[Episode 146] – Confession (2)
“I love you, Mother. I love you, Vivian.”
“......”
The gaze settling on her skin was almost painful.
She wanted to run away and hide right that instant, but there was nowhere to hide. Even when she lowered her head, even when she closed her eyes, those red eyes looking down at her watched relentlessly, preventing her from escaping.
“Not as my mother, but as a woman—as one person.”
Titania’s fingers, which had been stroking the back of her hand, slowly began to interlace again. One, two, three—her fingers helplessly entwined until they were all tangled together, keeping Vivian from fleeing her side.
“So, please see me as an ‘adult,’ just a little.”
“......”
“See me as ‘someone’ who loves you.”
The unadorned emotions crashing into her were too much to bear, making it hard to breathe.
Each syllable of Titania’s voice seemed to pound against her heart, begging her to open it. She had to endure it, she had to—but she was this child’s mother.
“See me as a ‘woman,’ not as your daughter.”
At the sound of Titania’s heartbeat coming through their interlaced hands, the boundary Vivian had painstakingly drawn was erased. The line she had drawn to keep them from crossing it as mother and daughter grew hazier and hazier beneath the footprints Titania left as she stepped over it.
Overwhelmed by a wave of emotion that felt as though it were strangling her, Vivian uttered a lie. It was so hard to breathe that she grasped at some unknown lie, forcing it from her lips simply so she could breathe somehow.
“I still... love your father.”
But the lie she had blurted out without thinking was nothing more than a laughing matter to Titania. Letting out a little chuckle, Titania leaned her forehead against Vivian’s with a soft bonk and asked,
“Why are you telling a lie that’s going to be found out immediately?”
“.......”
“Mother, you haven’t missed Father even once all this time. Do you really think I’ll believe you when you suddenly say you miss him now? Do you think such an absurd lie will work on me?”
Titania gave a small sigh, slipped her hands beneath Vivian’s arms, and lifted her from her lap. Then she turned her around and sat her back down so that they were facing each other.
Though their faces were now opposite one another, Vivian lowered her head, unwilling to look at Titania. Her green eyes remained fixed on the floor, too busy avoiding Titania’s gaze.
Titania paused for a moment, then continued with another quiet sigh.
“...I’m not asking you to decide right now.”
Titania carefully studied Vivian’s face.
Her trembling lips made her look almost like someone terrified.
“Just think of it as... this is how I feel about you.”
Seeing the expression on Vivian’s face—one that looked as though she might burst into tears if Titania pressed her any further—Titania let out a small sigh and stroked Vivian’s cheek.
“Just know that I love you. I can wait for your answer forever, whether it takes ten years or twenty.”
Titania lowered her head until their foreheads touched, then smiled brightly. Yes, she could wait forever. Ten years, twenty years, even if her mother grew young again, or grew older still.
With their foreheads pressed together, Vivian gave a faint, stifled laugh and answered,
“...By then, I’ll be a wrinkled old woman.”
“Do you think I love you for your looks alone?”
Titania slightly furrowed her brow, as if to say that even after all this, Vivian still did not understand her feelings. She did not love her merely for her mother’s appearance.
“It doesn’t matter whether you become younger or older. Even if you change like that, the fact that you’re the person I love won’t change.”
“What on earth do you like so much about me...?”
“If I start talking about it, I don’t think I’ll ever finish, so I’ll save it for later.”
At Titania’s teasing tone, Vivian let out a quiet chuckle. Titania also giggled as she smoothed back Vivian’s bangs, which had been swaying in front of her face.
As though admitting defeat at last, Vivian gave a small sigh and smiled bitterly. Looking at Titania’s face before her, she reached up with her small hand and gently caressed Titania’s cheek.
‘When did she grow this much?’
Vivian gazed at Titania as though examining her face. Looking at her like this, Titania’s face somehow felt different. It was no longer the face of a child, but a truly mature one.
Her features were so unfamiliar that Vivian wondered whether Titania’s face had always been like this. It felt as though this were a different Titania from the one Vivian knew. Titania, who had grown a little more and become an adult.
Vivian let out a quiet sigh and nodded.
“You really have grown up.”
Titania smiled at the words that held so many meanings.
Her mother could no longer look at her as her ‘daughter.’ It was obvious that this upward gaze, these warm touches, and every attitude she showed toward Titania would no longer be the way one treated a daughter.
For now, that was enough. She liked things as they were now, when her relationship with her mother could no longer be called merely that of ‘mother and daughter.’ From here on, it felt as though she were just one step away from becoming her mother’s ‘lover.’
“Then can I have my birthday present now?”
“Present?”
Titania smiled and tapped her lips lightly with a finger. It was the kiss they always shared, but Vivian felt strangely uneasy. She leaned her head back slightly, making a faintly sullen face.
“Yes, my birthday present.”
At the sight of Titania tapping her lips again and again as though urging Vivian to kiss her quickly, Vivian let out a long sigh. Well, since she called it a birthday present, Vivian supposed she should give it to her.
As she lifted her head to kiss her, Vivian knitted her brows at the strange tickling sensation in her chest. Titania’s intent gaze, looking down at her as though waiting for the kiss, felt burdensome.
“...Close your eyes.”
The effects of the confession appeared immediately.
They had kissed hundreds of times until now, but Vivian had never once said such a thing to her. At her mother’s command to close her eyes, spoken in embarrassment beneath her gaze, Titania happily shut her eyes.
Vivian raised her head and stared at Titania’s lips with a sullen expression. It was only a kiss, yet she felt strange. The confession had made her look at Titania as a ‘woman’ rather than a daughter.
