I froze.
He was In front of me.
Then… ?
[ Technical issues are facing the skill
My breath hitched. That was weird. At the very least, I had guessed the name right. I gave this feature a name without knowing that it was an actual skill. Well, not that I knew skills existed before this. It was completely unexpected. I guess I was overthinking about why I couldn't recognize Eowyn and Danrovenallius. Though, how could the system face technical issues?
" Naomi, you impotent girl…"
He rested his calloused hand on my face. It was scarred as well. His sudden movement caught me off guard. He's being insanely weird. I couldn't even look up to see his face. What kind of expression was he making is out of my reach.
" You're deliberately doing this."
'What is he on about… ?'
" Little Dandelion, you're being strangely weird today."
I pushed him. " Listen, Dan- Danroven… D-Danrovenallius." When I wanted to pronounce his name smoothly, I messed up.
A sharp, loud crack rang out beside my head. It was him pinning me to a wall. His palm lay flat against the cold surface of the wall as he used it as a support means to lean in closer to me, perhaps, to intimidate.
"Very weird." Danrovenallius hummed.
He was unsettlingly scary. Frightening in a way that had nothing to do with strength or size. As if already gnawing his bare canines at my timid flesh which atrociously hurt. I didn't like the way he was leering at me.
***
" this guy… is so good looking." I murmured whilst lying flat on my bed, my chin resting on the pillow. A wistful sigh escaped my lips, I couldn't help but be guilty about being envious of the popular kids at my school. Attractive, sociable and a large number of friends, rendezvous parties and such. " this girl too… "
My fingers glided across the surface of my phone, looking at the recent posts. They all seemed to have a life far more radiant than my own. It was undeniable and futile. Their bone structure, ideal proportions and conventional attractiveness… I believed what I'm feeling isn't just simply envy anymore, it was jealousy. I told myself that if I worked out more I could attain such a build– so, how come I never managed myself to start? It was simply unfair. They were born without any issues, without any worries… probably. Even so, it didn't matter as it was obvious I was simply a spectator; nothing less, nothing more. It didn't matter if I knew the stories of unimportant people. "How despicably unfortunate I am." Even their partners were just as eye pleasing. Just what was I doing wrong?
And suddenly, I started daydreaming. Visions, deliriums, the kind of thoughts one shouldn't entertain yet does, helplessly. I saw it. I saw myself held, embraced, not out of duty or politeness, but with love, real love, the kind that smolders in the chest like a slow-burning coal. A man's warmth, what a strange, improbable notion. And yet, why improbable? Why should such a simple thing seem so distant, so unattainable? But of course, that is why it is called fantasy, because it is not for me.
Not that I was alone…no, I had boyfriends, if they could be called that. Correspondences, promises, spectral affections carried over vast distances, so insubstantial they might as well have been written on water. Always the same pattern: anticipation, longing, then the inevitable cooling. How sudden it always was! Just as I thought we might finally meet, something would shift, an invisible thread would snap, and they would grow distant, indifferent, as if overnight I had become a stranger. Three weeks… three miserable weeks, the measure of my longest relationship. And in those fleeting days, I was the happiest woman alive. Or so I told myself. But there was something off, always off. A hollowness. They weren't attentive, not truly. And yet – what did it matter? Wasn't love supposed to be enough? If they loved me, truly loved me, then surely I could learn to love them in return. Couldn't I?
I wished… ah, how foolishly, how desperately I wished to be held, to be drawn close, to feel, if only for a moment, the warmth of another against my trembling, wearied soul. Not just anyone, no… someone dear, someone whose very presence would quiet the restless storm within me. And then to be kissed, not out of duty or fleeting passion, but with care, with tenderness, as if I were something precious, something irreplaceable. What a dangerous wish it is. For in such a wish lies ruin, the slow, gnawing agony of longing unfulfilled, the cruel jest of a world that grants only glimpses of what it never intends to give. It is truly unfair.
"H-hngh…" A wretched sound escaped me as I clung to the pillow. In my mind's eye, it was not a pillow I held, but a warm lover. Someone who would take me into their arms and let me weep freely, without shame. This thought didn't help at all, only made me suffer more.
Simply put, there was no lover to do that. Only this emptiness, this silence. How unjust it all was. I knew it. I had known it all along. And yet, what did I do? I endured. I swallowed my pride, my hurt, my dignity, hoping, praying in vain that something, anything, would change. That they would see me, truly see me. That one day, without warning, they would turn to me with love in their eyes. Ah, but people do not change for the sake of another, do they? And yet, I remained silent, always silent, as if my silence itself might somehow transform them.
***
Sigh… Must you be so dense with the new lady?"
The voice came from behind, light in tone but dipped in that peculiar blend of mischief. At the same time, I had been drowning in the past. Before I could fully return to the present, I saw Danrovenallius flinch slightly as a hand landed on his shoulder.
