Vol 2 Chapter 15 – A Kiss【Vol 2 — Youth in the Midst of Calamity】

“Thank goodness. I’m so, so glad…”

Aria’s eyes trembled as she pressed a hand to her chest, like the relief was seeping into her very core.

She murmured “thank goodness…” with quiet, heartfelt weight, and then she walked toward me.

Through the crowd, through the press of people, calm and unhurried—just another unremarkable face in the faceless mass around us.

Aria closed the distance between us without fanfare and took both my hands in hers.

That was all it was.

Just that.

“Thank goodness. That Will actually came to me, right where I am.”

She whispered it as if confirming it, as if convincing herself—and the hands holding mine tightened.

What flashed through my mind was that night.

Aria’s wrist, spinning through the air, falling in a helpless arc.

A chill raked down my spine.

I dropped my gaze.

Her hands.

Both of Aria’s hands were right there, perfectly intact.

I almost opened my mouth.

Then I stopped myself.

What I needed to keep my focus on right now was something else entirely.

Strangely enough, my heart was calm.

None of this felt real.

Like I was watching a dream play out in some distant world.

This was different from that night.

Until just a moment ago, I had been sick with dread at the thought of running into any of them.

Terrified, twisted up inside, drowning in fear.

The brutal chain of events from that night up until I found Lucas had been running circles through my head, and I had wanted to be sick.

And yet—now that I was actually facing it, where had this calm come from?

“I’m so happy, you know. That Will is here like this, right now…”

“……”

“You know… when Sophia-chan took you away from me, my head got so hot, so incredibly hot, and I… I was losing it. I nearly… I nearly went somewhere I couldn’t come back from.”

Ehehe.

Aria laughed with a bashful little smile.

But her eyes were somehow hollow.

“But Will is right here now, my favorite Will—so everything’s okay now!”

Aria threw herself against my chest and kissed me without a single thought for anyone watching.

The world around her was not even a concept she bothered entertaining.

My heart lurched with a horrible beat.

My brain caught up to what was in front of me.

Reality took shape.

I’m calm. I’m still calm.

Stay calm. It’s still okay.

“Will, I love you——”

Aria pulled back and smiled up at me.

She pressed her face into my chest and wrapped her arms around my waist.

As if confirming I was real.

As if making sure I couldn’t leave.

Gently, softly, with iron force, she held me.

I had no room to worry about the people staring around us.

But it wasn’t hard to imagine what their faces must look like.

This crowd was thick enough that one lapse in attention meant walking straight into someone.

Everyone nearby probably had the look of a person who had just been handed a mouthful of pure sugar.

I would too, if I were them.

Aria poured her love out at me.

Words straight from the heart.

Surrounding me.

Filling the space between us.

She told me she liked me.

She told me she liked everything about me.

She told me not to leave.

She told me she didn’t want to leave.

Every word of it was clearly and genuinely Aria’s real feelings.

I understood that she truly cared for me.

Coming back to it now—calm, face-to-face, close enough to touch—I understood it properly for the first time.

I had probably known it for a long time.

And that was precisely why this couldn’t end here.

Couldn’t be allowed to end here.

I wouldn’t let it end here.

“——All right.”

Somewhere in the middle of being loved by Aria, my heart had started pounding in a way that made no sense given the circumstances.

I was scared.

“Hey, Will.”

Honestly, I was terrified.

“I’ve been thinking, you know.”

Genuinely terrified.

“I was thinking that if Will would stay by my side and never leave——”

I wanted to cry.

“——I wouldn’t need anything else in the whole world.”

I was putting on a calm front, quietly absorbing everything Aria was saying and doing.

But the truth was that sheer terror had turned my body to stone.

What kind of person gets scared of a cute girl liking them? What’s wrong with me?

I didn’t want to die.

My attention locked onto the ring on my finger.

My eyes could not move from it.

If I channeled mana into this, Lucas would come.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Lucas was the one who had taught Aria and the others their magic. He could probably overpower them when it came to spellcraft.

But no.

Not yet.

Not here.

So the conclusion I had arrived at was: run.

Yep, run.

I was running.

I was getting out of this for now, because I hadn’t decided yet what to do or how to do any of it.

I was going to give this everything I had and run.

“Hey, Will…”

First, I needed an opening.

How to get out of this situation with Aria pressed against me——

“Are you even listening to me?”

——A chill sliced through me.

Without consciously registering it, I had caught the change in her voice.

“I’m listening! I am listening!”

“Really…?”

“O-Of course I am.”

“No you’re not. Because you think I don’t matter. You think you don’t have to bother listening to what I have to say… don’t you…?”

She looked like she was about to cry.

Her eyes had gone glassy and the tears were threatening to spill over any second.

Her brows and the corners of her eyes drooped, and she stared up at me with that anxious, lonely look.

Stared straight into me.

Aria’s hand touched my chest.

And without warning, my heart gave a different kind of beat.

Not the horrible lurching from a moment ago.

This one was more like——

“Does Will hate me?”

“That’s not——”

“I protected Will when you were in danger, remember? I said I’d always keep you safe. But to Will, I’m just a nuisance… I’m just… I’m just…”

Aria’s lips trembled.

A sob broke through.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

A moment ago you were beaming like a field of flowers in full bloom and throwing yourself at me. What happened in the last thirty seconds?

