By Zephyria 
I had no choice but to feign illness, which finally made Aska look at me. Sniffling, he laid me straight on the pillow, and I grabbed his wrist and said, “It was just a joke. You’re not ugly.”
“Don’t talk, just shut up.”
I clamped my mouth shut at that.
It was truly absurd. Of course, anyone could see it was a joke, so why was he so shocked? It’s not like he’s just pretty, or a little pretty, or even incredibly pretty, but unbelievably, ridiculously pretty.
Does he not look in the mirror?
Anyway, whatever the reason, I vowed never to play such a joke again, no matter what.
“You might feel dizzy for a few days.”
Aska covered my eyes with his hand as he spoke. It’s not like I’m going to die anyway, so I don’t care if I’m dizzy or not. More than that, I was more concerned that his voice still seemed hoarse.
“Don’t do that again. I’ve already told Popo, so even if you want to, you won’t be able to.”
He spoke as if warning me, but his voice was full of worry. Why does his voice sound so ticklish? My heart, which had been broken and barely stitched back together like a rag doll, pounded so fiercely it felt like it would tear apart again.
I took his hand covering my eyes and placed it on my chest.
I could feel his palm trembling slightly through the thin fabric. Aska’s pupils quaked again, making him slightly breathless.
“How old were you when we got married?”
“Twelve.”
So I must have been sixteen then? We were both old enough that we couldn’t have gotten married without knowing each other. Usually, in these cases, the marriage is arranged before birth, and they marry very young.
Or maybe it was decided suddenly.
I had many questions, but I had a specific reason for bringing up this topic, so I moved on.
“So you didn’t spend the first night together either?”
“……”
I clearly saw him tense up for a moment, as if he sensed the intention behind my question, but Aska changed the subject.
“We slept together on the day we got married.”
“Just slept?”
“We fought back then, so we slept in the same room, but separately…”
I narrowed my eyes as I watched him subtly avoid my gaze. I felt like he knew why I was bringing this up, but he was deliberately pretending not to.
He seemed to be a shy person by nature, but it felt different from that. Looking closely, I thought he looked genuinely troubled, which made me even more puzzled.
We’re already married, and it doesn’t seem like he hates me… It’s not just that, he obviously likes me a lot without me even having to hear it.
But I couldn’t understand why he was reacting like this. Is he just scared? Feeling unsure, I asked again, just in case.
“So when are we going to spend our first night together? Should we just do it today?”
Aska’s eyes widened at my question.
“You can’t even move your head properly. Because you’re dizzy.”
Then, as if he hadn’t done anything wrong, he stammered an excuse. Of course, what he said wasn’t wrong, but was that the only reason?
He seemed reluctant, so I asked again, feeling slightly dejected.
“Do you not like doing it with me?”
Fortunately, Aska shook his head violently, indicating that he didn’t dislike it.
“It’s not that… I have a condition.”
“A condition? What condition?”
What condition could there be for spending the night together? The only thing that came to mind was contraception. But if he’s a man, there’s no reason to worry about that, right? Or maybe he’s scared and doesn’t want to do penetration? If that’s the case, I was willing to accommodate his wishes.
But unlike the few expectations I had, what came out of Aska’s mouth was something I never imagined.
“Let’s do it with clothes on.”
“What?”
“Don’t take off my clothes.”
“……”
For something he was presenting as a condition, it was too trivial. Granting something like that wasn’t difficult. But when I suddenly remembered the large, deep scar on Aska’s body, I sensed that this wasn’t a simple issue.
When I didn’t say anything, Aska added,
“Or we can just turn off the lights.”
“……”
Whether we wear clothes or take them off, whether we turn off the lights or not, none of that was important. Besides, I had momentarily forgotten, but when I remembered the mass that I had seen in Aska’s memories screaming in pain, my head became complicated.
Aska, who had been anxiously watching me, offered a third alternative.
“If you don’t like either of those, you can just cover your eyes. With something like an eye mask.”
“……”
Could it be that he’s misunderstanding that I’m not keen on it? That’s why he keeps suggesting different methods. What does he think of me? Does he think I’m desperate to do it? Of course, that’s not entirely wrong.
