The reason Oboshima said that.. well, well, it was actually her intuition again. She didn't feel any malice from the Evil Spirit, even though she knew nothing about him, but there was always a voice in Oboshima's heart constantly telling her so.
You can trust them.
So after she said those words, the expected Evil Spirit did not refute or refuse her; he simply gave her a gentle wink, in the next second, the mirror returned to normal.
Oboro Asagiri breathed a sigh of relief. Although the Evil Spirit in the mirror had already left, she still found a towel large enough to cover the bathroom mirror just to be safe.
Just as she had finished filling the bathtub with hot water and was preparing to take off her wet clothes to wash, Oboro Asagiri's movements suddenly froze.
She lowered her eyes, her expression becoming incredulous, as if she had seen something incomprehensible.
This, this, this..
Oboro Asagiri was speechless. She.. no, at this moment, he should be called he.
He screamed silently, clutching the school uniform he had taken off in his hands, feeling somewhat at a loss.
How is he a guy?
No.. how could he not even know his own gender? He.. why did he think he was female before?
Oboro Asagiri was bewildered by this unreasonable world. He tossed his wet clothes into the laundry basket and sat in the bathtub with his knees hugged to his chest.
The hot water washed over his shoulders, soothing his somewhat chaotic mind and thoughts.
He could probably be certain of one thing now: he was definitely not her. He wasn't just referring to the difference in gender, but also to this home, the parents he couldn't remember at all, even this identity, which shouldn't belong to him.
Could it be that he had replaced Oboro Asagiri?
This thought surfaced in his mind for only a second before being immediately rejected.
No, no, no, Oboro Asagiri is definitely his name; he could feel that the name Oboshima was a part of who he was.
As for the rest, Oboro Asagiri couldn't be certain, but he was inclined to believe that he, Oboro Asagiri, had replaced the person who originally existed.
Because that person was female, she was perceived as female by others.
Then where did the person he replaced go? Why did he replace that person? Is this world truly real?
Oboshima felt a headache coming on again, as if a force were preventing him from thinking any further.
He rubbed his temples and stepped out of the bathtub. After lathering his body with shower gel and rinsing off once more, Oboshima used a clean bath towel to dry himself off and changed into those soft, fabric rabbit pajamas.
“..”
"Why are you still here?" Oboshima pressed his temples; seeing the person swaggering around while sitting on the living room sofa, his head began to ache even more.
Hara Kenji blinked, his gaze turning somewhat blank after seeing the youth's outfit.
The man sitting on the sofa slowly raised his hand and pressed it against his heart. After letting out a satisfied sigh, he collapsed, a look of peace upon his face.
Oboshima: ".."
"What exactly are you trying to satisfy?" Oboshima's expression grew even more unsightly. His mouth curled slightly downward as he walked over to the sofa and looked down at the Evil Spirit, who had its eyes tightly shut and hands neatly folded across its chest.
Suddenly, feeling a bit mischievous, he reached out and pinched the soft flesh of the Evil Spirit's cheek with two fingers, pulling it outward with malicious force.
"It hurts." The Dark-purple-eyed Wraith opened her eyes, staring at him unblinkingly with her beautiful dark-purple eyes. Even though she was clearly crying out in pain, she didn't make even the slightest movement to resist.
"Did I really hurt you?" Although Oboshima was somewhat skeptical, seeing the Evil Spirit's pitiful expression, he still released his grip.
As expected, a flush of red appeared on the Evil Spirit's pale face where he had been pinched.
"Really." The Evil Spirit was a rogue who loved to push his luck. Taking advantage of the human's softheartedness, he sat up and wrapped his arms around the youth's slender waist, burying his entire face into the other's abdomen.
"Wait.." Oboro Asagiri let out a low cry. He tried to break free from the other's hands, but due to the disparity in their size and strength, he was instead held even more tightly.
"Chiyo-chan." The Evil Spirit rubbed its cheek against his abdomen, yet it called out another person's name.
"So fragrant.. so soft." The Evil Spirit raised her head, gazing at him with sparkling eyes.
“Chiyo-chan,” the Evil Spirit's throat bobbed as his face drew closer and closer, at some unknown moment, a cold, faint fragrance enveloped him.
