Because I used magic in the temple, a warning sound rang out, but I had no time to pay attention to it. I froze just like that. I wondered if I was dreaming right now. Ruvlian, Ruvlian was standing before me. Looking no different from before.
As if someone had erased the way to speak from my head, words wouldn’t come out. It was partly because I was surprised by the unexpected situation, and partly because my heart that had been empty until just now was filling up completely with indescribable emotions.
“……Do you, remember?”
The words I barely managed to spit out didn’t even have a subject. Though there was no trembling, my true feelings of disbelief were clearly revealed.
As my words ended, the eye shape that seemed to embrace his blue eyes became a little rounder. Despite the backlight, I had the illusion that there seemed to be not a single shadow.
“Why wouldn’t I, Sihyeon.”
“……”
“I remember everything, including how desperately you reversed time. Ah, also what I said about not doing dangerous things.”
There were thorns in his words. Though it was still a smiling face, I could see he was reproaching me. I’d been so surprised by Ruvlian having memories even after reversing time that I’d failed to notice that resentment.
“I was going to really get angry when we met again…… but I felt better again so quickly at your words of missing me that I think I’m really going crazy.”
The expression of Ruvlian, who hadn’t moved even a single step, distorted slightly. My heart sank at his appearance of laughing as if about to cry while letting out a deflating sigh. Somehow strength entered my hands and I gripped the blanket tightly.
“Won’t I do?”
“……What?”
“Reversing time is no different from severing relationships with everyone, isn’t it? Making you hesitate to sever relationships, making you not make such a choice—won’t I do?”
The blue eyes looking at me after sorrowfully lowering then raising his eyelashes were saying they were sincere. A hollow laugh came out.
I’d already hesitated because of Ruvlian, and even after reversing time, I’d continued to miss him. It was because of him that I’d made such a choice, and my feelings were deep enough to prepare for the sensation of dying. I’d already given him all of myself from long ago, yet he was asking if he wouldn’t do. It was absurd.
When I stared intently at Ruvlian, he was tightly shut as if he’d never opened his mouth. It meant he’d definitely get an answer.
“……As if I wouldn’t have hesitated.”
I didn’t say because of whom. As always, I buried my true feelings down below and only spoke fragmentary facts.
“That kind of choice, as if it would’ve been easy for me.”
“……So you’re saying you made that choice because of me right now?”
Even though there was no subject, Ruvlian got the answer right on his own. I didn’t answer and practiced silent meditation. Then he sighed once more and moved.
“I said this before too, but you’re more sly…… And how could you confess then? Do you know how unfair it was to forget, even briefly, that confession I’d been waiting years for?”
Ruvlian, who sat right next to me, brought up the story as if lamenting. It was a voice emptied of the resentment that had dwelt there. The reproach had also softened. However, more than that, I was concerned about the confession I’d made thinking he’d forget anyway.
I didn’t know what answer I should give to those words. We were still people from different worlds and couldn’t walk side by side. That said, I couldn’t take back the confession he’d heard. Watching me like that, Ruvlian smiled a smile that would burn sweetly, without a single ominous emotion like reproach or resentment.
“I like you too.”
The confession he casually tossed out was filled seamlessly with sincerity. Because I hadn’t even imagined I’d hear an answer to my confession, my fingertips that had lost strength at some point flinched. The area around my chest somehow ached. The room was hot.
Ruvlian, who had been intently staring at me with my mouth firmly shut, soon whispered as if telling a secret.
“Sihyeon, this time I didn’t receive blessings or protection from God.”
The sunlight coming in through the window disappeared, and in an instant my head stopped working. My rapidly beating heart regained its pace. My fingertips turned cold.
Before reversing time, Ruvlian had gone around this world and that world so much that I’d forgotten about blessings and protection themselves. It was a point I hadn’t paid any attention to at all.
But was this lunatic now so confidently saying this, knowing that coming to another world without blessings and protection would be disastrous? I grabbed Ruvlian’s arm forcefully.
“You go back quickly.”
“Sihyeon.”
“Hurry.”
I snapped firmly at Ruvlian who was speaking as if telling me to listen to what he had to say. The Demon God was already in a nearby location, yet he had no blessings or protection. The current Ruvlian was the same as the most appetizing food to the Demon God.
Physical abilities, mana. With those two things being outstanding, if he became the Demon King, he would surely lead this world to destruction. Even without becoming the Demon King, he was someone who half-destroyed worlds—there was no way it wouldn’t be possible.
“I’m not going.”
“Ruvlian.”