"This is a library, Danny." A smirk. I couldn't see it, but I felt it. A smirk in his voice.
'Wait…'
"Lochradan Dorchadais. Who are you to mingle with my affairs?"
There was history here, I could tell. Not the dramatic sort that erupts in battles, but the more dangerous kind. The quiet, resentful, rotting tension between men who know too much about each other.
Lochradan merely chuckled. He was the kind of man who didn't answer questions because he knew silence could do the job twice as well.
'It's… that's the guy who was surrounded by women in the hallway!'
!Notice message!]
[As it was stated that there were some difficulties with
'Haa… one thing after another,' I muttered to myself inwardly, brow furrowing. 'Give me a break, system. Give me at least a moment to think, a moment to breathe. Am I not human? Or have I become some puppet tied to invisible strings, yanked this way and that at the whim of faceless commands? Is that so, huh?' The pathetic system, of course, gave no answer.
Lochradan leaned against the old bookshelf with that insufferable, teasing grin, the kind that seemed stitched into his face since birth. This was my first time meeting him face to face, and I already didn't like him.
"Oh Danny, Danny… You're a naughty boy, aren't ya'? Creating such a commotion in the library?"
He spoke with the carelessness of one who has never had to pay for their words, like a child poking a wounded animal, fully aware of the danger, yet thrilled by the risk.
Danrovenallius turned slowly and deliberately. His voice dropped to a growl, low and contemptuous.
"Shut it with your nonsense. There's no one else here besides us, why would such a thing matter? And to top it off," he gestured toward me, "you think you're doing something by interrupting me and my fiancée's personal talk? Out the door, right this moment."
My head reeled. What was I to do? Where was I meant to stand? Perhaps I was not meant to stand at all, merely to fall. I sighed. 'What a silly thought.'
"Hah, getting bossy already, aren't we? Calm down, Danny…"
"Stop calling me Danny."
"Woah, okay, okay… My apologies, your grace..."
Lochradan raised his hands in theatrical surrender, a lazy smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. His tone was obviously purposefully mocking.
Danrovenallius said nothing, but his glare spoke a lot more. The air between them was thick, tense like the silence before a storm. Neither moved. Neither blinked.
I stood there, caught in the suffocating space between two men whose presence both filled the room and drained it of all warmth. My breath was shallow. I dared not speak.
"Still the same brooding type, I see…" Lochradan said at last, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. "Always so… serious. I wonder how Naomi endures it. Or perhaps she doesn't at all?"
Danrovenallius stepped forward hastily. "Say another word," he said quietly, dangerously, "and I will make you regret it. I have no patience for snakes who hiss in empty rooms."
"Ah," Lochradan chuckled, though there was no mirth in it. "But the room is not empty, is it?" His eyes flicked to me, sharp and unreadable.
"I wonder, Naomi... which of us do you think speaks more honestly?"
Their eyes locked again. And I… I wished I could melt into the floor."I am not interested in such bickering… now, if you excuse me…" My voice came out quieter than intended, thin as breath on glass, but I willed my legs to move nonetheless. I stepped away from Danrovenallius, gently but firmly. His unreadable eyes followed me.
I turned my gaze to the old wooden door, tall and narrow. I took steps forward. The silence behind me pressed hard against my back.
"Naomi," Danrovenallius said finally, his voice low, like a thread being pulled taut. "Do not walk away from me."
I paused, only for a moment. The stillness in the room trembled, and somewhere in it was a choice. I did not turn.
"I said what I meant. This drama, this posturing…it belongs to you two. I want no part in it."
A soft laugh escaped Lochradan behind me. "Well now… that's a surprise. Looks like the lady has a spine after all."
But I didn't look back. I only reached for the handle, turned it and left.
I didn't know the face Danrovenallius made. So why could I feel it behind me like a chill creeping up the spine? And truthfully… I couldn't blame him. If someone you called your beloved turned away with such indifference, wouldn't you feel it too? That quiet, embarrassing sting of rejection? That suspicion blooming in your chest like rot?
"She finally got tired of you, Danny…!"
Lochradan's voice cut through the room like a blade made of sharp laughter. Danrovenallius was restraining himself. Barely.
Lochradan, clearly delighted now,"Couldn't you mess up more?" sneered. "I'd like to see you falling into doom, Danny. Especially that silly little plan of yours… It's not going to work. It was never going to work."
Danrovenallius stood very still. He didn't breathe, not properly. A vein at his temple began to throb, and his fingers curled tightly into fists at his sides. There was a rising urge in him, more animal, more primal. A desire to lunge, to bite, to rip Lochradan's smug mouth off his face and silence him once and for all.
"You did something to her."