Hero, Go To School! - Chapter 25

“Gasp-!”

Alarms exploded behind my eyes. My breath caught in my throat. Hot sweat broke down my back.

How could someone else’s warmth be this suffocating, this agonizing?

It felt like my throat was being crushed. My thoughts spiraled. I was ready to give up even the location of my deepest secret if it meant ending this.

At that moment, the door slammed open beyond the protective barrier.

“Young master, young master!”

Please save me! There’s someone here!

I prayed desperately that the servants would search every inch of this place. But they were clueless, with no real experience in searching. They didn’t even think to check behind the wall. They just wandered around, uselessly, and soon turned back.

Then I hear the sound of the door closing, all hope vanished with it.

As the sound of their footsteps faded, his body lost all strength. I slipped free from his grasp in an instant.

Air flooded into my lungs, cold and clean, but the irritation I had bottled up burst forth all at once.

I turned toward him, my brow deeply furrowed.

“I thought I was going to suffocate…!”

My angry words broke off in midair. Something unfamiliar touched my lips. Soft. Warm. The rage that had just surged up inside me scattered in an instant.

What was that? The warmth and gentleness of it froze me in place.

His lips were on mine.The bridge of his nose brushed lightly against mine. His messy bangs tickled my forehead.

It felt as if time had stopped.

The world around us went deathly quiet.

In his deep blue eyes, I saw his pupils slowly dilate.

There was disbelief in them. Confusion. A flicker of astonishment. All tangled together.The heat of our breath lingered between us. And from his chest, I felt the steady pounding of his heart.

At that moment, gulp-.

The sound of someone swallowing echoed right in my ear. I blinked slowly, once, then opened my eyes. Then, I gently pulled my head back. From the lips that had been pressed together for no short time, a thin strand of saliva stretched like thread between us.

“Ah.”

The small sound that slipped out of me instinctively was so faint it felt almost embarrassing. An awkward air settled over the two of us. The madman who thought he was on a battlefield had vanished without a trace. Ian was simply staring at me with a blank expression.

“Ian.”

When I called his name, his eyes blinked and his body gave the slightest jolt. As if startled without even realizing it himself.

Then his entire body began to flush red. The color that started at the tips of his ears spread slowly, soon washing over his whole face. His once pale skin turned completely crimson, and even his neck and chest, where I could feel his heartbeat, turned bright red.

His wide eyes sparkled as if on the verge of tears. Those moisture-laced blue irises trembled with instability, and at the sight of them, I fell speechless.

No way… is he embarrassed?

The thought came to me out of nowhere. Sure, it had been an accident, a mishap, but the fact remained that our lips had touched. Even I, who had gone almost a lifetime without any form of skinship, had been deeply shaken by my first kiss. But Ian was even more shaken than I was.

He had wandered around naked without the slightest sense of shame, yet now he was stammering over a single kiss. This stuttering, fumbling Ian felt unfamiliar.

I looked at him closely. That sculpted face was still as handsome as ever, but now it was colored with a look I had never seen before.

And with someone like that standing before me, I found myself strangely calm. Just knowing that there was someone more shaken than I was, right in front of me, helped me regain my composure without even realizing it.