However, just as she was wearing a smug, self-satisfied expression, Hikari suddenly reached out and pressed a hand on her head, then grabbed the thickest chocolate bar and forcefully shoved it into her mouth.
"Mmh!"
With the sudden chocolate bar jammed against her throat, Aoi almost choked, her beautiful eyes even rolling back uncontrollably.
"If I'm dissatisfied, I can do anything to you, right?"
Hikari looked at Aoi with her willow brows tightly knit and cheeks puffed out, and smiled faintly.
"Uuugh!"
Knowing she was in the wrong, Aoi did not dare say anything more, and could only let out a few muffled, pitiful sounds under her breath.
——
Just as Aoi was biting down tightly on Hikari.
Inside Ino Shrine—
After finishing up the shrine's affairs, the noble shrine maiden Jinno Sumire had just left the main hall. She had not been resting in the side hall for long when she received a call from her father, Jinno Takashi.
["Sumire, call Hikari-kun over to the house for dinner again this afternoon. I still want to get to know this son-in-law a bit more,"] As soon as the call connected, Jinno Sumire heard Jinno Takashi's voice from the other end.
"Alright, Father. You really do like Hikari-kun," In response to Jinno Takashi's words, Jinno Sumire did not hesitate and agreed right away.
["Hahaha! After all, you two are the foundation of our Jinno family's prosperity!"], Jinno Takashi laughed loudly.
After chatting casually for a few more lines, Jinno Sumire found an excuse and hurriedly hung up the phone.
"Sigh!", Just after putting her phone down, Jinno Sumire let out a sigh.
To be honest, she was not very willing to call Hikari over again for dinner.
After all, the two of them were not really husband and wife. Every additional time Hikari interacted with Jinno Takashi, the risk of being exposed increased a little more.
And in order not to be exposed, in front of Jinno Takashi she had to maintain a very intimate posture with Hikari, her daughter's childhood friend.
To be frank, although after last night's in-depth verbal exchange, she did not feel much embarrassment or resistance anymore toward hugging or even kissing him.
Still, Jinno Sumire wanted to reduce this kind of contact as much as possible. After all, their identities in the future would very likely be mother-in-law and son-in-law. Just thinking about that made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
But there was no helping it. Jinno Takashi had personally invited his son-in-law, and under normal circumstances, Hikari definitely had to go.
Jinno Sumire immediately picked up her phone again and dialed Hikari's number.
The phone rang dozens of times, and Jinno Sumire was starting to lose her patience before someone finally answered on the other end.
["Hello, Aunt Sumire?"], Jinno Sumire heard Hikari's now familiar voice coming from the other side of the phone.
"It's me. Hikari-kun, are you free this afternoon?", Jinno Sumire asked.
["I think so,"] Hikari replied briefly.
"Then come to my house for dinner later. My father wants to see you again," Jinno Sumire said.
["Okay… mm…"], Hikari answered.
"Hikari-kun, what's wrong? It sounds like there's some strange noise on your end?", Jinno Sumire vaguely felt that there was some oddly familiar sound coming from the other side of the phone, yet it also felt not quite familiar enough.
It sounded like someone was eating braised duck feet or braised chicken necks or something like that, and the kind of loud, sloppy smacking with no manners.
["It's nothing, sss-ha! Maybe a friend next to me is eating something. I'm treating today,"] Hikari brushed it off casually.
"I see… your voice also sounds a bit strange. You're not unwell, are you?", Jinno Sumire asked with some concern.
["I'm fine. Maybe the phone signal isn't very good. Thanks for your concern, Aunt Sumire,"] Hikari said.
"Alright then. That's it. Don't be late this afternoon," Hearing him say that, Jinno Sumire did not press the issue further.
["Okay."]
After giving his final response, Hikari directly hung up the phone.
But Jinno Sumire, sitting in the shrine's side hall, could not help but still feel a little worried after putting her phone down.
