Chapter 14

"Are you calm now?"

She planted her nose into my chest.

I slowly unwrapped my hands around her and let go, sensing her stabilizing.

She shook her head which tickled my chest and hugged me harder.

"No?"

She shook her head side by side again.

I relented and my arms returned to their place. Her suffocating hold relaxed a little.

"Should we go sit?" she shook her head.

… We stood in silence for a few more minutes but the strength in her hold did not decrease at all.

"You know, class has started already… if a teacher sees us we'll be in big trouble."

The suffocating hold returned again, and the message 'I don't care,' was transmitted.

After a while, I could see that her legs were beginning to ache as she moved them side by side and stretched her ankles.

"My legs are tired," her voice was very small and timid, completely different from the person I knew.

"Let's go sit?"

She nodded. "Give me a piggyback ride," she stuffed her face onto my chest.

I struggled to turn around as she hesitantly loosened her arms to let me turn, and lowered myself.

"Where do you wanna go?"

"I dunno… do you know any places where there are no teachers?"

"I do." Why wouldn't I? I was the worst trash.

We walked along the road and looked at the grass. Far away from the buildings, we noticed busy students and teachers in the classrooms.

We walked into an area where not many teachers passed by, and the ones that did usually didn't care to investigate.

"You gonna stand up?"

Her face tickled my neck as it moved side to side. "You can't see my face."

While carrying her in a piggyback, I sat down on a rock.

I looked at the scenery around us. Chirping birds around the trees and the wind rustling the leaves lightly.

She stuck her face onto my back.

There were minutes of silence as I peacefully watched the birds fly around.

My heart was in a steady and relaxed rhythm. It seemed she liked my heartbeat because she tapped her fingers to my stomach at the beat of my heart.

"This is embarrassing."

"Why? You shouldn't be ashamed."

"I know. You've told me before and I am trying to understand that I have some problems and that it's okay to have them. I listen to all of your words, I really do," she dug her face deeper into my back, "but it's hard to change unconscious thoughts and feelings that I can't control."

I nodded in understanding. At this moment, I understood all I had to do was be silent and let her open up.

"I know that I have problems but it's really hard to change them…"

"Mhm,"

"I don't know what to say. Every time I want to say something, I feel like something in my heart is blocking it and forbidding me from telling you anything."

"...Yes. That's what happens when for 25 years you've built walls around your heart. It's normal. It's a slow process that takes time."

Her hands that were wrapped around my waist and laying on my stomach suddenly moved to my arms. They trailed down my biceps, to my forearm, to my wrist, to my fingers and she quickly gripped them.

I gripped her hand back with my finger.

A long comfortable silence passed between us.

"I like your heartbeat."

"Mhm? I like to think it's a good heartbeat."

She laughed, "You're too narcissistic."

"Am not."

"Don't worry, I like that about you too."

I opened and closed my fingers as we clutched hands, playing around as she too began messing around with our hands.

"I didn't know you had abs."

That was her deflection of the situation. She did it unconsciously, but her unconscious didn't permit her to linger on an emotional situation and instead bury it away.

I coughed at her shamelessness. "Kuh— It comes with the intense training…"

"Mm, I'm a six-pack lover from today on,"

"You've always been a six-pack lover…" I retorted.

"Huh?"

"Six pack of beer…" When she realized the joke, she began laughing.

"I'm not that alcoholic, okay?" her hands left mine and she started shamelessly laying her hands all over my stomach.

Feeling ticklish, I twitched around as she groped me brazenly, "Ah, stop. You little pervert."

"Hehe, you're ticklish? Hmm? What happened to the playboy who was passed around for his high school and college years?"

"This body is brand new and hasn't been tainted. Away with the impure intentions, you sinful wench," I tried slapping her hands away.

I felt a warm breath on my ear, "Hmm?~" she bit my earlobe.

Huh?

What the fuck?

?????

Is this my boss?

"Should I be the one to taint it this time?"

Holy shit.

What the fuck got into her?

"Uh...Manager?"

"You're mine… right?" she spoke breathily and poked my stomach, almost as if it was a knife.

Ah, shit.

Not a crazy bitch…

Fuck.

"You've been cheating on me for a long while…" she began counting with her fingers cutely, but ominously. "4 years of high school… 4 years of college… You've been cheating on me for 8 years, then," she said sweetly.

Ah, of course, it had to be a crazy bitch.

Having experienced no love, ever, why wouldn't she turn out crazy?

Fuck me. Of course. This is my karma, fucking hell.

"I'll forgive you because you're so cute…" Her hands trailed up to my neck, sending shivers throughout my entire body, and her long nails poked my blood vessels. "Cheat on me again and there'll be punishment, okay?"

She tickled my neck with her nails, sending a delicate and very bad feeling to my nerve receptors.

Hahaha…

I didn't go back in time, more like I went to hell to receive my punishment.

I have to deal with a crazy bitch.

