Saving My Childhood Friend Through... Questionable Means... - Chapter 17
When Seria assumed the prayer position, Lucas, beads of nervous sweat forming on his forehead, closed his eyes and resumed his prayer.
Not only had he embraced Seria roughly the night before, but he had also spent the entire night replaying those moments in his mind, filled with inappropriate thoughts about her.
Could this be the curse at work? Before last night, he’d never had such lewd thoughts, but now it felt like his mind was completely out of control.
Unable to sleep, Lucas had risen at dawn and prayed fervently for forgiveness, filled with guilt over how he had acted. But as soon as he saw Seria that morning, his body reacted again. Worse still, images of her face, intertwined with memories of her expressions from last night, kept resurfacing.
‘Last night, Seria had such an alluring expression. But today, her face looks calm and composed… I kind of want to see that look again…’
The moment the thought crossed his mind, his chest tightened with guilt.
‘It’s the curse. It has to be. There’s no other explanation for this.’
In just one night, he felt like he had become a completely different person. This had to be the incubus’s curse—how else could he, who had no interest in women, suddenly find himself lusting after his friend?
Determined to resist, Lucas poured all his focus into his prayer, desperately trying to calm the stirring in his body. After a long while, he managed to suppress his arousal, but the presence of Seria beside him continued to nag at his thoughts.
He couldn’t stop worrying about her. Last night, he’d been so consumed by his own desires that he hadn’t considered that it was her first time too.
‘…Was I too rough with her? Is she okay?’
His concern finally broke through, and in a low voice, he asked Seria, who was clumsily mimicking a prayer beside him.
“Are you… okay?”
“Huh?”
“Last night… I think I was too rough. Does it hurt?”
As Seria turned her head to look at him, Lucas quickly averted his gaze to the floor. His wandering eyes unintentionally swept over her body before darting away in embarrassment. Remembering the intensity of the previous night, Seria blushed but managed to respond.
“I’m… fine. You don’t need to worry. I wanted to do it, after all.”
“Still…”
Interrupting him, Seria hurriedly added,
“Oh! When I said I wanted to, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I just wanted to save you, that’s all. Please don’t misunderstand.”
“I’m not misunderstanding.”
“Good. Don’t misunderstand. Also, I talked to the maids, and apparently, nobody puts much weight on their first time anymore. Everyone just lives freely these days. They say that even if two people aren’t in a relationship, they’ll sleep together as long as there’s mutual attraction. They call it a ‘casual relationship’.”
“What? Casual relationship?”
Lucas’s surprised tone made Seria nod and continue.
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been living too sheltered to even know about it. So, really, don’t overthink it. Let’s just… be casual.”
“Ah… okay.”
Lucas’s expression stiffened awkwardly, and he nodded. Seria forced a smile, trying to maintain a lighthearted air.
‘Why does this conversation feel so serious? I was trying to keep it casual, but now it’s unbearably awkward.’
Just as she was hoping to move on from the topic, Lucas spoke again.
“Is there… anything I should be careful about?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, even if we’re in a casual relationship, there are still… expectations for how things should go in bed, right? Since we have to do it again tonight, I wanted to know how it was for you.”
‘Why is the conversation going in this direction again?!’
Seria let out a soft sigh before answering.
“It was… fine.”
“It was fine for me too—”
“No! Not like that. I mean, there wasn’t anything specific you needed to be careful about. That’s all I meant by ‘fine’.”
“Ah… okay.”
The conversation was spiraling into an embarrassing mess. Lucas, flustered by her clarification, turned bright red and nodded quickly.
“Really, it was nothing. Just… don’t let my effort go to waste, okay?”
“Got it. I’ll… um, I’ll do my best… no, I mean… argh, never mind.”
Lucas trailed off, eventually letting out a deep sigh. The room felt stifling, filled with a silence punctuated only by their shared sighs.
Seria hesitated, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye before speaking.
“Um… if you feel strange or out of control, let me know right away. We need to stop things from escalating.”
“…I always feel strange. This curse is stronger than I thought.”
That implied they might even have to do it in broad daylight if the situation got worse. Alarmed, Seria stammered as she stood up abruptly.
“W-well, only tell me if it’s absolutely urgent. I’m heading out for now. See you tonight.”
Without waiting for a response, she offered a quick goodbye and hurried out of the room. Lucas reached out as if to stop her, but let his hand fall with a resigned sigh.
Glancing down at the now painfully obvious state of his arousal, Lucas frowned in frustration.
Just a short conversation, and he was already hard again. Was this also because of the curse? The sorcerer had warned him that the curse might drive him to lose control even during the day.
Shutting his eyes tightly, Lucas pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to force his thoughts into order. No matter how overwhelming the urge became, there was no way he could justify doing something so intimate with Seria in the middle of the day.
