Side Story: Settling into a Daily Routine

Side Story:
Settling into a Daily Routine

 

EVERY TIME I SAW Milkit’s unbandaged face, the words slipped easily from my mouth like a constant refrain.

“You’re so beautiful…”

I sat at the table with my chin propped in my hands as I thought back to her face, mumbling the words aloud to myself. I didn’t mean for anyone to actually hear it, but with Eterna sitting directly across from me, it was impossible for her not to. She fixed me with a steely glare but fortunately didn’t say anything.

Ever since that day, I had been on cloud nine. Milkit had promised she would reveal her face to me only when we were alone, which meant I would have another opportunity to take off her bandages tonight. I couldn’t wait. My heart pounded, and I could feel my face flush with the increased blood. I was filled with pins and needles from the sheer excitement of it all.

But it was innocent! My excitement was completely purehearted. I totally didn’t have any weird intentions or anything, it was just that every time I took the bandages off and felt Milkit’s skin against my own, it felt like electricity was coursing through my body. Even just thinking about it brought back the sensation.

“I’m just removing bandages, is all…”

Another comment mumbled aloud, another glare from across the table. Once again, Eterna let it drop without a word. I could feel her cold stare but decided that it was just better to not pursue.

I could tell I wasn’t the only one who felt that strange sensation when removing the bandages. Milkit had to have felt the same. Or at least, it seemed like she did. Well, I couldn’t exactly say whether she felt the same sensation, but she’d been acting kind of odd today. To be fair, so was I. Maybe we were both just too keenly aware of what awaited tonight?

Or maybe she hated me for what happened yesterday?

No, that couldn’t be it. Of that much, I was certain. I didn’t exactly have anything to back up that confidence, but I was still somehow certain of it.

“I feel like we’d really grown a lot closer…”

Another comment mumbled to myself. They said the third time was a charm.

I heard the sound of a bath being run and jerked my head up to look in that direction. Eterna was staring at me with a smirk on her face this time. I wanted to argue that I wasn’t thinking about anything weird but decided to say nothing once more.

The sound of the bath meant that Milkit was currently relaxing in the tub. Eterna’s water magic made it relatively easy to draw a bath whenever we wanted, so we made it a daily ritual to take some time to soak in the tub. Even having a bathroom all to yourself was quite a luxury in the West District. Though the house was a bit on the old side, it had multiple rooms and was quite spacious.

“I really should thank Leitch for this.”

Eterna smirked across the table at me again.

“What are you looking at, anyway?” I demanded.

“Hmm?”

“You keep giving me weird looks!”

“Me? A top-tier mage with a heart of gold? I’d do no such thing. You must be overthinking things, Flum.”

“I can hear you sigh when you stare at me!” Besides, I hardly thought that a mage with a heart of gold would call themselves top-tier.

“What else am I supposed to do? You seem to be craving attention, so I might as well give it to you.”

Wow, she was really laying it on thick!

“Where’s this pompous attitude coming from? I’m not looking for someone to pay attention to me.”

“Well then, dare I ask what you were thinking of when you heard the water running? Milkit’s naked body, perhaps?”

“What makes you say that?!”

“Because you’re acting like a prepubescent boy who’s just about to go on his first date.”

That example was totally uncalled for. What kind of person did Eterna take me for—and couldn’t she at least have made it a girl in her analogy?!

“I’m a completely normal, run-of-the-mill, sixteen-year-old girl, I’ll have you know!”

“Huh. Most normal girls don’t get excited over the mere thought of removing a bandage, last I checked.”

“Hmph!” She’d landed a critical hit. Somehow, she’d seen right through me. If I gave in now, I’d be admitting that I was getting excited over it—and I was worried about it, sure, but not excited exactly. Couldn’t she find some more ladylike terminology?

“Now hold up, Eterna. I don’t think excited is quite the right word here.”

“Hmm, how about aroused, then?”

A death blow. This was only getting worse. How had we ended up here?

“Now you’re going too far! I’m just… Look, it’s… I’m just innocently mulling things over, okay!”

“I don’t get it.”

“What part?”

“Milkit’s face has healed. You saw her without the bandages.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So why is she still wearing the bandages? Why will she only show her face to you? That’s what I don’t get.”

When she put it like that, I could see where Eterna was coming from. Maybe she was just frustrated by no one explaining anything to her and wanted to make her annoyance known? In that case, I’d really done wrong by her. After all, she was the one who had cured Milkit. Keeping her, of all people, out of the loop had been pretty rude.

“I’m sorry, Eterna.” I bowed my head low and tried to explain myself. “You see, Milkit is still too shy to let anyone other than me see her face.”

