My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

Chapter 340 - Clearing The Air, Part 2

She told me it was childish.

That it was something personal - a troubling concern that wasn't any of my concern, and then after hearing her out… through a series of long discomforting pauses, averted gazes, and a thinly-veiled front of nonchalance, I realized this was beyond being childish, this wasn't just personal… or even trouble.

This was simply downright adorable. Irene was adorable. She really, truly was, and I do not say a single syllable lightly. Seriously these were words I'd never thought I'd be stringing together in that precise order.

See, through these sometimes blurred, sometimes blind, not to mention stupid, blackened meat-lenses of mine, Irene was this esteemed individual held in the highest regard. This high-and-mighty icon I propped on this high-and-mighty pedestal. 

And from way up there she was this unwavering figure of dignity and grace. The ice-cold beauty of pure auster and sosphication that operated on reasoning solely based off of logic and facts.

So all this time I thought perhaps it had to be something deeply rooted in the logical and methodical as the culprit responsible for her gloom and grief. 

Then I saw her squirm…. I heard her moan, whine - the ice-cold melting fast - vocally expressing discontent over something so illogical, irrational, as a stare… my stare.

All along the centerpiece of her woes - the evil, insidious culprit wreaking havoc on that analytical, logic-based hivemind of hers... was me. All this drama, all this ruckus… all because she just wants me to stare at her more. Well, it's as I said...

Freaking adorable. 

I'd have laughed all the way to my grave at the utter absurdity of it all, but I've made a promise to her already, so sadly I'll only have to make do with a smile.

A smile that Irene somehow seems to find all the more discomforting to her mental physique.

"Okay, you know what, I take it back, please laugh at me," So hasty to turn away again, so quick to retreat back into her little shell of apathy, never realizing it's already been shattered into pieces long, long ago, and that she was the one holding the sledgehammer. "Go on - have a good long chuckle. Snigger while you tell me I'm being silly. Say what's on your mind, let's just get this over with." 

Well, I suppose she did ask for it. Embarrassed, mortified, and very likely to bolt across the park at the first indication of a giggle, but again - she did ask for it.

And so I parted open my curled lips, and got 'this' over with. "You're so cute right now it hurts." 

"Huh?" I think it didn't compute. She didn't compute, blinking baffled. "What?" 

"I said you're very cute," I repeated, as loudly as I could go without full-on shouting at her. "So cute, so overwhelmingly adorable, that I think I need to lie down a bit - aw, my heart's gonna burst." 

That last part was a half-lie. My heart was normal - thumping hard - but overall thumping fine. But I did need to lie down however… my neck was getting quite stiff, and I knew just the perfect spot to set it at ease.

I lifted my feet off the ground, stretched both far across the bench, and as for the rest of me - I gently let fall, plummeting closer and closer towards her, much to her own shock and horror.

"W-Wha-What are you doing?" Irene stammered, demanded, and halfway through, finding her own answer, but by then it was already far too late for her to do anything about it aside from voicing the occasional meek, feeble protest. "Don't - but my-my scent, you can't… h-hey!" 

I landed - touching the back of my head down on her soft, supple thighs. I've never been in direct contact with her for so long, and so the exact moment that streak of non-contact was broken - everything inside of me flared up at once. 

Carnal desires, lecherous thoughts swirled fiercely about to the point that every joint, every muscle in my body tensed, my hands writhing, and my legs wriggling, wanting to do more than just simply stay put. 

But even as her aroma, now more thick and plentiful than ever, pervaded my senses and overwhelmed me to my limits, I managed to keep those desires and those wants from sprouting up to the surface.

As for how Irene was handling things on her end, well... her breathing got very shaky, and her face went very red. 

"You're… you're mocking me, aren't you?" She said, her voice drastically fluctuating in strength and volume. "I tell you I want to be treated the same, and you… and you do whatever this - whatever it is you are doing right now." 

"I'm stargazing." 

