I Became the Villain Chapter 120: The Distance That Vanished

Chapter 120: The Distance That Vanished

When was the last ti a pair of lips had actually pressed against his own?

Cherion’s brain, currently lagging hard in the dim light of the tent, started digging through mories that didn’t even feel like his anymore. A different universe, a different set of bones. Oh, right. It had been years ago, a lifeti ago, involving a high school crush who’d treated Cherion’s genuine affection like a low-stakes weekend hobby. It had been a series of clumsy, damp smooches. The kind of awkward, clumsy kissing where teeth bumped and sohow there was always a hair involved. It was embarrassing. It was... fine. Honestly? It felt like unpaid labor.

That mory, innocent and fundantally unremarkable as it was, had never made his pulse perform a violent, rib-cracking drum solo. It had never made his vision blur or his lungs forget how to function just from soone being near him.

But this? This was a goddamn catastrophe for his nervous system.

Zarius felt like a human furnace in the middle of all that cold, and being this close to him made it hard to think straight. Cherion swallowed hard, his brain spinning as sothing warm and very real pressed against his lips.

It was Zarius. The Great Duke of the North. The man of ice and iron was currently a wildfire.

Zarius’s lips were firm, carrying the chill of winter and a faint hint of the herbal salves Cherion used. They were commanding, yes, it was in the man’s DNA to lead, but there was a devastating, almost frightening softness to them. It was an insistence that wasn’t rough, but rather... hungry. Heavy.

Cherion’s eyes were blown wide, staring uselessly at the bridge of Zarius’s nose in the flickering, weak light of the magic stones.

What the hell is actually happening? The question kept circling in his head, refusing to go away. He could feel the rough, slightly chapped texture of Zarius’s lips, the lips of a man who spent his nights biting them in grim concentration while squinting at war maps or monster-sighting reports. Then there was the scent. It was overwhelming. Cedarwood, winter chill, and that familiar scent he’d co to associate with Zarius.

The craziest part of this entire fever dream wasn’t even the fact that the Duke was kissing him. No, the real insanity was the fact that Cherion wasn’t moving.

He wasn’t shoving him off. No insults, no backup plan, and his dignity had officially abandoned him. Instead, his hands, when they really should’ve been doing sothing useful, like pushing Zarius away or defending what little dignity he had left, grabbed onto Zarius’s clothes instead. He held on, fingers tightening in Zarius’s clothes, as he let the man kiss him with a weight that made his knees feel weak, even though he was already lying down.

Panic bubbled up for a fleeting second, a survival instinct screaming about "contracts" and "professional boundaries