Eventually, bored, I ended up falling asleep.

When I woke up, Valentine was above me. I stared at the eyes that looked almost black in the shadow. His hair was tied back, and he was wearing his professor’s outfit, the midnight blazer looking as black as his eyes, right now.

His lips met mine. When I went to reach up, I found my wrists unable to move. I tried looking, but I couldn’t. Struggling, I realized it was magic that prevented me from moving.

“Five months, seventeen days, four hours, nineteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds,” Valentine murmured.

I swallowed, face burning.

That was…

That was the line he used on Aph in the book. When he confessed. But he only fell for her after he’d had sex with her! He and I definitely didn’t fuck five months in. I met his ocean eyes.

“That’s how long it took to…?” I wondered, embarrassed and confused.

I wasn’t better than Aph. Definitely not. How did I get someone to fall in love with me sooner? No, something had to have gone wrong, here. No way. Nuh-uh.

“That is how long it took me to realize that I cared quite deeply for you. I do not know when that grew into the feelings I have now, however I truly cannot envision my future without you in it.”

Relief and one other emotion filled me.

Right, he didn’t fall in love then.

A very poor feeling twisted within my heart. Of course I knew it. I’d felt it quite often, in my life. It was guilt and pity. I felt as the bed pressed into my back. Valentine’s magic was wrapped around me, but the only part of him touching me was his hair. I couldn’t help the expression of pity that appeared on my face.

Something I’d always hated both myself and Aphrodite for was our tendencies to lead people on. In this world, that could cause wars, though.

While I cared for him… No. No, I couldn’t.

“Val—…“ I cut myself off, not knowing how to start.

Not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to reject him without permanently turning him into an enemy.

“You don’t have to answer now,” Valentine said softly.

“No,” I refused, then my voice grew sad, “I’m sorry. This needs to be said.”

I stared up at Valentine, wishing his face were lit up just a bit more so I could see what expression he was making.

Steeling myself, I continued, “I don’t feel the same way. I hold no interest—“ Don’t lie, “—no romantic interest in you at all. I don’t love you…” In any romantic way, “I’m sorry.”

My eyebrows pulled together at my own words. But it was true. While in the time we’ve known each other I’ve grown fond of him, it was solely as a friend. I gave Valentine an apologetic look.

Valentine huffed out, his head lowering slightly.

“You do not mince words,” Valentine said quietly.

“Mincing words leads to misunderstanding,” I replied, voice just as quiet.

The guilt twisted within me. But it was better to say something harsh like that than lead someone on for several years.

“Yes,” Valentine agreed, his chuckle too wet for me to think mirth caused it.

I felt even worse. I made him cry. Fuck. It was better this way. Was it, though?

“… Will you tell me who you love?” Valentine asked.

I hesitated, sorrow and pity drying up in an instant. No way in hell. Valentine murdered the fuck out of Sora when Aph said she loved the assassin.

“No,” I said, unable to keep the sympathy in my voice, tone unamused and flat, “You’d kill them.”

“Them? There is more than one?”

Val focused on that part, staring down at me intently. His magic shifted around me, the strands like a snake as they prevented me from moving.

“Yeah. There’s ten,” I agreed.

There was no harm in telling him the amount of people I loved, right? I guess I could admit that it was a bit ridiculous to love ten people, but it was also ridiculous to find myself in the world of a novel. So whatever. I could admit my adoration.

“… The king and his two sons, Kairos, the Demon King, Lucius, me, Silas, Herald… You have not even met ten people,” Valentine refused, soft voice having an edge.

The bed creaked as he shifted his weight, hands bunching in the blankets next to me.

“Sure there is. Just because I haven’t met them yet doesn’t mean I can’t love them. Besides, I’ve only not met like two of the ten.” I dismissed.

Who cares if I hadn’t met them, yet? I hung out with Silas a lot, and even when he treated me poorly I still found my love for him persisting. Regardless of how pathetic it was that I’d fallen for book characters, it was true. I genuinely loved these individuals.

I refused to tell Valentine he was one of the people I loved, though. He would definitely get the wrong idea. Jester didn’t count. He was off to the side in his own special corner of people I adored.

“You are choosing people you have read about in a book over me, whom you have had the most interaction with?” Valentine hissed.

He didn’t seem too amused at my words. Of course he wouldn’t be. This was a serious conversation. It’d be like someone giving loving Iron Man as the reason not to date.

But I wasn’t choosing some fictional character over Valentine. I just had no interest in getting into any sort of deep relationship with the guy hovering above me.

“No,” I disagreed, “I’m saying that I love them, and I don’t love you. I’m not saying I’d do something stupid like choose them over you. I see you as a friend, Valentine.”

A very hot, very crazy friend that I wouldn’t mind benefits with, if only you wouldn’t take them the wrong way.

