To offer a bit of a defense for Vientin’s peculiar taste, he used to live immersed in excessively complex experiments. What he needed in reality was a simple, intriguing presence that sparked a unique sense of curiosity.
Damn it, the future me. You’ve met a woman who’s completely your type.
Perhaps because of that, his current self found it difficult to go against her. The eyes of Duke Kalinos, or rather, eighteen-year-old Vientin, shook violently.
Giselle seized his hand in a fierce grip and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
He found himself stammering before he even realized it. “W-Where are we going?”
* * *
My first plan as Duchess Giselle Kalinos was simple. Namely, to ‘stimulate’ him. There are a great deal of meanings packed into the word ‘stimulate’ here. I decided to stimulate Vientin Kalinos by focusing on his personality traits.
Stimulation needs to proceed step by step too. For the first stimulation to inflict upon him this time, a level that made his mind just a tiny bit uneasy was more than enough. So, I summoned him out to the outdoor flowerbed in the central garden of the Kalinos Mansion.
“Why the flowerbed of all places? Is there some significance to it?”
“Nope, no special meaning. I just like flowers.”
“…?”
“Why?”
He seemed completely lost for words at my innocent reply. “I thought you brought me here to help me regain my memory.”
“Ah, that’s just a bonus!”
“You have quite a unique character.”
I nodded earnestly. “I hear that I’m unique and eccentric quite a lot, actually.”
His face wore an expression of having lost all desire to converse with me any further. For someone like him who usually prioritized logic and efficiency, talking with me would be a stimulation in itself!
“So this is a place that assaults my already oversensitive sense of smell after the memory loss.”
“Oh, are you allergic to something?”
At the word ‘allergic,’ a spark of interest flared in his expression.
“After 1,022 experiments, I have confirmed that I have no allergies to any specific organism. Generally, the prevalence rate of pollen allergies varies depending on the region, but in our Kalinos territory—”
“Shh.” Shaking my head a few times in my mind to snap myself out of it, I picked up a fallen flower from the ground. Then I grinned at him. “From now on, we’re going to do something with this flower.”
I held out the flower toward him and gave a fresh, bright smile. At that, Vientin asked back with a puzzled look. “What do you mean by doing something with a flower?”
“Flower fortune-telling.”
“…Fortune-telling?”
“Yes, flower fortune-telling. Want to try?” I plucked the petals one by one, pretending to read his fortune.
Face laced with suspicion, Vientin spoke. “Fortune-telling is a form of superstition. As someone who loves experiments, I don’t believe in pseudo-sciences like divination.”
“Ah, come on, why not? It’s fun. Give it a try.” Grinning, I pulled on his arm. He looked absolutely appalled.
Aah… There was one more way to stimulate a science-and-logic man.
I deliberately tacked on one more remark. “I want to check my love life fortune, too. Yeah?”
“You are…”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t you my wife?”
Vientin’s expression remained indifferent. He didn’t look jealous. His face looked purely curious.
“Yep, that’s right.”
“Then why?”
“Doesn’t it cross your mind that I’m checking my love fortune with Duke Vientin Kalinos?”
His face was dyed with embarrassment. “You, how can you say such things so easily?”
“Like when you’ll regain your memory and hold my hand.”
“W-What…”
“Or when we’ll take the next step after holding hands.”
“Wait, you!”
“Or when you’ll call me ‘wife’ instead of ‘you.’”
“T-To say such things…”
“I’m just curious about those things. What’s wrong?”
“For a lady to speak so freely of such things…”
“So a lady isn’t allowed to say it, but a gentleman is?”
“…” His face turned bright red, like a thoroughly boiled tomato.
Eighteen-year-old Vientin Kalinos. He was ridiculously fun to tease.
Grinning, I subtly showed off the flower fortune. “Why? Don’t you remember?” Then I brought my face right up to his nose.
The Vientin Kalinos I’d first met had been a deadpan lunatic, but right now he was different. Face blazing scarlet, wearing an expression that said he literally could not form words…
“Re-Re-Remember…”
“I asked if you don’t remember.”
