Not a Confession, but a Declaration - Chapter 30

Divine power. Along with the scandal that had followed him since birth, it was one of Felix’s sore spots.

As expected, all expression vanished from Felix’s face. Then he started biting his lip again.

But only for a moment. Felix soon released his lip from between his teeth, his face flushing red.

‘He’s thinking about what happened earlier.’

Kissing him had been the right choice. It was better if Felix did not have a habit of hurting himself by making his lip bleed.

Considering how beautiful he was, Abel had assumed Felix would be experienced, yet he was far more shaken than expected. It was adorable.

“You do it yourself. Why aren’t you healing it already?”

At Felix’s expression, which seemed to say Isn’t it as easy for you as breathing?, Abel shamelessly insisted:

“If you don’t do it, I’ll keep walking around like this.”

“Do as you please.”

Felix refused flatly, his face hard, but Abel did not back down.

“I don’t care about other people’s opinions.”

No one knew better than Abel what words would move Felix.

“And quite a few people saw you and me come in together.”

“…”

It was practically a threat. Was it really necessary to go this far just to be healed by Felix’s divine power?

Abel had wondered about it, but he wanted to remember this moment for a very long time.

This was the historic moment of his first kiss with a living Felix.

‘It’s probably better to consider a kiss with a living person my first kiss rather than one with someone who was already dead.’

Felix would probably prefer that as well.

“I truly hate you.”

The divine power touched Abel’s cheek, belying Felix’s furrowed eyes and cold tone.

Felix’s divine power was weak and unimpressive, but it was warm and ticklish.

* * *

Getting hit by Felix once in a while might not be so bad.

While entertaining a thought that would surely earn him a blunt curse if Felix heard it, Abel examined his now-smooth face in the mirror.

Since he hadn’t actually seen what his face had looked like, he couldn’t make an exact comparison, but he remembered the sensation of heat rising and his cheek swelling up.

“Hm.”

He pressed his tongue against the inside of his mouth, where the mucous membrane had hardly healed despite his outward appearance. As the dull ache spread, Abel recalled Felix’s unimpressive divine power.

Ticklish and fragile, faint and weak.

‘At this point, it’s practically the same as not having any at all.’

Even after gathering nearly all the divine power he possessed, Felix had been unable to finish healing him. And judging from Abel’s current condition, Felix had been well aware of his own limits.

From the beginning, he had not even tried to heal the inside of Abel’s mouth, focusing all his efforts on restoring his outward appearance instead.

It had been a rational decision. If he had attempted to heal both, his divine power would have run dry before accomplishing either, and Abel would have greeted the morning with the swelling gone but his face still covered in bruises.

Throughout the entire process of healing him, despair and self-loathing over his own limitations had lingered on Felix’s face.

Even without Abel pointing it out—he remembered just how sensitive Felix was about this subject, so he had no intention of bringing it up—Felix himself was already painfully aware of his inadequacy.

And when the healing was finally over, there had been that inferiority complex lingering on Felix’s face.

And resentment toward Abel for making him feel that way once again.

The naked hostility was plain to see: You, who possess divine power in abundance, why would you force me to feel this way again through threats like these?

And yet, unable to completely cast aside his guilt, Felix had left the room on unsteady feet, his face pale as a sheet.

‘If it bothers you that much, heal the rest yourself.’

Like Abel, Felix knew that he had completely exhausted his divine power.

Even so, Felix had never once mentioned his own lack of ability, and Abel had not brought it up either.

They had simply let the matter pass, pretending it was nothing more than Felix’s petty retaliation for being threatened.

And despite all that, Abel still thought that getting hit by Felix once in a while might not be so bad?

‘Yeah, not bad at all.’

He knew that Felix had been hurt by it, and that he resented him.

But even so, Abel had liked the fact that Felix had tried his hardest to heal him. He had liked the sight of him breaking into a cold sweat as he struggled desperately.

He had liked the hesitant movements of those careful hands, hands that had not faltered because Felix found touching him disgusting, but because he had been worried about hurting Abel.

That was why Abel had left the wounds inside his mouth untreated.