There was a pause. Heavy. Unspoken thoughts filled the space before Kowa finally answered.
"Yeah. I meant those too… Unfortunately, you were given a very damned pretty face." His voice had that typical Kowa sharpness, but his tone was quieter, more vulnerable than usual.
She giggled, hugging her pillow. "Then why won't you sleep on the bed with me? You left me all alone."
Another pause. Then, sharply, but not without feeling he replied, "What kind of jerk would think about doing that to a girl on the night she lost her sister?"
He turned his head, eyes meeting hers across the dim glow of the room. "You were lonely… and scared. I just couldn't leave you like that."
Her cheeks flushed, and she squeezed the pillow tighter.
"Wow… so even if you won't admit it, you still care about me?" she asked, her voice trembling with nervous hope.
Kowa didn't even flinch. His eyes were cold.
"Don't let it go to your head," he snapped. "I still hate you, for everything you did to my Randa."
"I… I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice barely above a breath. "I just… I get jealous when I see you with her. The way you look at her… it makes me feel like I'm nothing."
"Especially tonight… after losing my sister, I've never felt more alone in this world," she breathed, her voice cracking. "I… I can't stop thinking about it. It won't leave me."
She looked up at him, eyes glassy with pain but steady with resolve.
"So… I won't mind if you stayed with me on this bed tonight. If you helped me forget things just for a little while. I need you."
Kowa's eyes widened. His heart skipped.
She continued, her voice warmer now, nostalgic, "You know I've always wanted you. And you always chased after me back at the gang too, even when I was high class and off-limits. You still ditched your dorm room to sneak into mine…"
Her eyes found his through the shadows. "Don't you remember how much you liked it? Sleeping by my side?"
Kowa sat up a little, the candlelight catching just the edge of his expression, part smile, part ache.
"You sure know how to make a guy feel haunted," he murmured.
"We were just little kids back then," Kowa said quietly. "I didn't even understand what I was doing… I just needed someone so I wouldn't feel alone."
He looked at her, a softness creeping into his usually sharp gaze.
"So maybe… maybe I do understand how you feel right now."
He sat up from the couch, his arms resting on his knees, silent for a moment as the candlelight flickered gently on his face. Then, without saying a word, he stood up, tall and broad, his footsteps soft against the wooden floor. Giselle's breath caught as he moved toward her. Her heart pounded louder with every step he took.
Brushing the string of crystals out of the way, he settled on the bed beside Giselle, close enough for their shoulders to almost touch. The bed dipped under his weight as he sat beside her. They were quiet, the space between them warm and charged. Their freshly bathed skin carried the soft, clean scent of shampoo and heat. She could hear his breathing, slow and deep and knew he could hear hers too.
"Yeah, I remember everything…" Kowa said with a slight smirk, glancing at her sideways. "Even down to the point you'd snitch on me for sneaking into your room and getting me beat up to a pulp."
She giggled, hugging the pillow tighter to her chest like a shield, though her smile gave her away. "You deserved it," she teased, eyes sparkling.
He leaned in slowly, lifting one hand to her cheek. His touch was warm and a little rough, making her catch her breath. Their faces were close now, almost too close. His eyes stayed on hers, playful but intense.
"You were trouble back then," he said with a soft smile, "and somehow, even more dangerous now."
Suddenly, his fingers slid from her cheek to her chin, firm but unhurried, tilting her face toward his. He drew her closer, "I honestly don't know why I get so drawn to you," he muttered, half-laughing. "What do I even see here, I wonder?"
His eyes drifted to Giselle and to her soft lips, the smooth lines of her figure, the gentle curve of her chest.
"Back then," he said, voice lower, "I only wanted to be near you because I liked you... and because I didn't want to be alone."
He smiled crookedly. "But you're in my place now. Here, no one's coming to beat me up... even if I do a few naughty things to you."
Their fingers brushed lightly, then locked in a quiet, shy grip. Her skin tingled.
And then they kissed.
It wasn't rushed. His lips found hers with a slow, tender pressure. Warm, smooth, and soft, the kind of kiss that said more than words ever could. The kind that felt like time slowed down just for them.
What started slow and gentle didn't stay that way for long.
Their breaths grew heavier, hearts racing. Giselle's body trembled as she pressed closer into him, cheeks red, eyes glassy with held-back tears, not from sadness, but because this… this is what she had needed for so long. Him. Kowa, she always waited for him.
And she loved him. Always had.
In a sudden rush of emotion, she shifted, flipping onto his stomach and straddling him, her hands on his cheeks. She kissed him again, harder this time, desperate, full of need, her lips clinging to his. Kowa groaned against her mouth, his arms instinctively wrapping around her slim waist as he kissed back with fire.
His massive, warm hands traced her legs, fingers gliding along her thighs until he gripped them tight. She gasped slightly but didn't let go.
He let her stay there, on top of him for a bit, holding her steady, watching her in the flickering candlelight as her loose shirt fell a little to the side, exposing the curve of her neck and shoulder. She looked perfect.
He gave her a soft kiss on her neck. Then, without warning he flipped her.
A sudden, swift motion, and she was pinned right beneath him, her back hitting the bed with a soft bounce. He hovered above her, eyes burning with a mischievous grin. She gasped, completely taken off guard, her face turning bright red.
