I Have a Special Way of Explaining Myself
The air froze solid in that instant.
The white stocking, thin as a cicada's wing and carrying a faint, cool fragrance, was like a red-hot branding iron in Kexi's hand. His fingers twitched as though he were playing Paganini.
"Um... if I said I saw in the weather forecast that there'd be frost tonight, and I was afraid it would freeze, so I wanted to rub it warm, would you believe me?"
Kexi turned his head stiffly, his smile uglier than a grimace.
Cantarella said nothing.
Her eyes, usually languid and playful, were slowly kindling with two eerie red flames.
"Rub it... warm?"
Cantarella sneered. With every step she took toward him, the air pressure in the room seemed to drop by ten percent.
Her tall figure cast a shadow over Kexi, completely engulfing his towering frame.
"Kexi, I used to think there was just something wrong with your head. Now it seems you've donated even your bottom line to the Tacet Discords."
[Ding!] [Because the host completed the task in an excessively hardcore fashion, reward distribution has been delayed. Please wait for the system to settle the results.]
"Settle my ass!" Kexi roared frantically in his head. "Give me the ability already! Can't you see this old witch is about to unleash her ultimate? If I die here, who's going to write your assignments? Who's going to prey on all those beautiful girls and mature beauties?"
Kexi's heart sank.
"Can, Cantare, Sister Cantare, let me explain." He edged backward, trying to hide the damned stocking behind him, but he moved too hastily, and its lace caught on his expensive cufflink.
The scene looked like a picture-perfect record of a pervert's crime scene.
"Explain?" Cantarella stopped in front of Kexi and reached out with a slender, jade-like finger, gently lifting his chin. Her voice was soft enough to make his skin crawl. "Do you want to explain that the Montelli Family's young master actually collects women's intimate clothing on the side? Or are you going to tell me you've finally gotten tired of writing love letters after more than ten years and are ready to become a lingerie thief instead?"
"N-no, that's not it." Kexi shook his head frantically, his mind racing.
"Actually, this is performance art." Kexi's brain cells burned at full speed as he launched straight into bullshit mode. "Really! Lately, I've been studying 'On the Resonance of Material and Emotion.' I believe the fiber structure of stockings best embodies the resilience and vulnerability of women in the cruel world of Solaris. I was just about to take it up to the roof and contemplate life..."
"Contemplate life on the roof?" Cantarella was so furious she laughed, her fingertip tracing his Adam's apple. "I think you want to go up there to mourn your soon-to-be-departed limbs."
Boom!
A violent burst of resonance energy erupted, and the heat visibly warped the air behind Cantarella.
This was the oppressive power of a Resonator.
To Kexi as he was now, it was no different from a nuclear bomb going off at close range.
"Wait! I have one last request!" Kexi shouted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Cantarella paused and looked at him coldly. "Last words?"
"Could you... not hit my face?" Kexi looked utterly sincere. "I have a birthday banquet to attend next week. If I show up with two black eyes, the Montelli Family will lose all face."
"Heh. So you do know what face is?"
Cantarella swept her hand out, and an invisible shock wave sent Kexi flying.
"Bang!"
He slammed into the bedroom's massive bed, large enough to sleep five, and the soft bedding instantly sank beneath him.
Before Kexi could catch his breath, he felt his collar tighten. Cantarella had climbed right on top of him, pressing her knee against his chest and pinning him firmly to the bed.
The position was extremely suggestive, but also extremely dangerous.
Cantarella leaned down, her hair falling against Kexi's cheek, and lowered her voice to a near whisper. "Talk. Who put you up to this? Carlotta? Or Francis?"
She refused to believe that this boy, who had always been a pervert but had the desire without the nerve, would suddenly change his ways and do something like this.
Kexi felt the pressure bearing down on him from inches away. He could even smell her cool, delicate fragrance.
He wanted to say, "The system made me do it," but when he opened his mouth, he discovered that the lousy system had issued him a new real-time correction at that very moment:
[Side quest triggered: As a future domineering family head, how can you let a woman pin you beneath her?] [Hint: Please maintain your "devoted pervert" persona and reclaim your dignity as a man.]
Kexi: "???"
To hell with a man's dignity! I'm about to lose my life!
But as he looked at Cantarella's face, inches from his own, breathtakingly beautiful yet cold as ice, something in his head suddenly snapped.
I'm going to die either way. Might as well go out with a little more flair.
"No one put me up to it." Kexi suddenly stopped struggling, his gaze turning deep and fervent. He looked straight into Cantarella's eyes, his voice low and husky. "I just thought... those words were too pale. Cantarella, I've written 3,652 love letters, yet I can't even touch the hem of your skirt. The greatest distance in this world isn't between life and death. It's that I'm right in front of you, yet I can only feel your warmth through this touch of pure white."
Cantarella froze.
She had seen Kexi grinning cheekily as he wrote love letters, and seen him acting carefree when he was rejected, but never had she seen him like this... with an almost pathological devotion.
While she was lost in thought, Kexi raised his right hand as if possessed, his fingertips gently brushing the stocking caught on his cuff.
"Do you know? This isn't just a stocking. It's a projection of my humble adoration, which has nowhere else to go, into the real world."
After saying all that, Kexi nearly threw up himself.
Is this what it takes to be a professional at playing the devoted lover? Blech.
A deathly silence fell over the room.
Cantarella's expression shifted from anger to disbelief, then from disbelief to something inexplicably complicated.
Just as Kexi thought his speech might barely get him through this, a soft click came from the door.
Then came the sound of something heavy falling to the floor.
Kexi and Cantarella turned their heads at the same time.
At the doorway, Butler Saibas, who had been carrying black tea and pastries, stared wide-eyed. The exquisite bone china tray he had been holding had shattered to pieces.
Before his eyes, the giant of a man, more than two meters tall, was pinned beneath Cantarella.
And in his hand, he was still clutching Cantarella's... white stocking.
"S-sorry to disturb you."
The door was firmly shut.
Kexi stared at the ceiling, his eyes vacant.
"Damn system."
"Can I request an on-the-spot cremation? No need to scatter my ashes, just flush them down the drain."
Cantarella slowly stood up and gracefully smoothed out her rumpled skirt, then took her time pulling the stocking from Kexi's hand.
She looked at Kexi, and her lips slowly curved into a cruel yet exquisite smile.
"You're so young, yet you refuse to behave. Today, big sister will teach you how to be a proper person."
A jellyfish enveloped his head.
Then Kexi lost consciousness.
Cantarella picked up his terminal and called Carlotta.
"Hello, what is it?"
"Carlotta, Kexi is in my hands. If you don't want anything to happen to him, come to Porto-Vino Castle."
"What did you say?!"