sigh….”

I entered Kyle’s room for now.

Though Kyle wasn’t there, it was still Kyle’s room.

Kyle’s room was quiet.

There was no one there except me, so it couldn’t be noisy.

Of course, it wasn’t noisy even when Kyle was there.

“Maybe I’ll clean….”

Since Kyle had been away from his room continuously, maids would have come in to clean several times, but they probably didn’t do it today.

It doesn’t matter if they did.

I had nothing to do anyway since I was already here.

So I started cleaning Kyle’s room.

I borrowed a duster and a rag from a maid passing through the hallway and cleaned.

Kyle wasn’t the type to like messiness, so there was no trash rolling on the floor.

Unlike a certain mage friend of mine.

“Hmm…. Mmm…. Huh…. Uha….”

After finishing cleaning, I stretched, and it felt really refreshing.

By the way, what should I do now?

Somehow, I found myself casually sitting on Kyle’s bed.

And in that state….

-Plop.

I leaned sideways and lay down on the bed.

When I lay on the bed, all I felt was just the sensation of comfort.

It wasn’t like I smelled something, felt good, or wanted to keep lying down.

Really, I felt nothing except that it was comfortable.

When I lay down last time, I felt extremely comfortable and wanted to keep lying in that state.

“Ah, was it because I was tired then?”

If that’s the case, I could understand.

I was really extremely tired at that time.

If I were told to do that work again, I honestly wouldn’t want to.

I just pretended to be strong in front of Kyle, but honestly, it was terribly hard.

Terribly.

“Sigh…”

I don’t know what to do today either.

I read books as Louise recommended, but I got tired of reading books all day for a week.

It was inevitable to get tired of it.

How can it be fun to just read books all day?

I should have read moderately and done other activities as well.

“Haah….”

Such a thought suddenly occurred to me.

That the word I’ve used the most lately is sighing.

It seems strange to call a breath a word, but it’s true.

Whatever I did, I went “ha,” “ehyu,” “hoo.”

Even I thought I was doing it too much.

In my past life, there was nonsense that if you sigh, your luck runs away.

I didn’t believe it then, and I believe it even less now.

If luck ran away with sighs, wouldn’t I be dead by now?

No matter how many sighs I take, I’m not dying, so it was just nonsense after all.

“Now there’s a week left.”

Until Kyle returns.

8 days out of 15 have passed.

It was about enduring 15 days.

That meant he would come on January 16th.

It would be nice if he came on the 15th, but it couldn’t be helped.

“There’s still a week left of vacation….”

Even though it’s a vacation, there wasn’t much to do.

It was only 7 days, too short to travel to another region.

At this rate, the vacation would end as soon as I arrived in another region.

If the vacation had been a month, I would have gone back to my hometown.

Since sending me to boarding school, I’ve only exchanged letters with my parents, and lately, I haven’t even done that much.

Ah, I could go after finishing my work at Eristirol.

It would be over in a few months anyway.

There’s no need to go right away, so it should be fine to go slowly.

“Quitting work at Eristirol, huh…”

It felt really strange.

Is it because I’ve worked here for 8 years?

I didn’t feel this way even when graduating from boarding school.

I attended boarding school from the age of an elementary school student in my past life until I was 16, but it didn’t feel like this at all.

At that time, I thought it was fortunate that I wouldn’t see those fucking bastards anymore.

“I wonder what they’re doing these days.”

I was in the upper ranks academically, but they weren’t so bad as to be called failures.

I remember they were in the upper-middle to middle ranks.

But I’ve never seen them after leaving boarding school.

Not even once.

I should have run into them at least once in life.

“Hmmmm…”

No matter how much I think about it, I really never met them.

It’s not like there were few people from boarding school, so how come I haven’t run into even one of them?

The servants around the nobles in the capital last time weren’t those bastards I knew.

Was I the only graduate of that year who got a job in a noble family?

“Kup…”

That would be funny if true.

I couldn’t help but laugh thinking that the bastards who threw tantrums at me for trivial reasons even lagged behind in employment.

The ones who said I would be slow at cleaning because my breasts were large, who spouted nonsense that employers would look at unnecessarily large breasts, who screamed “prostitute” whenever I changed clothes.

It was really funny to think that these guys who threw tantrums at me were even behind in employment.

“Ha… Haha…”

After laughing for a few seconds like that, I returned my expression to normal.

Honestly, thinking about those bastards didn’t make me feel good.

I once told Kyle something with the nuance that it’s better to just let things go.

Was it when I was injured?

Probably.

At that time, Kyle was so worried he almost cried, so I said that to reassure him.

It wasn’t wrong.

I thought, “These things happen,” and “You face all sorts of crap in life.”

But the thing is, I’m not perfectly kind and innocent either.

In Kyle’s case, it truly wasn’t his fault.

It was really an accident that could happen.

But those bastards were different.

“If I tell Kyle about this, will his affection for me decrease?”

I’ve tried to be a wonderful adult to Kyle until now.

I wanted Kyle to grow up to be a kind, cool, good adult.

But what if I directly tell Kyle these thoughts I’ve been having? Would his image of me be shattered?

It probably would.

Even I would be surprised if someone I thought was cool suddenly expressed such thoughts, as it would be different from their usual speech.

“Haha…”

I’m definitely an adult, but do I still have childish aspects?

Today, useless thoughts kept swirling in my head.

“Ahh!!! I miss Miss Sofia!”

I shouted in the direction opposite to where the domain would be.

Perhaps because I haven’t met Miss Sofia for over a week, I kept thinking about her.

Of course, it’s the same normally, but.

“Haah… There’s nothing to do.”

While hunting, blood splattered, so I had already thrown my top on the ground long ago.

There was nothing to do.

There was nothing to eat.

There was food, but it didn’t taste good.

Unlike other regions, this was an area where it was difficult to obtain spices from nature.

Of course, in the domain or castle, it was enough to buy them from other regions.

Our family had a lot of money.

We regularly defeated monsters that came down, sold goods, and there was also some support from the imperial family.

“The imperial family…”

I suddenly remembered something that happened before.

An event from several years ago.

The day I first arrived in the capital and made my debut.

The day when Miss Sofia was extremely worried.

It was really amazing how a person’s pupils could be purple.

It was surprising to see purple pupils with ordinary blonde hair.

Before, Miss Sofia said that purple was the color that symbolized the imperial family.

Probably because their eyes are really rare purple, they made that their symbolic color.

Our family isn’t much different in that aspect.

“A white wolf symbolizing the family… that’s cool.”

There are beasts like bears or snow leopards, but it happened to be a wolf.

If I had to think about why the ancestor specifically chose a wolf, it wasn’t much.

It’s an animal that hunts in groups, has high intelligence, and values the position of a leader, so that must be it.

“Wolf…”

When we visited the zoo in the capital before, Miss Sofia mentioned wolves.

To be honest, I had many strange thoughts at that time.

Because the wolf symbolizing our family suddenly came from the lips of the person I like.

Of course, as always, Miss Sofia was just explaining.

“Haha… Now it’s past… half of the week.”

Yes, half of it has passed.

Already.

It seems to have passed faster than I expected.

“Haah…”

By the way, I was worried.

Given Father’s personality, it was clear he would assign me a lot of work once this was over.

It’s clear he’ll say he’s going out to play again.

But I also had things to do for a while.

There were many things to do related to Miss Sofia.

I needed to get closer to Miss Sofia and make her recognize me as a man.

There were various stages after that too.

“As soon as I return, I should talk to Miss Sofia and then go to Father.”

For now, I missed Miss Sofia more than anything, so it couldn’t be helped.