Chapter 311 – Unwelcome Feelings [250 GT Bonus Chapter]
While Cassius and Natalia headed out to go cycling, back in his own room, Klaus lay sprawled across the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
He hadn’t even bothered showering after everything he’d been through that day, which meant, somehow, he could still catch Love’s scent lingering on his clothes.
He’d been like this since he’d gotten back, and Windy was starting to worry.
"Sweetheart," Windy said, adopting her more mature persona, shedding her usual childishness, "you don’t have to take this so seriously. It was nothing."
Klaus didn’t answer. He kept staring at the ceiling as though he hadn’t heard a single word from his own Spirit.
Windy sighed. She flapped her wings and hovered directly in front of his face, forcing his eyes to settle on her cute, pouting expression.
"What did I say about ignoring me, Klaus!"
His face twisted at her volume, "Don’t shout in my ear, Windy. I already have enough of a headache."
"Why are you acting like someone died? It was just a kiss."
"First, it was my first kiss." Klaus hissed, irritated Windy was brushing it off, "Second, I’m not childish enough to be this bothered just by that, though I still don’t like it. What worries me, Windy, is that I couldn’t control my own lust."
His expression darkened, voice dropping lower,
"Can you imagine that, Windy? Me, Klaus Silicin Handoff, unable to control myself when my urges were amplified. Even the commoner managed it. And I failed. And that failure pushed me into something with someone I wanted absolutely nothing to do with."
"You’re being far too hard on yourself, sweetheart." Windy said, perched on the tip of his nose, "You still had the presence of mind to resist, and you tried your best to."
"But I failed."
"And you learned from it."
Klaus paused, blinking at her, finding Windy wearing a gentle, motherly smile.
"You failed, but you learned. Wasn’t that the whole point of the event? So instead of drowning in shame and regret, maybe, sweetheart, you could focus on strengthening your mental fortitude so it doesn’t happen again."
She drifted closer, her smile widening.
"What do you think? I hate seeing you like this. I like my Klaus being Klaus."
"Klaus can’t be Klaus every single day." He chuckled, feeling slightly better, "Just like the wind can’t blow the same way every day..."
"Oh dramatic, now, are we?"
"...but he can try."
"And will he?"
"He will. And he definitely needs to figure out how. The weakest of men are the ones who can’t control their lust, even when they’re being manipulated." His black eye hardened, "And Klaus is never weak."
"That’s my Chosen One." Windy said, giggling, planting a kiss on the tip of his nose, "Now, sweetheart, why don’t you tell Mother Windy how your first kiss was?!"
Klaus’s expression crumbled instantly, shooing her away, "Get off my damn nose! You just had to ruin the moment! We were having a moment, Vorn take you!"
Windy laughed loudly, circling around him.
"But I want to know! And why keep pretending, sweetheart? That Lust domain only amplified what you already felt. So the fact that you kissed her back means only that..."
Klaus’s face flushed red. Whether from anger or shame, no one could say. Still...
"I swear, if you say one more damn word — just one more, Windy — you will regret it!"
"So vulgar. Mother Windy is sad. Maybe I should go find Love. Perhaps she’ll give me some love. No, actually, I don’t even need to leave. If I scream her name loud enough, she’ll hear me. She lives right next to us, after all. The walls are thin."
"Don’t you dare." Klaus growled.
Windy grinned wickedly. Klaus’s eyes widened.
"LOVEEEE—!"
"YOU GODDAMNED SPIRIT!!" He lunged at Windy, trying to grab her. She darted away just as his fingers came within an inch of catching her, sending him crashing face-first onto the floor.
"HAHAHAH!! That’s the Klaus I know! I’ve missed—!"
"SHUT UP!"
...
Meanwhile, right next door, Love stood before the bathroom mirror, freezing instantly in place.
"LOVEEE—!"
"YOU GODDAMNED SPIRIT!"
Love frowned at the loud, booming voice, though more than that, she frowned at hearing her own name called out.
"That bastard, I told him not to get any ideas about me." She muttered to herself, rosy lips pressed tight.
She looked back at her reflection, her pink hair falling around her like the leaves of a pink tree, partially veiling her beauty.
She didn’t bother brushing it aside, staying exactly as she was, replaying everything that had happened during the Opening Ceremony.
The whole event had lasted only a few hours at most, and yet she’d come out of it far more conflicted than when it began.
"Fuck." Love cursed, hanging her head, "Calm down, Love. You can’t let your goal get clouded by the confusion of the moment. Nothing has changed. Nothing at all."
She repeated it to herself, though the more she did, the more obviously false it felt.
Everything had changed.
Emrys had discarded her, and honestly, she no longer wanted anything to do with him. She was sick and tired of that bastard.
But the end of that relationship had also closed doors that had once been open to her, for her modeling career.
That was the hardest part to swallow.
But that wasn’t all.
Her relationship with Klaus, too, had shifted. Love couldn’t pinpoint exactly how, or when, or where it had happened...but denying it after the Opening Ceremony felt impossible.
And the fact that it was so hard to deny made it even harder to accept.
"Still, it doesn’t matter." Love said, "Whatever I might start to feel for him doesn’t change our relationship. He tried to kill me. And I swore, to him and to myself, that one of us would die by the end of this. I’ll keep that promise, no matter what."
She took a deep breath, then pulled out the black tie she’d once stolen. She looked at it a moment, then lifted it to her nose.
Sniffing it, Love caught the familiar scent of that infuriating bastard.
She lowered her hand, glanced at the tie, and sighed even louder,
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." She cursed over and over, yet still used that black tie to pull her pink hair into a ponytail.
Her face was now fully visible, beautiful, hardened like stone.
"From here on out, I’m done kissing anyone’s ass to get what I want."
With those words, she pulled out her phone, opened E-Chat, and navigated to her conversation with Emrys.
Breaking up over the phone was pathetic, even more so over text, but Love didn’t care.
She typed her message quickly. There wasn’t much to say.
The message was simple:
<You lost me, just like you lost Anesthesia. You and I are done. Now I can finally say what I’ve always wanted to say: fuck you. Fuck your bitch of an aunt. Fuck your entire goddamned family. And may Vorn curse you to death.>
She sent it directly, then blocked him and deleted his number.
After that, she opened another conversation.
This one, with Klaus.
They’d never actually texted before. Though they had, reluctantly, exchanged numbers once, back when each of them had held some piece of blackmail over the other.
This message, Love realized, wasn’t so simple. She hesitated for several minutes over what to write.
Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why she was messaging him in the first place.
But she wanted to.
And she made a point of not stopping to ask herself why, because she wasn’t ready to hear the answer.
After minutes of endless second-guessing, she gave up and sent the first thing that came to mind,
<Your kiss sucked. I can still taste it on my lips. Eww.>
She sent it, then immediately turned off her internet, powered down her phone, tossed it aside, and sank into the bathtub, dreading his response, wanting to forget everything.
But seconds later, a loud scream echoed through the walls.
And this time...
"YOU FUCKING BITCH!!"
...Love de Bayard smiled.
—End of Chapter 311—