One moment Noah was facing Levi, and in the next, his feet left the ground, and then suddenly, he was cradled in a warm and comfortable embrace??
This rapid assault was too much for Noah to wrap his head around. He didn't even remember to resist and just sat there like a boneless plushie, letting himself be stroked here and there while staring straight ahead with befuddled and watery doe-like eyes.
And then he felt something soft, warm, and ticklish touch his cheek causing warm tingles to spread throughout his body, and the red color of his already flushed face turned deeper. His fluffy head lowered to stare at those familiar, strong arms that were once again securely wrapped around him, and both his heart and his thick eyelashes fluttered in incomprehension.
"Oh? Baby, you are in the middle of a call? Hello~ Who is this?" Levi flashed a provocative smile at the light screen in front of them, carrying himself with the demeanor of a legal wife confronting a mistress.
Case's nostrils flared, and he looked to be on the verge of spitting fire. Levi and him had clearly already been introduced last week, yet now this shameless rogue pretended not to know him! What was it if not informing him that the other thought he was someone insignificant, not worth remembering!
Levi turned a blind eye to Case's fury and instead fully focused on his adorable, completely brain-dead and motionless darling, "Baby?" Levi couldn't resist dropping another kiss on that soft and alluring cheek. Ah, ah, it felt so, so good to feel that supple skin underneath his lips! As a proper wolf, he had to take advantage of his baby's lowered guard while it lasted. (／≧ω＼) ❤
This second kiss finally managed to kickstart awake Noah's stalled engine, and he stuttered out, "I-I-I... you-you-you...!" Finally realizing what was happening, Noah's fur puffed up with great indignance, and he huffed several times before managing to squeeze out, "I can't properly talk with you here! Go wait outside!"
The domineering wolf proudly guarding his territory felt wronged! Levi's invisible ears and tail dropped sadly, looking very pitiful. "I'm sorry, baby." He placatingly rubbed his own cheek against Noah's, ('ah, so soft, feels so, so good'), "I'll be good. Don't be mad~" Levi softly coaxed in that low and warm tone of his that always managed to send tingles down Noah's spine. Then he obediently buried his face in Noah's silky hair, nuzzling it with his nose, "You may continue your call. Don't mind me. I'll be very quiet and obedient, honest!"
Continue the call like this? Honest, good and obedient?? The sight in front of Noah turned black for a moment, and he felt so incensed that he nearly laughed. Here he was, trying to gently reject Case while hurting him as little as possible, and then this pig teammate comes barging in to forcefully shove dog food down Case's throat!!
'What did you come here to do?! Use dog food to choke the living daylights out my most appropriate best man candidate until he kicked the bucket?!' (ﾉಥAಥ)ﾉ ┻━┻
And still dare call himself good and obedient?!
Don't think he didn't notice that coy tone of his! He was simply acting like a little kid smugly showing off his super-duper awesome toy and feeling his chest swell from the refreshing taste of envy directed his way from his playmates!
Noah didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 'Gosh, what kind of bad blood is between you two that you must hit a man while he is down?!'
At this point, the man in question, who was hit while being down, felt dead inside. Case stared at his light screen with a gaze of a dead fish.
Unlike Noah, who thought Levi was acting silly, Case thought otherwise. Case might usually act frivolous and turn a blind eye to certain things, but he wasn't a fool. One look and he could tell that this scourge, Astar Levi, wanted to declare to the whole world that the person in his embrace was his and his alone! A precious treasure that no one should have any inappropriate thoughts about!
His thoughts and feelings were so glaringly obvious that even the blind would be able to feel it. Simply everything about Levi screamed of his infatuation with the person in his arms. From the strong yet gentle way he held Aris, to his adoring gaze, to the tone he used to speak to him that was sweet and sticky like maple syrup, to his willingness to coax and please the other with no regards for his own image.
There was no need for Levi to go to such lengths to fool anyone, nor did he have the emotional capacity to understand and empathize with a role he was playing to the extent of managing to pull off such a flawless act. Thus, the possibility of him putting on an act to fool Case was a big fat zero.
Astar Levi was genuinely smitten with Aris. And judging by all the things Case had read about him, once this wild wolf bit into something, he wouldn't let it go. For him, it wasn't simply an infatuation; it was an obsession. Even if Aris was unwilling, this madman would not let him go.
As for whether Aris was unwilling…
Case had mingled in the upper circle of society that was filled with pretense and deception all his life. He could tell the truth by the subconscious movements of one's body and minute facial expressions. And Aris' were always especially transparent.
Surprised, flustered, embarrassed, indignant – was what his conscious mind was screaming. Yet, underneath the surface, not one of his subconscious reactions showed any kind of rejection towards Levi's intimacy. In fact, his body instinctively relaxed in Levi's embrace, like a docile and tame little bunny that had delved back into its burrow.
To have that level of comfort and trust towards a person to the point of considering him his home… Case felt the world spin in front of him.
Aris' words could lie, but his subconscious reactions couldn't.
All the things that Aris had previously said… were true.
In hindsight, he should have noticed the signs much earlier. It should have been obvious just by the fact of how Aris' demeanor had recently changed. Aris had become even more enchanting, like a flower in full bloom, and why else would this little rosebud suddenly spread his petals if not due to love?
Case had been tending to this little flower bud for so long, yet in the end, it had bloomed for someone else. The feeling brewing within his chest at that moment was indescribable. Like his heart had been tightly squeezed by a thorny vine, so suffocating Case could barely breathe, and every movement caused the sharp thorns to dig deeper into his flesh.
"If there is nothing else, I'm hanging up…" Case's voice was feeble and choked up, showing clear signs of deep exhaustion.
"Ah, wait!" Noah abruptly remembered the main purpose of this call. "Um… That … for the wedding, I'm going to need a best man…" Noah scratched his head sheepishly, in the process of which he pushed away Levi's snout that had caused him to feel itchy in the first place. "I can totally understand if you don't want to! And it's totally ok! Don't force yourself or feel burdened by this matter!" Noah's two amber eyes looked at Case with pure and clean encouragement, "I figured you might not want to… but I still wanted to ask you first… because… you are my best friend… and you should have a right to accept or refuse personally, instead of me just making an assumption of what you would want…"
Case's stared at that beautiful face he'd see every night in his dreams and felt hollow inside. As if his heart had already been filled with so many holes that all of his blood had long flowed out, leaving it completely dry and empty inside.