(Chastity Reversed) The Legitimate Wife War: How I, a Harem-Hater, Ended Up Creating an Ultra-Eccentric Harem with a Villainess, a Sadistic Beauty Teacher, a Scheming Classmate... etc. - Chapter 111.2: The Best Confession

We walked to the roof of Yokohama Port’s Osanbashi Pier. From here we could see all of Yokohama’s night view.

Colorful illuminations stretched out in a romantic night scene.

“Beautiful.”

“Really.”

We sat down slowly on a bench together.

“Hey, Takeda-kun.”

“Yes.”

“Do you……love……me?”

She looked straight into my eyes and asked.

Love……or not.

“After saying I want you to become my fiancée, it’s awkward to say this, but……if you ask whether I love you, I can’t say I love you yet.”

Akizuki-san nodded silently and urged me to continue.

“I don’t want you to misunderstand—it’s absolutely not that I dislike you.”

‘I understand that much,’ Akizuki-san smiled wryly.

“I just can’t clearly say I love you, that I’m in love with you. I don’t know you that deeply, and I think Shiraishi-san has much more love. ……But I want to know more about you in the future, and I think I’d like to live together.”

“……I see.”

What exactly are my feelings toward Akizuki-san? They’re definitely positive feelings, and I find her appearance attractive—attractive enough that I want to touch her body. I also have a good impression of Akizuki-san’s unwavering, straightforward personality.

But I don’t think it’s reached love yet.

Let’s see, affection—I think it’s feelings like that, pale and faintly warm feelings.

But that’s not just for Akizuki-san—it’s the same for Sayaka-san and Tachibana-san too.

The only one I could confidently say I love right now was Kazari-san.

……Thinking about it now, despite wanting to look cool and various other things, my actions at that time might be my true feelings.

“Besides, I’m not a good person. I don’t help people I don’t have good feelings toward, and I don’t jump in front of guns. So while my feelings for Akizuki-san are still faint, I feel like I’ll definitely come to like you more in the future.”

“……Loving you in the future……”

“It’s not a romantic confession, but……that’s how it is at first, isn’t it? Even with love, love that flares up at the beginning seems like it would cool down quickly too. If we could slowly and steadily deepen our relationship, it would last much longer—it could become lifelong. I think so. ……If our personalities still don’t match, please break off the engagement again.”

“……Hehe, then I’d become an unprecedented woman who broke off an engagement twice with the same person.”

“I’d also become a man who was rejected twice by the same person.”

We both laughed.

“Loving you in the future, huh. I wonder how much I’ll come to love you?”

Suddenly erasing her smile, Akizuki-san shook her head.

“……But that won’t do. I can’t convince myself.”

“……”

She’s really a self-punishing person.

But maybe that strong sense of responsibility is what makes Akizuki-san who she is.

Maybe my words won’t reach her.

I understand well what Shiraishi-san meant.

It’s a bad way to put it, but she’s really a troublesome woman.

I’ll be rejected—I thought that at this moment.

“……Why are you making such a dark face?”

Akizuki-san called out curiously to me as I looked down.

“……Eh, wasn’t it like you wouldn’t become my fiancée?”

“Eh, that’s not it.”

It’s not?!

Akizuki-san seemed to think back on her own words in her head and immediately understood with an ‘Ahh.’

“You’re right that it would be natural to misunderstand. I’m sorry. Like this, I can’t criticize my parents for being inarticulate.”

Akizuki-san laughed self-deprecatingly.

“Takeda-kun’s contrarian confession made me very happy. I should have said first that I want to become your fiancée, that I want to.”

“……”

“What I wanted to say was that just being a regular fiancée won’t do. I broke off the engagement once, and it’s wrong for me to be in the same position as the other fiancées. So I want to attach a condition.”

Not the same position? A condition?

What does that mean……

“It’s wrong for Ayaka and me—us who caused trouble—to be in the same position as Hosho-san and Tachibana-san. So one level down. You would have absolute obedience rights over us—if I put it in words, rather than slave wives, ‘slave fiancées.’ I want you to make us into that.”

S-slave fiancées?

That’s quite a word that just came out.

What does that mean?

Perhaps my confusion was conveyed, as Akizuki-san explained in more detail.