At the sound of Aria crying, the crowd around us stirred, and the surrounding gazes started stabbing into me like accusations.

Wait. No. This isn’t what it looks like.

Aria’s watery eyes tilted up toward mine.

“Hey. Does Will hate me? I want to be with Will forever, I want to stay by your side, and I said I’d do anything for Will, and I know I can try my hardest to make sure Will is absolutely, definitely happy. And I really am the one who thinks about Will the most out of anyone. We’ve been together since we were little kids, and I’ve always done so much for you, Will. And I’m standing here telling you I love you, I love you, and… and even after all that… Will is going to say he hates me…?”

“——”

I understood it.

By instinct.

By pure reflex.

The way this was going could not continue.

I ran my head at full speed.

Faster than I ever had before.

This can’t go on. So what do I do?

First and foremost, I had to run.

How do I run?

And even if I managed to run—what then?

If I blew Aria off and bolted, what would that leave her feeling?

I needed to think about what Aria in her current state would do with that.

Figure out how to avoid that outcome.

Figure out how to run.

Taking all of that into account—what was the best option?

There was one way.

The probability of success was entirely unknown.

But there was a chance.

I looked straight ahead.

Standing there was an anxious Aria.

Her eyes were hollow.

And yet, somehow, the corners of her mouth were curling into something like a smile.

No time.

The moment that thought formed, my body had already moved.

“——”

Aria’s eyes went wide.

The tension drained from her body, and the unease that had been swirling around her a moment before vanished.

She stood there blank and stunned, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening.

Same as me, honestly.

Aria’s lips and my lips were pressed together.

A kiss.

Just a moment ago, Aria had done it to me out of nowhere.

This was different.

I did it.

I pushed my lips against hers and let my tongue get involved.

No holding back.

I had no intention of letting this be the end of me right here.

I wrapped my arms around Aria and pressed the hand at her back in tight.

“——mmh. Ahh—mm, i——, mm…!”

I could tell Aria was startled.

I could tell she was rattled.

At that point, I knew my plan had worked.

I had honestly been a little worried whether something like this could actually catch off guard a girl who kissed me and confessed without a shred of embarrassment or restraint—but apparently, doing it herself was fine, while having it done to her was something else entirely.

Aria’s eyes went wide as saucers and she frantically tried to pry herself away from me.

She pushed against my chest.

She tried to pull back from the lips pressing against hers.

I held her in place by sheer force.

Her talent for magic might have been genius-level, but in raw physical strength, I had the edge.

Though if she had the presence of mind to use magic, she would break free of my hold in an instant.

She was too confused for that.

Too rattled to think of it.

Honestly, I hadn’t expected it to work this well.

“i——u! mm…——i, uhhh! mmmm!!”

Her face had gone an impossible shade of red, and Aria squirmed and thrashed, fighting to get away from me.

Cheers erupted from the crowd around us.

Enthusiastically, infuriatingly cheerful.

The urge to commit violence stirred in me.

No. Calm down. That’s not where my attention needs to be right now.

I held the kiss until I was running out of breath, then unwound my arms from around her.

“…ah… ah, ah, u…”

Aria crumpled with a sound that wasn’t quite a voice and sank down right there on the spot.

Her face was still red, and she was looking blankly up at me as I stood there catching my own breath.

No sign she was about to move.

I had been vaguely hoping the embarrassment would send her running—but I had overdone it a little.

My own face was obviously just as red, and the mortification was enough to make me feel like I might combust.

I wanted to punch every single one of those people cheering and carrying on around us.

“Aria——”

“…ah, …hm?”

“I’ve got somewhere I absolutely have to be for a bit—can I step away from here?”

“——”

“That okay?”

As if the question itself had weight enough to press her down, Aria gave a small, tearful nod.

Okay——.

I kept my eyes on Aria as I took one step back, walking backward away from her.

My gaze still hadn’t left her.

Aria’s eyes had taken on a different kind of emptiness from before.

Her face was still flushed, both hands pressed to her lips, sitting dazed on the ground.

No sign she was going to come after me.

It’s okay——.

The crowd that had been watching us stirred and buzzed, eyes turning my way.

Unfortunately for them, I didn’t have the luxury of meeting their expectations right now.

Passersby stepped into the space between me and Aria.

Aria disappeared from my field of vision.

I disappeared from hers.

The moment that happened, I spun on my heel and wiped my lips clean.

Not done yet.

This only bought me the moment.

That’s all.

That trick wasn’t going to work twice, and more than that—there were still others here in this royal capital——

“——”

“——”

My feet stopped.

I couldn’t move.

I didn’t move.

“Will-kun. Hey. That is Will-kun, right…?”

“——”

She had the face of someone who had just learned a nightmare was real.

The face of someone who had come face-to-face with the devil.

Exactly when she had gotten there I couldn’t say—she had apparently been standing right behind me, and——

Sophia was——

“Hey. Just now. What were you doing to Aria-chan…? That was Will-kun who… you were the one who…? I told you to wait for me, and—— wait, huh…? Huh? That’s strange… am I the strange one…? Hey.”

“——”

“Hey? Will-kun. Will-kun. Will-kun, Will-kun, Will-kun, Will-kun——. Listen, I——”

Sophia, who had been standing there rigid as a post, stepped toward me and gently pressed her hand to my chest.