"Stop it, then!" 

"Stop me, then," I said right back. 

But she didn't. No, she didn't budge one bit. Her hands remained on either side of the bench, and she stayed simply staring down at me, still at a total loss as to what to do with the disheveled, audacious head resting atop her thighs. 

Ah well, that's her problem, and until she finds how to best sort it out, here that head shall remain gazing up at the magnificent splendor that is the view from down here… and my, was it a breathtaking sight.

"Y'know I think I see two planets orbiting nearby," I said casually, slanting my head sideways for a better angle. "A pair of big, round planets. Very big, very round." 

She didn't seem too enthused about it as I was.

"Very nice," I finished, giving it a firm nod of approval. 

Her lips filtered out a heavy breath. "Do you sexually harass every woman you cross paths with?" 

I stopped staring at the heavenly bodies, started staring at the celestial head instead. "Only the pretty ones that harassed me first." 

She shied away again. "That's not fair. I was… I didn't… I wasn't myself, you know that."

"Oh," I realigned my head again. "So you didn't mean it after all?" 

"No, I did mean it! I meant it all!" She shouted almost at once, and then that's when the confusion and the panic began to set in. "No, no, no, no, I hate you." 

"Y'know for an astute detective, you're not very good at being astute." 

Irene was simmering, grumbling low and husky beneath pursed lips. "It's only with you, it's only ever with you I'm like this." 

"And it's only ever with you I'm like this," I answered back. "Quippy, snarky… you don't like it?"

"I don't dislike it." 

"Me neither. I like the way I am when I'm with you," I raised a hand upwards, and she stifled a breath, her shoulders tensing as I reached closer, then laxing again, as the back of my fingers gently caressed her cheek. "And I like the way you are when you're with me." 

I stared at her, and only her, and in that moment nothing else mattered apart from us, apart from her eyes gazing tenderly right back. 

"All this time I thought you were mad at me," I said, lightly stroking the corner of her lips. "That you were resenting me for digging up past memories, for letting Ria do as she wished, or for wasting precious time that I didn't have." 

"I… I did…" She whispered almost breathlessly. "I was…"

"But not for long." 

Silently, she shook her head.

"Who would have thought that the thing that would bother you the most out of everything else could be something so… so childish?" 

"I told you."

"Yeah, and you were quite right on that," I chuckled. "You sounded like a dog yearning for more affection, for more pats on the head. It was cute." 

"It was stupid."

"It was cute," I repeated. 'Stupidly cute."

"Fine," She was bright red again. "Whatever... whatever you say."

It's quite strange, I realized. In this situation here, our positions should be the polar opposite, shouldn't they? She was the Succubus, the one to be gesturing, smirking, batting her eyelids all the way to my heart… and I was to be the unwitting fool that was wrapped around her finger, strung along to her every whim.

Instead, it was this. Although, I didn't mind this either.

"So..." I shifted to the other cheek, with her already subtly turning her face the other way before I even reached. "Is this what you meant? What you wanted?"

She seemed to be in a haze, her gaze glazed. Every time I'd graze her with one of my fingers, her breath would quiver, her eyes would shut… and getting anything coherent out of her then was simply impossible. 

So, only briefly, I stopped stroking her cheek, and slowly she fluttered her eyes open. She took a moment to recoup her senses, before once again, she tried to hide away.

"You're… you're only doing this because I asked you to," She said.

With a push of a finger, I centered her eyes to mine again. "I'm only doing this because I want to." 

"How do I know you mean that?"

"How?" I pondered the question for some time, thinking the answer would come to me easy, but it didn't. It never did. "I guess you don't. I guess you're just gonna have to trust that I do." She tried to look away again, but I didn't let her, I wouldn't let her. "Like I trust that you do too." 

When that failed to convince her, when that did little to assure her… I figured it was about time to set the record straight, to show her once and for all, how I really felt about her.

"Let's head to bed, Irene."