Meanwhile, when Swanhaden walked to his room with Shuraina in his arms, they bumped into a few maidservants. He shot them a pretty smile as he passed.
Thanks to that, a few employees dropped the items they were holding, goosebumps running down their arms.
"Why are we heading to your room?"
"Give me a good night kiss and put me to sleep."
He was quite bold with his words.
"And if I don't want to?"
"Then I'll kiss you and put you to sleep."
Shuraina scoffed at his words, then stretched out her hand to touch Swanhaden's scarlet ears. She could feel the scars on them.
"Turn right. Let's go to my room first."
"...?"
"It's almost time to sleep, so I'm going to change into my pajamas. This is day wear."
"I'll lend you mind."
He kept trying to head to his room, so Shuraina held up a proverbial right flag.
Swan, who gently held Shuraina and brought her into his room, gently placed her on his bed. The bed creaked and dipped down.
Shuraina asked for pajamas, so Swan headed to his incredibly minimal closet. He opened the door to glance at his options before he took out a comfortable looking pair of thin pants and a shirt and handed it to Shuraina.
Anything clean and comfortable was sleepwear to him, so he took out any freshly laundered clothes. When he took off his shirt, Shuraina told him not to undress in front of her and changed him with magic, so there was nothing really embarrassing about it.
Shuraina, now too lazy to actually wash her body now that she was on the bed and lying down, used magic to take care of it. Swan had been walking towards the restroom when he felt the magic wash over himself too. He turned around and went back to her.
"Hurry up."
Shuraina called, patting the space next to her.
When he came closer, Shuraina placed a kiss on his cheek and gave him the good night kiss that he had wanted to much.
"Let's sleep now. I'm tired. I'm going to go back once you sleep."
"....?"
She was relaxed as she pulled the blanket to her chin and then, raising her arms slightly, made enough space for him to enter.
Swan touched his cheek where her lips had touched and decided to just let bygones be bygones. He liked the look of her arms reaching towards him.
As soon as he came closer, Shuraina dragged him closer and hugged him tightly. She wondered if she should rest her foot on his body, then decided to just rest it anyway. The height was just perfect. She was incredibly comfortable now.
When she tried to fall back asleep, she was wide awake.
'This room is strangely familiar...'
The position was comfortable, Swan was warm, and everything felt perfect–but she stiffened up as a thought passed through her mind. Her toes began to shrivel as cold sweat began to form. Shuraina grew a bit tense as she rolled her eyes and she opened her mouth.
"Your room, it's the same as before, huh?"
"..."
When they were younger, she had accidentally entered Swanhaden's room before. There was blood decorating the room here and there so it had been scary, but it was nostalgic. This was where she had almost died, where they had fought with each other and pulled at each other's hair, then played chess after they grew close, and they had laid on the same bed and she had sung lullabies for him so that he could fall asleep. Even if she fell asleep mid-song before he slept.
His room, now that she was back again, was very clean. Obviously, there wasn't a bit of blood or chains, and there was a new window. Yulinelle had allowed him to have a window after he promised not to try and run away like before. There was a cool breeze and a stream of moonlight coming through the window.
Shuraina's eyes wandered towards a floating photo device nearby the window. Everyone carried picture photographs nowadays, but those round photo marble-like devices had been popular back in the day. The device looked incredibly worn. It looked like it had been used so much that it was on its last legs. It was cracked, and blood seeped through the cracks. It looked like it would break soon, but there was a protective spell layered over it so it hadn't cracked just yet.
In the photo was an image of two children. A child with short orange hair was holding the device and was closest to it, and a silver-haired child looked at the orange-haired child as if they were lame. They looked quite close. The children in the photo was Swanhaden and Shuraina.
Shuraina inhaled deeply, remembering when they had taken the photo. That day was the first day that she had won against him in a game after dozens and dozens of games. She was only able to win because Swan had gone easy on her, but she had been so excited that she took a celebratory photo.
If she excluded the one time where he had almost killed her at the very beginning of their relationship, they had only had good memories in the room. She felt sad. But Swanhaden would only remember the times that he had been brutally tortured here–why was he still using this room? The question replayed over and over in her mind, so Shuraina looked at Swanhaden, who was quietly combing through her hair with his fingers.
"Why aren't you changing rooms? This isn't a room with good memories. There are a lot of rooms."
Swanhaden was in the midst of stretching his arms around Shuraina to plant pillows all around her when he briefly raised his head.
He looked towards the window, then at the photo device. Then, he looked at the girl with short orange hair in the photo, then at the girl with long orange hair laying next to him.
"I thought that you'd make a mistake and come back here if I waited for you."
Swanhaden stretched his hand towards Shuraina's chin, then moved downwards and kissed her lips. He really wasn't satisfied with the peck on his cheek from earlier.
"And you're here now."
A pretty smile bloomed on his face.
He lowered his head to place another kiss on her lips. No matter how many times they kissed, it wasn't enough. It was never really enough.
Swanhaden, who had been sent to the battlefield immediately after his torture sessions, was finally able to understand the chills he had felt whenever he saw Shuraina. Now he knew what it was.
If he just liked her when he was smaller, another kind of urge began to consume him as he grew older.
Now he knew. He knew exactly what he wanted.
Just playing and laughing wasn't bad. That had been enough. He had thought that had been enough.
"Shushu."
