It Must Be Love
Late that night, after they'd finished moving Sera's things, Kyle called to her from his bed.
"Aren't you coming?"
She hovered in the doorway, watching him out of the corner of her eye. Her face had gone faintly pink, and she stood there fidgeting with her toes.
"W-well... the contract only said we'd live in the same room. There was nothing in there about sharing a bed..."
A sharp point — but Kyle had no intention of entertaining her resistance.
"So you're not coming, then?"
His voice had gone flat, almost still. Sera's composure cracked at once.
"I-I'll sleep on the floor. You'll be more comfortable having the bed to yourself."
"Haa..."
He sighed at that and rose, then started toward her. Sera backed away as he came.
"You know what I'm asking. Keep acting like this and it stops being fun."
"I'm a man!! I told you I'm a man. Do you like men?"
Her back hit the wall.
Sensing the danger, she went straight for the are you gay? defense — but Kyle didn't so much as blink.
What was she even talking about, with a body that filthy? It was a desperate flail with nothing behind it.
Why does she keep saying she's a man?
If she wanted to push his feelings away, she could just say she wasn't interested. Instead she kept hiding behind the excuse that she was a man.
Kyle turned that excuse over against what he knew of her character. She was more than kind — she was a pushover, armed with a fierce sense of responsibility and a streak of genuine devotion. With that personality and that face, men should have been swarming her. And yet she didn't look like she'd ever had any experience with them.
Don't tell me she wants someone to fall for who she is on the inside first?
He'd heard that about beautiful people — that they hated being approached for their looks alone, that they wanted someone who saw past the surface. Once he thought of it that way, her behavior finally made sense. He boxed her in against the wall with both arms.
"I told you. At first it was your face. But after everything you've shown me, Sera — I started to like you."
As he said it, he slipped one arm behind her knees and the other around her neck and lifted her clean off the floor.
"Kyaah!"
That high, startled little scream. At the sound of it, Kyle thought:
She's a female, all right.
A thought that would have made Sera faint on the spot. He carried her toward the bed.
"Put me down! I said put me— nngh!!"
She thrashed and fought. Against the strongest man in the world, it wasn't even an inconvenience.
Kyle laid her down on the bed as gently as if she might break, her struggling be damned, and looked at her.
She gazed up at him with a mix of accusation and something that looked almost like pleading.
"You said you liked me. You said you were sorry for taking me by force. This is assault. Why are you doing this? This isn't something you do to someone you like!!"
When the I'm a man argument failed, she switched to morality. She was entirely right — but Kyle saw it differently.
Not something you do to someone you like? Then what did that make him? Why did he want to touch her, taste her, leave marks all over that pale white skin?
Why did he want to watch her cry and still call his name?
He meant every word. He lay down beside her.
What? Love?
A man who looked at his own deranged behavior and called it love. No. This was not love.
My favorite novels were the overpowered-hunter kind, but I'd read plenty of romance too. The love I'd seen was never this aggressive, never this coercive.
It was the slow exchange between two people — a man and a woman weathering crises together, growing into each other's existence. A feeling built patiently and solidly. Two different people who, when they mixed, made something beautiful. That was love.
"This isn't lo— hik!!"
I tried to deny it, but a huge hand caught my wrist and pulled. I was dragged straight into his arms.
Once he had me, Kyle turned my body so that his arm wrapped around my stomach. He was holding me from behind. My back pressed flush against his chest and his stomach.
"Let go!! Take your han—"
"I'd never felt anything like it. The feeling of someone wrapping around me — warm, protecting me."
Just as I tried to pull free, that low, rich voice sounded right beside my ear, the kind of voice that woke something in your eardrums.
"The world never allowed the strongest man alive to be weak. I always had to stand tall. Always had to be strong."
"I was scared too, every time I went into an unknown dungeon. There was no one I could lean on. I felt like I'd been left alone in the middle of a crisis."
Every time his voice brushed my eardrum, every time I felt the weight of what he was saying, the will to resist him drained out of me. My body went slack.
