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“Hrm.”

Right now, Mika was giving me a lap pillow.

Far from just three hours, we ended up playing “Urashima Tarou Train”, a game similar to “The Game of Life”, for four and a half hours, before Mika did her very best to give me a massage, like the one I gave her on her birthday. Finally, after the massage was over, she offered me one of her rare lap pillows.

At the moment, her legs were bare, likely since she wanted to give me the best experience, and I was merely wearing loose-fitting shorts on my lower body.

“How does it feel?”
“It’s sublime.”
“Eh-heh-heh… that’s great!”

She was stroking my head. Normally, apart from the lap pillow, being in a situation where both of us showed that much skin would have made me feel embarrassed.

I checked the time.

“Oh, it’s already been 30 minutes. Aren’t your feet numb?” I raised my head from her lap.
“No, I’m fine! We do have one more hour… Well, back then… I made a request to you on my birthday, didn’t I? Let’s do the reverse. This time, I’ll fulfill your request.”
“Hm~… give me a moment.”

What could I ask for? What would I like?
Even on a normal day, she would fulfill my requests. So, at a time like this, it had to be something special.

I got it.

“Then, let’s play more video games for this one hour.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.”

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“…Damn it.”
“Ah-ha-ha, just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean I’ll let you win, Ayumu!”

We had played a beat ’em up. And it resulted in my near total defeat.

“…Oh, would you look at the time. Shall we head to our room to have dinner?”

Curse her… quitting while she’s ahead. It can’t be helped, next time I’ll make sure to win.

For now, I decided to look forward to Mika’s cooking and move on, although with some lingering disappointment. Right after entering our room, Mika put on the same apron she had worn in the morning.

“Then… I’ll be cooking something a little special today.”
“Hm, I can’t wait!”

40 minutes later, she was done cooking. She made hamburg steak, but it was different from the usual.

“Eh-heh-heh… Today, I did the cooking without using my skills… uhm, please enjoy the meal?”
“Sure, thank you for the food.”

Even though she’d have been done in a flash if she had used her skills, Mika deliberately made it this way. It verified once again that I had found a wonderful wife.

“Mika, it’s delicious! Can you feed me?
“Sure, say ‘ahh’.”

She had already fed me during breakfast and while we were gaming, and it continued during dinner.

The moment the cherry tomato she had fed me disappeared in my mouth, I went for a kiss, even though we were in the middle of eating. It obviously wasn’t a French kiss this time.

“Eh-heh… you’re a kissing fiend today, Ayumu, aren’t you?”
“Ha-ha, I guess.”

Well, I just kept kissing her, so she wasn’t wrong. It was my birthday, so it was fine.

“Now, that was it for dinner! …Let’s eat the cake after the bath.”
“Alright. By the way, I heard that today there are supposed to be a ton of shooting stars. Should we watch them together? While we take our bath.”
“Wha-!?”

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“To… to think we had something like this.”
“We didn’t. To be honest, I made it just yesterday.”

Mika and I were gazing at the night sky from the newly made bath on the roof of our mansion.
Although the meteor shower hadn’t started yet.

“Eh-heh… nevertheless, we’re naked in an outside bath… uhm, it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“Well, I made it completely impossible to see from the outside, so we should be fine.”

Moreover, we obviously had bath towels wrapped around us. Other than that, we were both fully naked, so my emotions currently weren’t suppressed by the misanga.

Suddenly, there was something glittering in my line of sight.

“Oh, look! It started!” I pointed at the sky.
“Wow…!

Just as the word “meteor shower” implied, there were a ton of shooting stars. Although none of them looked different from those you saw on Earth, the sky was filled to the brim with lines of streaking stars, creating a magical view. Just how many shooting stars did fall during these few seconds?

For the time being, I made a wish. Mika was likely thinking the same and had her hands together in front of her mouth, seemingly mouthing something.

“What did you wish for?” I asked her.
“Eh-heh-heh, I won’t tell~.”

Her carefree smile looked truly adorable. Well, she was always cute.

“Then, I won’t tell either.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. At any rate, this was super pretty! No wonder the townspeople were in an uproar.”
“You’re prettier, Mika.”
“Eh, what are you saying…”

Although she replied that way, she seemed awfully happy. I gently draped my arm around her shoulders.

“Hm? Eh-heh-heh. Shall we eat the cake once we’re out?”
“Let’s.”

A short time later, we left the bath. We returned to our room, where Mika made the cake.
It was a chocolate cake, topped with lots of strawberries and truffle chocolate.

“Eh-heh-heh, I ended up using my skills this time… For now, happy birthday, Ayumu!!”
“Thank you!”

Not even a moment later, I kissed her. When our lips separated, Mika was grinning in delight.

“Eh-heh~. Somehow it feels like it is my birthday, not yours.”
“You think so? Oh, well, let’s eat.”

The chocolate cake was incredibly good. No matter how delicious they were, cakes created normally with our skills paled to something filled with an abundance of love.