A constant gaze continued to chase after Shuraina. A strange emotion lingered in his jewel-colored eyes–the emotions that he had suppressed because he had been too busy cherishing her. His stomach seemed to lurch. He felt hazy, as if he was on drugs. He wanted to become a total mess. He wanted to make her a total mess. He could still feel her lingering on his lips.
Unlike his usual self, Swanhaden seemed incredibly bold and sensual. He didn't have any bandages on, so his skin was covered in small scars. His shirt had ridden up slightly as he moved, exposing his abs.
"I feel so dizzy right now. Why is it? I feel excited. I like you so much that I think I'm going to throw up."
"….you're a bit too honest."
"Do you feel that way too? Have you ever liked someone so much that their existence is enough to make you cry?"
Swan stretched his hand towards Shuraina's hair and held a few locks of her hair.
"Before, I could bear you not being by my side. I don't know if I can do that now."
Sad scarlet eyes looked back at him. Her eyes were gentle, tilted downwards slightly, and her lips continued to whisper his name. He could hear her quiet breaths.
"..."
Instead of a verbal response, warm hands clung harder to him. It was a gentle, affectionate touch, as if to comfort him.
Everywhere she touched seemed to burn. It felt like he was free falling from a high cliff. He wondered how much more thrilling it would be if they went all the way.
Alarm bells were ringing in his head. Something told him to go further, but his mind told him to stop. He chose, instead, to drag his fingers down the nape of Shuraina's neck. He could feel her thin neck. It looked so weak that it would break if he grasped it tightly.
So Swan removed his hand.
Shuraina smelled nice. A sweet scent seemed to linger on her soft skin. He shifted his face towards the nape of her neck with her still in his arms. He breathed in deeply. His mouth watered. He hesitated for a moment and was just about to place a kiss on her neck when he just stopped himself.
She was so skinny. If he bit her just a bit wrong, her artery might explode.
'So annoying.'
Swanhaden was genuinely annoyed at himself for being unable to control himself. Before they married, he needed to become superhuman.
Get it together. Is it your urges or Shuraina's health? It looks like you've lost your senses–if you keep acting like this without thinking of the consequences and Shuraina gets hurt, everything's just going to get worse. If you keep going on, you might just start to hate yourself. You need to be calculating. Calculating.
Of course, problems that didn't relate to Shuraina were also possible. Swanhaden could have his own share of problems. Thinking back, he had improved his immunity regarding Shuraina with their constant touching, but things could change if it became more serious.
'But death due to sexual causes was…yeah.'
The most Swanhaden could get himself to imagine was him stopping Shuraina from taking her clothes off. He couldn't even dare to imagine what happened after. Just imagining it was enough to kill him.
Even looking at her in her eyes was something that came after constant practice. Last time, he had screamed in joy after holding her hands, hugged her and ran laps around the training hall, and suffered from side effects for weeks after a kiss.
He couldn't even begin to fathom his reaction to anything more than that. He had barely gotten the courage to do what he did just moments ago.
Swan became more and more irritated with himself. He narrowed his eyes and stood up from the bed. He brought a mountain of pillows and created a wall of pillows between Shuraina and himself. Thank goodness that the bed was big enough. There was still plenty of space, even after the wall of pillows had been constructed.
"Swan?"
Shuraina's eyes grew wide in surprise at Swanhaden's sudden actions.
"You can't cross it."
"Why?"
"It's going to be bad."
"For who?"
"Both of us."
Shuraina ignored what he said and just rolled across the wall to lay on top of Swanhaden.
"Why. Are you going to do something to me?"
Shuraina asked, putting her chin on her hands. She smiled. But the smile soon hardened and her eyes looked downwards.
"I just understood."
"Uh huh."
"But I'm okay with it if it's with you?"
"...."
Swanhaden covered his face with a pillow at Shuraina's careless comment. A red tint started from the nape of his neck and stained his entire face.
"So you want me to get away from you?"
Shuraina played with Swanhaden's red ears. He nodded.
"But don't…..go too far away."
Shuraina snickered at his words. She laughed often these days.
Swanhaden, after separating the bed, handed Shuraina a pillow and the blanket and hunched over near the end of the bed. Shuraina turned her head after being buried under various pillows and blankets.
"But I can't check if you're sleeping or not like this. I was trying to put you to sleep. And take some of these away."
"Sleep here. I'll put you to sleep."
She couldn't see Swanhaden because of the high tower of pillows, but half of Swan's face popped out from behind the pillows. Much of the red had dissipated by this point.
"To begin with, I assumed that I wouldn't be able to sleep next to you."
"But you said you wanted me to put you to sleep. If you weren't planning on sleeping in the first place…. Oh, you wanted me to sleep here the entire time?"
"...."
"But I need to hug something whenever I sleep. Otherwise, I'm going to die of exhaustion from lack of sleep."
Swanhaden slipped his arm through the wall of pillows.
"No, no, it needs to be big enough for me to rest my foot on it."
Swanhaden hit the top of the wall of pillows.
"No, no. It needs to be something more Swanhaden."
A shock of white hair burst through the wall of pillows, refusing to look at her. Thanks to that, the wall gave way to a pile of pillows.
Shuraina laughed quietly and stroked the hair on the head next to her.
In the end, the two of them couldn't sleep and spent the entire night playing card games.