“Takeda-kun doesn’t need to hold back anything with Ayaka and me. You can direct your desires at us as you like and do as you please. We’ll properly listen to your orders, and if we don’t obey, you can punish us.”

“……Eh?”

Isn’t she saying something incredible?

This is different from the fiancée system I was thinking of……

“Under those conditions, we would become fiancées.”

“If I don’t accept?”

“The fiancée talk is off.”

How extreme.

Why is she trying to make the other party accept such disadvantageous conditions for herself?

But Akizuki-san’s eyes weren’t joking—she was seriously talking.

“This is my best effort. It might still not be enough, but with this I can finally be convinced to return to being your fiancée.”

So the self-punishing her came up with the compromise of slave fiancées.

“……So officially you’d be fiancées but the reality would be those ‘slave fiancées,’ right?”

“Yes, that’s how it would be for both Ayaka and me.”

“Are you really going to do it? You’d do it if I said things like ‘let me grope your breasts’ or ‘take off your clothes’?”

I wanted her to reconsider.

As a man, having such convenient existences would normally be happy, but that’s not what I want right now.

“I don’t mind. Well, I’d hate being told to sleep with other people, but if you said it……”

Akizuki-san showed tragic resolve.

“I wouldn’t do such things.”

I refused without pause.

I don’t have such hobbies, and my possessiveness is stronger.

Sigh, somehow……

“Things don’t go well, do they?”

I hadn’t expected such a development.

I thought today would end as a fun date. I hadn’t imagined it would become something so unexpected.

“Is there really nothing else?”

I’d prefer to have an equal relationship if possible.

“There isn’t.”

There isn’t.

……But it’s better than being separated from Akizuki-san.

“I see……I understand. Akizuki-san, please become my slave fiancée.”

“Yes, I understand……Master?”

“Gofu……stop? Don’t call me by such a title?”

“But I’m a slave fiancée……ah, and please stop using polite language! That’s not good for slaves!”

“No, Akizuki-san, you stop using polite language too! It feels wrong!”

In the end we compromised on both of us not using polite language.

Isn’t she making tons of demands even though she’s supposed to be a slave fiancée?

I got tired of thinking and looked up at the sky.

Akizuki-san also looked up at the sky beside me.

In the sky was a round moon.

It seemed to be a full moon today.

……Ah yes, there were words like this.

Maybe they’re the perfect words for me right now.

“……The moon is beautiful.”

(T/N: In Japanese, saying “The moon is beautiful” — “Tsuki ga kirei” — is a poetic and indirect way of saying “I love you.”)

I thought Akizuki-san would somehow understand the meaning of those words.

She’d said she knew classics during our previous date.

As expected, Akizuki-san looked a little surprised but immediately smiled.

“……I’m glad we could meet before it set.”

Perhaps from embarrassment, her eyes looked straight only at the sky.

I didn’t know any better response than that, so instead I placed my hand over hers.

“I might have said this before, but I didn’t really like classical literature.”

Come to think of it, she’d said that in the English preparation room. ‘Unlike foreign languages, I don’t like it.’

“But now I’m a little grateful to Japanese, to the classics.”

“……Why?”

“Because——”

There Akizuki-san turned her gaze from the moon.

She looked into my eyes and placed her hand over mine a little.

“Because isn’t it perfect for us who can’t honestly convey our feelings? For me, it was the best confession.”

Akizuki-san looked at my face and laughed, though embarrassed.

I laughed too.

Both of us naturally drew our faces closer.

Her face with closed eyes, illuminated by moonlight, was very beautiful.

We exchanged a gentle, touching kiss.

On the way home.

When we were returning straight home in Akizuki-san’s car, I ended up asking:

“……Don’t you hate the slave declaration after all?”

“I don’t hate it. Rather, I’m hoping for it……”

“Eh?”

“When you scolded me for hesitating about helping Ayaka, remember? When Master slapped my cheek then, I was certainly frustrated, but there was also a part of me that was somehow ecstatic, and……since then, pain, or being made to submit to someone like that……”

Akizuki-san’s eyes were a little glazed, and I realized.

That I had awakened Akizuki-san’s masochistic side.

Then maybe this was my own fault.

That’s what I thought.

(T/N: This novel bouta be so big, it’s just starting)