When Your Secret Crush Wizard Took a Love Potion - Chapter 2

Yawn. A yawn overtook any gloomy thoughts I might have harbored.

‘Should I just clean up after some sleep tomorrow?’

I was so sleepy that it had made the decision for me. After a massive yawn, I left the cluttered lab as it was and collapsed into bed.

That was my last memory of that night.

* * *

Smooch, smooch. Sounds seemed to come from a distant place.

The winters in the northern parts of the continent were harsher than anywhere else. Getting up from the cozy warmth of bed on a cold morning was always a struggle.

My sleepy eyelids were heavy, I didn’t want to open, but an unfamiliar scraping sound jarred me awake.

“Ugh, go away…”

Annoyed beyond measure, my flailing hand accidentally grabbed something.

“What the…”

As soon as I felt the soft texture, my eyes snapped open, and through the blurry haze, I saw something—or someone—looming over me, like a predator.

A large, looming shadow.

“Hello, Chloe.”

Before I could react, a familiar voice reached my ears.

The blond, handsome man smiling down at me like a boy was Edgar, my mentor and housemate who had taught me magic.

And certainly not someone to behave this way.

“Hello? Did you just say hello?”

“Should I have said good morning instead?”

His grin as he looked down at me was bewildering.

Edgar was known for his eccentricities, but not like this! As I was still processing, I felt a soft touch on my cheek, then he pressed his lips firmly against mine with a smack.

“Ed, Edgar?”

What in the world was happening?

My mind couldn’t keep up with the bizarre turn of events that had struck as suddenly as lightning the moment I woke up.

For your information, Edgar Blayden was not an affectionate person.

Over the decade we had lived and worked together, physical contact had been minimal. I can count on one hand about that.

And now, here he was, kissing my head, forehead, cheeks—everywhere, as if enchanted. It was so shocking that I almost screamed.

“Why, why are you like this? What’s happened to you?”

“That’s right. I’m crazy about you, Chloe.”

Is this supposed to be a joke?

But seeing the man grinning in delight sent a shiver down my spine. His unusually clingy behavior and the sticky gaze that lingered on my neck through my thin clothes felt wrong.

I had a sinking feeling that something was terribly off.

His normally clear and bright violet eyes were now feverish.

“I want to kiss you.”

He sounded like someone lost in love.

“What did you say?”

His shocking statement snapped me out of my grogginess.

“I said I want to kiss you.”

“…Do you even understand what you’re saying, Edgar?”

“Of course I do. I mean I want to kiss you right now.”

Edgar emphasized this unnecessary point three times with sparkling eyes.

He might have been smiling innocently, but his gaze was sticky and persistent.

I must still be half-asleep or dreaming. Cold sweat formed on my forehead, and my temples throbbed. The situation was hard to grasp, but recalling my last memory led me to a quick conclusion.

“Did you by any chance eat something from the lab?”

Please say no, please just, why are you nodding, you fool.

“Really…?”

It made no sense. People with innate magical power aren’t usually susceptible to simple magic potions. Edgar, who could resist the sedative effects of ancient Yggdrasil root, had succumbed to a love potion I made?

“That’s impossible!”

“You hate the idea that much?”

As I clutched the back of my neck and staggered, Edgar mistook it for rejection and his face fell.

“I can really be good at it. Really. I’ve done it thousands of times in my dreams. And you always enjoyed it.”

His expression that was on the verge of tears, resembled that of a lovesick teenager. It was so different from the Edgar Blayden I knew.

The man before me was no longer the composed, detached figure who used to look down at me from above. He wasn’t my mentor, who seemed uninterested in anything and as indifferent as a stone wall.

“Are you giving me permission?”

Edgar asked, clearly in love. I could tell in his eyes. I had become the center of his world, and he had fallen into a genuine love he had never felt before.

A reality I had never once imagined in my life. As I became aware of this reality, an incredible sense of disbelief pushed me to the brink.

Edgar, passionately in love with someone?

And that someone being me?