Bonus Short Stories
Rio’s Sleeping Face
One day, sometime before departing for the Proxia Empire, Rio visited the stone house by himself; Celia and Aishia had remained in Rodania. Since the meal with Liselotte was planned for tomorrow, he informed the residents of the house he wouldn’t be returning to Rodania that night.
“Does that mean you’re staying the night, Onii-chan?!” Latifa asked happily. She had secured a seat beside Rio in the living room.
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“Yay!” Latifa clung to Rio with a cheer.
“That hurts, Latifa,” Rio said with a pained expression.
“That means we’ll have to have a feast tonight,” Orphia said with a smile.
Latifa immediately endorsed the idea. “Agreed! I’ll help too!”
The other girls also offered to help with the cooking. “I’ll help make something too,” Rio added.
“You’re finally back, so you should just rest. We’ll do the cooking tonight,” Sara said to him.
Alma nodded. “That’s right. Though, it’s still a little early for dinner.”
“You should take a bath and relax,” Miharu said, encouraging Rio to make himself at home.
“All right... I’ll take you up on that offer.”
And so, it was decided that everyone would make dinner for Rio. He took a bath in the stone house for the first time in a while to relieve his fatigue, then returned to the living room with damp hair. It seemed like the girls had begun cooking in the kitchen, as he could hear them chatting to each other harmoniously.
It’s kind of hard to relax while leaving all the housework to everyone... Rio thought while sitting in the living room. He split the housework evenly with Celia in Rodania, but even then he was always cleaning things up in advance, so having such idle time was a new feeling.
Maybe I should read a book.
With that decided, Rio stood up and headed to the bookshelf in the living room, picking out a random book and returning to the sofa.
While listening to the lively voices of the girls, he opened the book and silently moved his eyes over the pages. However, the bath must have warmed his body and made him feel sleepy, as he started dozing off. Several minutes later, his eyes were closed as he’d fallen asleep on the sofa.
Some time passed. “Zzz...” Rio breathed quietly in his sleep.
“Haruto...?” Miharu appeared in the living room, noticing Rio asleep on the sofa. She walked up to him and called his name, confirming there was no response, before bringing a throw blanket from another room and gently covering Rio’s body with it.
“Hehe.” Miharu smiled happily at Rio’s innocent face; she’d wake him when it was closer to dinnertime. She was about to return to the kitchen with that thought, but she was reluctant to leave the precious sight of Rio’s sleeping face behind and kept watching.
However, she couldn’t delay her return forever, so with an iron will, she turned to go back to the kitchen, when—
“La—?!”
Before she knew it, Latifa was standing behind her, covering Miharu’s mouth.
“Shh! You’ll scare Onii-chan if you scream,” she whispered, sitting beside Rio and clinging to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Wh-What are you doing, Latifa?” Miharu asked, blinking.
“You looked like you wanted to be spoiled by Onii-chan, so I’m showing you an example of how to do it.”
“I-I wasn’t thinking that,” Miharu denied in a flustered whisper.
“Mm... Latifa?” Rio naturally woke up from the noise and noticed Latifa sitting beside him.
“Yup. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to eat, so you can keep sleeping.”
“Okay.” Rio fell back asleep without noticing Miharu, probably because he was used to Latifa clinging to him, or perhaps because he had his guard down.
After that, Latifa had her fill of clinging to Rio until she was satisfied. “And this is how you act spoiled around Onii-chan,” she said to Miharu smugly, standing up without a sound.
“You’re the only one who can do that, Latifa...” Miharu’s reply was slightly exasperated and a bit envious.
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