Chapter 17
Chapter 17
Her chocolate-brown irises had gone wide, looking ready to pop out. So pretty he wanted to swallow them whole. Vladimir stared at her small face like he could devour it and ground his teeth. He knew he sounded like a cheap con artist. But he couldn’t stop his mouth once it started moving on its own.
“My chest hurts… my head aches, my eyes throb, and my body feels especially tired.”
It wasn’t entirely untrue. Facing the possibility of rejection, he really was experiencing all kinds of symptoms from the extreme stress. The worst pain was lower down… but even as a fool drowning in first love, he didn’t mention that. He wasn’t that hopeless of an idiot.
“I asked the family mage. He said the spell hasn’t fully worn off. That’s why. And aside from the pain, he said our bodies could swap again at any time.”
The words started slow, then picked up speed, flowing like smooth silver. He shoved his screaming reason to the back of his mind and drove the point home, his voice low and dark.
“What if we suddenly swap again tonight…”
“We… we already know how to undo the spell, so we can just do it again…”
Milana, still dazed, stammered out a reply. She didn’t know what to do with herself. The mistake she’d caused still wasn’t fully resolved. She never imagined he’d been feeling this much physical damage.
“I haven’t had any symptoms, so I didn’t know…”
Of course you haven’t.
“That’s because you have magic resistance, Milana. You’re a mage. I’m not.”
He never knew he had a talent for fraud. Normally, he’d be marveling at discovering a new villainous skill. But right now, the priority was grabbing this small animal that looked ready to bolt and keeping her glued to his side.
“Milana, what do we do?”
He stared at her face, gone pale with guilt, and pushed her further into the corner. At first, nerves had kept his usual cold expression in place. But he quickly realized that wouldn’t work and carefully adjusted his face. He lowered his typically arched brows as much as he could and fluttered his lashes, trying his best to look like a patient in pain.
It was, quite literally, acting sick. A very foreign experience for a man trained only to ignore pain.
“What do I do?”
He bent at the waist, clutching his stomach, and looked up at Milana with the devotion of a believer seeking answers from god. His fine lips parted pathetically.
‘Hah…’
Milana had no idea what to do. Vladimir was unusually tall and she was unusually small. Even when he’d been Bova, she had never once looked down at him from an angle like this.
“Hm?”
That devastating face, the one she couldn’t get used to even after living in that body, twisted as if pleading. His violet eyes sank dark and wet with a glossy sheen. The light in them seemed to be begging for something. She couldn’t look away.
Her heart dropped with a thud.
“V-Vladimir, does it… hurt a lot?”
Without realizing it, the old Milana slipped out. The one who worried about her close friend. She even forgot the formal speech that marked the distance between them. She fidgeted for a moment, her lips twitching with anxiety. Then she stepped in close on her own and gently placed her small hand on his forehead. No cold sweat. No tangled mana. Nothing visibly wrong. But if he said he was in pain, she had no choice but to believe him.
And really, what would someone like him have to gain from lying about it? A scenario she couldn’t even imagine.
“Don’t you have medicine? You shouldn’t be out like this… wait. I have a pain relief magic tool in my room…”
The warmth of her touch. The feel of her skin. It had been so long. Vladimir reflexively almost cursed. Her lovely face filled his entire field of vision. He wanted to pull her in and kiss her right then, but he bit his lip and held back.
“Ahh! Your lip is bleeding!”
He must have misjudged his strength. The thin skin split and blood trickled down. It beaded at his chin, dripping from the fierce bite marks that spoke for his will. Milana took it as a man enduring terrible pain. A complete misunderstanding.
With trembling hands, she pulled at the sleeve of her robe and wiped his chin. The old robe, worn but cherished, soaked up the dark red stain and grew damp. She felt tears well up. Stupid Milana Ven. She couldn’t even fully fix the mess she’d made. She’d just been running away. Her old friend was suffering this much because of her and she hadn’t helped at all. Bova, who’d always said he was born so sturdy he’d never even caught a cold.
Her eyes blurred and softened with gathering moisture.
Discussion
0 CommentsNo comments yet.