Perhaps because of last night's sharing a bed and the in-depth verbal exchange, Jinno Sumire felt that she seemed to care about Hikari more than before.
Now, it was not just that she was worried about whether the act he was helping with might be exposed. She was even starting to worry about Hikari himself.
Given her personality, this kind of situation did not usually happen easily.
'Could it be that this is what people mean by feeling soft after taking something from someone and eating their food, since yesterday I ate his, so…'
'Peh! Peh! Peh!'
'How could that be!'
'There is no way I will feel soft just because I ate that kind of thing!'
As soon as she thought of what happened last night, Jinno Sumire's pretty face flushed red. She pursed her moist, cherry-like lips and spat a few times in succession, hurriedly suppressing the memories that had just surfaced in her mind and that she had originally intended to seal away completely.
But what Jinno Sumire did not expect was that once the matter of last night's in-depth verbal exchange with Hikari came back to mind, it could no longer be suppressed. Images of her kneeling in front of Hikari kept replaying in her head.
Those ambiguous scenes flashing by like a revolving lantern made Jinno Sumire feel a bit dry-mouthed and parched.
It was noon, and there were not many people in the shrine. The side hall Jinno Sumire was staying in belonged exclusively to her, and there was absolutely no one who would come by. The door was also locked.
Lying on the cool mat laid over the tatami, Jinno Sumire inexplicably felt a kind of restlessness rising inside her.
In fact, it was not strange. After all, although Jinno Sumire had never planned to find another husband, she was physically perfectly normal, and she had been widowed for many years.
So she had experienced this kind of restlessness before, and not rarely.
In these kinds of needs, Jinno Sumire's constitution was actually much stronger than that of ordinary women. It was just that her willpower was quite strong, so most of the time she could keep it suppressed.
But for some reason, once the images of last night surfaced in her mind, Jinno Sumire felt unusually restless today.
This was a kind of irritation she had never felt before. Especially after half-lying down, she felt as if ants were crawling all over her body, an unbearable itch.
"Maybe I should take care of it."
Feeling that her shrine maiden uniform was about to be soaked and stained, Jinno Sumire lightly furrowed her brows.
After confirming that the door was securely closed, she made her decision.
In order to vent the excess mana, she did as she usually did.
First, she raised her longest middle finger as a magic staff. Then Jinno Sumire began silently chanting forbidden spell incantations, practicing great water magic alone.
Jinno Sumire's constitution was, in fact, exceptionally gifted.
Not only was the water element power within her far more abundant than that of ordinary people, but her desire to cast spells was also far beyond the norm.
So although most of the time she could suppress her urge to cast spells through sheer willpower, once she did cast, it was almost always waterfalls or water tornadoes, forbidden-level water spells, and usually fired off in succession.
But just as Jinno Sumire, as usual, practiced spells alone two or three times, she discovered that the restlessness that should have faded long ago had barely subsided today, and instead felt even hotter.
"How could this be?"
Jinno Sumire furrowed her brows deeply, completely puzzled.
Feeling the surging water element inside her as if it were about to go out of control, Jinno Sumire refused to believe it and cast another forbidden spell.
This time, the water spell's effect was excellent, even more intense than the previous few times.
Most of the cool mat spread over the tatami in the side hall was soaked.
The final water forbidden spell Jinno Sumire cast was already done with all her effort. As she waved the staff in her hand, a surging column of water blasted out.
It directly soaked a large area of the mat in front of her, and even her shrine maiden uniform was somewhat damp.
But what made Jinno Sumire extremely uncomfortable was that the heat in her body still had not subsided, leaving her with a feeling like magical backlash after a spell failed.
"Ah!"
That intense sense of emptiness brought on by depleted mana made Jinno Sumire feel utterly uncomfortable all over. She could not help but recall what was different about today compared to usual, when for decades she had always been like this.
Suddenly, Jinno Sumire caught a spark of insight in her mind.
Normally, even when casting spells, she would not let her thoughts wander too much, nor would she look for any casting materials. Relying solely on herself had always been enough.