“Kairos and Silas are people you love,” Valentine muttered to himself, “I suppose I will find out the rest soon enough, if you have already encountered them previously.”

A shiver ran down my spine, eyes widening slightly. It was one thing to know someone will kill others, and another to actively hear them planning it.

I hesitated, then I sighed, “Don’t kill the people I love. It won’t magically make me love you. Quite the opposite, actually.”

I really hoped he’d listen. I would be just as heartbroken over their deaths now as I was when I read about them in the book, if not more so, now that I’ve had a chance to meet and interact with them.

Valentine shifted, not responding. He wrapped his arms around me, legs tangling with mine. My entire body refused to listen to me as Valentine held me to him on the bed.

The sound of fabric shifting reached my ears. Valentine’s fingers trailed up and down my form where his hand rested on my side.

I was finally able to look and see his eyes. They were glassy with tears, blue gaze focused on me.

“Is that a saying your world uses for impossible things? Magically?” Valentine asked quietly, changing the subject.

I hummed an agreement as I stared at him. His skin looked paler than usual, in the moonlight filtering into the windows. His blue eyes glittered with the light given to them, though it wasn’t in happiness, his sorrow evident by his expression.

I felt really bad for him. While I liked him, and while I was willing to have sexual relations with him, I knew this world didn’t have the concept of friends with benefits.

It was an all or nothing world. Or at the very least, that’s how it seemed.

The silence stretched.

The moon traced its path across the sky. It moved in the silence, hiding between the windows, once more covering us in darkness what had to be hours later.

“Will you release me?” I asked quietly.

“No,” Valentine replied softly.

He didn’t give any explanation, continuing to look at me. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

Cool fingers reached out, forcing my chin to the side. I looked at Valentine, watching as he shifted. The crying man kissed me.

“I’m not going to let you go,” Valentine refused as he pulled away, “I don’t care if you don’t love me back. You’re mine. I brought you back to life, you owe me the rest of it.”

I sighed at his words, “It was a joint effort, but you’re right. You brought me back to life,” I swallowed, looking at his hair instead of in his eyes, “So if you truly regret it, then undo what’s been done.“

Valentine’s fingers tightened on my chin at my words. The Demon King would kill me the moment he could anyway.

Did it really matter if it was a demon or a necromancer that killed me, in the end?

“I could,” Valentine agreed quietly. I looked up, meeting his gaze. He continued, “I could kill you. Keep your corpse with me.”

I scoffed at the dumb suggestion, “My corpse won’t love you either.”

“No, but it would not be so harsh. If the same thing happened as before, you would rely on me to breathe. To speak,” He said, thumb brushing against my chin as he stared soulfully into my eyes.

I thought about it. With how torturous the experience was, he was right. I would be reliant on him. Eventually my reliance would believe that correlation equaled causation, and I would fall in love with him solely because he was literally the only one who could make my heart beat again.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“That would work,” I agreed softly, “Eventually I would be forced to love you.”

Valentine didn’t look happy, entire expression breaking. His voice was hardly a whisper, “Why would you say that?”

“Because you won’t do it,” I muttered, “Unless you truly are made of thoughtless cardboard.”

“You’re basing your presumptions of me off of some book—“

“Actually,” I interrupted calmly, eyes scouring his angsty expression, “You’ve only acted as the character in the book twice now. Once, when we first met. And here at the Academy. I base my knowledge of your actions on what I have observed of you, as a person. And in regard to our interactions, as well. If you were just the character I read about in the book, you would have silenced me and taken everything you wanted and more by now.”

My lips curled up as I stared at him, “I really admire you. You have no idea how much joy it brings me that you aren’t like what I read about. I hope everyone else I meet is as dynamic and adaptable as you are.”

Valentine’s eyes grew lidded as he looked down. His expression was despondent, a small crease between his eyebrows as he looked down. The pensive expression soon faded to a relaxed one as he looked back up. Not meeting my eyes, his gaze traced along my face.

His gaze met mine, and he reached out. His lips met mine as he shifted, straddling above me.

“I’m sorry that I have to disappoint you, then,” He said, reaching out. His magic stripped me as he stripped himself, taking his clothes off.

I felt my face burn as my magic reached out. His magic tangled with mine, overpowering me easily. My arms reached out against my own will, wrapping around him and pulling him closer.

The experience was unique. Valentine collapsed on top of me afterward, sweat soaking his and my form. His magic released me. I stared up at the ceiling, gasping.

He didn’t bite me at all, so my form was relatively unscathed, unlike before. I swallowed, arms exhausted. My entire body was exhausted, his magic having dragged me around like a puppet.

Everything I knew of him twisted and twirled in my mind. Did I know this would happen?

Yes. The voice that appeared in my mind was bitter.

The memory of him crying over my injury and scolding me over dangerous things clashed with my knowledge of him from the novels. I tried to remove my bias from the memories, but I couldn’t.

