✦ ✦ ✦
Despite all these flaws, though, Akuto was very happy with his situation. Why? Because he could improve things over time, if he put his mind to it. He managed to spend more time with Junko without upsetting her by helping her with the chores. He managed to deal with Fujiko’s laziness by giving her jobs to do outside of studying. And he managed to avoid any discussions of sex by having conversations with Yoshie late at night that the others couldn’t follow.
Normally, doing all this would drain a man of energy, but Akuto could do it. Thanks to that, his days were peaceful. The marriage ceremony was a huge deal. They weren’t sure what religious elements to incorporate, so they ended up using them all.
They rented out the whole event hall the day of the ceremony, and the three came in wearing their wedding dresses to the sound of a live band. The ceremony was only open to relatives and people they knew, but the seats were packed anyway. Everyone there was awestruck by the beauty of the brides.
The biggest moment was when it came time to kiss the brides. Yoshie’s kiss was brief, and Fujiko’s was passionate. But Junko hesitated when the moment came.
“You want me to do it in front of all these people?” she said. Fujiko just glared at her, and even Akuto felt like it was time she made up her damn mind.
In the end, it was Akuto’s words that convinced her.
“I know it’s your first kiss. And that’s why I wanted you to have it at the best spot in the world.”
When she heard that, Junko closed her eyes and quietly accepted his kiss.
The ceremony ended, and then it was time for the reception, and then by the time they got into their car and left, the sun was setting. There was no honeymoon, but by the time he got home that night, Akuto felt like he was on top of the world. Anything he wanted, he could have. Anything money could buy, he could get as much as he wanted. The weather was perfect.
The things he couldn’t buy with money, the things the rich always wanted, like adventure and life, were already his.
Days of wine and roses.
He ate, drank, laughed, got mad, and loved.
For a young man like Akuto, the nights were the most thrilling. The girls all drew lots to determine the order they’d be spending the night with him.
On the first night, Junko had covered her face with her hands. They’d both gotten into bed naked once, but that was when they were trying to recreate a novel in virtual phase space. It was a very strange situation, Akuto remembered.
“You were fiddling with a vase of roses with your fingers, weren’t you?” Akuto said. Junko laughed and finally took her hands off her face. They both looked at each other and laughed, and then there was an awkward silence.
“Are we really doing this?” Junko asked.
“I want to,” Akuto said.
She laughed, nervously, before pressing herself up against him.
After that, there was no time for talking.
Junko got under Akuto, wrapping her limbs around his, and pressing so close that he couldn’t see her face. Akuto wasn’t quite sure what to do either. But when he felt her wetness and warmth down below, he wondered for a moment whether he should do something like he’d seen in porn. When he pushed his manhood up against her, she said nothing, so he tried to push deeper.
Junko twisted her body, sliding up the bed.
He didn’t want to grab her, so he moved up with her.
His manhood touched her again, and there was a slick wet feeling that made him shiver.
Junko let out a strong, short breath, and twisted again. She slid up the bed, and Akuto followed her.
They did this in complete silence, again and again. It only came to an end when Junko hit her head up against the headboard.
“Oww...” she gasped in pain.
Akuto laughed. She chuckled too.
“I-It’s not that I don’t want to do it...” Junko said. She let go of Akuto’s body and stretched out the sheets and comforter to where they’d been before she’d started squirming around. Akuto moved away from the headboard as well. They held each other again, and Junko let out a short gasp. Their parts touched, and Akuto was surprised at how cold they were as well.
“S-So this is how it works... I never really thought about it.” Junko said, surprised at how wet they both were. Akuto nodded.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
This time she nodded back.
He pushed forward.
He could feel her around his whole manhood, but there was some resistance. Junko moaned softly, and wrapped her limbs tighter around him. When he stopped, though, she whispered.
“Go ahead.”
He held her head in his arms, and let the force of the legs wrapped around him push him inside. She thrust her head back, revealing her throat.
✦ ✦ ✦
○
The theory behind time travel may have been complicated, but the execution wasn’t. A switch was flipped to change the mode of the Brave Suit, and now, by just putting in some numbers and a location, he could go anywhere he liked. However, this was also proof that time travel had been done many times. In other words, what Boichiro said was likely true.
“You’ll keep coming back here.”
—No, you just screwed it up.
Hiroshi chose for his first target the lab that Fujiko had found, the place where mana civilization was first developed. He had plenty of information about it, and knew exactly what year to go to. And he knew what data he had to destroy to put a stop to the research.
There was very little money available for mana research at the time, and even the slightest delay would’ve killed the project. He broke into the facility, wearing his Brave Suit. There were guards, but none of them had guns. He knocked them out, with his lasers set to minimum power.
He searched for the computers with the data he needed. In this era, anything that was put into a computer was also printed out and filed. He decided to just burn the whole room. There was nothing in the room that could explode. The fastest way to do this would be to throw the papers and computers into a pile and light the papers on fire.
Hiroshi threw all the papers into a big mountain and tossed the computers on top of them. He destroyed the fire alarm sensors with his molecular cutters, then used his lasers to start the fire. He waited to see if the computer’s cases would melt. They did.
He had three more rooms to go.
But when he got to the last one, the police had arrived. Someone must have called them after noticing the fire, and they were carrying weapons.
—Am I going to have to kill them? he asked himself, suddenly uneasy. But he soon realized there was nothing to fear. The police had nothing but primitive revolvers, easily dealt with. He couldn’t use a mana screen to block the bullets, but his auto-tracking lasers could.
The cops were scared. Fortunately for both sides, they decided not to resist further.
—Whatever else I do, I don’t want to kill anybody. he said to himself.
But...
—Wasn’t I supposed to save humanity? he thought, and shivered.
What he was doing now was a crime, even by his own standards. He was fighting a cop and burning computers and papers. There didn’t seem to be that much difference between that and murder.
—Boichiro must have killed people.
A small sacrifice to save the many.
A simple calculation.
But in a story, actions like that were never treated as acceptable.
He’d wondered for a long time if this world might be somebody’s story. But even if it was, no, precisely if it was, the simple answers had to be the right ones. That was how ethics worked.
Stories where the hero was forced to choose between his lover and the world were common, but those stories were wrong. They had to be. But if those were the stories people preferred, then what he was doing right now was something most normal people wouldn’t accept.
He felt the cold chill of guilt run down his spine, and a deepening sense of loneliness. He finished his work in front of the police officer, and then used the Brave Suit to go back to his own time.