Anyway, it was screaming that there was something he couldn’t tell me, so I decided to bury my lust for a while.
“You don’t have to set such conditions. I won’t do it if you don’t want to.”
As I said with a sigh, Aska suddenly shouted.
“I don’t not want to!”
My lust, which I had pushed into a corner, raised its head again at his strong denial, but I stomped on it and barely buried it.
“Is it because of the scars on your body?”
When I asked cautiously, Aska hesitated and nodded slightly.
“You don’t want to show them?”
“Anyway, they’ll all heal soon, they’re almost all better. Let’s just do it like that until then, and when they’re all gone, no. Anyway, it’ll be okay later, so then I can take off my clothes and we don’t have to turn off the lights. When they’re completely healed, there won’t be any traces left.”
He was talking so incoherently that I couldn’t understand what he meant. But judging from his tone, it seemed like he was misunderstanding something big, so I made sure to correct that part.
“Whether we take off our clothes or not, that’s not important. I understood because you said you didn’t want to show me the scars, it’s not like I’m waiting for them to heal because I don’t want to see them.”
“……”
“So it doesn’t matter if there are traces left or not. Why do you keep…”
I frowned and stopped talking.
It was because I remembered Aska being shocked when I said he was ugly a little while ago. Could this be related to that? I wondered why he was so shaken by what was obviously a joke…
“That’s because you didn’t look closely.”
As expected, I felt like I had been hit by a rock when I heard those words.
“I looked closely. The scar on your back last time.”
“You just saw it for a moment. And my back is almost completely healed.”
“Then show it to me again now.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Aska didn’t answer and turned his head away. I persistently asked again.
“Why?”
“……”
“Why don’t you want to?”
“……”
Aska kept his mouth shut for a long time before muttering.
“Because it’s gruesome…”
It was as good as a confirmation. To think he was really intimidated by something like that. So that might be why he was so shocked by what I said as a joke.
Of course, like Aska said, I didn’t look at the scar closely. But even if the scar was gruesome, hideous, and so large and deep that it was chilling, did he think I would reject him because of something like that?
“But it’ll heal soon anyway. It’s healing now too.”
There he goes again. How many times have I heard him say that it’ll heal soon? Come to think of it, I remember hearing it in my sleep when Aska was washing me.
It’s obviously better to not have scars than to have them, and I could fully understand Aska’s desire not to show them to me. But I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
It was because his tone sounded like I wouldn’t like him if he had scars.
I didn’t know how to express this, so I just frowned a lot, and Aska looked at me and asked.
“Do you want to do it with clothes on?”
“……”
The moment I heard those words, the desire in my heart that wouldn’t go out no matter how much I stomped on it and buried it disappeared without leaving a spark. My heart, which had cooled as if it had been hit by cold water, was left with only resentment and anger like ashes.
“Do you think I’ll only think it’s gruesome if I see the scar? Not worry about who the hell did that to you, whether it hurt when you got hurt, or how much you suffered while the wound was healing?”
In fact, when you think about it, it’s nothing much, but I couldn’t understand why I was so annoyed and angry. Just a moment ago, my heart was pounding so much that my whole body was ticklish, but in an instant, my mind turned cold.
‘Your only good point is that you’re pretty…’
Then my head throbbed and a memory came to mind. It was definitely something I had said.
I couldn’t even close my widening mouth. I said something like that? Really? Really?
That can’t be. Am I mistaken? Could I have really said something like that? Maybe the memory is wrong. Or maybe someone else said it.
“That’s not true, but it’s ugly anyway.”
“……”
Aska said with a sullen face, as if he didn’t know what he had done wrong. My head throbbed and unbearable pain and dizziness rushed in at the same time.
“Does your head hurt?”
Aska asked worriedly as I grabbed my head and squeezed my eyes shut. He covered my eyes with a soft touch, but the headache only continued to worsen.
“Let’s talk about this later and get some more sleep. I’ll tell you as soon as it’s clean.”
Those words made me gasp again. What does he mean by clean? Does he mean a clean body with no scars?
My insides were burning.
Damn it, what the hell did I say to a twelve-year-old? Am I crazy? If I could meet myself, I would pull out my tongue, wrap it around my neck, and hang myself.