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“Sakura…”
“Hm, what do you need?”

She got up from the sofa and turned to Kanata, who was making a beckoning motion.

“Is something wrong?”

The same moment she asked that, the boy gently stroked her cheek, and then further brought his mouth close to her ear and whispered something.

“Today, you look lovely again.”
“Huh… wha-… uh~!?”

Surprised by hearing those words so suddenly, Sakura tried to take a few steps back, but Kanata grabbed her hand, pulled her close a bit roughly, and then swapped places with her.

The boy’s back had been to the wall. He then lightly forced Sakura against said wall and placed his free hand right next to Sakura’s head. His face was close.

“Wha-… huh… what’s going on? What are… what are you doing?”
“Sakura… I will protect you for sure.”
“Uhm! …Yeah.”

Right after saying that, he lifted Sakura’s chin with his other hand. Then, his lips slowly closed in on hers. Expecting him to kiss her, Sakura closed her eyes and held her breath. While she found the current situation perplexing, she was fully ready to accept his kiss and-

____
__
_

“Wakey wakey, Sakura!”
“Mmh?”

Kanata had woken her up by. She immediately touched her own lips, but they were neither wet, nor was there anything different about them. With some difficulty, her barely awake mind concluded that the experience earlier hadn’t been real.

“Breakfast is ready, but… it looked like you were having a nice dream.”
“Ah… yeah, I did. I was dreaming of being kissed by- Oops, no, wrong, in my dream, you were warning me not to eat too much ice cream. But I still ate it, it was so yummy.”
“I see, so that’s the reason your face was switching between bewilderment and happiness…”

After that, the kids had their breakfast while Sakura kept shooting glances at the boy’s face, looking away whenever their eyes met.

“So, what should we do today?” Sakura asked.
“Well… Until we get any new orders from above, we don’t have anything to do. We can just read books or play games today.”
“That’s true.”

For that reason, the two kids settled on reading. Kanata had just woken up, so it was a bit too early for one of his naps. They each picked a book they had bought on an earlier occasion, sat down on the couch, and started reading.

Not sure whether the boy would like that or not, Sakura got close to Kanata and leaned her body against his. When he noticed what she was doing, he didn’t show any aversion to it.

“Come to think of it…” he started.
“What… what is it?”

Even though she managed to get physically close to him, Sakura couldn’t focus on reading her book.

“I wonder what would happen if we leveraged our quickness stat while reading a book.”
“So…?”
“I’ll try that out for a bit.”
“S-Sure.”

Kanata focused again and continued reading his book, but the speed at which he flipped the pages resembled a gust blowing through them, turning all of them almost at once. Not even a minute later, Kanata slammed the book shut.

“I’m done reading it…”
“Wow…”

Kanata then commented that it was more fun to read a book normally¹, teleported another one into his hand, and started reading it at a normal pace.

Time passed until it became noon, and the kids ate lunch. They quickly finished it, and then spent their time relaxing while huddled against each other on the couch.

“Today is a peaceful day, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.”

That moment, a message appeared in their minds.

It came from Shuu. Kanata sent a reply.

They closed the message.

“Shuu is about to come here.”
“I wonder, what does he want to consult us on?”

While the kids were still pondering this question, there was a knock on the door to their apartment. Kanata went to greet their guest.

“Hey there, comin’ in.”
“Be our guest.”

Shuu entered the kids’ apartment and sat down where Kanata indicated. Sakura brought out some tea.

“Thanks, Sakura. Sorry ’bout comin’ over so suddenly.”
“It’s no bother. We were just killing time today.”
“Oh, I see.”

Shuu then told them about the day’s events, how he had been promoted to SS-Rank. And that he’d like them to accompany him at a later time, in order to tell the king that there was another sage.

“Erm, so that would be in three to seven days, right?”
“Yep, you got it. I’ll let you know once I find out the exact day.”
“Understood,” Kanata nodded.
“That reminds me,” Shuu continued talking, “do you happen to know the best blacksmith in this city? I’d like to get a battleaxe for Rir, other than the one from her skill.”
“I see, in that case…”

Kanata told Shuu about the smithy who made his spear and Sakura’s sword.

“Gotcha. Thanks a lot. Well, I told you what I was plannin’ to, so I’ll be-”
“Ah, do you still have a moment?”

Kanata stopped Shuu when the latter was about to leave.

“Sure, what’s up?”
“Do you have an SS-Rank healing skill, Shuu? Back then, from what you told us, it didn’t sound like it.”
“You’re right… I don’t. Should I make one?”
“Yes, personally, I think that would be better. If you synthesize skills focusing on healing and fire magic, you should be able to create a fire-elemental healing skill.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow, then. Thanks again,” Shuu replied and went back home.

“So, it’ll soon be time to introduce Shuu to Mr. Loukis, at last.”
“Yep… I guess the day we can go home is getting close… Though I don’t like how it all depends on the king²… *Yawn*… I guess I’ll take a nap…”
“Oh, can I join you today?”
“Yes? Of course you can.”

The kids took a nap on the bed while holding hands.

1. I guess if you read books for information, using speed would be preferable, but there’s no real reason to speed up stuff you read for entertainment.
2. It says 王国 (“kingdom”) in the original, but from context this is likely a typo, since everything hinges on the king (国王).

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