"And just when it was getting harder and harder to hold on, you appeared. Someone who would protect me. Someone who would hold even a weak version of me. Someone who would stay beside a man who'd always been alone."
Ah. This again. Kyle, melting my defenses with those warm, sweet words. I knew what he was doing. I knew — and I still fell for it.
I settled quietly into his body.
I felt the hot breath against my ear, the rise and fall of his chest with every breath, the thick arms wrapped around me.
Then I heard it. His heartbeat. And the moment I heard it, something in me eased.
They say even crying babies calm down when they're held against their mother's chest and hear her heartbeat. I seemed to be the same.
This was the man who'd created this whole uncomfortable situation — and yet his arms felt like relief.
"That's why I got greedy. Because you're the only one who can save me."
He loosened his right arm just slightly. Then he laid his hand on my lower belly and started to pat it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Pat. Pat. Pat.
His hand patted my lower belly in time with his heartbeat. It felt like we'd become one body.
"When I received your shield, courage welled up in me."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"When I received your buff, I found my confidence."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"When I received your heal and your purify, I learned what it meant to feel full — me, who'd been alone my whole life."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
Kyle kept listing how it felt to receive my support, patting my lower belly the whole time.
I flinched.
"Hweh?!"
A sudden sticky, soft sensation against my ear. A wet, lingering lick.
I tried to resist the unfamiliar feeling of him toying with it —
"Shhhh..."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"Hnnn..."
That easy, leaking-air hush beside my ear. His heartbeat. The gentle patting of my lower belly in time with it.
"At this point, just having you next to me is enough to lean on. You might be right. Maybe this isn't love..."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"But one thing I know for sure is that I can't do this without you anymore."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"That's why I got greedy. Holding you like this, right now — that's my greed too. But just doing this, I feel like I've found a reason to live."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"I'm sorry. I only thought about myself. I was so thirsty for you I couldn't even see you."
"..."
I hadn't known. That he was struggling this much. That the man they called the strongest in the world was this fragile.
I'd forgotten he was human too.
How hard must it have been... I knew that feeling of being set apart, of being lonely, so I quietly understood.
In my past life, when things got hard, I'd look at the upright, unbreakable protagonists in my novels and find the strength to keep going. He'd needed someone to lean on the same way.
"But... could you stay by my side like this from now on? You don't even have to care about how I feel."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"I just need you here. Okay?"
Stay by his side, living with him like this, the way we were today. Well, that was the deal, but—
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
There had to be other ways besides th—
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
It wasn't like he was asking me to date him. I could do this much, couldn't I?
"If you do that for me, I'll send the guild's hunters whenever Korea is in danger."
Right. He wouldn't be doing all this if he weren't desperate.
"Okay..."
At my acceptance, he pulled me tighter against him with his left arm, looking pleased.
"Nnh?"
"Good girl. You're so pretty, Sera."
"Prett—!!"
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
The rest of it — I'm a man — caught strangely in my throat. I couldn't get the words out.
"Pretty, you say..."
I tried a timid little protest instead.
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"You're pretty, Sera."
"..."
He didn't take it back. And I felt strangely buoyant.
I'd helped someone who needed it and received his thanks. That had to be it.
"Get some rest now, Sera."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
"Okay."
Thump. Thump. Thump. — Pat. Pat. Pat.
It wasn't the cool, fluffy feeling I liked. It was his hot, solid body wrapped around me. And I closed my eyes anyway.
Kyle watched Sera sleep, her small body rising and falling with each soft breath.
For the first time in his life, he had told a lie. He'd been born strong — someone who never had to read anyone's face. He'd never had a reason to lie.
Two lies: that going into dungeons scared him, and that she didn't have to care about his feelings.
Nothing in this world frightened him. And if she refused to accept his heart, he was fully prepared to break her.
He'd even used a pleading tone that wasn't like him at all.
To make him work this hard... Kyle vowed he would collect this debt.
With interest. And he would not be kind about it.