It just didn’t feel right.

For the first time, Valentine was acting in character. And it started the moment he got to the Academy.

Stress? No, something wasn’t right. His excitement before, where he bit me fit him, but him forcing himself on someone didn’t.

I tried matching my knowledge and my memories, taking the knowledge from the novel with a grain of salt.

Valentine was someone lonely who had grown up in a hostile environment. He was raised in an orphanage, and he was a very kind-hearted person. So when some cruel children killed any friend he made, be it animal or bug, his heart broke, and he cried over the corpses.

Heart full of angst and desire, he had figured out necromancy. After that, he brought all of his pets and friends back to life, but they were angry. As angry as he was, however he didn’t mean anyone harm.

But he didn’t have control over the creatures he had risen from the dead, and soon the whole orphanage was killed. Desperate to undo what he’d done, he rose them, too.

Eventually he gained control over the roving corpses after the town he’d grown up in was decimated. Going through his childhood, he kept his kindness, hidden deep within his heart.

Deep within his soul. So he separated his emotions from his body, and found himself unable to care anymore.

That was the end of his story up until he met Aph, wherein he fell in love. In that time he had grown selfish and obsessed over what he thought of as his, but he never tried to hurt what was his.

… And I told him I wasn’t his.

But he was a clingy individual! There was no way he would process that so quickly. But he wouldn’t have. I told him practically the moment we met that I planned to leave him. That would mean he’d been processing this since before he’d ever started caring for me.

Clingy and obsessive, desperate to hold onto anything he cared about because it all kept dying on him… Within his soul. On the surface, he was just a mad scientist that chased after anything interesting with the same obsession he held toward the corpses still wandering his hometown. Someone ruthless and uncaring. Cold and cruel.

Neither of those would lead to him doing what he did, though.

I sighed, not comprehending how that would lead to this situation.

I added in my memories of him. Of the three months I’d known him. Of him crying in the library, and scolding me over lightning, Demanding answers only after I was safe. Trying to protect me from a dinner that really didn’t end too badly. Of all the dinners I’d eaten with him and Lucius.

After that, my memories grew hazy, so I didn’t add anything within that.

Toward me, he’d always been a mix of scientific madness, crazy intrigue, and a wholesome sort of caring. A way he’d never acted within the novel.

Eventually I just sighed, frustrated, and asked him. He would know more than I would, surely.

“What are you thinking, right now?” I asked. My voice was flat.

Valentine shifted, arms wrapped around me as his legs tangled with mine, both of us on our sides.

“I don’t feel close to you at all,” Valentine replied, not sounding happy.

I hummed. Close. Maybe it was some desperate attempt to make me his?

“Did you think that having sex with me would make it feel like I was closer to you?” I wondered, shifting.

The moment I went to move away, Valentine’s arms tightened, preventing me from doing so.

“Yes. It is claimed to be the height of intimacy.”

Ah. I think… I was slowly starting to understand.

“Between two consenting parties that love each other, yes,” I agreed flatly, sighing.

My heart twanged at the connection I made. Annoyance mixed with a small amount of pity. This world hardly had the concept of love, despite the name of the planet being Eros.

So how would some secluded hermit who only left his hometown to figure out how to prevent his friends from decaying know about the different versions of love?

I was glad that I actually wanted to have sex with Valentine, or I would be feeling much worse by now. I already didn’t feel too great, but whatever. He knew it was casual, that I didn’t agree with any intentions of love—or agree at all—so it was mostly okay.

Mostly.

If this happened again, I would be furious. I would kill him.

“Specifically, it is the highest form of affection you can give someone you have an active romantic interest in. As in someone you would want to have children with, and raise those children with. Marry. Etcetera.”

I droned on, staring blankly ahead into the darkness as I explained.

“There are other forms of love, such as platonic love, where you have no desire to have sex with someone, but would still wish to be around them often. Sexual desire in and of itself is wholly separate from love. If it weren’t, then familial love and casual sex would be gross.”

“Casual sex?”

“Yes, where you have an attraction to someone’s body but not to their personality,” I further explained, “Essentially if you think about someone naked and you get an erection, it means you are physically attracted to them.”

From what I’d read in the novels, Valentine was demisexual at best, if not wholly asexual. He only got physically hard without magic after intellectual stimulation.

Many comments complained about giving a character “erectile dysfunction”. A war appeared in the comments between the LGBTQA+ communities and various others about whether it was somewhere on the rainbow or whether he wanted to get it up but simply couldn’t.

As this was immediately after his backstory was given, I was on the rainbow team. No way would a kid who grew up surrounded by dead bodies be attracted to someone like that. That was one of the various reasons a lot of furries were doctors, wasn’t it?

Exposure to naked parts—especially with how gross and grody some of them could be—wouldn’t make continued attraction easy.

