Translator: Reflet

  Editor: ryunakama——

  That day, a uniformed Hera was constantly sitting on Taiyou’s shoulders like a pet bird.

  Regardless of Taiyou’s flirting with his brides on the way to school or the jealous boys at the school gates who followed behind them or the feelings of rivalry that emerged in track-and-field, Hera continued to ride on his shoulders.

  “You plotting something or what?”


  Taiyou found this phenomenon to be quite peculiar as he walked through the hallway by himself, inquiring from Hera as to what was going on.

  “I’m not plotting anything.”


  “Is that true?”


  “Yes indeed. Ah, I guess at most there’s one thing.”


  “What’s that?”


  “I just want to see you pull off the cool stunts you usually do from the best seat available.”


  “The heck.”


  “I mean what I say! Must you overanalyze everything?”


  “No I get what you’re doing but why so sudden?”


  “Because I really want to see right now. I want to take in everything and tell everyone of the grand tales of the legendary Taiyou-chan.”


  “I seriously don’t get you.”


  As he said, Taiyou didn’t get what she was trying to do, but it was at least clear that she wanted to see something.

  He didn’t particularly care if someone was watching him. It has happened countless times.

  People had observed his good points, his bad points, mental insecurities, physical insecurities.

  Why would he suddenly start caring now?

  “You’re free to look at whatever you want, but I’m not picking you up if you fall down.”


  “That is indeed fine.”


  Hera smiled broadly.

  “Because I’m technically not riding on you.”


  “What?”


  “I am constantly hovering about 1 mm above your shoulders. Essentially, it is an air chair!”


  “That makes no logical sense.”


  “Ahahaha!”


  Taiyou wandered aimlessly through the hallway. Hera continued to…pretend to ride on his shoulders, travelling with him.

  “This year’s almost over.”


  “Yes indeed.”


  “It’s been quite a while since we first met, but thinking about it, it still hasn’t even been a year.”


  “Indeed?”


  “Yeah, it was Spring, right? That’s when you appeared in front of me.”


  “You crushed the competition with Jenga.”


  “Actually, I recall digging holes and filling them back up.”


  “That was super fun.”


  “I seriously freaked out when the cops surrounded us.”


  “But now you can break through them like the warrior you are.”


  “I won’t though.”


  “You won’t!?”


  “Of course not.”


  He flicked Hera’s forehead.

  She lightly flew back, then went right back to his shoulder like a homing missile.

  “But but, I’m surprised too!”


  “Why?”


  “You gathered your seven brides so quickly. When you fell in love with Ruri-chan, I really thought to myself ‘well ‘at’s a real kicker innit’.”


  “What kind of dialect was that just now?”


  Taiyou quipped, but nodded his head.

  “Well I get that. Surprised me too.”


  “I expected a drawn-out battle. Let’s go, rawr rawr. Come at me, I’ll chew ya up. I thought it’d turn into something like that.”


  Hera spoke in a tone reminiscent of an old person.

  “I never felt like drawing things out like that.”


  But even though he said that, something in him sort of thought that wouldn’t have been bad either.

  Taiyou and Ruri. The hair on their heads becomes white, and wrinkles all over their faces, but still continuing to fight. Sometimes they’d fight each other, other times they’d fight together.

  But this had nothing to do with their gender.

  This relationship was, in a sense, a relationship of lifetime partners, to phrase it in a beautiful way.

  “Also, I never thought Sakura-chan would be the seventh.”


  “Really?”


  “Yes indeed. I thought Leti-chan would make a comeback.”


  “Oh right, Leticia-sensei.”


  He nodded, recalling the blonde princess.

  He met her nearly every day in school, but they had no further relationship past that.

  What might she be doing right about now?

  They hadn’t kissed ever since that time, but he hadn’t heard of her having a spasm either.

  “I guess she overcame it or tried her best to suppress it.”


  “She said she could, right?”


  “The princess of the Fili kingdom. There must be something to it.”


  “If Leti-chan were your bride she would have been visually perfect. Ruri-chan is on the silver side, and Leti-chan is golden.”


  “Ruri is actually white though.”


  “It doesn’t look silver to you?”


  Hera asked him with a blank face.

  “Definitely white.”


  Taiyou answered immediately.

  To him, Ruri was a “white” girl.

  He understood what Hera meant by silver.

  But Taiyou didn’t see it that way. To him, Ruri was white as snow.

  White.

  Her hair was white, her skin was white, the girl was just white down to the core.

  That was Tengai Ruri.

  There were no other colors mixed in, not even silver.

  “You really like her.”


  “I love her the most.”


  “Even now?”


  “I’ve never seen her as second place.”


  “Wow…so amazing, Ruri-chan.”


  Hera was impressed.

  Taiyou glanced at her.

  “Come to think of it, there’s one thing I wanted to ask you.”


  “What is it?”


  “What would happen if we kissed?”