“Ah, gotcha. I guess if she’s spent much of her life with her face hidden, it’ll be a while before she’s ready to show it off to the world.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

Strictly speaking, it also probably had something to do with the fact that I kept telling her how cute she was, but Eterna wasn’t that far off the mark. Besides, she seemed satisfied by my explanation.

She put her hand to her chin and took on a thoughtful expression. “So she’ll only show you, her master, her face?”

“That’s right.”

“And she’ll only take off the bandages when you’re alone in your room.”

“Umm, yeah.”

“She unravels her bandages and exposes her bare flesh to you when you’re alone in an enclosed space?”

“Technically, yes… Why do you keep going over this?”

“When you two are alone, you make her take off her coverings and show herself to you?”

“Whoa, I think that’s going a bit far!” I put my foot down. Eterna had a way of taking things to their extremes, and I wasn’t here to be her plaything!

“Flum, you pervert!”

“Who’s the real pervert here?? You’re the one who went down that line of thought! I mean, well, sure she’s cute and all…and her face is so warm, and sometimes the mood gets a little tense from the mere act of removing her bandages, and sometimes we get a little caught up in the moment, but…but!!”

To be fair, keeping Milkit’s exposed face all to myself was, in a way, not too different from having her undress only for me. But there really wasn’t anything lewd going on here! It was just that Milkit wasn’t used to having her face uncovered, and doing this together a few times would help her get over the fear! Or so I thought.

However, Eterna just frowned. “It sounds pretty weird when you say it like that, Flum.”

I stood up in a hurry.

“Well then, don’t tease me about it in the first place!!”

If I listened closely, I could swear I could hear my voice echoing through the capital.

 

***

 

After her bath, Milkit made her way back to our room, where she sat on our bed and looked at me patiently. My heart began to thump heavily in my chest. After the conversation with Eterna earlier, I was even more aware of it than usual.

We were just taking off bandages. Nothing weird here… right? I mean, we’d done this just yesterday.

Stupid Eterna.

“Master?”

Milkit cocked her head to the side. God, she was so adorable sitting there in her nightgown. Her skin looked even softer than usual and carried a faint pink undertone to it from the warm bath. I had a hard time imagining that there was a creature alive that wouldn’t find themselves breathless at the sight. Even Eterna couldn’t possibly just stand there with a straight face when confronted with Milkit standing in front of her, damp hair draped across her exposed collarbones.

Right? It wasn’t just me. It couldn’t be.

The longer this went on, the more embarrassed I felt myself grow. Maybe I was turning this into something of an odd situation where I was keeping the sight of Milkit’s face to myself. Maybe I was starting to feel…possessive?

“Is something the matter, Master?”

“Huh? Um, I, uh… No, not at all!”

My nervous laughter only seemed to make Milkit even more confused. I sat down next to her, and we locked gazes. Her flawless, crystal-clear eyes looked straight into my own.

“Aww, that’s just not fair.”

“I’m sorry, have I done something wrong?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that your eyes are so beautiful.”

What was this, some kind of eye fetish I was developing? No, not a fetish. That wasn’t quite right. Even so, her eyes just seemed to draw me in.

“Your eyes are beautiful too, Master.”

“No need for the compliments, Milkit. My eyes are just as dark and cloudy as my heart.”

“Don’t say that, Master. I think you’re quite beautiful. Far more than me.”

“I’m nothing compared to you.”

“No, you’re far prettier, Master.”

“No, you!”

I grabbed both of Milkit’s hands and squeezed them, causing her to let out a gasp. Okay, maybe I went too far. But it was all true. After all, I knew my own face so well that I was pretty bored of seeing it.

“I’m your master, right? So that means I’m right.”

“Most masters would say quite the opposite. However, you are correct. If you say so, then I must agree.”

Now I just felt like I was forcing my will on her. But it was all true, though I suppose it wasn’t exactly necessary to force her to agree with me. Though I was confused why she couldn’t see it.

Perhaps she’d just become too pessimistic over the years, and this was that coming out.

Finally I felt that we could get to the main event: removing the bandages.

“All right, let’s get started.”

“I think I’m ready. Please start whenever you’d like, Master.”

Ready…? So apparently Milkit has also been thinking about this a lot, too. I felt a bit better knowing that we were both of the same mind.

I reached my hands around her head and started undoing the knot. I could feel Milkit’s breath on my ear as I leaned in. It felt warm.

“Ah…”

A gasp escaped Milkit’s throat as my arm brushed against her neck. Fearing she might be ticklish, I hurried up to undo the knot and started removing the bandages from her face, starting from the bottom and working my way up.