"I.. am not.." Oboro Asagiri wanted to say that he wasn't the Chiyo-chan the other person was talking about, but before he could fully utter the denial, a series of heart-pounding, blushing images suddenly flashed through his mind.
The version of himself in the images looked much more mature than he was now, pressed tightly against the Evil Spirit in front of him, being coaxed by the other's constant calls of "Chiyo-chan" until he was completely disoriented.
“What do you want?” Oboro Asagiri didn't really want to admit that the person in those fragmented memories was herself.
Because the version of herself in the images was not only connected to the Evil Spirit before her, but was also clinging intimately to another person who was equally strange yet familiar, whose appearance perfectly matched her own tastes.
And sometimes, he was even being.. being handled by those two together..
Oboro Asagiri felt like she was going to faint. Was he.. was he really that type of person?
Oboro Asagiri couldn't help but despise himself in his heart, being a complete and utter failure of an adult.
But.. on the other hand, embarrassingly, he was also feeling a flutter of attraction toward those two faces at this moment.
-----------------------
Author's Note: Thank you for the support, my little angels. Mwah! 030
Chapter 117
The other party's fingers were ice-cold. Was it because they were non-human?
Oboshima gazed into those dark-purple eyes, his entire attention involuntarily drawn by the other's movements.
"Kisaragi.." Soft lips brushed lightly against the earlobe, the Evil Spirit's low voice and breath were right there, inches away. A palm slid beneath the hem of the pajamas, long, slender hands climbed slowly up the back, carefully groping along the spine, the calloused fingertips finally coming to rest on the boy's protruding shoulder blade, caressing it repeatedly.
“I'm not..” Oboshima shuddered from the temperature of the other's fingers. He was pulled into the Evil Spirit's embrace, his head buried against the other's generous, full chest, a cool, faint fragrance lingering at the tip of his nose.
"Not what?" Hara Kenji lowered his head, opened his mouth, used his teeth to nip the soft flesh of the boy's earlobe, holding it in his mouth.
"My name is Oboshima." Oboshima's body trembled slightly; he struggled to suppress the moan that nearly escaped his lips during the other's touch. His originally pale face was now so red it could drip blood. Perhaps to prevent the other from seeing his embarrassment, Oboshima refused to lift his head again after burying it.
“Alright, Oboshima.” The Long-haired Wraith readily complied with the change in address, his palm pressed against the youth's back, stroking the skin softly, one stroke after another, as if he were petting some adorable little animal.
"Does it feel good?" At this moment, Hara Kenji really wanted to kiss his partner's face, but unfortunately, the little lover in his arms was far too shy; after their initial eye contact, he refused to look at him again, much like an ostrich.
"No.. not at all." Oboro Asagiri bit her lower lip, pressing almost her entire body weight onto the Evil Spirit. If she weren't being held by him right now, she would probably have collapsed with weak legs long ago.
Wasn't the version of himself in his memories able to hold on for quite a while?
A inexplicable desire for victory suddenly ignited at this moment, Oboro Asagiri felt that the amount of time he could hold out would definitely be no less than his self in the memory fragments.
"Heh.. lying is not good behavior for a child." Hara Kenji chuckled softly. His laughter fell into the quiet space shared only by the two of them, vibrating through his chest and reaching Oboro Asagiri's ears, making the boy's ears itch.
When all of one's attention is focused on a single point, perception is amplified.
Oboshima could feel the Evil Spirit's breath spraying against the sensitive skin of her nape, then, in the next second, soft lips landed upon it, carrying a slight sensation of dampness.
"Ngh.." The youth's body in his arms trembled even more violently. He struggled to break free from the Evil Spirit's embrace, but his resistance came all too late. It was like someone who had already fallen deep into a quagmire, only realizing the need to save himself after half his body had already been swallowed up.
It was useless.
Sharp canines sank into the sensitive skin of his neck, the Evil Spirit held his lover in his arms, looking with satisfaction at the bite mark on the fair nape of his neck, kissing and licking that small, reddened trace.
"Are you crying?" Only after detecting the faint, broken sounds coming from the youth in his arms did Hara Kenji stop his movements; he released Oboshima and let him sit on his lap.
"Are you really crying?" Hara Kenji wrapped one arm around the youth's shoulder, while his other hand carefully cupped his cheek.
