Theo picked the red berries that supposedly only fruit in winter, one at a time, and put them in his basket. The translucent berries dangled from snow-laden branches. Called snowcrimson fruit, they were known for concentrating their sweetness as they endured the cold. His fingertips stung with cold, but the sweet scent hovering at the tip of his nose was pleasant. Theo lifted his full basket up to show Rihen.
“Look. I picked this many!”
“Oh, impressive.”
Getting Rihen’s praise made his shoulders lift. Theo shifted his gaze to Rihen’s basket. He couldn’t help doubting his own eyes. An herb with a silver base and small teal spots. Silverbloom. The drunk man rambling on the other day had said it. That silverbloom was used as an arousal drug.
Why would Rihen need something like this?
“I’ll help too.”
Theo deliberately snapped off an ordinary weed that looked similar to silverbloom and went to put it in Rihen’s basket. At that, Rihen quickly caught his hand. He smiled, looking troubled.
“That’s not it. They look alike, so you got them mixed up. You can’t just put any old plant in. When the medicine is finished... I’m the one who has to take it. So collect them carefully.”
So it isn’t for a client. Rihen is going to take it himself. It was obvious that some client with bizarre tastes was demanding strange acts of Rihen again. The stories he’d heard in the tavern tangled together in his head. He said nothing and started picking berries again, but the feeling in his fingertips wasn’t what it had been a moment ago.
One side of Theo’s heart was quietly caving in.
I gathered the blackbreath moss and the crimson moon butterfly antennae quickly too. With all the ingredients in hand within a day, I took advantage of Theo going off to work and paid Belsina a visit. I handed over a fistful of drug powder along with the ingredients for the medicine that might be a restorative and might be an aphrodisiac.
Belsina slipped into her laboratory. Soon a great clattering came from inside. Bottles knocking together, the sound of something being ground, even an unpleasantly cheerful metallic ringing. Before long she came out holding a single glass bottle of liquid. It was the color of tarnished silver.
〈QUEST COMPLETE〉 Infamy +300p Belsina’s special potion
“Let it cure under sunlight and moonlight for about ten days, then drink it. And be sure to give me a full report afterward.”
“Haha, sure...”
If it works as an aphrodisiac, I’ll wipe my mouth clean and pretend nothing happened. Sure, Belsina saw me as lab rat number one rather than a man, but it was still embarrassing.
And that evening, the moment Theo got home from work, he went looking for the silverbloom I’d dug up.
“The plants are gone?”
“Mm. I left them with someone I know to have the medicine made.”
I glossed over it.
“What kind of medicine, exactly?”
“A tonic, I suppose you’d call it. Something for stamina.”
“Is this the medicine? I want to drink some too.”
Theo looked at the glass bottle I’d set on the windowsill and went to open the lid. I quickly grabbed his wrist and stopped him.
“No. This one isn’t finished yet.”
Theo obediently put the bottle down and said,
“Then when it’s finished, give me just a little.”
“S-Sure...”
I said I would, but inside I was thinking something entirely different. I’d have to beg Belsina up and down to make me an ordinary drink that only matched the color. Because there was no way I could let Theo drink that.
We washed the snowcrimson fruit we’d picked the day before and shared it. The red juice stained Theo’s lips and tongue vividly. Seeing it, I burst out laughing. Theo pressed a fingertip firmly against my lips. My lip squashed under that solid hand.
“I’m not the only one, you know. Your lips are a mess too, Rihen.”
I went to the mirror to check. My lips were unusually red, as if I’d put on lipstick. When I opened my mouth in a round shape, I could see that my tongue, normally peach-colored, had been stained excessively red. Theo, who had come up behind me at some point, looked into the mirror with me.
Theo fetched a handkerchief dampened with water and wiped my lips. He came a little closer, and this time he tried to touch my tongue as well.
“I don’t think you need to wipe my tongue too. It tickles.”
I laughed without much thought and lightly pushed his wrist away. The handkerchief grazed the corner of my mouth and stopped. He lowered his hand without a word.
The night I’d been waiting and waiting for arrived. After confirming Theo was fully asleep, I opened the system window. Sure, the window was visible only to me, but flailing my hands around in midair would look strange no matter how you slice it. I poured every one of the 1,500 points I’d steadily accumulated through soul offerings into Theo’s level up.
Theo (age 27)
Status ailments: curse of regression, amnesia, loss of abilities Current physical/mental age: 20
Seeing the changed number pleased me enormously. A twelve-year-old kid had become a proper adult in a month and a half.
Congratulations on becoming an adult.
I stroked the sleeping Theo’s hair and whispered it softly. He must have been having a good dream, because his face was flushed.
“Rihen...”
he mumbled in his sleep. I couldn’t say for certain, but it seemed to be a dream with me in it. If I was in it, at least it wasn’t a nightmare. Thinking that, I pulled him close and held him tight, now that he’d grown taller than me.
“Congratulations on becoming an adult.”
Rihen wore that customary teasing smile. But tonight Rihen’s dress was different from usual. He’d shed the stifling black clothes that came up to his throat and was straddling Theo in nothing but a thin shirt. The moment he saw it, Theo guessed. Ah, this is a dream. Whether it would turn out to be honey or poison, he had no idea.
Bare, unclothed hips ground slowly against his groin. With only a layer of trousers between them, he could feel the heat. His cock swelled taut. His trousers were on the verge of bursting.
“To celebrate you being all grown up, hn, I’ll take your virginity for free...”
“R-Rihen-!”
