Kairos could tell what Nicole had been trying to do because of his future vision. Though, he decided not to show any clear resistance, even if that was what he felt in his mind.
And as such, he was easily dragged into the bed with Nicole, who promptly hugged him tightly. Kairos didn’t immediately hug back, but it seemed like Nicole didn’t actually mind all that much. She hooked her chin onto his shoulder and closed her eyes, and let out a soft sigh.
Kairos felt a little uncomfortable, for multiple reasons. One of them being that he felt uncomfortably hot. By now, all of the cut wounds on his body had sealed up to become thin scars. The only place that was still injured was where Nicole had pulled up his flesh. However, despite being mostly healed, it seemed like a byproduct was the heat released.
Though, before he could even think about complaining, Nicole acted on her own, casting the frost spell. A thin blanket of ice covered them, before gradually melting away. Now it was a little damp, but the uncomfortable heat had disappeared.
The two of them didn’t really talk.
Nicole was content with just being near him, letting out soft breaths. Kairos couldn’t see, but she had a slight blush on her cheeks. After a few seconds, despite already being right next to each other, Nicole tightened her grip a little more, pressing against him tighter.
Kairos felt especially strange this entire time.
There was a part of him that decided to accept this, and it did feel somewhat nice. However, there was also a part of him that was absolutely disgusted with it. The conflicting emotions were honestly quite the hassle to deal with, making him want to get out of this situation.
But that would be quite unfair to Nicole. Especially considering she basically saved his life not too long ago.
In the end, what he settled on was waiting for Nicole to fall asleep, after which he would get off and sleep in the other bed. Unfortunately, it seemed as though she wasn’t going to do so any time soon.
Nicole gradually relaxed her grip slightly, but then wrapped her legs around his before tightening once more.
Kairos was on the verge of speaking out. A part of him was begging him to say something to stop Nicole. He really wasn’t used to this kind of intimate contact with other people, especially because of the… soft feeling against his chest.
The discomfort was essentially at an all time high.
However, in the end, he shut the idea of saying something down fast. He recognized that if it wasn’t for Nicole, he would’ve probably given up on living a long time ago. Though Kairos looked to be as cold as steel and extremely resilient, the fact was he was actually pretty fragile.
If Nicole was gone… he would probably break apart.
Kairos didn’t think he would throw some kind of tantrum, or start sobbing. But rather, he would probably feel empty.
Because he didn’t know if he could find some other reason to live.
Even going through extreme amounts of pain and constantly dancing on top of the edge of a knife wasn’t enough to even phase him. Yet, that one weakness would cause him to collapse immediately.
It was almost like he was Hercules and Nicole was his Achilles Heel.
This wasn’t actually something he knew back then. It was only something he came to slowly realize just recently. Kairos couldn’t help but wonder how he would react if Nicole actually did die back then.
He would probably continue going on as he had been before, but as time passed, it would probably become more and more dull. Until eventually, he wouldn’t even care to fight anymore.
Maybe he would even die without knowing what caused that lack of motivation.
With all of those thoughts running through his mind, Kairos just couldn’t shake her off or tell her to calm down. In the end, he even gently placed his hand on her back with his own hand, before closing his own eyes.
Yet, despite having that sort of conviction, he still couldn’t help but feel resistant once more. Because the moment he placed his hand on her back, Nicole began to squirm. Almost like she was restless, she would constantly adjust the positioning of her limbs and shift her body around.
It was perfectly normal to feel uncomfortable in certain positions, especially if it was one where the person in question was entangled with someone else. That was what Kairos thought. However, Nicole kept squirming, doing so for far longer than anyone would reasonably need.
He didn’t know if it was just him imagining it, but Nicole seemed to be purposely rubbing against his skin. Kairos couldn’t help but furrow his brow.
…For some reason, he felt his pride was being attacked, though he wasn’t sure how. If he had to put it into words, he didn’t really feel like a person right now, but more like a tool.
As for Nicole, her breaths were gradually getting a little deeper.
Then… they became a little louder.
In fact, the rate that Nicole was rubbing against him was gradually getting faster, which made Kairos so uncomfortable, he considered killing himself for a brief instant.
Nicole’s breathing also seemed to match that increased speed, while her body began to heat up.
Kairos had a small suspicion of what was going on, but decided to block that possibility out of his mind, decided to try and give her the benefit of the doubt. However, as Nicole began to get rougher and rougher, he soon began really being unable to stand it.
He had to experience it all twice, after all.
Soon enough, Kairos couldn’t take it anymore, and was about to push her off.
…But then Nicole suddenly stopped.
Her entire body relaxed, though she was still retaining her grip around him. However, it seemed like she had calmed down, as her breaths suddenly became quite light.
