BXBX NOVEL Chapter 101: Can I Love You?
Sol looked up from his book again, finding Usami still staring at his hair and nodded with himself taking a deep breath and suppressing his mana until his hair turned brown again. "It was disappointing." He replied honestly.
"A disappointing fight took you two whole days?"
"No, my oppont was disappointing, I gained what I set out to gain, but my oppont was a pain in the ass, an immortal fool." He answered again and she nodded and raised her leg resting her chin on her knee and smiling at him. "What?" Sol raised a brow.
"It's just... You're such a nice person sometimes, really chill and easy to get along with, and th other times you're a real jerk, I don't know if I should take that as a red flag or start liking you under the assumption that you're a good guy, y'know?" She chuckled at him, and Ikaris turned and looked at her after the complimt.
"Well," Sol thought about it for a bit.
"You can think whatever I guess, it won't change the way I see or treat you, what does change my perceptions of people are their actions, and right now you have my respect for setting aside your weaknesses and seeking strgth wh everyone else seems to be trying to avoid the evidt truth a them, searching for a way out without sacrificing their body for the power they need to do it."
"Oh," Usami lowered her gaze and held her exposed cheek, covering her mouth as a small blush from his sudd complimt ran across her face. "Thank you-"
"Usami, come look!" Eris barged through the trance of the tt excited, grabbed her by her arm yanking her out of her comfortable posture and dragging her outside.
"That was nice of you." Ikaris turned and looked up at Sol, stretching her arms and legs with a quiet yawn. "Do you have a fancy for her?" She asked jokingly.
"That couldn't be further from the truth," Sol held on to her hand and continued to stretch her while she groaned in pleasure and yawned again. "Usami was controversial wh she just came to Arkadia, she was weak, self-ctred, manipulative, and sought to hide in the shadow of others, but as it stands she is currtly the best example among the heroes of growth, well, aside from Dina."
"Dina has grown the most." Ikaris sat up and straddled his lap, taking the book from his grasp and setting it to the side. "But ough about them, they are all joying the pool outside, I want to focus on you, and I want you to focus on me." She pressed her torso against his and leaned into his neck, biting and sucking on his skin.
"You just woke up-"
"And I am extremely aroused after we spt the tire night in a hot bath and th you stretched my remaining fatigue away." She whispered in his ear. "I would love to be... hnn~" She moaned expectantly wh Sol's hand instinctively groped her asscheek while he reached for her hair and pulled her head backwards.
"You shouldn't tease me like this, Ikaris." Sol sunk his fingers into the soft exposed flesh of her ass and growled against her breasts, pulling her head further back until she was arched on top of him, but th he released her and she snapped forward wh Arla came walking in.
"...Did I interrupt?" Arla paused as soon as she saw them.
"Absolutely..." Ikaris slightly shook on top of Sol with her face steaming and her breath heavy as she rested her forehead in the crook of his neck and weakly held on to his shirt. "Sorry, it was my inctive that led to, ahem... Did you need something?"
"The one time I decide to not have my ears on high alert I stumble across this sce." Arla blushed and mumbled. "I was trying to avoid the others who wanted me to join them in the hot-bath that appeared overnight." She explained and Ikaris slightly sobered up and looked a at her.
"You td to shy away from others who wish to share any kind of skinship with you, or ev just want a regular interaction why is that?" Ikaris asked, and Arla fixed her coat over her shoulders and walked further into the tt, sitting on her sleeping bag and relaxing as she looked at them.
"Before I decided to become a mage and join the subjugation army, I was victim to many terrible crimes and differt forms of abuse, awful things happed to me throughout my childhood and teage years because...
I have always had a mature body, ev now that I am pushing my early thirties I have yet to find any way or reason to op up to others, except you." She looked at Ikaris and th focused on Sol.
"Me?" Sol lowered his head and turned his gaze slightly to the side confused.
"I am sorry for ruining your mood but I figured it was either I explain this now or wait another t years for an opportune momt." Arla raised her knees to her chin.
"I was not always able to protect myself, ev with pott magic I was weak and fragile, my own family, supposed frids of my family, and strangers; I was targeted for years and had no way of seeking or asking for help, I was trapped in an dless cycle of horror." Her nails dug through her coat into her skin as she spoke.
"Substance abuse as a child, I was sold so many times... passed a by my own father, used and th thrown out on the streets, I have a very strong phobia of being touched, this is why I distance myself, hate others, hate myself... except you."
"So why am I the exemption th?" Sol asked, glossing over her trauma to save her from reliving it in detail.
"You are the first man I have met who did not stare at me as an object or tool of pleasure, you barely ev look at me at all let alone with lustful eyes, and it makes me feel at ease a you, ev on the day we fist met wh I kissed you, I might have come off as an outgoing or promiscuous woman th, but I was simply tranced..." She blushed and hid her face again.
"That is why I was so interested in courting you at that time, but my advances were quickly rejected, so I settled with remaining as close as I could to you, and th lady Ikaris wh she stopped trying to hurt me.
"You do not see those a you for what they are perceived as or what they look like, instead of seeing my body you stare at my soul and inttions, in my eyes Master Vestic you are a fine man who would never harm me, so I have come to trust you unconditionally..." Arla looked up wh she heard shuffling, and found Sol right before her sitting while Ikaris was at his side.
"Wh was the last time you were hugged, Arla?" Sol asked, and at the msion of such a foreign ssation the mage immediately broke down and began sobbing.
"Um... wh I was our years old my mother hugged me for the first time on her deathbed before passing away~" She sniffled and watched Sol op his arms while Ikaris's gaze bore sympathy toward her. "I can't -"
"Come on," he gestured. "If you can't trust anyone else, and you feel safe trusting me th by all means, go ahead and trust me, I won't betray your trust." Sol oped his arms wider and watched her slowly crawl from her ball toward him.
"Is this truly okay?" Arla looked at Ikaris with her tears already streaming down her cheeks, and Ikaris gave her a nod.
"I do not agree completely, obviously, but I like you Arla, if a hug helps th I can allow at least that much, it will not be the d of the world." Ikaris had a complicated smile as she watched the half-elf dive into Sol's arms and let out a loud sigh as her hands locked onto him and her quivering lips curled into a smile.
"Wow, she's as soft as a baby." Sol looked at Ikaris surprised, but the unimpressed goddess pouted and summoned a knife over Arla. "O-oi!"
"I jest," Ikaris looked away and the knife vanished while her pout grew. "A little..."
"Here I am, unsatisfied after the implied act of releasing my tsion and I have to watch you embracing another woman, this is unideal, I want to break some skulls and blow something up now before I hurt her."
"Sorry, I'll make it up to you, after we're done here." Sol smiled at her feeling his body get squeezed as Arla released all the years of loneliness she had dured because of her fears of being subjected to abuse again. "Arla...?" Sol looked down at her wh he started feeling her mana radiating like a beacon and her grip loos.
"Master Vestic~" She nuzzled against his chest, folding herself in his lap and locking her fingers weakly behind him as she looked up at him with her eyes rolled over with ough mana flooding through her body to short-circuit her brain as she lost herself.
"Master Vestic is a beautiful soul, can I love you, ev if you only shoulder me as a frid, am I permitted to adore you?"
"What the hell is going on in here?"