"Has anyone ever said that to before?"
She asked it quietly. To the empty room. To herself.
She was quiet for a long mont.
"No," she whispered.
Just that, one word. Dropped into the silence like a stone into still water.
"No. In hundreds of years... no one." She laughed softly. A strange and slightly hollow sound mixed together with sothing almost like wonder. "Kingdoms. Centuries. So many faces I cannot even rember them anymore. And not one."
She looked at her own hands.
"Everyone who saw ... they ran." Her voice stayed soft. Unhurried. Like she was recounting a story she had long since stopped feeling. "Or they scread. Or they begged. Or they broke." She curled her fingers slowly. "They called monster. Every single one."
She tilted her head.
"So I built this." She gestured vaguely at herself. At the room. At the shop below and the life she had constructed around it like a shell. "A few face, new identit, new na. A height more like human. I made myself small and ordinary and I lived quietly and I thought..." She trailed off. Smiled faintly. "I thought that was enough. That it was fine."
She looked back at the door.
"And then people were kind to ." Her voice shifted slightly. Sothing colder moving into its edges for just a mont. "They smiled. They said pleasant things. They thought themselves very charming." A short exhale that was almost a laugh. "I was never fooled. Not once. Their kindness was always aid at the surface of . It never touched anything real. It just... slid off. n flirt with cause I was beautiful."
She pressed one hand flat against her chest.
"Like water on glass," she murmured.
Then she was quiet.
Then she shook her head slowly.
"Get back to your senses, Liona." She said it to herself firmly. Like a schoolteacher. Her silver eyes narrowing at nothing.
"That boy is the sa. He was grateful. You helped him. He said kind things because that is what people do when they are grateful and you happen to be beautiful." She nodded once. Decisive. "That is all. n do this. You have watched them do it for centuries. You know this."
A beat.
"If he knew what you actually were..." Her voice dropped lower. "He would be afraid. His face would change. They always change." She closed her eyes briefly. "And he would call you what they always call you. A monster."
She stood with that for a mont.
And then.
The mory of his face arrived without warning. The smile that had broken across it when she nodded yes.
So completely, helplessly genuine. So entirely unperford. Like sothing that had simply happened to his face because it couldn’t help it.
Her hand rose back to her cheek. Right where his lips had been.
"But..." she whispered.
Her composure cracked down the middle like ice under pressure.
"He kissed my cheek." Her voice ca out small. Slightly strangled. "He kissed my cheek. Ans i didn’t push...i could do that...but i didn’t...i let him do it."
She pressed her fingers harder against the spot. "He kiss and acted like a child. Like it was the most natural thing. Like I was soone he trusted completely and he just—"
She made a sound Sowhere between a laugh and sothing that had no na at all.
"When was the last ti soone was warm with ?" She asked the empty room. Her voice trembling just slightly at the edges. "Not polite. He was not performing. Just... warm."
She wrapped her arms around herself. He breathing ragged.
Thump
Thump
Thump
Her heart beat faster and louder.
Cheeks flushed and thought, the way he had held her.
"When did soone hold and actually an it?" she whispered. "When did soone say the word family to " She paused and swallowed.
Her lips trembled.
Her silver eyes had gone luminous and a little wild, the glow brightening as her emotions rose.
The blush across her cheeks was deep and vivid and showed no signs of fading. The smile that was spreading across her face now was enormous.
The kind of smile that a person makes when they are too far gone to care about containing it anymore.
She giggled. "Hehehe~" Her eerie laughed echoed in room.
Then again.
"He sees differently," she breathed. Her arms still wrapped around herself, swaying slightly.
"He looked at and said I was gentle." She laughed softly at the word. Repeated it again like it was extraordinary. "Gentle. ." Her eyes glead.
"He looked at and he was not afraid."
Her swaying slowed.
Sothing quieter moved across her expression. Settling beneath the giddiness like a deep current under a fast-moving surface.
"He said I was like a family," she whispered.
She stood very still for a mont.
Just holding that.
Then the smile ca back. Wider than before. Her giggle rose with it, filling the quiet room, bouncing off the wooden walls.
"That sweet boy," she said, spinning slowly again, her long hair sweeping the floor around her. "That innocent, ridiculous, absolutely sweet boy." She laughed.
"Hehehe~ He has no idea. He has absolutely no idea what he has done."
She stopped spinning.
Faced the door again.
Her silver eyes fixed on it. Unblinking now. The smile on her face had gone from giddy to sothing slower. Sothing that settled in and stayed.
She reached up and touched her cheek one more ti.
"You should not have done that, Azael," she murmured softly.
It was not as a warning but a fact.
"You should not have been so warm." Her glowing eyes did not move from the door.
"You should not have held like that. You should not have said those things." A pause. Her fingers pressed gently against her cheek.
"And you absolutely should not have kissed and smiled at like that and then simply walked away."
Her smile curved slowly. Her eyes glead.
"Because now," she whispered, very quietly, to no one but herself and the still dark room, "I am going to keep thinking about you."
A soft laugh. "Hehe~"
---
anwhile, several streets away, Azael walked through the cool night air with his hands in his pockets.
His expression was easy and relaxed. The expression of soone who had survived a terrible night and was now simply glad to be walking ho in one piece while achieving sothing great.
He thought about how kind she was.
He thought about how the hug had been warm.
’Hmm...was my acting too much...I an I was really grateful. And which migth made look far more sincere. But acting like a innocent man.. is that good enough to have her so attraction towards . After all she didn’t looked like soone who will like man just Because they are handso or strong.’
He did not think about the fact that he had kissed her cheek on impulse and then imdiately left the room, because it had felt natural in the mont and he was not the type to linger on things.
Seeing her reaction and actions. He thought that kissing her won’t be a problem. Hwivh was right since she didn’t stop or show outrage.
But he had absolutely no idea no idea about the glowing silver eyes fixed on the door he had just walked through.
No idea about the smile that was still spreading in that quiet room behind him.
No idea at all about the kind of attention he had just pointed in his direction.
He simply walked. Thinking she was kind. Thinking the hug had been warm. Utterly, completely, peacefully unaware of the storm he was brought inside the heart of an unknown being.
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