After a long hug he released her.
"Thanks...it was warm when I held you like that." Azael said as a soft blush ford on his cheeks.
At this point Liona had forgotten everything. Even the thing that he bought aphrodisiac for another girl from her shop. Her mind was blank because of his hug.
"Liona..Liona!"
She ca out of her trance as he called her.
"What?!" She looked at him with her wide opened eyes.
"Yo-you...you hugged . "
"Yes I did. And I thank you for that. I felt better. It was as if...I was hugging soone closer to . Like my family." He said with sift smile.
Her breathe hitched. She nodded furiously.
"Okay! Okay! I got it! Now it’s late. Now you should go ho."
Seeing her flusterd expression Azale chuckled.
"Yes you are right. I should go now."
When he was going to walk away she stopped him
"Wait a minute. You are forgetting soemthing." She walked towards the desk.
After a long mont, Azael loosened his arms and stepped back.
He looked at her. A soft and slightly sheepish expression on his face. A faint blush had crept onto his cheeks without knowing him.
"Thanks," he said quietly. "It was warm. When I held you like that."
He said it simply. No decoration to it. Just an honest thing said honestly.
Liona said nothing. Because Liona was not entirely present anymore.
Her mind had gone sowhere very soft and very quiet. Like a candle fla in a room with no wind.
She was thinking about the hug.
Not dissecting it the like she normally would with anything that ca too close to her. Just... sitting in the mory of it.
The warmth of his arms. The way he had exhaled when she held him back. The weight of his head against her shoulder.
The warmth she felt from him.
She had forgotten, sowhere in the middle of all of that, that this was the sa young man who had co into her shop weeks ago and bought an aphrodisiac.
For another girl.
That fact, which should have been very relevant, had simply ceased to exist sowhere between the mont he said please innocently and the mont she nodded.
"Liona."
She didn’t reply.
"Liona."
She blinked. The room ca back. The walls. The lantern light. Azael standing in front of her with a slightly amused look on his face.
"What?!" She looked at him. Her eyes wider than she intended.
He tilted his head. The amusent on his face was gentle rather than teasing.
"You went sowhere just now, in deep thought."
"I did not." She refused.
"You did."
She straightened her posture. Clasped her hands in front of her. Recovered what she could of her composure.
"You... you hugged ," she said. Her voice ca out slightly more accusatory than she planned.
"I did," he agreed. His smile was soft. "And I ant what I said. I felt better because of it." He paused, seeming to look for the right words. "It was as if... I was holding soone close to . Soone like family."
Her breath hitched.
Sothing in those words went sowhere it had absolutely no business going.
Straight past all of her composure and every reasonable wall she had built and into sowhere quiet and unguarded that she did not let anyone reach there.
She nodded. Very quickly. Several tis in flusterd expression.
"Okay. Okay, I understand. It’s late now, you should go ho."
He looked at her expression and chuckled.
That quiet, warm, slightly helpless laugh that she was already becoming far too familiar with.
"You’re right," he said. "I should go."
He turned toward the door.
"Wait."
The word ca out before she fully decided to say it. He stopped and turned back. She was already moving toward the desk in the corner of the room. She opened the small drawer and reached inside.
And placed his white mask on the surface between them.
"You were forgetting sothing," she said.
He looked at the mask. Then at her. Then back at the mask.
He let out a low chuckle and picked it up. Turned it over once in his hands, sothing quietly fond in the gesture, then touched his storage ring and let it disappear inside with a faint shimr of mana.
He looked at her again.
Sothing in his expression shifted slightly. Still warm and easy. But with sothing else sitting just beneath it.
He stepped closer.
She registered the movent but did not step back.
Then, before the thought of reacting had even fully ford in her mind, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her right cheek.
Light as a breath.
Chu~
Gone in an instant.
He straightened. And smiled at her. That particular smile of his. Charming without trying to be. Innocent and sweet. The kind of smile that had absolutely no right to be shown to any random woman.
"Goodbye, Liona."
Then he turned and walked out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him.
She stood exactly where he had left her. She did not move. The spot on her right cheek where his lips had touched was warm.
Warr than made any logical sense for sothing that had lasted less than a second.
Her fingers rose slowly. Pressed lightly against her cheek.
Still warm.
The color that spread across her face started at her cheeks and moved outward. Up to her ears. Down to the back of her neck. A deep and total flush that she had absolutely no chanism to stop.
She stood there.
The room was completely silent.
And then, from sowhere deep in her chest, a sound escaped.
Small at first.
A giggle.
"Heheheheheheh~" And then sothing happened.
The careful, gentle, composed, elegantly constructed version of Liona that she wore every single day began, very quietly, to co completely undone.
Her violet eyes shifted. The color bled slowly out of them like ink dissolving in water, replaced by a glowing silver that cast faint strange light across the walls.
Her hair moved on its own. Growing, thickening, spilling down past her waist, past her hips, pooling against the floor behind her in heavy violet waves.
Her fra expanded. Her posture changed. Until she stood taller than before. A full 186 centiters. Perhaps more.
He appearance which was just beautiful turned into soone more than just beautiful. She looked liked a woman descended from heaven.
The human shape she wore every day like a carefully fitted garnt had simply... relaxed.
This was what she actually was.
And she was standing in the middle of a quiet room, alone, with both hands pressed to her red flsuhed cheeks and a creepy smile stretching wide across her face.
Her silver eyes glowing. Her hair pooled around her feet like a living thing.
She turned her face toward the closed door.
And whispered. "H-he li-ikes . Hehe~"
A pause.
Then again, softer. Like she was tasting the words.
"He likes ." A breath. "Hehehe!"
She turned slowly in place. Her long hair swirled around her feet. Her glowing eyes fixed on nothing. Her smile getting wider by the second.
"He said I am beautiful," she murmured to herself. Her voice was soft. Almost reverent.
"He said I am kind." She pressed her hands more firmly to her cheeks. "With that smile. That sweet, sweet smile."
She stopped turning.
Her expression shifted. Sothing more serious moving into it, though the blush remained and the smile never fully left.
"Has anyone ever said that to before?"
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