But today, when she was casting spells, she seemed unable to reach that usual state of thinking of no one but herself.
Today, while casting, her mind kept replaying scene after scene from last night, when she had that deep verbal exchange with Hikari.
"Could it be… that it's related to this?", Jinno Sumire frowned and murmured to herself.
"But thinking about Hikari-kun while releasing magic is a bit too much, isn't it?", When Jinno Sumire imagined that scene, she felt so embarrassed that her fingers could not help but clutch tightly at her skirt, her pretty face instantly flushing red.
After all, Hikari was her junior, and also her daughter Jinno Ai's childhood friend.
Although the two of them were currently playing the role of a fake married couple, fake was fake after all. Sneakily thinking about him while casting spells, was that not a bit perverted?
Thinking of this, a trace of guilt rose in Jinno Sumire's heart.
Originally, she intended to stop there and not let these stray thoughts break through her will.
But what Jinno Sumire did not expect was that once she clearly realized the issue was related to Hikari, and that young, handsome face surfaced in her mind, her body began to feel even more heated.
"Forget it! So what if I think about him? Hikari-kun won't know about it anyway. As long as I don't say anything, isn't that fine?"
The dignified and holy shrine maiden ultimately failed to resist human nature's pursuit of pleasure, and went along with the choice made by her lower self.
"Besides, I've helped Hikari-kun quite a bit too. If he knew about such a small thing, he would definitely understand. As long as I don't let him know, it's fine."
Jinno Sumire's pale throat bobbed slightly. She temporarily set aside her burden, her beautiful eyes narrowing a little as she stared at the ceiling, and began to imagine the appearance of her daughter Jinno Ai's childhood friend.
As if he were right beside her, she then focused intently on practicing water magic.
Although she had vaguely prepared herself, what happened next still took Jinno Sumire completely by surprise.
After she loosened the moral restraints she had imposed on her own mind, allowing Hikari's figure to appear freely in her fantasies, the effect of her spellcasting became astonishingly good.
Just as she began chanting the incantation, Jinno Sumire instantly released a super-forbidden-level water spell. In less than two or three seconds, the massive amount of mana in her body was almost completely drained.
This made Jinno Sumire's body tremble several times in succession.
"Hah! What a strange feeling… but it feels so good…", Though it felt somewhat unusual, Jinno Sumire only felt thoroughly satisfied at this moment, and subconsciously began a second round of casting water forbidden spells.
"Hikari-kun… how can you be this useful, Little Ai, I'm sorry…"
As she thought about the scenes of her deep exchange with Hikari last night, Jinno Sumire, who had been unable to feel satisfied just moments ago, now felt an unprecedentedly wonderful start. She even wanted to cheer and applaud, but while enjoying herself, she still apologized to her daughter with guilt.
———
On the other side, at the Asakawa House—
Hikari, who had just hung up the phone not long ago, had no idea that he had already been used as spellcasting material by someone else.
Even if he did know, he had no time to think about it now, because he was busy himself.
After being provoked by Aoi earlier, Hikari took out all kinds of snacks and drinks he had bought and force-fed them into the glutton.
With her mouth stuffed full of things like chocolate bars and yogurt, even someone as greedy as Aoi was starting to struggle.
"Mmm! Mmm! Mmm…"
At this moment, Aoi's cheeks were puffed up like a goldfish. With wide-open eyes, she whimpered pitifully while tilting her head up to beg Hikari for mercy.
"Eat it all."
Facing Aoi's pitiful act, Hikari, who had just been schemed against by her, gave the order without the slightest mercy.
Hearing this, and feeling that Hikari had no intention at all of pulling the chocolate bar away, Aoi could only endure her grievance and slowly swallow the large amount of snacks left in her mouth.
Because Hikari had fed her too much at once, she nearly choked.
She gagged repeatedly while swallowing, then coughed several times, and only then did her bulging cheeks gradually deflate.
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