Kairos was wondering what was going on, but then heard a very faint snoring sound. One that almost seemed like a gentle gust of wind passing by, gently caressing everything it touched.
This was a sound he was somewhat familiar with from the times they had sleepovers.
Nicole had suddenly fallen asleep. It seemed that exhaustion had quickly caught up to her, making her suddenly lose consciousness. Now realizing that she was no longer awake, Kairos calmed down considerably.
He then thought about how he could tactfully pull away without waking her.
…But despite the fact she was asleep, Nicole had coiled around him like she was a snake. If he cared about her sleep, then there wasn’t much he could do. And even if she wasn’t really wrapped around him, he was also feeling quite sleepy.
If he really wanted to, Kairos could probably remain awake simply due to his high stats. However, the exhaustion from Nicole seemed to be contagious, making Kairos also feel quite tired.
He became quite lazy, not really wanting to get up anymore.
Even the discomfort he felt from Nicole gradually began disappearing. He didn’t really recognize Nicole as another person right now, but rather just a soft and warm pillow.
Kairos found that his arms naturally wrapped around her, while his mind was gradually swallowed up by the vortex known as sleepiness.
…
He had a dream.
It was a memory from his younger days. There was a time when he had lost his glasses, which were really important to him. He ended up spending a long time searching for it, and the entire time, his headache gradually worsened. That combined with the gradually rising anxiety nearly made him feel like he was dying.
His resilience to strain his future vision brought back then was still quite a bit worse than it was now. However, the kid Kairos from back then continued to search for those glasses for hours, even when night started to come.
He attempted to close his eyes to reduce the stress slightly, but closing his eyes meant that he couldn’t search. Because of his anxiety, he kept that to a minimum.
Kairos wanted to get home as fast as possible, but also didn’t want to give up on the glasses. These conflicting emotions made him do quite stupid things.
In the end, he wasn’t able to find his glasses even after the sun had set.
Kairos knew that was past his bedtime, but he was unwilling to go back without the glasses. That only made his anxiety rise even higher, and without the sunlight, it would be even harder to search for them.
While relying on the light coming from the occasional lamp post on the street, he searched. He continued to search again and again.
But in the end, the large amounts of pain caught up to him.
By the time he realized he should just go home anyway, he was far too dizzy to walk all the way back. Nonetheless, he attempted to do so. Unfortunately, after just three steps, he blacked out, probably collapsing to the floor quite painfully.
When kid Kairos felt himself waking up, he felt really warm, along with a few weak rays of sunlight brushing against his face. However, there was also a strong sense of despair inside him, as he felt the glasses he had lost getting farther and farther away.
As he gradually came to his senses, he realized that he wasn’t in the middle of the street, where he had passed out. In fact, he wasn’t even in his own room.
Rather, it was Nicole’s room.
He tried to get up, but realized there was some sort of weight pressing against him. When he looked, he saw Nicole. She had collapsed on top of him out of exhaustion, and in her hand, was a very familiar pair of glasses.
Kairos reached out to the glasses, and gently tugged on them. However, despite being asleep, Nicole still kept a tight hold on them. He couldn’t help but smile bitterly in response to that.
After seeing that, he placed his head down on the pillow once more and held onto Nicole’s free hand before going back to sleep.
He later found out that Nicole had called his parents, telling them he was having a sleepover, getting him out of trouble, and spent nearly the entire night searching for his glasses on his behalf.
His dream gradually faded as Kairos began to wake up.
Though, there was a really strange sensation that he felt while waking up. It caused him great discomfort, though he didn’t really get what it was.
As Kairos gradually came to, he then realized what was happening.
Nicole… was feeling his chest, just like how a lecherous pervert would. She was so into it, that she didn’t even notice that Kairos had already awakened. Her gaze was fixated on that part of him, almost like a magnet.
Kairos stared at her, unable to find the words for a good amount of time.
On the other hand, Nicole wasn’t speaking either. Because she was focused on doing something else. Her cheeks were flushed, while her breathing was abnormally heavy.
After several minutes of that, she eventually seized up. Then, she slowly raised her head to meet Kairos’ gaze. It took her quite a long time to notice that he was awake, but despite the fact, she still had her hands pressed against him.
Kairos blinked a few times.
“Isn’t the guy supposed to be the person that does that kind of thing?”
Nicole blushed even harder.
“…W-Well, then I guess you can do it in return.”
Kairos’ eyelid twitched.
“Uh… no thanks.”
Nicole didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but suddenly… squeezed his chest a little.
“Are you sure?”
Kairos sighed.
“You really are a pervert, aren’t you?”
Nicole let out a weak cough.
“Well… maybe a little…”