“How could that be!?” Grace spoke uncharacteristically loudly, yet still held her ground. “You can contact me at any time! I will always be on the other end to answer! That is the least I can do after you saved… my life…” She sniffled a little as her ears drooped.
She recalled the terrible condition he was in after pushing her out of the way of that large truck. The memory made her feel terrible.
*Pat, Pat.*
Grace: “???”
Cassius’s pats came down softer and more caring as his already kind smile became even kinder. “Adorable you are; a burden you are not,” he said in a voice mimicking a certain green-colored wizened master. “Silly you are being; Not silly you should be.”
Grace’s beautiful face cracked into a wide smile, then outright laughter as she found what he said to be both sweet and unbelievably funny given the serious atmosphere. “...Hah… Yo-You… I-I think I might really like you…! I might like you a lot, a lot!”
Under the peal of uncontrollable laughter and the vexed ramblings of the women still watching him, Cassius was unable to catch what exactly she said.
“I think I might really fight you?” he parroted as best he could. “Is that what you said? But why would you want to fight me…? Maybe it’s because of the sword?”
Flustered, Grace nervously waved her hands in front of his face. “N-No, that isn’t what I said…! J-Just forget all about it! All about it!” Her skin turned as red as a beet as she clasped his mouth with her hands, utterly unaware of their seemingly intimate skin contact.
However, even if Grace herself hadn’t realized what she was doing, the owner of a pair of unusually swirling black eyes discreetly honed in on the hand movements of the meek brown-haired girl.
Bella’s grip on the staircase tightened considerably, nearly shattering it, while her blackened eyes became even darker. Unknown thoughts bounced around inside her head as she put an index finger to her chin.
Unbeknownst to all the die-hard fans gathered around Bella, an evilness tugged at her lips, briefly morphing her face into something overflowing with long-since concealed obsession and possession.
‘...I had assumed the seal placed on his body to degrade his appearance and decrease his ability to lose weight would have lasted until adulthood, but… it seems that is no longer the case… The seal is weakening, which likely means that he will soon regain the unearthly charm that he had as an infant…’
Bella’s eyes swirled dangerously as a black miasma seeped out of her seemingly benign visage. She secretly grated her teeth in anger, her frustration and killing intent growing the more Cassius interacted with Grace.
‘It’s bad enough that the seal I asked my father to place on him is beginning to break, but to also have all these f*ing bitches tainting his presence with their cow tits…!! Damn it!!! My Cassius, near those bitches!! I won’t allow it!!!’
Bella had meticulously planned everything out from the very beginning, even going so far as to conceal her true age and secretly repeat grades. She ensured that not even women with the lowest standards would fall in love with her man. And just as she had followed him to this bookstore and pulled some strings to get a job here, all in hopes of prematurely finalizing their soon-to-be marriage, Cassius’s seal had to go and start cracking!
‘Daddy had promised me that my Cass’s seal would last until he turns 18, but it seems that was all a big fat lie!! Goshdammit!!!’
Bella wanted to race over to the bothersome bitches—especially the cutesy brown-haired one—and slaughter them all. But she knew very well that, even if she used her family’s power to cover up the legal consequences, her husband would begin to see her as some sort of monster. She wasn’t a monster! She just loved him so, so, so much!!
Bella had been stalkin— protecting her husband since he was in diapers, making extra sure that no whores could slip through the net and see the true him. Yet, during the few weeks that she had important business to attend to and couldn’t actively stal— protect him, he had somehow become closely acquainted with a damn vixen!
‘How could this have happened!? When!? I don’t understand why!! After all that I have done to ensure that he becomes mine through marriage and our family’s blood ritual, something like this occurs mere months before he turns 18!?’
Since the very first moment Bella caught sight of baby Cassius when she was but five years old—during a meeting his real father held with hers—she immediately knew that there would be no one else in the world for her. His looks, even as a baby in diapers, were at the level of the gods. Just a flutter of one of his baby eyelashes was capable of inciting mass indoctrination.
It was also because of his appearance that everyone else Bella met in the world looked exactly the same to her—bland and plain.
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The only one for her had always been Cassius, so she pleaded with her father to do away with his appearance, potential power, and anything else that could make him seem appealing. And after the mysterious Adam Steele suddenly disappeared one night, she was finally able to get her wish with the help of her father.
Then came all the many years of planning, which should have led to a happily ever after—
‘Yet, what is all this shit!?’ Bella’s expression became explosively livid as she watched some dumb bitch fawning all over her Cassius. ‘I want to kill her…! He’s mine, he’s mine! I want to kill her! I want to kill her! HE’S MINE!!!’
She was nearly on the verge of losing it!
Her dangerously sharp fangs gleamed under the bookstore’s romantic glow. Yet, before she exploded before the watchful eyes of so many people, she took a deep breath and calmed her twitching face.