"You always loved being a queen, even at the ĺardo's gang," he whispered close to her ear, voice low and teasing. "But not tonight, tonight you serve your king."
Her body trembled with excitement as Kowa hovered over her, his smile teasing, devilish. He slowly took off his shirt, lifting it over his head in one smooth motion, letting her eyes trail over every inch of him. His chiseled abs, the scars across his chest, the muscle in his shoulders flexing as he tossed the shirt aside.
She could barely breathe.
"It's your turn now," he whispered with a grin, leaning in as he gently grabbed both her wrists, locking her arms at the far side of the bed above her head, her body stretched beneath him.
Her breath hitched.
Kowa's fingers slid slowly across her skin, tracing the soft curve of her stomach. His touch was warm, deliberate. Going down, lower… teasing along the waist.
Her body arched instinctively as his fingers hovered just above the tender heat of her most intimate place. Kowa could feel her pulse of desire growing stronger, but he teased her, brushing the edges of her need, pulling away just as she thought he'd go in, leaving her trembling with the ache of wanting more.
"No… don't stop," she whimpered, voice shaking, desperate.
He smirked, leaning in close, his lips brushing her ear. "You don't get to beg so easily," he said, voice low and hot, "Not after making me chase you all that time."
Kowa pulled Giselle close, and soon they were moving together, lost in the moment. Their bodies met with a passion that had been building for so long.
Giselle finally had what she had quietly wished for, time with Kowa, even if it was just for one night. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but deep down, this was what she truly wanted.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, not from sadness, but from happiness. Kowa made her feel something special, something no one else ever could.
For that moment, it was just the two of them. Nothing else mattered.
Some time passed.
And after a bundle of condoms and a lot of screams beneath the passionate night, Giselle now slept peacefully, curled up at the edge of the bed without a single worry left in her world. Her body was spent, her face flushed but serene—completely satisfied.
Kowa sat by the window, completely bare, a cigarette resting between his fingers. The cold ocean breeze ruffled his hair as waves crashed against the rocks below the lighthouse. Inside, the soft flicker of candlelight danced across his skin, casting shadows that traced every curve and cut of his muscles.
But he wasn't alone.
His hand pressed to his ear, though there were no devices to be seen. In the world beyond this primitive village, technology had long surpassed the visible. Implants embedded beneath the skin allowed people to communicate across the globe without lifting a finger. The villagers, however, regarded such advancements as a plague, a violation of nature and an affront to the divine design of the human form. But for Kowa and his Madam, whose lives stretched far beyond the borders of this village, technology was a tool they embraced, it was a bridge to the larger cities and the world they navigated, where their craft required connections far more intricate than what the village could ever provide.
He spoke to the person on the other side of the call as the implant in his ear relayed the conversation with seamless clarity. "Yes, I know, Madam," Kowa said calmly, his voice low and casual. "But I told you already, there's a funeral at the school today. I need this day off."
A clear, authoritative female voice replied directly into his head:
[Yeah, I understand, Kowa, but this client is important. I need you to escort her. She's young, energetic, so show her your charm and techniques and win her, and don't hold back. Her funding could help us rebuild and stop this town from starving.]
Kowa sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Yeah, I get it… You said my date with her was at 12 a.m., right? It's already 10:30 p.m. How do you expect me to reach her city to the other side of the continent that fast?"
A light, confident giggle tickled his implant.
[I remember your tricks. It'll only take you a few minutes to get there, right?]
He chuckled back, pulling his hand away from his ear and stepping closer to the window, the space around him distorted and stretched like a rubber for a minute.
"You're actually wrong, Madam," he said, his lips curling into a sly grin.
"It takes me barely a second."
The screen cuts at his smirking face, ocean wind brushing through his messy hair.
Earlier that evening — Class B-12
The classroom was abandoned, drained of the usual mindless chatter and footsteps that filled its cracked walls. Cydal sat alone in the center, surrounded by empty chairs and the scattered remains of a day's noise. The silence was a blessing, their words were never of any use to him anyway.
The walls rose around him like silent sentinels, their surfaces covered in odd, backwards text inscriptions just like shari mentioned but today he wasn't here for what was on the walls, he was here for what was inside the walls.
Quietly, he reached out and laid his fingers against the cold cement.
It wasn't like normal stone, it was too smooth, disturbingly so, like a stretched piece of human skin. A low hum vibrated beneath his touch, slow and almost imperceptible, as if the wall itself were... breathing.
Thump.
A soft pulse echoed beneath his hand.
Thump.
Again it beat like a heartbeat, the classroom felt alive.
Cydal closed his eyes, focusing harder.
He let his breathing slow until he could feel everything, every tremor, every ripple of life in the dead walls. The heartbeat grew clearer, and along with it, he felt something else: a slow, steady flow of blood pulsing through veins behind the cement. It almost felt like a human body was hiding inside walls.
When he opened his eyes again, the sensations vanished. The heartbeat faded into nothing.
But something else replaced it, a sudden surge of more heartbeats, scattered all across the room, vibrating from behind every wall.
They thumped faster, sharper and panicked.
The smell of Blood, Fear and Sweat slowly filled the room.
The faintest scent clung to the air, metallic, coppery, sweet in a way only dying bodies could be.
Whatever was hidden behind those walls was afraid.
And slowly dying.
To be continued