In the room lit by candlelight, the shadows of Shion and me overlapped on the wall.

When I kissed her, the softness and freshness of her lips made it impossible to stop, and the room quickly filled with wet, intimate sounds.

Between those sounds came Shion’s soft breaths, and it felt like the temperature in the room had risen.

“How is it, Sousuke? My scent?”

She smelled like the scented soap I’d just made.

A citrus scent.

“It’s nice. Clean and refreshing.”

“Hehe, do you like this one? Or would you rather I use something else? If so, from next time on, I’ll wear whatever scent you want me to.”

I see. So that was what she was doing.

Shion sometimes said things deliberately meant to stir up a man’s pride, or his sense of being special.

This was probably part of that too.

And in fact, a strange sense of superiority welled up inside me.

“Sousuke. Look.”

Still dressed, Shion grabbed the hem of her clothes and pulled them up in one motion to her neck.

My eyes locked there at once.

“Thanks to you, they’re still soft and fluffy today. Want to check?”

Guided by her sweet voice, I reached out hesitantly.

The instant my fingers touched her, I froze in shock.

Her skin clung lightly to my fingertips, but without stickiness. When I stroked her, it felt like silk—soft and warm despite how pale she was—and mixed with her scent and breath, it was enough to drive anyone out of their mind.

My hands wouldn’t stop.

No matter how I touched her, it sent a ridiculous kind of happiness straight into my brain.

“Mm. Hehe, you really got absorbed in it. That’s okay. You can touch me as much as you want, until you’re satisfied.”

At Shion’s words—words that seemed to affirm everything—my reason completely blew away.

◇

I had no idea how much time had passed.

“Sousuke... you’ve been touching my chest this whole time.”

Her voice snapped me back to myself.

When I ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ looked, the candle had burned down a lot.

How much time had I spent doing nothing but that?

“Ah, sorry. Did I get in the way?”

With a flushed face and sweat on her brow, Shion smiled at me.

“Sorry. I kind of lost my reason.”

I apologized, but—

“Ahaha.”

Shion’s smile deepened, looking genuinely happy.

“Sh-Shion?”

“You don’t have to apologize, Sousuke. If I can repay you even a little with something like this, then you can touch me as much as you want. Not just tonight. Anytime.”

She said the kind of thing that nearly shattered my self-control all over again.

“...Honestly, I could do this forever, but I’m kind of... at my limit.”

The tension lower down had gotten pretty bad too.

“Hehe, yeah. Oh, Sousuke. Sorry to ask at a time like this, but there’s something I want you to make.”

I couldn’t help feeling a little interrupted, but if she was asking, then it was probably something she needed.

“Yeah. Tell me.”

“Thanks. Um, Minori told me... apparently, people a long time ago used to make lotion for sex from seaweed.”

She said it with visible embarrassment.

At those words, the stiffness trapped inside my pants only got worse.

Maybe Minori knew that because “a long time ago” fell into the realm of history. She was the kind of person who seemed like she’d remember even obscure little facts she’d stumbled across while studying.

“If I remember right... you extract alginic acid from seaweed and mix in sodium.”

I checked for the Recipe instantly and generated sodium alginate.

“And then if you dissolve it in water, it turns all thick and slippery.”

So the idea was to use the slimy texture from seaweed.

I mixed in water right away, made the lotion, and told Shion, “Done.”

“Wow, amazing. As expected of you, Sousuke. You work fast.”

Then, as she said that, Shion looked at me with a flushed, shy smile and invited me closer.

The sight in front of me was overwhelmingly suggestive.

Her smooth skin gradually became coated in the glossy liquid.

“Come here, Sousuke.”

I’d been staring like an idiot, but her voice brought me back to myself.

From there, the two of us sank into each other for a long time.

The candle burned shorter and shorter, and the room filled with heat, breath, and the quiet sounds of us clinging to one another.

By the time it was over, Shion looked delighted.

“That was intense, Sousuke. I’m happy you let yourself feel that good.”

Even now, she showed no sign of displeasure—only satisfaction, warmth, and that same devoted gentleness.

“Seeing you react like that makes me really happy. It means I could help you feel good, right?”

My body was already trying to recover, but hearing her say that only made my heart tighten.

“Yatta. I managed it again. The others made you feel good too, so I kept thinking I had to do my best not to lose.”

“You don’t have to worry about that...”

“It matters. If you can let it out, then that means you felt good, right? For a boy, that’s a really positive thing, isn’t it? There’s nothing else that makes it this easy for us to feel like we were useful to you.”

“You cook for us too, Shion.”

“That’s nowhere near enough. And cooking is something I make for everyone, right? Either way, it doesn’t balance out what you’ve given me at all. Honestly, it makes me anxious.”

As she said that, she pressed closer to me again, as if asking me not to pull away.

“Sousuke, you really don’t have to overthink it. On an island like this, having a kind, dependable boy you love around is something to be grateful for. We don’t want to just hang off you and survive. We want to be useful to you, so we do what we can. There isn’t a single part of it that I hate.”

I moved closer to her again.

At that point, it was basically unconscious.

She watched me with a happy look.

“I know you think of us as your companions, and I know you acknowledge my cooking. But even so... I want you to think you need me here too. If the boy I love wants me, and I can be useful to him, then that’s nothing but a good thing.”

I swallowed hard and looked back at her.

“I need you, Shion.”

With her Lie-Detection Ability, she probably understood that those words were the truth.

Her eyes grew wet as she looked up at me.

“What do I do... I’m so happy. Come here, Sousuke.”

I held her again, and after that we stayed wrapped up in each other for a long time.

Even after the candle went out, neither of us stopped. We stayed close, unwilling to waste even the effort it would take to light it again.