Summer Vacation – 7

“Sorry, my dad is a bit… like that.”

Cordelia bowed her head and apologized to the group. She couldn’t understand why Duke Deneb was behaving this way. While others had given the Duke nicknames like “grizzly,” she didn’t think her father was bear-like at all. He was more like a fox.

He was someone who knew exactly how to use his bear-like image most efficiently. He usually dealt with most matters in a lenient manner that others might consider foolish, avoiding making enemies. For such a person to deliberately continue saying things that would make all four of us uncomfortable, despite her protests? Cordelia shook her head. Without a doubt, he must have some ulterior motive.

Perhaps that’s why she felt even more uncomfortable. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but if it caused any harm to her friends, she inwardly vowed not to speak to Duke Deneb for at least a year.

“No, why are you bowing your head, Miss Cordelia?”

Hestia waved her hands and raised Cordelia up. Honestly, the person who should have felt the worst after hearing that story was Hestia. It must have been quite uncomfortable to hear that her fiancé might have originally been engaged to another woman. Especially when that woman still had feelings for her fiancé.

Nevertheless, Hestia showed no change in expression, as if she were truly fine with it.

After a brief awkward silence, Hestia brought up an unexpected topic.

“Cordelia, want to bathe together like old times?”

It was a suggestion made with the calculation of easing Cordelia’s apparent discomfort, catching up on stored conversations, and also instilling some caution in the two as Mikhail’s definite primary wife.

“Together?!”

Mikhail’s eyes widened. Bathing together, how exactly? Various distracting thoughts began to swirl around in his head.

“Bathe together?”

“We used to do it often before.”

Cordelia momentarily fell into reminiscence. The Deneb Duchy’s bathhouse was suspiciously large in scale, and when Hestia visited as a child, they always bathed together. Both of them, once in the bath, would stay until their hands and feet were thoroughly soaked, and they wouldn’t think of leaving until the Duchess of Deneb came to pull them out.

“Should we… do that?”

Cordelia nodded after a brief consideration. It had been a while since Hestia came to her home, and she thought that bathing together might help wash away some of these uncomfortable feelings. She also wanted to show Lily the bathhouse.

“Mikhail, you’re not having strange thoughts, are you?”

Hestia snapped at Mikhail, who was completely failing to maintain his composure.

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

Mikhail instantly put on a solemn expression.

“Obviously, only the girls will be bathing together.”

“I know that without you saying it.”

He replied curtly. A slightly disappointed voice. Though he pretended otherwise, Hestia thought he sometimes showed a tendency to be unreasonably perverted.

Before Hestia could say anything, Lily, who had been listening to the conversation as if it were someone else’s business, asked in apparent surprise:

“Wait, when you say girls, does that include me?”

“Were you thinking of bathing with Mikhail?”

“No. Just by myself…”

Hestia grabbed Lily’s wrist as she tried to slink away.

“Wait! I just prefer bathing alone…”

“Come on, don’t be like that. Miss Lily will probably be surprised too.”

Whatever she was thinking, Lily, who was clearly panicked, attempted to escape, but to no avail. Her meek resistance was quickly subdued. She was dragged to the bathhouse by Hestia.

“Wow, it’s really spacious!”

Lily, with a towel wrapped around her body, exclaimed in admiration. Marble decorations throughout the steam-filled bathhouse spouted water. The drainage systems, free from even a hint of mold or water stains, showed how much care the Deneb servants put into cleaning.

“What do you think? I told you to come along.”

“Indeed. I’m glad I did.”

Cordelia said proudly. Lily happily agreed. Having come to this world, she never thought she’d get to visit such a splendid bathhouse, so her joy was great. Honestly, it was much larger and cleaner than the public bathhouse she occasionally visited in her neighborhood.

“I never thought it would be this spacious and nice.”

“Hmph. You can enjoy it to your heart’s content during this week.”

Cordelia shrugged at Lily’s praise.

Hestia was looking around the bathhouse with a somewhat nostalgic gaze. After surveying for a while, she dipped her hand into the bath. Back then, the water would reach her chin when she sat there, making it impossible to sit still, but now it would probably reach her chest.

“It seems a bit smaller.”

“Well, both you and I have grown since then.”

Cordelia replied nonchalantly. For her, who used it daily, there wasn’t much of a change in perception, but she understood it might seem that way from Hestia’s perspective. Don’t we all sometimes feel that things that seemed so large when we were children don’t seem as big when we’ve grown up?

“Right. Both Miss Cordelia and I have grown a lot.”

Hestia swirled her soaked hand slightly to check the water temperature. Just the right temperature. After wetting her hands and feet by scooping up water a few times, she untied the towel around her body and entered the bath.

“Wow…”

Lily blankly stared at Hestia’s body. She was admiring both the overwhelming volume and mass of Hestia’s assets and the snow-white skin so transparent that veins were visible.

‘Wow, this is really amazing. It’s my first time seeing breasts that actually float on water in real life.’

Hestia, perhaps uncomfortable with her intense gaze, shrank back.

“Miss Lily, even so, staring so intently makes me a bit embarrassed.”

“Ah, sorry.”

Lily hastily shook her head. She tested the temperature with her toes a few times and then entered the bath. She fidgeted with the towel that had been wrapped around her body and then created what’s called a “sheep’s head” and placed it on her head.