Little by little, her silky-soft, snow-white skin was exposed to the open air. I could hardly control my breathing at this point.

Her lips were a deep red, like a droplet of berry syrup. Maybe she was excited? I certainly felt the same. We seemed to both be sharing the same emotion, even though we couldn’t put a name to it. The specifics may be different, but we were heading in the same direction.

As we continued to spend time together and deepened our relationship, I was sure we’d reach the same end point. Or at least that’s how I felt.

At this point, even I had no idea where this journey would take us. But at the very least, I was just happy that Milkit and I would be on that journey together.

Maybe Eterna was right, our relationship had grown quite close—maybe even indecently so!

Or at least that’s what my brain was screaming at me as I finally finished up removing the bandages from Milkit’s face. I slowly placed my hands on her cheeks.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Please don’t say it so much, Master, especially today. Of course I’m happy to hear it, but I won’t be able to keep looking you in the eye.”

“All right, I’ll try to keep it to a minimum then.”

“But you’re still going to say it…”

“Of course I will. I mean, you are absolutely stunning, Milkit.”

I gently patted Milkit’s face. The heat from her burning cheeks warmed the palms up my hands as I rubbed them against her soft flesh.

“Are my cheeks really…that nice?”

“Just touching them seems to make me smile.”

I wasn’t even trying to flatter her. It was true, I just loved the feeling of them.

“Um, Master, I know this is a rather rude request, but…”

“Huh? Please, no, just say whatever you want.”

She spoke slowly and hesitantly. “Well, uh, may I touch your cheeks?”

Of course she could! I didn’t even see why she had to ask.

“You can touch my cheeks whenever you’d like, Milkit.”

“I… Thank you.”

She ever so gently placed her hands on my cheeks. They felt cold for a second, before the heat from my cheeks transferred over and our body temperatures fell into equilibrium. A slight grin tugged at the corners of her mouth as she traced her thumb along the slave marking under my eye.

“This is what ties us together.”

She’d said the same thing yesterday. I’d thought it was just a way to try and cover up how embarrassed she was but could tell now that it actually meant quite a lot to her.

Milkit had no desire to stop thinking of herself as a slave. No matter what I said or did, I would always be her master in her mind. But this marking, the mark of a slave, was the one thing that made us equals.

“Are my cheeks really that nice?”

She nodded firmly. “Somehow, I feel like it fills up a hole inside me that’s been left empty for so many years.”

She took the words right out of my mouth.

That’s exactly how I felt. Like we filled in the pieces of each other that had been missing.

And there was nothing perverted about that at all.

Not like I had to justify myself anyway. That’s just how I felt.

This was different than being with family, friends, or even a slave.

“Thank you, Master.”

Milkit slowly drew her hand away from my cheek, and I felt the cool air brush across my flesh. Somehow, I felt a sense of sadness at the loss of her touch.

“Can I touch your cheeks again tomorrow?” She sounded almost apologetic as she spoke, so I was quick to jump in.

“Of course! I mean, you can anytime you want. Heck, today even.”

She blushed a deep crimson and spoke in a whisper. “There’s no way I could do it again tonight. If I touch your cheeks for too long, I feel like my heart might burst. I think it would be better to do it a little at a time.”

She was really, really good at somehow pinpointing all of my weaknesses.

“I truly appreciate how you fe…eep!!”

I threw myself into her, knocking Milkit back on the bed and pulled my head to her chest.

“Master, please warn me before you do something like that.”

“S-sorry!”

Just like yesterday, I’d been so overwhelmed with emotion that I lost all control and went with what felt right. She was just so adorable. It was like she’d been sent down to this planet for the express purpose of filling my heart with such joy that it could burst.

“Your heart, it’s pounding.” Maybe she was just so thin and frail that it was easy to hear.

“You surprised me, Master. But still, I feel relaxed in your arms.”

I felt Milkit’s arms wrap around my back and the tension drain away from my body. I might have been betrayed, discarded, and sold as a slave…but at least I had Milkit. I was no longer alone.

I could almost hear Eterna complaining: “Don’t forget about me!” I decided to ignore that.

Much like yesterday, I spent the rest of the evening in Milkit’s arms. Finally, she let out one of her adorable yawns, and I set her free so we could get some sleep. She stood up and walked back to her bed.

As I climbed under the covers, I savored the residual warmth and scent of her body. It lulled me into a deep sleep, far better and more powerful than any magic I’d ever experienced before.

 

***

 

I hoped to spend every day like this, with Eterna looking on in bewildered annoyance while Milkit and I grew closer and closer with each passing hour. Maybe someday we’d even put a name to our unique relationship.