Was it normal for a daughter to love her adoptive mother as a ‘woman’? It was not as if Vivian did not love Titania. But it was difficult to call this love the ‘love between a man and a woman.’
At first, she had truly been angry. How had she raised Titania? With what feelings had she kept her at her side? Could that child really look at her with such eyes? More than anything, Vivian wanted to believe it was merely a delusion brought on by adolescence.
But even so—
How could she not love her?
Titania was a child she had raised for her entire life. She was half of Vivian’s life, to the point that Vivian could say she had lived here while looking only at this child. The child had repaid the love Vivian gave her with love of her own.
Whenever Vivian grew tired, struggled, or suffered through the life that had begun so suddenly in this place, Titania had always remained at her side, smiling and sharing her love. This child, who had always been beside her—
How could Vivian not love Titania?
Vivian gently closed her eyes and slowly raised her head, moving toward Titania. She cupped Titania’s cheek, tilted her head slightly, and kissed her. A warm, soft, moist sensation.
Their lips merely brushed against each other, yet for some reason her entire body burned. They had kissed hundreds of times until now, but today, the act of pressing her lips to Titania’s made Vivian feel so embarrassed she thought she might go mad.
Their lips had made no sound when they touched, but as they parted, they drew away with a wet smack. As Vivian slowly opened her eyes—
There came the sound of fabric tearing.
“Huh?”
Before the kiss, she had clearly been looking up at Titania, but when she opened her eyes after the kiss, she was somehow looking down at Titania. And when she lowered her head, she saw a large mound as well.
The source of the tearing sound was none other than Vivian’s nightclothes. Her pajamas had ripped like rags around her suddenly enlarged body. They barely covered the most precarious areas, leaving everything below exposed.
“Huh?”
At Vivian’s bewildered voice, Titania opened her eyes. Until the moment she had closed them, her mother had been young, but after their kiss, she had returned to adulthood. That meant—
“W-wait, Titania, mmph—!”
In that instant, unable to contain the emotions surging within her, Titania covered Vivian’s lips with her own. Vivian’s body stiffened in shock, and she could do nothing but receive Titania’s rough kiss with her eyes wide open.
It was no longer the light kiss they had shared until now, but a deep kiss between lovers.
Titania’s tongue slipped between Vivian’s parted lips. The tongue that invaded her mouth in an instant boldly licked and explored within. It swept through her mouth, rubbed against the roof of it, and twisted around her own.
Their tongues tangled like entwining snakes. To stop Vivian from trying to flee, Titania pressed her down even more fiercely. She needed Vivian to understand exactly what had happened.
Your curse was broken by my kiss.
I was your destined partner!
I, your daughter—I, I, I!
Saliva that could not be swallowed seeped from the corners of their mouths and ran down their chins. It was such a rough kiss that their teeth began to ache from colliding. Even when their chins grew drenched in saliva, Titania paid it no mind.
“Mmgh... Haa...!”
Vivian was choking on saliva, whether Titania’s or her own, and only after she pounded her fists against Titania’s shoulders did Titania stop kissing her and lift her head.
Titania wiped their chins, glistening with their mingled saliva, with the back of her hand, then looked down at Vivian with a coquettish smile. It felt as though the wall that had kept them apart until now had collapsed in an instant.
“The curse is broken, isn’t it?”
“Haa... haa...”
“It was broken by my kiss.”
At the sight of her mother gasping for breath after the rough kiss, Titania opened her mouth again and lowered her head. But just as she was about to press their lips together once more, Vivian reached out and pushed against Titania’s shoulder.
“W-wait...! Just a moment! I-I can’t think straight right now... All right? Could you give me some time...? Time to think...!”
At her request for time, Titania bit her lower lip.
What clearer proof could there be than this?
Even though her kiss had broken the curse and proven that she was Vivian’s destined partner, her mother still looked confused. Titania had endured for years, and it was almost impossible to hold back now, but...
After letting out a long sigh, Titania ran a hand over her face and answered,
“...All right. I was the one who said I would wait, after all.”
For a moment, she had been so excited that it was difficult to restrain herself. The fact that her kiss had broken her mother’s curse, combined with the sight of her mother suddenly appearing half-naked, was truly stimulating.
“...For now, let’s sleep and then go see Sister Veronica.”
“Y-yes... All right...”
With a groan, Titania took a set of pajamas from the drawer and held them out to Vivian. Vivian could not keep wearing the pajamas that had been torn into rags. For now, at least, she had to cover up that provocative appearance.
Titania scratched her head irritably and let out a truly heavy sigh.
‘...Looks like I’m not getting any sleep tonight.’
*
The next morning.
“...Mother, Mother. Wake up already.”
“Hmm...?”
Titania shook Vivian awake. When Vivian blinked open her eyes and looked up at Titania, Titania was staring down at her with the most furious expression Vivian had ever seen on her face.
“W-why are you so angry...?”
“...I’m not angry. More importantly, look in the mirror.”
“Huh?”
Titania handed Vivian a small hand mirror. Vivian tilted her head in confusion, but the moment she lifted the mirror and looked at her face, she could only open her eyes wide in shock, just as she had the day before.
“W-wait...? Didn’t my curse... get broken yesterday...?”
She clearly remembered the curse breaking the day before, yet when she woke up, she had grown young again. Her hands and feet had become short once more, and her cheeks had grown plump as she had returned to being a ten-year-old child.
Vivian lifted her head and stared at Titania with a dazed, disbelieving expression. Titania clicked her tongue irritably and muttered, loud enough for Vivian to hear,
“...If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve forced myself on you somehow last night...”
“What...?”