“Phew, that was so good! Heh-heh-heh, I suppose you put all your love in it.”
“Y-Yeah. It’s because that’s how I feel about, Ayumu…! Uhm, I have one more present for you,” Mika explained, as her face turned red for some reason.

She probably wanted to do what I had done, when I gave her a present before we went to sleep during her birthday.
I wonder, will it be a letter? Did she blush because of that…? How cute.

“Erm… could you close your eyes and turn away?”
“Understood.”

Just what kind of present will it be. I can’t help wondering.

Ten seconds later, I heard a “you can look” and turned to where the voice was coming from. Mika wasn’t there, instead I saw a gift box of about the right size to contain a sitting girl.

“Is this the present?”

There was no reply. Left with no other choice, I slowly opened the large box.

“Ta-da!”
“Woah.”

When I had mostly freed up the box’s lid, Mika, wearing a red ribbon on her head, jumped up vigorously from within it.
Wow~, so Mika had been in there. What a huge surprise¹.

“Surprised? Did I shock you?”
“Right… you got the jump on me.”
“Eh-heh~, I am the present. How do you like it?” Mika said, as she spread out her arms and turned to me.

So cute.

…Hm. If she is the present, I should show her my gratitude. Since she gave me something incredible.
I picked up Mika from inside the box, and was about to march straight do the bed while holding her in a bridal carry. She likely sensed what I was about to do.

“Wah, hold on! Sorry, could you put me down for now? There is one more thing I’d like to give you.
“Oh, sure.

It felt a bit like being kept waiting, but I lowered her to the ground.

“Phew~… Here you go!”

She gave me what I assumed were 100 red roses. Between those roses, a letter had been placed.

“Eh-heh-heh, I ended up doing the same you did for me, but… roses are the best way to profess one’s love, aren’t they? …S-So, could you read it?”

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“Please come here a moment, Mika.”
“Hm, what is it? Eh-heh-heh… Are you done reading?”

Although she was right in front of me, I called out to her deliberately. She took a step forward, placing her in a spot that made it easy to pull her into an embrace.
…It declared one thing. She was my wife.

I just hugged her.

Well, although I had done so first on her Birthday, it made me happy to get that letter.

“Mh… I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Hey, Ayumu. Kanata told you… about what happened with me, didn’t he? You don’t think I’m dangerous²?”

When she looked at me anxiously, I strengthened my hug.

“No. I’d probably have been the same. I love you so much, it’s close to madness… As a matter of fact, there is also something I want to give you.”
“Huh… what’s that?”

I let go of her and took out something I had been working on over these past few days. It was a piece of red string.

“What is this?”
“Why don’t you appraise it?”

The string was divine grade. Once you tied it around your pinky, it became impossible to remove, unless you used a divine grade item specifically for that purpose.

Its effects were activated by first tying it on your own pinky and then the pinky of your intended partner. After the string was tied, it would become invisible, and you would no longer feel it. However, it tied your hearts together. Those tied together could never be separated, and even should they find themselves in a situation causing them to be split up, fate itself would intervene to undo it³. It also had several smaller effects, like making your partner appear more attractive.

In other words, once you tied this string, you would be dependent on each other. Or rather, it would restrain you. The mere implication made clear just what a dangerous article this was.

Mika tied it around her pinky…

“Eh-heh, like this, right?”

Indeed, she had already put it on.

“Are you sure? Once you put this on, you’ll lose your freedom, you know?”
“Huh, it’s an item like those that say we’ll keep loving each other forever, isn’t it? I think I already depended on you, Ayumu, but with this it’ll go both ways! Eh-heh-heh, come on, put it on already.”
“Alright.”

I tied the red sting around my pinky. It then shone red before turning invisible.

“So… together with the bracelet I gave you for your birthday, we’ll never be separated again.”
“…That makes me happy,” she said, as she pulled me in an embrace.

I took off the misanga.

“Your misanga… you’ll no longer wear it?”
“Yep. It did enough for today.”

The moment it was gone, my feelings changed.
…Woah~. In a moment, we’ll do it.

The thought made me slightly bashful, but… it would already be the third time. While I was wearing the misanga, I had gained courage.

“Alright, then.”

I pinned Mika down on the bed.

TL notes:
Personally, I think it’s a bit of a waste to have a birthday party with just Alim and Mika, which also very much mirrors the events during the latter’s birthday, instead of making use of the fact that all the protagonists (who’d have a good reason to celebrate together) are now in one place. Maybe we’ll get something like that in future chapters, but it seems more likely that the author will keep focusing just on the couples individually.

1. I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or serious here. My money is on sarcastic.
2. Well, she does have the power to wipe out whole countries without breaking a sweat, and if someone actually managed to kill Alim without any way of resurrection, she’d likely turn into some world-ending cataclysm, but I guess that’s not what she means here.
3. This is clearly based on the “red thread of fate” I mentioned in chapter 394. It would be interesting to know what does count as separation and what not. Depending on that, it might make their lives needlessly complicated.

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