#50
Since Derik had only put Noah to sleep temporarily, he carefully studied Noah’s delicate face while waiting for him to wake up. When had he grown so much?
When Derik touched Noah’s light brown eyebrows with his fingertips, they twitched, and when he touched the long, full eyelashes, the eyelids fluttered. As Aeongi, he had seen Noah sleeping countless times. Even last night.
Every time he lightly touched him, Noah would flinch cutely, so Derik put the awakening Noah back to sleep, and before he knew it, the sky had darkened. If he kept Noah any longer, Elisa, Noah’s nanny, would surely come looking for him.
“What should I do with you?”
He’s just a human. Derik stayed by his side because he was cute and watched him out of curiosity. He found Noah’s actions endearing, so they spent each day together, but this feeling was something Derik had never experienced before in his life.
Until Noah fell into the water, Derik hadn’t thought much of it. Noah was a good swimmer, and it was just Ray’s mischievous prank.
He had been willing to go along with the excited students and Ray’s rhythm. Noah had never had to change clothes in the water before, so Derik was curious how he would handle this situation.
Those wide eyes filled with confusion, that flushed face. Noah’s awkward behavior made Derik want to secretly help him out of the pool, but Ray noticed. Of course Ray would notice—it wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
In any case, after Noah entered the water, Derik planned to follow him in shortly to help Noah put on his shirt underwater. He would button up all of Noah’s buttons, leave one or two of his own undone, and then watch the chaotic students afterward. Though it was highly unlikely, if any student managed to button up quite a few buttons, he would appropriately interfere.
And as Noah himself had said, he wanted to establish that changing clothes—well, buttoning shirts—underwater was something only Noah could do. He didn’t want Noah’s name to be associated with any more unsavory incidents among the students.
That was the plan, but he never expected Noah to struggle after falling into the water. Like many others, Derik initially thought it was Noah’s prank—a joke to surprise Ray, who had pushed him into the water.
But the moment he realized it wasn’t a joke, Derik finally understood what humans meant when they said their hearts sank.
Had his heart ever beaten so fast in his life?
And at the same time, his chest tightened.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe, and his mind went blank.
When he approached Noah and held him in his arms as Noah desperately clung to him, confirming that Noah was okay, Derik felt grateful to a deity for the first time.
It was only a brief moment, but for him to express gratitude to a god while in his right mind was unprecedented.
Noah had swallowed quite a bit of water and was frightened, but after confirming there was no serious problem, Derik immediately put him to sleep. Only after feeling Noah’s steady breathing could Derik escape that strange state. And for the first time, he imagined a world without Noah.
Humans were like that.
Their lives were too short, they were too fragile, and they died in an instant at unexpected moments. Sometimes it was an accident, sometimes illness. It was fortunate if they lived their full lives, but countless times they died in vain before then.
Having spent quite a long time with Noah, Derik had realized things about humans that he never would have thought of otherwise.
Perhaps now was the optimal time to leave Noah’s side.
A moment when he could no longer be swayed by trivial, useless emotions.
A moment when he could treat humans as just humans.
A moment when he could leave this as a brief, pleasant memory from his boring life.
Derik had witnessed firsthand how the once lively Ray had crumbled in the face of human death. Ray, who would often refuse food and spend nights by a human’s grave, chose hibernation. After waking from his 100-year hibernation—a remarkably long time by Ray’s standards—he did return to his original self, but occasionally still fell apart.
Whenever Ray saw a human with red hair and blue eyes, he would see someone else in their place.
Now Derik feared becoming like that.
How would he feel if he saw someone with curly platinum blonde hair standing on end from static electricity, rubbing their eyes in a half-asleep state?
Even in dark moments without sunlight, would he be able to see someone other than Noah in those luminous, large green eyes?
It seemed impossible.
“……”
With his gaze fixed on Noah’s beautiful face, deep in thought, Derik slowly blinked. Noah had definitely been asleep, but now those green eyes he had just been thinking about appeared. He watched as those green eyes, blinking languidly like his own, gradually focused and came to life.