“Oh, what’s that?”

Cordelia immediately showed interest. Lily blamed herself for unconsciously displaying a habit from Earth, but she couldn’t undo what she had already done.

“Well, it’s called a sheep’s head.”

So she decided to be honest. While she generally preferred not to spread Earth-related things, it wasn’t as if a sheep’s head was some advanced technology; nothing would happen just because a towel-folding method spread around.

“Sheep… now that you mention it, it does look like sheep horns.”

Cordelia slightly bent her fingers and brought them to the sides of her head.

“Shall I make one for you?”

“Oh! Yes, please!”

Cordelia unhesitatingly removed the towel wrapped around her and handed it to Lily. Then she jumped into the bath almost as if diving. While the water didn’t splash much, the surface rippled vigorously.

“Miss Cordelia. Isn’t that a bit too bold, even among women?”

Hestia frowned. Cordelia seemed completely devoid of any sense of embarrassment. But she was confident. She instead began to attack Hestia.

“Aren’t you being too insolent yourself, Hestia?”

“Insolent?”

“Those breasts! What are they exactly!”

Cordelia’s finger pointed at Hestia’s chest. Hestia blushed and covered her breasts with her hands.

“Wh-what are you talking about!”

“I thought they were no joke even when you were clothed, but seeing them like this, they really are no joke. What is this?”

Cordelia surveyed the chests of the three of them in turn: herself, Hestia, and Lily. While she never thought of herself as small, Hestia was simply overwhelming. Fortunately, she wasn’t the smallest. Lily was a bit smaller than her.

She began to attack Hestia relentlessly.

“They weren’t this big before. What good stuff have you been eating by yourself?”

“I didn’t eat anything!”

Hestia shouted with a reddened face at Cordelia’s sly question. She felt aggrieved. What could she do about her breasts growing on their own?

Moreover, while she didn’t particularly dislike having large breasts, to be honest, she did wish they were a bit smaller. Her shoulders and neck often ached, they were unnecessarily heavy, and food would often get on them when eating. In summer, they even got sweaty, which was unpleasant. In her own opinion, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. They made her look a bit swollen when clothed, and they hurt terribly when running.

Whether knowing her feelings or not, Cordelia, perhaps intending to bring Lily in as well, turned to her.

“What do you think, Lily?”

“Huh? Me?”

Lily, who had been blankly watching the two bickering, was startled by the sudden spark thrown her way.

“Hestia’s breasts, aren’t they excessive?”

“How can breasts be excessive?!”

Despite Hestia’s scream, Cordelia’s words reached Lily properly.

They are indeed a bit excessive. Lily found herself nodding unconsciously. What do men find so appealing about those lumps of fat?

“They do seem a bit excessive. It’s my first time in my life seeing breasts that float on water.”

At Lily’s words, Hestia shrank even more. Once her mouth was opened, what followed was like a highway.

The two launched a fierce attack on Hestia’s unnecessarily large breasts.

“Breast monster.”

“Your very existence is obscene.”

Hestia pouted and grumbled.

“Having large breasts isn’t necessarily a good thing. I’d like to share them if I could.”

“Ugh.”

For a moment, Cordelia, who had been excitedly teasing Hestia, was at a loss for words. She had been teasing her about her large breasts, but she hadn’t expected such a response. Sharing them? Who was she mocking? Cordelia secretly glanced at her own breasts. They weren’t that small, but hearing such words made her feel a bit self-conscious.

Lily flinched from the unexpected splash damage. She had already been a bit self-conscious about having the smallest breasts among the three, and hearing that being large wasn’t necessarily good made her heart ache. If she had been transmigrated as a female protagonist, her breasts could at least have been larger than in her previous life. From her perspective, Lily’s breasts were smaller than Seol-ah’s from her previous life.

And Hestia’s sharp mind, even if just for a brief moment, didn’t miss the two showing suspicious reactions.

There’s no need to feel ashamed of having large breasts. Why not pretend to be modest while actually boasting?

“Ah, really. They’re so inconvenient. Clothes make me look a bit puffy, and they just get sweaty in summer…”

Thus began Hestia’s breast complaints. They’re too big and heavy, I want to share them, there are times I envy smaller ones—the two couldn’t withstand Hestia’s relentless stream of words for long.

Exactly 10 minutes later, Cordelia and Lily declared surrender.

“Okay! I get it! I won’t say anything about breasts anymore, so please stop!”

“That’s right, Miss Hestia. We were wrong…”

“Then, I’ll let it go just this once.”

Hestia smiled with satisfaction. After a round of such absurd conversation, hadn’t the uncomfortable atmosphere from earlier disappeared?

“Ugh, give us back our innocent and pure Hestia. When did you become so cunning?”

“I’ve always been like this, you know?”

Hestia dismissed Cordelia’s final nonsense.

If there’s an awkward and stiff silence that comes from having nothing to say, there’s also a natural and comfortable silence. The three quietly enjoyed their bath, each with a sheep’s head towel that Lily had completed, perched on their heads.

It was Hestia who broke the calm of the bathhouse, where only the sound of trickling water could be heard.

“Miss Cordelia, Miss Lily.”

“What?”

“What is it?”

Hestia dropped a bomb.

“You both like Mikhail, don’t you?”