I smiled, then lifted my hand to his flushed lips. I didn’t apply any pressure at all. Really, I just intended to lightly rest my fingertips against his lips. However… he rapidly recoiled backward and ended up tumbling down with a loud crash.
Wow, his character is completely breaking down.
At eighteen, Vientin definitely possessed a boyish charm.
Smiling, I extended my hand toward him. Seeing my hand extended toward him with his face still flushed, Vientin hurriedly scrambled to his feet.
“Duke?”
All I’d done was offer that one little line. But after springing up in a flustered mess, he mumbled something about suddenly remembering urgent business and bolted. Vientin ran away.
Ah, did I tease an eighteen-year-old a bit too much?
* * *
The second plan was to give him a different kind of stimulation. Of course, when I think of ‘stimulation’…
“Guess it’s time to loosen up a little…”
With a light resolve, I simply changed clothes and came out to the parlor. The man reading a newspaper in the parlor asked in an interrogative tone. “Why on earth are you dressed as a maid?”
“It’s not a maid costume. I’m wearing trash clothes.”
“…So why are you wearing trash clothes?”
“Because these are the clothes I wore during our first meeting. I thought it might jog your memory a bit.”
“What on earth are you… Then that would mean—”
“Pardon?”
“Are you saying I fell in love at first sight with a woman wearing trash clothes?”
…It wasn’t love at first sight, though. Guess he really doesn’t remember.
I sat down in the seat right next to him on the sofa. Then, grandly adopting my grand ‘havoc-wreaking speech pattern,’ I murmured. “Yepp, that’s righty. Really, really. Giselle is super duper bored. Shall we go clean up the trash quickly?”
“What on earth…”
“Giselle said so. Lately, Giselle was very, very bored that Giselle cried. Hiing.”
“W-What… What kind of way of talking is that?”
“It’s just Giselle’s way of talking, though?”
“What on earth are you saying…”
A hairline crack appeared on Duke Kalinos’s expression.
Fufu, just as planned. It makes me feel a bit like throwing up, but bitter medicine is good for the body, after all.
“Sooo, there’s a place Giselle wants to go with you, pretty pleaseee.”
“…”
Please stop… that was the look on Vientin’s face.
This is fun.
“If you come with Giselle, Giselle will stop using this cutey-wootey tone anymore.”
* * *
It was a few hours later. Sitting side by side with him on a plush sofa, I grinned.
“…Since I came along, you promised not to use that cute speech pattern anymore.”
“Yep, understood~”
“…You promised not to use—”
“Geez. I said I understood, didn’t I?” Still grinning, I jerked my chin toward the stage. “Time to watch the opera. Eyes front!”
The place I brought Vientin to, even resorting to that ‘cutey-wootey tone,’ was the opera house. When a man and a woman are trapped together in a closed space, it naturally creates psychological pressure. For some reason, I felt that my habit of thinking logically and rationally was the result of Vientin’s influence… At any rate, the third plan was operation: ‘Things only a married couple can do in a confined space.’
“Yup, yup. Everything Duke says it totalyyyy~ right.”
“…”
He looked like he was on the verge of throwing up. Yet, within that expression….
“Are you serious? That we’re married.”
“Yes.”
He was gradually starting to experience a massive shock.
Vientin murmured quietly. “It certainly seems to possess research value, but…”
I just said we’re married. And I’m acting completely insane right now. But the first thing he thinks of is research?
He’s… a formidable opponent. Still, I had work to do with this formidable opponent.
Grinning, I reached my hand out toward him. “Hold my hand, please.”
“I… Men and women should maintain a proper distance.”
What are you, a Confucian scholar?
“What? Why’s wrong with a married couple holding hands?”
“That’s…”
“Look over there, even the main characters in the opera are holding hands.”
Our eyes met precariously midair. At that moment, I brought my face close to his and beamed.
“Or should we do something else instead?”
Just as the tips of our noses almost brushed against each other, Vientin wore a look as if he had been struck by something. I was fully prepared to kiss him. However, he hurriedly pulled his body back.
“N-No.”
“Huh?”
“I-I am a believer in purity before marriage.”
…What kind of bullshit is that? We’re already married!
Comments (0)