“Still, please don’t avoid me.”

After saying that, Edgar seemed to have no intention of waiting for an answer as he rose from his lying position somewhat urgently. Then, after roughly putting on his clothes and fumbling around the bed for a while, he seemed to find his glasses that had fallen to the floor and put them on. Before Shasha could say anything, he briefly looked down at her with an expression dripping with regret, then quickly kissed her on the corner of her mouth.

“You can sleep in a bit more, even if you come late.”

His small whispering voice tickled her lips.

After much deliberation, Shasha opened the door and let out a sigh of relief when she saw the man’s face deeply asleep, making her internal worry that Edgar might be awake seem foolish.

She immediately swallowed her breath reflexively and examined his face that appeared so innocent.

‘……He wouldn’t even notice if someone carried him away.’

Though he wasn’t the type to wake at small sounds, she found herself being extra cautious since she somehow dreaded making eye contact with him if he were awake.

She carefully placed the potion from her pocket in a position where he could see it, but then felt somehow heavy-hearted and picked it back up. The golden liquid, similar to gold but even more valuable, swirled before her eyes. The thought of putting it down again tormented her heart as she remembered his puppy-like eyes that would tear up if rejected.

……Puppy? Is it even appropriate to compare him to that small, delicate creature? Recalling how violently he had penetrated her, it was clearly inappropriate. Yet her heart, unable to be cruel, worried about the hurt he would feel.

The expression he would make when waking up and seeing it had been returned to him was vividly clear in her mind. Despite saying he couldn’t force anything on her. If Edgar was going to say such things, he should first fix that pitiful expression of his.

“I have no choice.”

Thinking that it was probably herself, not Edgar, who was the kind one, she put away the potion with a habitual sigh.

Her master with his day and night reversed would probably wake up late at night and spend another day with his books, so this would need to stay with her until lunch tomorrow when she would face him again.

“What do you have no choice about?”

……If only she hadn’t heard that locked voice.

Shasha opened her eyes wide, unable to hide her surprise, and watched in real time as his eyes, just waking from sleep, immediately became clear upon seeing her.

Forgetting her intention to act casually and skillfully around him, her mouth suddenly shut tight.

Despite never being one to wake up all at once…… his blue eyes, with not a trace of sleepiness as if he hadn’t just woken up, were overflowing with joy.

Feeling a corner of her heart abnormally thudding again at his affection that he didn’t seem to intend to hide, her greeting came out slowly due to bewilderment.

“……Good afternoon, Young Master.”

‘Ah. D*mn it.’

What am I saying? Though the words were the same as usual, Shasha mentally tore at her hair at her own speech, which had a completely different tone.

Originally, it was a greeting full of obvious sarcasm toward a master who woke up late, but without that sharpness, it sounded quite ridiculous.

Edgar seemed to sense this too, hesitating momentarily before smiling. Maintaining his smiling face, he grabbed his maid’s hand firmly with a fairly quick movement, unable to hide his rare look of embarrassment as he put on his glasses that were placed nearby.

“Yes. Good afternoon, Shasha.”

It was such a natural movement that if someone else had seen it, they might have considered it quite skillful flirtation. The final assessment was that despite acting quite boldly, he couldn’t hide his reddened ears and ended up just squeezing her hand.

“Ah……Yes.”

The astonishing thing was…… as if cursed by some terrible spell. Yes. Right. If not for a curse or magic, it couldn’t be explained how Shasha was unable to skillfully accept it.

The joints of his unnecessarily large hand suddenly felt prominent, making it difficult for her to chuckle once at that pitiful squeezing and send him to the bathroom.

Her capable tongue, which normally disciplined him harshly while maintaining boundaries, seemed paralyzed and unable to function, and her head, where reason usually preceded emotion, seemed to have stopped working and creaked.

Conversely, the eyes of the man who was always naive widened briefly before curving nicely.

“Shasha.”

Edgar firmly gripped the small hand in his again. As though he had already forgotten his feelings of guilt for pathetically exploiting her kind gap.

He smiled with a hint of shyness, concealing his true intent as he settled firmly into the space he had carved out for himself.