*Thwack*—
But he hadn’t woken Noah…
In fact, since Noah had been put to sleep by magic, only Derik, as the caster, should have been able to wake him. So Noah opening his eyes made no sense, and while Derik was momentarily dumbfounded, his head suddenly jerked to one side.
At the same time, he felt an unfamiliar stinging pain on one cheek.
*Thwack*—
Surprised by his head turning, Derik frowned at the pain that followed on his jaw.
“Ouch.”
That’s what he wanted to say. His cheek and jaw were stinging. He had never been slapped by anyone before, and certainly no one had ever struck his jaw.
But after experiencing these two improbable events in succession, Derik turned his head back when he heard the word “ouch” coming not from his own mouth, but from the other person’s.
“You…”
Noah was touching his crown with one hand, with tears welling up in his large eyes. His other hand was pointing accusingly at Derik.
Sitting on Derik’s lap, Noah looked at him resentfully, as if Derik had secretly done something wrong. Derik rubbed his throbbing jaw with one hand.
“You… you… what did you do!”
What could he possibly be thinking with that small head?
Noah abruptly stood up from Derik’s lap, still holding his head where it had collided with Derik’s jaw, and continued pointing his finger accusingly.
What did he do?
He saved him from drowning, dried him thoroughly to prevent a cold.
And he held him in his arms for hours, comforting him so he could sleep peacefully—and this is the accusation he gets!
“What did I do?”
“Why… why. Why! Why am I here? And you. Why were you holding me!”
Derik truly wanted to know what Noah was thinking.
Looking at Noah with his slightly reddened cheeks and speaking in a higher pitch than usual, even stumbling over his words, Derik let out a small sigh. He wasn’t sure what Noah was thinking, but it was clear he viewed Derik negatively.
“I save you from drowning, and this is how you repay me?”
Derik’s voice was uncharacteristically curt when addressing Noah, who seemed to have some strange misunderstanding. It was already time for Elisa to start looking for him, so he had planned to wake Noah anyway and send him back.
“Ah…”
Noah’s fingertips trembled as he blinked his large eyes rapidly. After pausing briefly as if coming to his senses, his accusatory pointing soon resumed.
“No. Then you should have taken me to my room, why am I in your room… and besides that, why were you holding me! What were you thinking! You were going to kiss me, weren’t you? No. Maybe… did you?”
Derik had never thought that following Noah’s train of thought would be easy, but so that’s what he was thinking.
Derik quietly watched as Noah frantically covered his mouth with both hands. Seeing how loud his voice was and how well he was moving, it was clear that falling into the water hadn’t caused any problems.
But a kiss?
Derik, who had never thought about it in that way, raised one eyebrow crookedly. Moreover, now that Noah seemed convinced that he would have kissed him, Derik felt a tightness in his chest. Why would I press my lips against the lips of an insignificant human?
More importantly, what kind of relationship did Noah think they had that would involve pressing lips together? Even though Derik didn’t particularly enjoy amusements and had never had a human lover due to his lack of interest in human lives, he knew exactly what kind of relationships involved kissing.
“Did you? Really? Why? Why… do it when I don’t know?”
After briefly covering his mouth with both hands, Noah lowered them and began pulling at his hair while continuing his incomprehensible words.
“Ah… should you have?”
Momentarily confused, Derik’s gaze settled on Noah’s lips. The red lips, with the lower lip being slightly thicker and plumper than the upper, were indeed more appealing than those of other humans.
When Noah munched on food or rapidly fired off nagging words at him, Derik sometimes wondered how those small lips could move so quickly.
Anyway, after hearing Noah’s words, Derik thought it might not be a bad idea to kiss him once. Would it be soft and fluffy like chiffon cake?
“Well… um. I didn’t?”
“If you want, I could do it now…”
Derik, who had been staring at Noah’s lips, watched helplessly as Noah fled in a hurry, as if running for his life, just as Derik took one step forward.
Did people usually become a bit strange after waking up from a near-drowning? Above all, a faint smile played on Derik’s lips as he realized that Noah had been thinking about kissing him.
Of course, Derik himself had no idea what expression he was making.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
