Chapter 45

Translated by Tracy

Edited by Addis

 

What’s worse than making bad friends? The consequences.

---

The moment of eye contact brought Feisha’s heart to his throat, just waiting to jump out at any slightest movement. Confusingly, Isefel did no such thing. He averted his eyes instead, switching on the bedside lamp, seating himself onto the sofa and picking up the book on the table before him.

It was as if the only thing that mattered in the world was the book in his hands. Feisha stared suspiciously at him for a while, thought rising unbidden: was the book better than him?

It was furiously stomped down not a few seconds after.

The room was agonisingly quiet to begin with, but with the sound of pages flipping somehow made him miss the complete silence. The worst part was he was stark naked, lying with his face up and being ignored by the room’s only other occupant. His body may not be cold, but his heart sure was.

As if reading his mind, the thin sheet on the bed draped itself over him. What was the use of a sheet? Internal grumbling aside, Feisha did his best to glance over at Isefel, wanting to see his expression. What he saw instead was Isefel’s handsome features under the warmth of relaxation, head resting on a loose fist. The dim lighting smoothed down the usual sharpness of his expression, giving him an almost ethereal glow.

Feisha couldn’t quite look away.

Cold silence gradually faded away into tranquility, taking Feisha’s guarded conscience with it. The room’s colors mixed into each other like watercolor, mixing, weaving, fading…

In his state of half-lucidity, the other half of the bed dropped down abruptly. Feisha startled into semi-consciousness, the displeasure at being woken up unfurling hotly in his chest. All he could see, however, was pitch black.

The sheet covering his body was pulled down, but there was no more movement after that. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Feisha wanted nothing more than to sit up, switch on the light and give the other person a piece of his mind, but unfortunately was forced to give up and go back to sleep.

---

Upon waking up the next morning, Feisha found that he could move again. Ostensibly, that is. It felt like he had just crawled out of a grave, limbs heavy and creaking in protest. It took half an hour for the blood to circulate his veins so that he could finally sit up.

Isefel was no longer in the room, but judging from the tousled sheets he probably was last night. Proper blood circulation gave back Feisha’s ability to blush uncontrollably as his thoughts wandered – What did Isefel think when he first walked in last night? Was Feisha too fat?

The human pinched his belly fat in contemplation. He’d slimmed down considerably since arriving, so it should’ve been fine. Besides, he was lying face-up anyway.

…Was his thing too small? Lifting the blanket, Feisha assured himself that it was quite satisfactory for someone of his stature. Would fallen angels be bigger down there?

He should stop this depressing train of thought. Even more depressing is his lack of abs – it would improve his figure by leaps and bounds. Feisha curled into the blankets in his arm, slumping down sideways and kicking at nothing in particular. “God, I’m going die of shame!”

“Blankets and sheets, eight hundred dollars.”

Feisha froze, sat up and subtly tried to smooth down his bed head. “Why don’t you knock?”

“Because I have the keys,” Isefel replied, unhurried.

Oh. That’s right, this was Isefel’s room. Feisha made to stand, only to sit back down at the reminder that he was, in fact, unclothed. “Erm. Sorry about last night.”

“Hm.”

Thanks for the courtesy, asshole. Feisha laughed awkwardly. “To be fair, it wasn’t entirely my fault…” He recounted the events of the previous day, leaving out details like Gin and Antonio’s reasons for doing what they did. Basically, in his version of the story Gin was an ungrateful dick who threw him to the sharks and Antonio a mindless sheep who did whatever other told him – his criticism of Antonio was toned down a bit to avoid bad karma. Shamal, on the other hand, was a archetypal bystander who hung around drama to laugh at victims. The thought of him taking away the pink rug made Feisha even more furious, vowing to put his name on the list with more emphasis than anyone else.

Isefel’s reaction to his recount was an anticlimactic “Oh.”

“I’m sure you’ve realized but I don’t normally go around with no pants on.”

Isefel raised an eyebrow. It was then that Feisha finally noticed the dampness clinging onto Isefel’s skin – he had gone swimming. “I- I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being naked, ah, not- not- not if I’m the one who’s naked…but it’s great to be naked!” After the thirtieth iteration of ‘naked’, it suddenly dawned on Feisha that even the mouth he’d relied on for half his life had failed him.