“Mm. It feels good hearing my name from Sihyeon. Will you call it until it wears out?”
Logically, a name couldn’t wear out. Even in this situation, Ruvlian who was fooling around was smiling with his eyes folded into crescents. Though I could see blatant affection from him, I couldn’t find even a hair’s worth of seriousness.
It was the moment I was holding back anger and trying to reason with him again. Ruvlian brought his face a little closer and produced a sweet voice full of aegyo.
“I said I missed you.”
Warm body heat was added onto the back of my hand placed on the white blanket. Soon, white, long fingers settled between each of my fingers.
“You said you liked me too.”
“……That’s why I’m telling you to go.”
“Do you sincerely want me to go? You don’t.”
I withdrew my face from Ruvlian who touched his nose to mine then rubbed gently while smiling. It was too close. My heart started beating off-tempo again. It felt like heat was rushing to my face.
“Sihyeon, do you remember what I said before?”
“When.”
“When I went to your world. That I’d thought of a way to be with you.”
There was no way I couldn’t remember. How could I forget those words saying to transfer to me the mana that was the main cause of disrupting the world’s balance and resolve desires? I wondered if he was suggesting we do that this time too.
The moment I was about to say stop barking like a dog and just go back, again Ruvlian continued speaking first.
“Kiss me.”
“You,”
“I want to.”
Those words that came cutting off my words meant to let him resolve his desire to kiss. Smoothly. Between his sweetly folded eyes and the protruding aegyo-sal, affection surged in the transparent seawater-like eyes visible as thin lines. The affection flowed and reached me. As if bewitched by something in the overflowing affection, I moved my lips.
“Mm. Quickly. I don’t want to become the Demon King and want to live with you for a long time.”
As if knowing my hesitation, Ruvlian wheedled a little more. That appearance looked cute. Though I’d known I was crazy originally, I realized again that the degree was severe. To think Ruvlian acting coquettishly even in this situation looked cute.
In the end, I fell for him gently coaxing me. If it were before reversing time, though I might have dismissed it as more bullshit, I wouldn’t have nodded. However, right now I’d already made the confession that I liked him, and seeing Ruvlian after a long time, with this affection filling the emptiness, I just wanted to pretend not to know and let it pass.
Moreover, wasn’t this for Ruvlian’s sake? Though just moments ago I’d tried to send him back to his original world, it was quite natural rationalization.
Though it was very slight, at my moving head, Ruvlian followed close by as much as I’d withdrawn my face. Soon his tilting face with a smile, soft lips touched then fell away. Heat spread throughout my entire face at the hot temperature and softness felt for a brief moment.
Though I’d had my lips bitten when told to shut my mouth, it was the first time they’d carefully touched. I wanted to scratch down the area around my chest. The pleasantly tickling sensation wouldn’t fade.
The kiss I thought would end with once continued. Smooch. Smooch. Smooch. The tickling became even more severe because of the sound made when lips touched then fell away and the longing contained in his blue eyes and the affection of warm hues. When I, unable to endure, slowly pulled back, one arm wrapped around my waist. He even came closer, leaving less space than before.
My mind was hazy at the continuing kiss. There was no sign of it stopping. I firmly held onto my remaining reason and blocked the approaching lips with my hand as he tilted his head again.
There was no way Ruvlian would stop here. He grasped my wrist and rubbed his soft lips against my palm. Thanks to also licking and sucking, the sounds were more explicit than before. Sticky sounds pierced my ears. In the midst of this, the blue eyes below the sweetly curved eye shape were still directed at me, making the heat rise even more. The air filling the room somehow felt hot.
“St, stop.”
“Yees.”
As he, with flushed cheeks, let go of my wrist, I pulled back the hand that had been kissed. Ruvlian leaned his head on my shoulder and just turned his head to stare at me. Swaying golden hair, eyes exactly resembling the color of a heated sea, flushed cheeks below them and red lips. Though it felt like I should tear my gaze away from the things entering my vision vividly, I couldn’t.
“Ah, what should I do? This is serious.”
“……”
“Hurry and ask me why.”
As I kept my mouth shut in the tickling and heat that showed no signs of cooling, he kept going “Yees?” urging an answer. He who was asking me to answer quickly looked so happy. If happiness weren’t abstract but concrete and visible to our eyes, his surroundings would be completely full of happiness. To the degree you’d think he was buried in it.
After moving my lips several times, I produced a voice as he who had the obsession of doing something until he got it if there was something he wanted desired.
“Why.”
“I’ve come to like you more. I wondered if I could like you more from here.”
