Staring at the empty night sky in a light-polluted city was a wonderful pastime. Unfortunately, it was quite a bit more difficult to do from inside a car.

When the trio had found me, standing in the middle of the square, dumbly staring upward, they had thought I’d been brainwashed by aliens. Luckily, I’d managed to convince them I was fine and they stuffed me into the car before driving off.

Kelly, who was seated at the back with me, kept asking me if I was alright the whole trip back. I simply nodded and didn’t say anything. I was too busy comparing a car and a metal wolf as methods of transportation. Honestly, even though the wolf ride was way bumpier, it was just so much more exciting.

God, what was I even thinking about? It could have ended so badly tonight. If Iron Pack had gone ahead with her threat, I would have a throat-sized hole in my throat right now.

But… she wouldn’t do that, right? No, despite being a villain, she was very nice. If I squinted hard enough, I could even reimagine the whole scenario as a prince on a white horse running away with the princess. Sure, the white horse was a wolf made out of iron, the prince was a notorious villainess, and I was a guy and not a princess, but hey… it almost fit… right…?

Okay, I needed to take a shower and sleep this off; my brain was turning into mush. I should have been traumatized, but instead, part of me wished to experience it all over again. Even I could tell there was something wrong with my thought process.

“Hey… are you really alright?” A voice knocked me back into reality.

I turned to face the source and found myself face-to-face with Miranda. We were also back at our apartment already somehow. I hadn’t even noticed when I’d gotten out of the car and walked inside.

“Yeah… I’m good.” I smiled.

For some reason, my smile made her wince though.

“A-are you sure?”

“This is really creepy…” Troy’s comment was really rude.

I frowned at him. “Shut up! I’m fine! I just want to go to bed now. I’m tired.”

“Alright… just… if you need to talk to someone about today, I’m always available.”

I looked at my roomie, dumbfounded. Where had the teasing jerk of a guy gone? Why was he suddenly being so kind? And… talking about things? Since when did guys talk about their feelings?

“Uh, sure. Let me just shower now.” I waved him off.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Alright…”

I went back to my room to take off the Aster outfit; Kelly helped me with the bra again. After I took off everything save for my undies, I found myself in front of the mirror again. I was back to being Cain, the boring old guy. Sure, I still had make-up on, and although a bit smudged, it made my face look kinda cute. But the juxtaposition of my cute face and the rest of my ugly guy body ruined the look.

I felt myself deflate with a sigh. I ignored the sudden surge of negative feelings and grabbed a towel before marching my way to the shower.

Once inside, my mind naturally wandered back to today’s events.

It had all happened because of the selfie, hadn’t it? Yeah, if I’d forgotten about it and ran away, the hostage scenario wouldn’t have happened… and maybe Iron Pack would have been beaten by the heroes and captured in the process. Hmm, I guess I was kinda glad I hadn’t turned back then.

Wait, was I seriously happy that I’d helped a villain escape? Wouldn’t that make me a villain too? Nonono, she might have been a villain, but she wasn’t a bad person. She’d been really nice to me if one ignored the whole kidnapping and threatening to trim my neck thing. She’d even called me cute! Which… uh, since she’d thought I was a girl, that was a good thing, right? Yeah, definitely. Calling a guy like me cute would have been insulting, but since I was posing as a girl, I would consider it a very nice compliment.

Still, I couldn’t get the image of those sharp eyes peering at me through the iron mask out of my mind. It wasn’t scary, it was… enthralling. Oh god, did she have some kind of mind-control powers? No way! She controlled her iron animals, not other people. But then why did I feel so weird when I remembered her? And why did I keep remembering her in the first place?!

I finally finished showering and toweled myself dry before putting on my pajamas. I’d been hoping to drop dead into my bed and push all these thoughts away. Unfortunately, reality worked backwards. These thoughts didn’t let me sleep. I kept tossing and turning and couldn’t shake off today’s events from my head and escape into dreamland.

So I gave up and turned on my laptop instead. But I didn’t feel like playing games or browsing social media. Naturally, that meant I ended up browsing the net for anything pertaining to Iron Pack.

She had an odd modus operandi. She either robbed places without causing much collateral damage or harming civilians, or she outright attacked churches and other religious places and caused a lot of damage without even stealing anything.

There were countless religious articles painting her as the devil’s messenger and whatnot. But that was nonsense, she was a nice person! She must have had a reason for doing what she was doing. Yeah, definitely.

Still, every picture of her made her look so menacing and cool. Oh, this one was shot at a good angle, I should download it. And this one showed her riding on a wolf, her hair splayed in the wind. So beautiful… And this one too… and this one...

Ugh, but these pictures were nothing compared to meeting her face to face. This didn’t cut it, I wanted to see her in real life again. I wanted to look into those sharp and confident eyes… God, I wanted her to tie me up with snakes again and call me cute and --

Wait wait wait, stop! What the hell was I thinking about? My tired mind was going to some seriously dangerous places! Why did I feel like once wasn’t enough?! Why did I want to be kidnapped by her again?!

I grunted, pushed myself away from the laptop, and heaved a heavy sigh. I let my arms flop next to me as I stared at the ceiling.

I took several deep breaths in hopes of calming down, but it didn’t help. I just couldn’t stop my mind from wandering back to the villainess. What the heck was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I shake this off? Why couldn’t I forget this all and go on with my life?

Oh no…

Did I have a crush on Iron Pack?