The words were barely spoken, they were exhaled, dragged through clenched teeth, hot with accusation. But Lochradan only chuckled softly, brushing invisible lint from his sleeve, his posture easy and unbothered.
"What could I possibly do?" he replied, with mock innocence. "I have no malicious intentions that have to do with your fiancée…" He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with the pleasure of provocation. "She walked away on her own." A pause. "Maybe she simply saw something in you that she didn't like anymore."
Danrovenallius said nothing. But the silence grew darker around him. And in that moment, he was not a man, he was the shadow of one, standing on the edge of something he had spent years trying not to become.
"Naomi isn't like that." Danrovenallius's voice was forced through gritted teeth.
"Are you sure?"
"Why are you making me question things about my lover?" Danrovenallius snapped, his voice rising, uncharacteristically shaken. "Clearly, I know her more and better than you ever will."
Lochradan gave a soft, exaggerated sigh. "Hmm. Is that so?" He turned away just slightly, looking at the spine of a dusty book nearby, running his fingers along it absentmindedly, as if bored.
"Well, it doesn't matter anymore," his voice was suddenly flat. "I'm not here to bicker about your so-called love life, I'm here to remind you that your plan won't work. It never had a chance. Pulling strings and moving your precious Naomi to this school like some pawn... It was all a waste of time."
He turned to look Danrovenallius in the eye, his smirk now fading into something quieter, more real.
"And really… why are you so keen on calling her your fiancée? You're not even married yet." A pause.
"Is it to convince me? Or… to convince yourself?"
Danrovenallius didn't respond.
***
"Shit, shit, shit…"
My mind itself wanted to punish me. I couldn't help it. I blamed myself for all of this, and yet...
I had no choice, I told myself, again and again. I whispered it like a prayer, like a desperate man clutching at the hem of a saint's robe. But even as the thought formed, a laughter rose within me. Choice? What is choice, really, when one's nerves are twisted taut like a violin string, trembling with the terror of action?
I was tense, or rather taut, i could feel discomfort, it felt like insects crawling on my body. This escape was the only way, and I took it with shaking hands, a clenched jaw, and the kind of resolve that smells faintly of cowardice. Tears threatened. I could feel them press up behind my eyes, not out of sadness, but some strange mixture of dread and self-loathing. Danrovenallius… his face, that damned expression...that look of startled betrayal that etched itself like acid onto the inside of my eyelids.
How was I to face what I had done? And not to talk about my task of needing to murder him-- i couldn't do it. And then the headache could be suddenly felt. Violent. Pulsing. It made me felt like as of now i was no longer tough bones but mere crusted dust.
It reminded me of the system notice message from earlier. Side effects due to technical instability...
Then came the stares.
I swear i felt them before I even heard them at all. They were utterly piercing, accusatory, exactly like needles threading through my skin.
"No way…"
"Isn't she the…?"
"Why is she so shook? Pfft."
Then, suddenly, a shrill beep tore through my ears. A sharp, mechanical wail, not unlike a siren before collapse. Everything got muted. everything except the pounding of my own heart and the irritatingly loud beeping in my ears. For a second, i could feel my chest tightening.
I had pretended for too long to be fine. I wasn't even aware of what my face looked like at that moment. My thought was that It wasn't the kind of expression anyone would want to see.
I didn't know how to deal with the eyes. Their questions, their judgments, their unrelenting, wordless persecution. I stood paralyzed, until a hand firmly grabbed my arm out of blue.
Danrovenallius. He didn't speak at first. Just dragged me away out of there into the raw quiet of the school's backyard garden. The leaves rustled overhead with the sun shining through the empty spaces.
"…You." His voice cut through the silence, low and sharp. His eyes... what were they saying? Fury? Pity? Resignation? Even I couldn't manage to name it.
"Stop causing so much… trouble…"
There was a pause which was terrible--slow, and then, with a movement I hadn't expected, he leaned in, as if some invisible thread between us had snapped. His head came to rest against my shoulder. Gently. Quietly. "Naomi…" he breathed heavily, and hearing the sound of my name like that...
I froze. I didn't know how to react. No one had ever held me like that.
Everything was so absurd. Danrovenallius's first impression was somewhat of a menace, surely, he couldn't be this crazy..?
"…Naomi, don't run away from me like that. Please. Never again. I really thought…"
'What…?'
The words he said... I could feel him trying to cover his quivering. He couldn't even bear to finish the thought. And I was standing there with his head still resting on my shoulder and his hands wrapped around my waist. Everything about this was absurd. Danrovenallius. This strange, brooding figure who first appeared to me as a threat, a walking enigma with the aura of a terrifying man with many uncovered malicious intentions was now trembling under me like a young frightened boy. Surely, I thought, he couldn't be this insane… or this human?
He fell silent.
And yet, in that silence, I found my arms moving even if unsure, rising from my sides. Then, I embraced him. It wasn't graceful. It wasn't even voluntary. It was as if my body, not my mind, chose to respond. And that's when I saw it.
"…Is that a bruise on your neck?"
Ah! The thought escaped before I could catch it.
He recoiled at once. His body stiffened, and he pulled away with a startled shame. Wordlessly, he tugged at the collar of his uniform and shielded the mark from my eyes as though that small gesture could prevent me from questioning further. 'Just what did he do..?'