"You know… I like many things about you…"

"Haha… you do?" Please don't say my blood please don't say my blood please don't say my blood please don't say my blood please don't say my blood please don't say my blood please don't say my blood.

"Your heartbeat…" Haha… the answer she ended out giving ended up being even worse than what I thought.

"Hmm… I think it would be better if my heart was beating. If it's cold and rots it'll be bad, won't it?"

She giggled, "Hihihi. Hmm? What's wrong with that? I'll just put it in the freezer."

"Ahhh, hahaha…"

"I also really like your body…"

"I think it's better if I am warm and alive. Alive is better than dead, right? Better active than a corpse." I negotiated with a calm facade.

She giggled again. "But you won't run away… or cheat on me. You can love me better like that."

What the fuck is this logic?

"You know… you're so romantic that you made me come here with you to such a hidden place… It's like you're letting me do whatever I want…"

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. YOU were the one that wanted to come to a nice and quiet place.

Inwardly, I was feeling injustice. Outwardly, I was a cold face.

"I think it's even sweeter if I get to love you and we love each other, yes? I can tell you I love you and hug you and all those things, right?"

She kissed the back of my neck, sending shivers up my spine. "Yes… you make a good bargain… Hmm," she thought about it for a long minute. I prayed and prayed, please, anyone out there. Help me. "Okieee~. Just know that if I see you cheating, you'll be mine. Forever. But asleep. Okay?~"

"...Haha… Yes. Of course. I wouldn't cheat on you… but what is cheating, by the way?"

"Hmm… well you know already."

Yep. The thing is, you're fucking insane and I don't understand your common sense and your rules, and I'm trying to survive.

"Ah… I just want to make sure you're always happy…"

"Darling… but you shouldn't even be thinking of cheating if you want to make me happy…" The air gained a threatening feel.

"No, no. I meant that we all have different perspectives and I love you so much that I just want to know everything about you from how you think to all of your secrets. Right?"

She giggled, "Okay~," she cooed. "Cheating is talking to anything else other than me. It's looking at any other person other than me. It's when others hear your voice and I'm not hearing those same words. Right now, you're cheating on me since you haven't even given me your phone number, yet. It's when someone else breathes the air that you just exhaled, or when you inhale the air someone else touched. It's when you're somewhere and I don't know where you are. Whenever I send you a message, you have to respond, okay? I'll let you interact with others when you're playing basketball since I love you, but apart from that, there's nothing else. Okay~?"

What are those conditions?

"Hypothetically speaking, if there were to be a situation, in which it would be possible that for some reason, whatever reason, I accidentally speak to someone because in that possibility I might have done it accidentally without wanting to. What would be the punishment?"

She laughed, "Darling. I'd be a little sad that you don't want children, but it'd be fine either way. We can love each other without, that…" I could tell that she was blushing shyly without even looking at her, "Certain aspect… of love."

I felt a little shiver in that area that dictated an aspect of my masculinity.

"...And if someone walks up behind me as I'm walking, and I'm not aware of them and they breathe my air?"

"I'd get rid of the person, cut whichever lung was responsible for breathing out that air, and then…" she paused and started talking very sweetly, "we'd have a lovely couple moment where we bicker and argue and I forgive you when you say you'll do anything to earn my forgiveness and then we'd love each other again. Hihi~, just like in the books I read."

Yeah, no. Someone send me back. Send me back to my timeline.

Please.

Send me back to the time before I met this person. I'll immediately quit the company, please. Just get me out of here.

I'll drop out of school and head to a different country— no, continent.

I'll learn a new language, get a new identity, and even do plastic surgery.

Please get me out of here.

"Darling."

"...Yes?"

"...Remember when you said you'd do anything I wanted back in the library because you loved me so much and would do anything for me?"

Frigidness traveled throughout my whole body. "Hmm," I neither denied nor accepted.

She giggled psychotically, "Hihihi~ I can't believe my first time in my 25 years of living will be on the grass."

Yeah, fuck no.

Kill me.

Get me out of here.

Nope.

"Honey, want to know what else I love about you?"

Please, no. No more.

"Pfft— How fucking gullible you are. Hahahhahahahaha," suddenly, laughter erupted from the insane predator behind me.

Sensing a lack of 'insane' in that laughter, I awkwardly began laughing along with her, "Haha… hah…"

"You fucking fool, PFFFT— Hahahahahaha," her laugh turned even louder. It was a full-blown, stomach and chest laughter with her every ounce of being.

I felt a sigh of relief and brought my hands up to my face.

Okay. I had dealt with crazy bitches before, and I had a certain trauma with them now. I've had an experience of being chased with a knife and scissors, okay.

Of course, I am going to be fucked up if she turns out like a psychopath.

And, how am I not going to be gullible if my common sense was destroyed by the fact I traveled to the past?

I truly believed for a moment this was my punishment for being a piece of shit back then.

I sighed.

Not my proudest moment…