After a moment, I continued, “I wouldn’t mind having casual sex with you—“

“I’m not interested in that,” Valentine instantly refused.

I snickered, “So you aren’t physically attracted to me, then.”

“It isn’t even your body. Maybe if it matched your soul,” Valentine agreed, sighing as he pushed himself up.

I stared up at him, glad he finally moved off of me. The sweat was open to air. My heated form could finally cool off.

“So you don’t plan to force yourself on me again?” I clarified, a teasing sort of amusement filling me.

At least neither of us enjoyed that.

It was still annoying that Valentine lived up to his reputation as a fucking idiot, though. At least one of us could find enjoyment in the aftermath, my sadism drinking in his dissatisfaction wholeheartedly.

The bed seemed a bit too warm, now. I sat up. Valentine moved away, both of us remaining awkwardly silent. I took a short shower, putting on my dress after I felt clean enough.

“I love you,” Valentine answered after a long moment, “I would like to have sex with you again, once you are mine.”

I hummed disagreeably. The strings that held the dress together in back had been fully undone. I struggled even more.

“I see you as a casual friend. Once my goals here are done—or if I fail in achieving them—I’m not planning to stick around. Chances are we won’t meet again.”

A hand wrapped around my throat. My hands reached out as I was slammed into the end of the bed. Valentine’s expression was intense, eyes glowing with power.

“I will not allow that,” Valentine denied, voice holding a dangerous edge to it.

… This guy was gonna be pissed when the Demon King killed me. Or, wait. Didn’t I already die? That would mean Valentine would definitely just revive me again.

An idea came to me. Wait. While he was acting a bit sus, he was still technically my ally, right? Instead of continuing this argument and mentioning stupid sayings like if you love it let it go, why don’t I just change the subject?

I could tell him the threat the Demon King posed to me. Actually, I could probably tell Desmond too, now, so long as I told him not to use the information against me, right?

That way I could have at least some protection, and they would have the forewarning needed to react if the Demon King appeared.

“Yeah, whatever,” I dismissed, knocking his hand off of my throat, “I kind of forgot to mention this earlier, but uh by the way, for your information, before I forget—“

“What?” Valentine snapped.

I awkwardly cleared my throat, slightly embarrassed. How did I just not think of this before? If he loved me, at the very least he would protect me from others.

But he might try killing the Demon King! I didn’t want that. Well, wait.

Both he and the Demon King were one of the last ten. They’d already tried killing each other, they just failed. So this was safe, right?

“The Demon King is maybe-sort-of-kind-of gonna kill me the next time he sees me,” I mentioned, “Anyway, can you help me with my dress?”

“What?”

“My dress, can you help me with it?” I turned around.

“No, not that,” Valentine dismissed, turning me back to face him, hands on my shoulders, “The Demon King?”

I sighed, frowning up at the man. He really couldn’t get the hint, could he? More annoyance filled me.

I shouldn’t have relaxed my guard around him.

“Anyway, I would like to be reclothed. And not just walk around titties-out. Though I suppose I could—”

My idea—and my thoughts—shorted out as Valentine’s lips met mine. His hands tangled into my hair, fingernails clawing down my neck and back as a noise of frustration escaped him. Pulling away from me, he rested his forehead against mine, closing his eyes.

“Have I ever mentioned how ungodly frustrating you are?”

“Yus,” I answered rotely, “You do that quite a lot, actually. Mostly every time I make a decision, but sometimes when I’m not doing anything. Actually I think everyone does. Kinda confusing whenever it happens, you guys should explain why—”

Magic reached out, vocal cords suddenly lame and throat forcibly relaxed. My nose scrunched. Rude. I stuck my tongue out at him.

“So you—…” Valentine’s eyes opened.

Before I could retract my tongue, Valentine’s own tongue reached out. My face was burning as he shifted back after capturing my lips again.

“Childish. How old are you? Not older than five, certainly,” Valentine insulted.

I tried speaking, pouting when I found I couldn’t. Reaching out, my arms wrapped around his neck, dragging him closer.

I pressed my lips to his. Bastard, I mouthed against his lips, drawing back.

His quietly mournful expression that he’d had since I’d told him I didn’t love him had changed. His expression was shocked, face red like I’d just stolen his first kiss.

My eyebrows raised at the sight. What, really?

“Bastard…” Valentine breathed, repeating the movements my mouth made.

His expression turned pained when he heard the word I’d made.

“You really, truly have no shame, do you?” His voice was soaked in angst, but I found it very hard to care.

My lips twisted up. I tilted my head, eyebrows still scrunched together. What did he think? My actions alone should show how little I cared about whatever happened in this body.

“I… want you…” Valentine said, head bowing.

He shook his head, an irritated expression replacing his pained one. He glared up at me, his silencing magic dropping.

Valentine’s words were clipped and sharp, “How long have you known the Demon King was after you?”