Rihen bent down over Theo. He tilted his head, finding the perfect angle to bring their lips together. Those elegant eye corners curved lewdly. A soft tongue swept gently over Theo’s lips, then pried its way inside. The hot tongue rummaged through his mouth. Rihen looked very practiced at this. It skimmed expertly over his teeth and tickled the roof of his mouth. It was only his mouth being licked a little, and that stimulation alone felt like it took the strength out of Theo’s legs. If he hadn’t been lying on the bed, he’d surely have staggered and dropped where he stood.
“I worked hard, mm, loosening myself up so I could take your virginity...”
Rihen spread his legs wide and lifted his shirt to show off his hole. He felt over the rim, then pushed a finger straight inside. Something, slick or scented oil, there was no telling which, dribbled out of that fuckhole. It had clearly seen so much use that the slightly parted hole flexed as though it were already squeezing a cock. An ass that looked far too accustomed to taking dick.
The filthy talk from the customer at the tavern came back to him. That once you plow the back hole a man can’t keep his head straight... Is that how he ended up like this? Did he sleep with them countless times for money, until his asshole went soft and pliant as a sex organ?
Rihen’s hand braced against Theo’s stomach. He lined the head of Theo’s cock up with that twitching hole and dropped his hips in one motion. A pleasurable pressure wrapped around him, and...
“Hah-!”
Theo woke from the dream. He hurriedly pulled his trousers open to check the state of his underwear. It was soaked. He tore at his hair in self-loathing. Having a wet dream about the person who saved his life. He felt like an absolute bastard, and at the same time, part of him wanted to check whether what he’d seen in the dream was true.
Theo glanced at the sleeping Rihen.
Right. Just checking. Let’s only check.
He put his hand to Rihen’s trousers and pulled them and his underwear down together. The loose pajama bottoms came off easily. His heart pounded. He knew it was a wicked thing to do, but he couldn’t stop.
He took hold of the knees and spread the legs, then gripped the buttocks with both hands. When he pulled them apart, the small hole hidden between them came into view. Pale pink, densely gathered folds, shut tight and narrow. Judging by appearance alone, it didn’t look like it had much experience. He smoothed his fingertips over the folds. They were soft, and also dry.
It felt like he’d only know for certain if he put a finger in. He pushed his index finger in without preamble. It was too tight to go in easily. It must have hurt, because Rihen scrunched his nose and let out a small moan, ngh. Theo pulled Rihen’s underwear back up and put his trousers on for him. Then he moved well away from him and lay down at the very edge of the bed. Thump, thump. His heart went on hammering away.
In the end he couldn’t hold out and moved back toward the sleeping Rihen. He hesitated at a distance close enough for their breath to touch, then kissed him on the lips, very briefly. And then, as if nothing had happened, he hurriedly turned over and lay back down.
The instant a soft, yielding sensation touched my lips, I flinched awake. And then reflexively shut my eyes again.
It was Theo. Theo was secretly kissing me.
Theo had desires other than stopping the Demon King? I’d been reading Theo as more or less a true saint with his libido surgically removed, so I couldn’t help being thrown by this. The first thing he does on turning twenty is steal a kiss. What a precocious little brat... No, hold on, why me of all people? What did I ever do?
My breathing nearly turned rough with alarm, but I worked to even it out and kept pretending to sleep. And then, beneath my firmly shut eyelids, a kind of notification I’d never seen before surfaced.
Evil Points (Theo) +300p
...?
Theo kissed me and my points went up? Not infamy points, either. What in the world are evil points? And why is Theo’s name in parentheses on top of that? I called on the system inwardly, and an explanation window came up right away.
〈Heart-Fluttering Possession Perk!〉 When a character the evil-faction player has set as their companion commits an evil act, points are awarded to the player. Evil points can be used freely in the shop, exactly like infamy points.
Sneaking a kiss on a sleeping person was, no matter how you looked at it, a bad thing to do. That seemed to be why 300 points had abruptly landed in my lap. I’d worked myself ragged smashing a statue for 200 points, and here was 300 for getting pecked once. If I could gather points like this, world peace was truly right around the corner.
No, hold on. I barely managed to calm my excitement. Theo was the good faction’s flagship hero. A hero committing bad deeds, that couldn’t be allowed. They do say heroes are lechers, but that’s an old saying, and Theo had to be the good and righteous champion who served as humanity’s light, exactly as he was in the game.
...But then again. What if the only person Theo commits evil acts against is me? What if he only does this sort of thing to me?
The only one harmed is me, and as long as I can gather points I don’t care. Is that even clear-cut enough to call harm? Besides, I’d set a temple on fire to gather infamy points. A little kiss was nothing but cute.
Right, a great deal had already diverged from the original game’s story. A demon corps commander working for the good of humanity was itself different from the source. Theo developing something like sexual love was well within the range of what I could accept. Or maybe the libido had been there all along and he simply hadn’t met anyone he was drawn to until now.
Hold on. Does that mean Shane is Theo’s ideal type? Shane’s face being his preference. How peculiar, I thought. What was so good about a slit-eyed character who went around smiling suspiciously all the time? As someone who preferred the small and cute type, I found it awfully hard to understand... Well, tastes are meant to be respected, so I decided not to think about it any further.
I ran a simple calculation in my head. If Theo secretly kissed me every night... in a month that would be a full 9,000 points. But what if I grabbed him here and demanded to know why he’d do that to a sleeping person? What if that made Theo never touch me again? That would be slicing open the belly of the goose that laid the golden eggs with my own hands.
Right. I can hand over a pair of lips to save the world. It isn’t even a real kiss, just a peck. Anything beyond that I’d have to think about seriously, but it didn’t seem like Theo would ask more of me than this.
Instead of interrogating him about the stolen kiss incident, I decided to mercifully let it slide.
And a few days later,
Evil Points (Theo) +600p
More points came in. Double the last time.
What did this kid do to me while I was asleep this time?
