Chapter 530: Harsh Punishment
For some reason, I was feeling kind of strange... except it wasn’t like the physically inhibiting type of feeling. It was more of a... sentimental type of vibe, a profound sort of emptiness inside.
For all intents and purposes, I just saved a life, didn’t I? So why does everything still feel the same? Aren’t heroes inherently supposed to feel good after saving the day?
Either that was just a big lie, or maybe I ain’t feeling as much of a hero as I thought would. I saved Harry, but in retrospect, was that really all I wanted from it, or in the midst of my nobility... was I just trying to prove a point?
The things I’ve asked, the lengths I went through, was I doing it all to save him, or did I do them because I simply wanted to think that I could? To have that assurance, to gain that level of confidence?
If so, then makes sense the endorphins and euphoria weren’t hitting me when they should. And as for proving a point, I almost just died myself – twice. Where’s the point in death?
Something of this caliber happens again, and knowing my life as is, it surely will happen again... I don’t have that assurance, that confidence. This happens again, I might not be so lucky.
On the other hand, I might just be reading too much into this, and apparently, my body did too, because it popped these thoughts from my mind like bubbles using a pounding headache as its needles, and for a moment I rested my eyes – only to then open them again once more to a pleasant surprise in store.
.....
I saw – the rays of the sun caught in her snowy hair, basking in her in a glow almost ethereal, donned in a long dress that matched the deep shade of green in her unblinking stare... like a sort of winter flower that’s blossomed as the most beautiful one in its meadow.
For a moment, I thought my brief shut-eye had actually turned into a full-on slumber, because surely there’s no way she wasn’t a dream... but in reality, as that lovely flower slowly shuffled closer, Ash was just simply above and beyond even the best of daydreams.
Speechless, reactionless, as she absentmindedly set a tray of food aside at the bedside that I only just noticed. It was as if she couldn’t quite yet comprehend what she was seeing in front of her very eyes. Maybe she was thinking like me, maybe she thought she had to be dreaming too, in which case... guess I’m gonna have to wake her too.
“Hey...” my face muscled wouldn’t listen, skewered my already ugly smile. “Long time no see.”
Suddenly, I heard her audibly gasp – letting out a large breath I didn’t even know she was holding in, and quicker than I could blink, she flung her arms around my neck, tossing her entire body at me, with the bed sharply groaning under the sudden stress of our combined weight.
She still wasn’t saying anything – she just held me, continued to hold me – like a warm soft blanket to the senses, Ash smothered my sight, enveloped my touch. The suppleness of her skin around me, the silky locks of her hair flowing everywhere. She was still audibly breathing, relishing every breath in the proximity of me... and it’d be a little creepy, if it weren’t so endearing.
The last she saw of me, I was stable and breathing, with her monitoring closely. I can’t even imagine her reaction realizing I was gone and knowing what I had done.
Days of worry, stress – and just not to her either. All that to prove a point I couldn’t even prove sufficiently. Hearing her now, struggling to stifle back a raging flood of emotions from flowing, feeling her arms, her fingers trembling... I don’t even know if it was even worth it anymore.
Her embrace seeped back into some newfound strength, and slowly I manage to lift my arms up enough to wrap them around her, and every flare of guilt, had me clinging to her even tighter.
Then, in the midst of our silent intimacy, I felt something poke me in the seams of her hair, and digging about, I plucked out a stray bit of stray entangled in her many locks. The smell of dirt was also quite prevalent lingering about her, which answered the question as to why she wasn’t the first thing in my sight when I regained consciousness again.
“You’ve been helping Dad out in your spare time, I see...” I said, mumbling through a thick clump of her hair.
She kept her face buried between my neck and shoulder, even as she whispered her answer, “In your place.”
In my place, huh? Guess Dad’s been meaning to put me to work since I’ve been out... probably as a means for me to make up for causing such a scene.
“You should be mad at me, you know?” I said to her. “You’re allowed to be mad. I won’t be mad if you’re mad.”
But that only earned me a strong tickling sensation as she fervently shook her head, “I refuse.”
“I deserve it.”
“Perhaps,” She said. “But I refuse.”
“Why not?”
“Because I sense, that if you’re insisting that I must... then it means you must already loathe yourself plenty.” Ash shifted, pulling back a bit, meeting my gaze with only mere inches to spare between us. “I did not come here to resent you, I will not give you the reprimands you seek. I’ve only come to do as I wish... and right now, I wish for nothing more but to simply hold you in my arms.”
Once again – I just have to ask how? How does she do it? I’m practically empty of morale, and here she comes within mere seconds to lift my spirits up high every single time... even when she really shouldn’t.
“Not even a bit?” I pushed a little bit. “I feel like you should at least do something.”
Ash just smiled, her emerald eyes sparkling bright. “Very well,” she said, then in a blink, buried herself around me once again, somehow clinging on even tighter than before. “Then I suppose, you can consider this my form of punishment to you, if you wish.”
Ahh, this girl... seriously...
“Fine, then,” I said, relaxing my body to her embrace. “Guess I’ll just bear with it for as long as I can.”
“Do your best... Master,” She muttered. “I suspect I’ll be here for quite some time.”
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