Vol 2 Chapter 11 – Elopement【Vol 2 — Youth in the Midst of Calamity】

I woke up.

My head felt foggy.

Maybe it was just because I’d only just woken up.

When I sat up and looked around, I seemed to be in a room at some inn.

It looked fairly high-end, and it reminded me of the inn where I had stayed when I went to the royal capital before.

I had been laid out on a bed.

No one else was around.

More importantly, where even was this place?

And last night, what exactly had I been doing before I fell asleep—?

—A sharp pain stabbed through my head.

Without thinking, I pressed a hand hard against my forehead.

First, I need to figure out where I am…

Somehow managing to steady my uncooperative body, I got out of bed.

I crossed the simple, tidy room and reached for the door.

I grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it, but after a dry clunk, it wouldn’t budge any farther.

It was locked.

…What?

Just as I thought that, the door suddenly opened.

I hurriedly jumped back, and Sophia came inside.

“Ah, you’re up, Will-kun. Good morning.”

“Uh, ah, y-yeah. Sophia Onee-chan… good morning.”

At my confusion, Sophia smiled cheerfully.

For some reason, the moment I saw that innocent smile, pain shot through my brain again.

At the same time, I also felt an unbearable tenderness toward the Sophia standing in front of me.

“W-What’s wrong, Will-kun? Are you okay?”

Seeing me let out a small groan from the pain, Sophia placed a worried hand on my back.

A sudden urge to hold her welled up inside me.

Sophia handed me the glass she had been carrying since she came into the room.

It was filled to the brim with a clear liquid faintly tinged red, the kind of thing that somehow felt unsettling just to look at.

“Sophia Onee-chan… what’s this?”

“Mmm, think of it as a health drink, maybe? Your head feels fuzzy when you first wake up, right? Go on, drink it all at once.”

Sophia gestured as if to say, come on, come on.

At her words, I drained the glass without giving it much thought.

It tasted almost like water, and the coldness sliding down my throat seemed to cool my still-groggy head as well.

And yet, I also felt a faint heat lingering deep in my stomach.

Probably just my imagination.

Well, either way, I felt refreshed.

“Thanks, Sophia Onee-chan.”

“Mhm. For my cute Will-kun, Onee-chan would do anything.”

Sophia smiled jokingly as she made a little show of flexing her arm.

I really thought Sophia was the sweetest, cutest, most wonderful woman.

With my head feeling strangely clear, I asked the Sophia in front of me,

“More importantly, Sophia Onee-chan, where is this again?”

Since Sophia, who was here with me, didn’t seem especially flustered, I figured the situation had to be under control.

But maybe because I had just woken up, or maybe for some other reason, I had no memory of how I’d ended up here.

“Geez, you forgot, Will-kun? That kind of hurts Onee-chan’s feelings a little…”

Sophia lowered her eyes sadly.

—DON’T.

Something inside me screamed that I mustn’t make the girl in front of me sad.

Again, a sharp ache ran through my head.

“S-Sorry, Sophia Onee-chan… U-Um? What happened yesterday again, um…”

Watching me seriously rack my brain, Sophia let out a soft little laugh.

Then Sophia gently hugged me from the front.

The tight press of Sophia’s body against mine filled me with an indescribable sense of happiness.

As I felt her warmth, I found myself thinking that I wanted to stay like this forever.

Then Sophia softly whispered into my ear.

“You told me you’d stay with me forever, right, Will-kun? That’s why the two of us ran away together… right…?”

Click.

I felt as if I had heard the final piece fall into place somewhere.

—Ahh, that’s right…

The only one who had always stayed by my side, always been on my side.

Even my parents had not always been there beside me.

To begin with, because I still had memories from before I was reincarnated, my parents had always felt strangely distant in some important way.

—But Sophia wasn’t like that.

No matter when, no matter what, she was always by my side, always on my side.

—and she’s the girl I love most.

Sophia had answered those feelings of mine sincerely, but the people around us hadn’t.

After all, Sophia was a noble in every sense of the word.

That’s why Sophia and I left our hometown behind and eloped—

—A sharp pain shot through my head—

—we did.

“Ahh, right. Sorry, Sophia Onee-chan… I mean, it’s not like I forgot. It’s just that my head feels all jumbled up…”

Still holding me, Sophia nodded over and over.

“It can’t be helped. It all happened so suddenly…”

There was an overwhelming tenderness in the way she spoke to me.

I wrapped my arms around Sophia’s back too, pulling her body closer against mine.

Then Sophia suddenly murmured,

“I love you so much, Will-kun. I love you…”

“Sophia Onee-cha… no, Sophia. I love you too.”

Before I realized it, Sophia’s lips were on mine.

After what felt like a kiss that lasted several minutes, maybe even more than ten, Sophia pulled back, her cheeks flushed red, and her clear blue eyes stared straight at me.

With the same casual expression as always, Sophia opened her mouth as if it were nothing.

“Hey, Will-kun. Can I ask you something?”

“Mhm, what is it? Sophia Onee-chan.”

“Do you happen to know any girls named Elena-chan… or Aria-chan?”

They were names I’d never even heard before.

—In that instant, the worst pain I’d felt since waking up stabbed into my head.

Enduring the burning pain while somehow keeping my face calm, I opened my mouth and answered Sophia.

A single bead of sweat ran down my cheek.

“No, I don’t know them. Why?”

“Nope, it’s nothing at all.”

Wearing a smile like flowers in full bloom, Sophia kissed me again.

After that kiss ended, the small question that had remained inside me was gone.