Thankfully, Isefel cut in. “Someone cast a spell on you.”

“Yeah, they did!” Feisha nodded enthusiastically.

“…”

“Oh, um, it’s not something to be happy about, eh?” Feisha looked down then perked up suddenly. “Wait, can you break that spell?”

Something flashed in Isefel’s eyes. “Yes.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you do it?!” So Isefel was a bystander and not a victim like he had previously thought? The calamity that befell him last night was the result of not three but four wicked people? Feisha leveled Isefel a look of pure despair – not at Isefel or Antonio or even Gin, but at this cruel world. Were kind hearted people simply a myth?

Feisha bit the blanket in fury. He’d have gone to be a beggar if he knew that this was going to happen. Maybe he’d make it into some oriental fairytale scenario and meet a couple of monks in the mountains who spend all their time taking in disciples.

Isefel had only one sentence to justify his reasons. “You don’t take well to getting woken up.”

It could be worse. Feisha’s lips quivered slightly. “You could’ve done it before I fell asleep.”

“And let you run back naked?”

“…You couldn’t just, you know, lend me some clothes?”

Isefel finally spoke some words of truth. “No.”

Feisha fell backwards onto the bed, giving up entirely. Or not, because if nothing else he was persistent to a fault. “Can I borrow a blanket instead then?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to use them.”

Feisha used a finger to hold up his stiff smile. “What about the curtains?”

“No.”

“Why.”

“Same reason.”

Even fingers can’t stop the destruction of his smile. He looked at the towel draped across Isefel’s body. “Then I want your towel.” Before Isefel could object, he added, “If you don’t lend it to me then I’ll write ‘For Isefel’s use only’ on it!” If he was going down, then Isefel was going down with him. Gin’s not the only one who knew that trick! Feisha glared at Isefel, egging him on.

“…Where’s the pen?” Isefel asked after a moment of silence.

“…”

---

Actual process aside, the end result was that Feisha now had a towel, courtesy of Isefel and his brief trip into the bathroom.

“What exactly can I cover with this?”

Unfortunately, it was too small to cover both the front and back.

“It’s enough to cover your face with.”

The sad thing is that it’d be a decent idea were this not Noah’s Ark. Since this was Noah’s Ark, a single look at his height would eliminate Asa. Another look at his hair color would eliminate Gin, Hughes, Shamal and Antonio. One last look at his lack of abs would eliminate Isefel as well. Of course, there were bound to be a few werewolves with black hair but Feisha was nowhere as bold as them.

How he wished he wasn’t unique.

“Or,” Isefel said, breaking Feisha’s train of thought, “you can trade with your annual leave.”

Was it just him or did Isefel look an awful lot like his old boss for a moment there?

“Fine, I’ll use your bloody towel,” Feisha huffed, standing up with the towel at his crotch. He scurried sideways with his back against the wall, stopping momentarily before Isefel to roll his eyes.

Those jawbones were probably sharp enough to cut diamonds, Feisha thought absently. Before Isefel could open his mouth to express his confusion, Feisha darted forward, ripping off Isefel’s towel and making a break for the door. He didn’t even make it to the pool before a solid arm hooked around his middle and brought him halfway off the ground.

“Must be nice being a fallen angel,” Feisha grumbled, looking longingly at the sleeved arm. “Why can’t I just make clothes appear on my body?” A towel fell on top of his head before he could finish the sentence, obscuring his vision before he scrambled to cover his crotch with it.

Isefel dived down a whole thirty floors, wings spread like a parachute against the air. Feisha wasn’t scared of heights, but he was scared of people looking up his towel skirt and thus spent the entire dive trying to clench his thighs together. It was only when the towel stopped flapping about that he found his feet planted on solid ground.

“Huh,” he said, readjusting the towel. He licked his lips, flashing Isefel a thumbs up. “You’re pretty skilled.”

A click resounded in the hallway. The door to Feisha’s room swung open, Gin grinning like a cheshire cat from his position in the doorway.

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