Desire was overlaid with excuses. He was a perpetrator whining for her to understand his feelings, and in the end, he was a cowardly person pretending it wasn’t his true intention, acting as if he were the victim. Like saying he would respect her wishes but ultimately relying on affection to ask her not to ignore him.

He now looked straight at how he had tried to deceive even himself while intending to somehow occupy her side.

He never had any intention from the beginning. Of letting her go. That selfishness was unrelated to her will from the start. Rather, his thirst grew at the elation of having something seemingly uncatchable arrive before his eyes.

The clever Shasha would soon let go of his hand without regret as if nothing had happened, so Edgar thought his only option was to act forcefully, pretending not to notice her difficulty, whispering that he wasn’t forcing her, ultimately preventing her from doing anything.

Knowing he had pushed her too hard due to his unexpected emotional outburst the previous day, he truly hadn’t intended to act this way today, but he was pleased by her broken expressionlessness and surprised look at his drooping eyebrows.

“I want to wash.”

His hateful voice ensnared her like a net.

His habit of having someone attend to his bath had been a long-standing one since childhood. Everyone in the ducal family knew that occasionally he would only entrust his hair to her hands. Hadn’t he said that having someone attend to his bath was rather uncomfortable?

Setting aside that fact, this was too blatant a seduction.

Strictly speaking, it hadn’t even been a full day since she had fallen for that seduction, so it shouldn’t be surprising. But that’s why it was more unexpected.

“……You haven’t forgotten where the bathroom is, have you?”

Her voice cracked slightly. The response to her question, pretending not to understand his intentions, was his characteristic seemingly naive smile.

Finding herself in this situation, she began to doubt whether this was really the same innocent man.

Soon her body was pulled slightly forward as the man’s hand led her. The area below his upward-looking eyes was slightly flushed as if containing yesterday’s heat.

‘What is this crazy b*stard……’

One part of her head became distant with bewilderment.

He soon skillfully extracted the hard object felt from her skirt, as if gauging it.

“I knew you still hadn’t taken it.”

Shasha momentarily flinched at the rude hand entering without permission, then looked down at him in astonishment as he opened the lid without hesitation and handed it to her. Why was he only quick at times like this?

The rogue finally poured it into Shasha’s open mouth.

Instantly, as if by magic, she felt her body becoming incredibly energetic and her mind clearing. In her vision, which brightened as if she had experienced some enlightenment, she saw Edgar pouring the remaining liquid into his own mouth.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

The hand carefully massaging her scalp subtly brushed the back of her neck.

A maid being attended to by her master was unheard of. Especially if it became known that he was a high nobleman with the purest blue blood next to the imperial family’s bloodline, and the son at that, it was clear that the gentle duke and duchess would grab their necks and collapse.

His face was bright as he personally washed her unremarkably dull brown hair, finding it somehow fascinating.

His words “I want to wash” had transformed into “I want to wash you,” and he was now completely soaked.

The man who entered the bathroom seemed to fumble around at first, but soon led her as if he had made some great decision. Judging by his constant touches to her earlobe and neck, it didn’t seem like a particularly pure decision.

Shasha was led by Edgar’s hand, unable to shake off her astonished feeling. And before they could do anything, they both got soaked like drowned rats from a misdirected stream of water, and all he ended up doing was washing her hair.

It was exasperating how he shamelessly maintained an er*ction while wiping his glasses that quickly fogged up with a clueless expression, but she was the one who had followed him in with the intention of going along with his obvious ploy. And now she clearly realized that Edgar was quite good at exploiting that fact.

At some point, she had even wondered if he would ever marry and fulfill his role properly. Of course, she wasn’t referring to his bedroom skills, but rather her broad-minded concern about whether such a childish man would be able to function as an adult.

She felt somewhat betrayed, having believed in the all-ages nature of this world’s setting, and because he had seemed so incredibly innocent. But remembering her own moans that had collapsed helplessly to things he had learned from who knows where, she had nothing to say.

After a long time, the hands touching her hair fell away, and she heard the sound of wet clothes sticking to the body being removed. Her awkwardly rolling gaze touched the man’s n*ked body.

Though they had coupled enough to make her shake her head in denial at dawn, her throat tickled at the sight of his firm body finally seen under the bright artificial light emitted by the magic stone.