‘It was bad enough that my Cassius suddenly got a stepmother and stepsister out of nowhere, but if anyone knows Cassius best, it’s me. And I know he would never attempt anything with family,’ Bella thought evenly, trying her best to assuage her growing fury. ‘But now that his appearance has partially returned, things have changed…’
Black streaks covered her scary face, hiding beneath them two bottomless abysses. ‘...I will truly have no other choice but to… kill them. Every single one of them.’
For but a brief instant, Bella morphed into a vampyric devil capable of eliciting absolute fear from the toughest of morsels. Yet, as quickly as it came, it disappeared just as fast.
After a couple of minutes of conversing with the mellow-toned Grace, Cassius bid her farewell under the promise of taking her out again on their next day off. Bella, of course, saw this but did her absolute best to hold back her anger, instead replacing her livid expression with a friendly one.
With her ‘face’ put on, she made her way back down to the first floor, where she then came face-to-face with her hardworking coworker.
“I see that you have been getting around as of late!” Bella raised her voice as she patted him on the back, causing him to stagger forward, even with the weights on his body weighing him down. “Not only are you lying to me, but you’re even secretly dating a cute girl! You sly dog~!” ‘I’ll kill her.’
Cassius felt something off but couldn't quite put his finger on what that something was. Ultimately, though, he shrugged his shoulders and neutrally replied, “She isn't my girlfriend. We met by chance after my accident, and then we met up afterward to wander around Hoshito.”
“Is that so…” ‘I’ll kill her. I’ll kill her. I’ll bloody kill her!!! Wait… Did he say accident? What accident??’
Approaching this topic as best she could, Bella worriedly asked, “Accident?? Could it be that you got hurt over the last period of time??? Quick, let me see— I mean, since we are on break, I am open to hearing about this incident of yours…” She nearly let a part of her true self slip, yet caught herself just in the nick of time.
Cassius was really starting to feel this ominous, foreboding feeling itching at the back of his brain, but he couldn't quite figure out what irked him so.
‘It’s probably nothing…’
His Perception Stat was not yet high enough to discern every minute detail and change of a crafty person, hence it was only natural that Bella’s nuances eluded him. Yet, to answer her question, he briefly explained to her what happened leading up to his accident and the brief period afterward.
He could’ve sworn that he heard the faint sound of gnashing teeth toward the end of his retelling, but he also seemed to feel an intense unease and worry assault his senses.
Cassius’s first thought was that Bella was directing these barely discernible emotions toward him, but he quickly dismissed that thought as soon as it arrived. He and the school beauty were not anywhere close enough for something like that. Yet that was also when he felt that ominous feeling again.
Taking him out of his thoughts was the crisp, melodic voice of the girl before him. “I am sorry that all happened to you. Just let me know if you require any help from here on out; I will assist to the best of my abilities.”
“Yes…” Cassius replied, a bit of perplexity lingering in his pearl-blue irises. “Thanks for saying that. I will keep it in mind.”
Bella nodded in casual friendliness, then bowed her head slightly and walked away. She went back to conducting her work, whereas he was left standing there, feeling that something was incredibly off about that whole interaction.
Yet, even with extensive contemplation, Cassius was unable to properly articulate his unease.
Meanwhile, Bella stood above a wooden staircase with a mock smile etched onto her beautiful face. Under the gawks of her ‘fans,’ her thoughts blazed into dangerous territories.
‘I will have to kill all the damn vixens! That is the only way I can steer the train back on track!!’
A creepy, malevolent giggle slightly escaped her moist throat. Yet she expertly concealed it with a cute hiccup that sent the hearts of the watching men aflutter.
Ignoring the pestering gaze of a bunch of worms, Bella continued her train of thought. ‘Once the bitches are dead, it will only be me in my Cass’s world…! And with his 18th birthday fast approaching, our marriage and blood contract will be cemented in stone!’
Bella suddenly recalled the matter of his loosening seal, prompting her face to lightly twist in anger.
‘My naive and innocent Cass could fight against the idea of the permanent blood contract, and it is unknown just how much of his power and potential he will regain before he turns 18… Even though I am confident in my strength when compared to all these blood bags, my husband is not like them…’
Bella’s expression briefly emulated her complete infatuation, yet it was quickly overwhelmed by an unhealthy level of darkness.
‘Even if it comes down to it, I’ll just need to force him down and explain everything to him afterward. He will surely understand why I did everything I did as long as I carefully explain it to him…! He must! It’s just me and him in this world, so what I know is something he will understand wholeheartedly!!!’
With his enhanced hearing, Cassius could’ve sworn that he heard an insane peal of laughter resound from somewhere. However, with it disappearing in less than an instant, he had no time to track it back to its source. But with work about to end for today, he decided to cast the inexplicable matter aside and quicken his pace.
His hands flitted across the bookshelves as he hastily grabbed returned books off a cart and precisely placed them in the right spots.
To the onlookers, however, his movements were akin to streaks of lightning dancing to and fro from location to location. They had never seen anything quite like it, as it could only be described as a beautiful symphony of the hands.