The Pink Lie
It was the split-second just before our pink-tainted lips could meet. A cold flash cut through my mind: the miserable scene from earlier that day. Me, sprawled in the dirt, vomiting blood, and Kyle's boot grinding me down like I was nothing but a bug.
Reason snapped me awake. I barely suppressed the boiling instinct surging inside me and gently pushed Cecilia's slender shoulders away with both hands.
"Cecilia... wait."
My cracked voice made her advancing movement halt. She slowly opened her eyes, her flushed gaze filled with bewilderment. I didn't dodge; I met her stare head-on.
"Right now, I'm just a powerless bug without a scrap of mana. I don't want to cling to your pity in this pathetic state."
I swallowed hard, clenched my fists, and spat out the truth.
"The day I stand tall. The day I can wield magic with my own strength... that's when I'll confess properly."
My earnest refusal froze the room's scorching heat in an instant. The blush on her cheeks faded, and her sticky, wavering eyes turned unbelievably cold. She bit her lip hard, her face stiff with hurt—or wounded pride.
"...Fine. If that's how you really feel, there's nothing I can do."
Her voice was like ice. Without lingering, she turned her back to me. My heart plummeted as I watched her retreating figure, but I rushed forward and hugged her fiercely from behind.
"Ah..."
Her body stiffened in surprise at first in my arms. But I buried my face in her shoulder and whispered softly.
"Thank you for understanding. Just wait a little... really just a little."
As my arms tightened around her shoulders, her rigid body trembled faintly, then melted away like snow in spring. After a silent moment, she let out a short sigh and gently overlaid her soft hands on my arms around her waist.
"Got it, you idiot."
She smiled faintly and slowly turned in my embrace. Then, with a playful yet strangely sticky voice, she whispered in my ear.
"But in return... sleep next to me tonight."
"What? What if the Village Chief finds out?"
At my flustered tone, Cecilia pouted dismissively.
"Don't care. On a night like this, I don't want to think about Dad... I just want to fall asleep feeling your warmth."
"...Alright, if you're okay with it."
Knowing I couldn't break that stubbornness, we ended up lying side by side on the cramped, rickety bed. The suffocating tension lasted only a moment before her steady, rhythmic breathing filled the air. In the faint moonlight, her defenseless sleeping form shone clearly beside me. Her full breasts rose and fell dizzyingly with each breath under the thin dress, and the soft skin brushing my arm was maddeningly sweet and hot.
It was the same skin that had always been by my side since childhood, but tonight, its touch felt strangely alien. Listening to her breath filling the quiet room, I focused every nerve on the heartbeat transmitting through our touching skin. Worried my pounding heart might wake her, I swallowed dryly and stiffened my body. Instinctively, my cock hardened rigidly, radiating explosive heat. The desire to lose all reason, pin her down right then, and devour every inch of her on this narrow bed surged up to my throat.
But I gripped the blanket so hard my hands went numb, suppressing myself. Not now. The day I shed this pathetic bug existence and grow stronger—the day I can proudly hold her in front of the world—that's when we'd share the most blissful, perfect night. I swallowed my ragged breaths, vowed it firmly, and barely drifted off with heavy eyes.
The next morning, the moment I opened my eyes, my vision filled with Cecilia's thin skirt hem, rolled up past her hips from tossing all night. Her snow-white, smooth thighs and the plump, enticing curve of her ass, brazenly exposed over her thin panties, glistened provocatively in the morning sun. At that defenseless, sensual sight, I unwittingly swallowed hard. A dull ache throbbed in my groin again, but deep in my chest, a fierce determination ignited.
I will master magic. If only to protect that beautiful woman.
I slipped carefully out of bed so as not to wake her, steeled my resolve hotter than ever, and headed to the Training Forest early in the morning.
The Training Forest, heavy with dawn dew, still exuded its bone-crushing gravity. But my steps felt lighter than ever. My mind brimmed only with her alluring morning figure and the burning ambition to become a man worthy of her.
That tiny miracle from yesterday—the 1cm flight—lingered in my head. The heavy air crushed my lungs, my legs trembled with every step, but an inexplicable euphoria from the depths of my chest drowned out the pain. To the mana-less, this forest was hell itself, but today, it felt like the promised land where my dreams would come true.
I took my usual spot under a thick tree trunk and laid out a ragged cloth scrap on the ground. Closing my eyes, I poured all my focus into summoning that faint, alien sensation pulsing inside me from last night. I circulated energy from my dantian, squeezing through every vein in my body like wringing them out.
It was the moment a fresh morning breeze brushed my cheek.
Tremble.
The cloth on the ground quivered faintly and lifted. No illusion. Soon, a pale pink mana haze rose like a mirage from my callused, rough fingertips, gently enveloping the cloth.
Whoosh.
The cloth fully left the ground, floating into the air. At my gesture, it danced gracefully left and right through the air.
"Ha, haha... It floated...!!!!!! It floated...!!!!!!"
Perfect control. The shackles of lifelong incompetence shattered in that instant. Overwhelming ecstasy that I could finally wield magic surged madly through my veins.
"Kain! You did it! You've finally mastered magic!"
Then, a familiar, clear voice rang from behind. Turning, I saw Cecilia, who had followed me to the Training Forest, standing there beaming. She clapped her hands joyfully, as if it were her own triumph.
I wanted to run to her, chest bursting with elation. But in that moment, my gaze locked onto the air around her.
From the start of training, her steps had been impossibly light for a mana-less ordinary person. She'd brushed it off as just her constitution resisting gravity magic, but in this forest ruled by murderous gravity, her movements were feather-light, mocking any excuse.
It wasn't mere physical talent. It defied the very laws of this space. Around her body, the exact same pale pink mana haze I'd just seen at my fingertips wafted like a mirage, remnants she hadn't fully hidden, softly neutralizing the forest's gravity.
A shock like a hammer to the head hit me, followed by a horrific dissonance crawling up my spine. Why had this alien-colored mana emerged from my body, mana-less for 20 years? And why had she shown bewilderment, not joy, at my mana?
Scattered doubts assembled into a massive terror.
"Cecilia..."
My ecstatic face hardened coldly in an instant.
"What is that light shimmering around you?"
At my steely interrogation, her shoulders flinched. She rolled her eyes in panic and stepped back.
"Huh? Light? W-what are you talking about, Kain? There's nothing there..."
"Don't lie! It's the same color as what swirled around my fingertips just now. That's how you've always walked into this hellish Training Forest like it was nothing..."
My voice trembled pathetically. Please, let it not be true. Let this all be my delusion. I prayed desperately.
But at my sharp pursuit, her red lips quivered, tears welling in her big eyes.
"That... I'm sorry, Kain. I... I just helped you a little with my mana..."
Her trembling admission. It was the cruelest verdict, declaring my lifelong struggles and that recent euphoria all a thorough deception.