The youthful, still-unripe face possessed eyes that were cold, yet the moist, heterochromatic pupils and the slight redness at the corners of the eyes betrayed him.
Hara Kenji suddenly felt a sense of guilt.
"Sorry." Hara Kenji rubbed his head against the other's cheek in an attempt to please him, seeing that Oboshima still ignored him, a sudden idea occurred to him.
Do you want to pet the Bernese Mountain Dog's ears?" As soon as those words were spoken, the other party's attention was indeed drawn to the words "Bernese Mountain Dog.
"A puppy?" Oboro Asagiri looked at the Dark-purple-eyed Wraith with some confusion.
Where did the puppy come from? It's not like the other could just conjure one out of thin air, could it?
“Right here.” As the Evil Spirit spoke, he grabbed his hands and guided them toward his own head.
"What.." Just as Oboshima felt he was being played, his movements suddenly froze. His heterochromatic eyes widened slowly as he looked at the Evil Spirit before him; the thing he touched with his hands sent an incredible sensation of warmth and softness through his fingertips.
“Ears!?” Oboshima touched them a few more times in disbelief; those fluffy, cute, soft little puppy ears actually really existed on the Evil Spirit's head.
".." Oboro Asagiri's eyes went blank, wearing an expression of being completely lost in sheer cuteness.
"Are they really puppy ears?" Oboro Asagiri still found it hard to believe. He lifted the pair of ears on the other's head and looked at them from side to side; they were indeed growing right out of the Evil Spirit.
They really are puppy ears..
“Of course.” Hara Kenji's expression was somewhat smug; he knew that no matter when, he was indeed Kisaragi Chiyo's favorite little puppy.
"What kind of puppy is it?" Oboro Asagiri suddenly felt dissatisfied with the fragmented images flashing through his memory, all of which were scenes of blushing and embarrassment. Why wouldn't he be allowed to see more of the puppy?
"It's a Bernese Mountain Dog," Hara Kenji said with a smile, leaning his head closer to the youth to make it easier for him to continue petting it.
Oboshima had completely fallen for it. If the person in the known memory fragment was himself, then didn't that mean he had a dog?
"I really want to see it.." Oboshima felt a bit of regret that he couldn't see the Bernese Mountain Dog's full form, but he didn't mind the Evil Spirit in this form at all; in fact, he even buried his head and took several deep breaths of the soft dog ears.
“You've already seen it, have you forgotten?” Hara Kenji affectionately kissed his cheek.
"Oboshima is you, Kisaragi Chiyo is also you." Hara Kenji, of course, had not forgotten his original purpose for seeking out Oboro Asagiri.
You were cursed and fell into a deep sleep, this place is a Dreamscape created by that curse.
"Dreamscape?" Upon hearing Hara Kenji say that, Oboro Asagiri's expression became somewhat dazed; it wasn't because he was surprised that this world was indeed a fabrication.
And when Yuan Kenji told him the truth about the world, that familiar stinging sensation in his brain returned once more, coming in one sharp strike after another, like being pierced by a sharp hammer. His thoughts gradually became chaotic, as if another force was controlling him, attempting to make him forget everything he had just heard.
“Oboshima!” Hara Kenji looked in a panic at Oboro Asagiri, who had suddenly clutched his head and curled his body up; the other man's face turned pale in an instant, every muscle in his body was trembling.
"I'm.. fine." Oboro Asagiri bit her lip, swallowing the cry of pain in her mouth. The stabbing pain in her brain did not subside; if anything, it grew more intense. But for her, perhaps this kind of pain was something she should be able to endure.
Oboshima stubbornly resisted his consciousness being altered; once a corner of the truth of the world was torn open, it could no longer be hidden.
Cold sweat from the pain rolled down his forehead, but his gaze grew increasingly clear.
"Don't worry." As the waves of pain finally receded, Oboshima raised his head. His face was pale and his lips were bloodless. He flashed a smile toward Hara.. no, it should be Kisaragi Chiyo now.
"Kenji." Kisaragi Chiyo's eyes curved, a smile familiar to Hara Kenji appeared on the youth's immature face.
I've remembered.
“Thank you for your help.”
As she spoke, Kisaragi Chiyo placed one hand on Hara Kenji's shoulder, while her other hand grabbed his collar and pulled him toward her with a slight tug.