The next morning, around noon, Aoko, who had gone to bed at three or four in the morning, finally woke up.
"Ugh... my stomach is so empty... let's go to the kitchen and see if there's any food."
Rubbing her rumbling stomach, Aoko walked towards the kitchen, but as she approached, her nose caught the aroma of rice and meat.
Someone was cooking in the kitchen?
'Gray?'
There were four people living in this house now, but the one who went to the kitchen most often was Gray. Every time mealtime arrived, it was almost always her who cooked.
"Gray, what's for lunch—"
"Ah, good morning, Miss Aoko."
Hearing Aoko's voice, Naoki, who was standing in front of the stove, turned around and greeted her: "Wait a moment, lunch isn't ready yet. Besides, Gray went to the laundry room downstairs to get clothes, Arcueid is still asleep. Could you wake her up?"
"Oh..... oh..... ugh?!"
Aoko was stunned for a moment before realizing.
Why was Naoki in the kitchen?!
"Kouhai-kun, why are you suddenly cooking? You can actually cook?"
"I never said I couldn't cook." Naoki said with a smile, "Last year when I was working without pay at Garan no Dou for Master, I prepared almost all my daily meals three times a day. Initially, Shiki even disliked it because my cooking was mediocre."
"So today you want to show off your skills?"
"You could say that, and I also want to properly train my cooking abilities."
Properly train his cooking abilities?
Aoko unconsciously felt a little curious: "Why did you suddenly have such an idea?"
"Well... there's actually no special reason, just want to prepare myself for the future."
"Prepare yourself for the future?"
This sentence deepened the doubts in Aoko's heart. Slowly retreating from the kitchen and coming to the living room, she kept staring at Naoki while thinking hard.
'Suddenly planning to cook, and also saying it's for the future... this shouldn't be a sudden idea, it's a decision made after careful thought, and because he's thinking about this, it means something happened to him last night.'
Speaking of Naoki's experience last night.
'Arcueid's gift!'
Thinking of this, Aoko instantly understood everything—something must have happened between Naoki and Arcueid last night! Plus, Arcueid was still asleep...
'Could it be!'
Aoko's gaze towards Naoki instantly sharpened, and this sharp gaze made Naoki, who was stirring-frying, unconsciously shiver. He unconsciously looked up and saw Aoko: "Miss Aoko? Your gaze?"
"Kouhai-kun!"
"What is it?"
"Arcueid is a good girl."
Aoko patted Naoki's shoulder and said to him earnestly.
"I will support you."
"Although I don't know what Miss Aoko is saying, but you might have misunderstood something?" Naoki's intuition made him keenly aware that something was wrong, "My cooking has nothing to do with Arcueid... Ah, not entirely, maybe a third of it is related, after all, the root is her gift last night... But strictly speaking, it's not really related to her. Miss Aoko, don't think too much."
'Don't think too much? You've already said such confusing and curiosity-arousing things, and you're still telling me not to think too much?'
And just at that moment—
"Ara, what a nice aroma—is Naoki cooking today! Good morning too, Aoko."
Arcueid, wearing pajamas, came out of her room. After looking Naoki up and down, she suddenly smiled: "Looks like you're in a good mood, that means my gift satisfied you."
"If possible, I hope you can give a different gift next time. Last night's was really not very friendly to me... Although I was quite happy with the result."
"I see, then I'll pay attention next time."
"Please, you really need to pay attention. I'll go to the dining table first, it'll be ready soon."
◆━⊰✧⊱━◆
"So, your gift from Arcueid was actually an Incubus?"
At the dining table, because she was really quite curious, Aoko couldn't help but ask for the details of the gift. And after hearing Arcueid's answer, she unconsciously gaped.
She thought it was that, but it turned out to be this?
Seeing Aoko's expression, Naoki chuckled twice: "I knew Miss Aoko must have been thinking of something else. I told you not to think too much."
"Ahaha... What else could I do? Who told you to act so strange? It's natural for me to think the wrong way—by the way, if it was an Incubus, does that mean Arcueid's gift was to give Kouhai-kun a beautiful dream?"
"If wet dreams are also considered beautiful dreams."
"I see..... Eh? Kouhai-kun, what did you just say?" Aoko only reacted after a moment, "What did you dream about?"
"A wet dream, the kind of dream that embarrassing pubescent teenagers usually have that's embarrassing to talk about, where you do intimate things with someone you like. And that dream can also clearly maintain self-awareness. I was very surprised in the dream last night."
Naoki said it with a flat face, not showing the slightest embarrassed expression as he himself described.
And beside them, apart from Arcueid, Aoko had already experienced a system error. Gray was even so embarrassed that her entire face was red, and her whole head was almost submerged in her rice bowl.
[Hehehe, a wet dream, as a gift it's indeed the best! Especially for a guy, you must have been very satisfied in the dream last night, right?]
Add's disgusting voice came from under Gray's clothes.
[But having such a dream proves that you have someone you like. Who did you dream about? Try mentioning them so I know! What amazing woman managed to catch your attention!]
If it were usually, Gray would definitely tell Add to shut up immediately. After all, he often caused trouble with his nonsense. But this time Gray didn't do that.
'Someone Big Brother likes... a little curious... who could it be? Is it Miss Riddel?'
Gray knew that Riddel liked Naoki, and even wanted him to become the son-in-law of the Archelot family, but she had never seen her brother respond... No, more accurately, Naoki was completely unaware that Riddel liked him.
Was it because he already had someone he liked that he didn't notice other people's feelings?
'Who will be the person I'll call sister-in-law later?'
Thinking of this, Gray unconsciously glanced at Naoki.
And Naoki, after finishing the large bone in his hand, wiped his mouth and then casually replied: "If I said Merlin, would you believe me?"
[Are you kidding me? Boy, you're usually not this funny?]
"Um, just kidding."
[This kind of joke isn't funny, don't scare me! Even though I don't have a heart, I really felt like my heart was about to jump out!]