"But what promise has he been harping on about since earlier."
Mediating the quarrel of a teenage boy and girl had drained me so much that my thought circuits were spinning slow.
"What promise, exactly..."
And the instant Varen’s gaze dropped to my lips, the emergency light switch flipped up.
"Wait. Wait, Varen—"
"You said if I waited quietly, you’d give me a kiss when you came back."
"..."
"I kept the promise. Why aren’t you keeping it. Don’t tell me you lied to me again? You promised you’d never deceive me again. Why do you keep breaking promises?"
When did he get this good at talking. No—wrong focus.
This was not the time to be lulled by a dragon’s smooth patter.
Right, I remembered. I’d said it myself an hour ago—that if he waited quietly, I’d give him a kiss.
A man’s word is as good as gold... But that was when Varen was in dragon form. I hadn’t expected him to Humanize without consulting me.
I hadn’t sorted my thoughts when Varen strode forward.
"Aaagh! Stop right there! Don’t come closer!"
I instinctively backed away. Every step Varen took forward, I took two back.
But maybe because our strides were different, the distance didn’t open easily.
"I waited quietly. I didn’t kill, I didn’t set anything on fire."
"Y-yeah, good job. I said good job, didn’t I? That’s why I patted your head!"
"What you promised was a kiss."
Any way I looked at it, hearing a mountain of a man put the word “kiss” in his mouth gave me chills.
While I ran from Varen coming straight on, before I knew it I bumped into the cabin. At the feel of wood against my back, the hairs rose to the top of my head.
"Wait, Varen. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry."
Thud. Varen planted one hand on the cabin wall.
Cornered at last and even given a wall slam, I no longer had the room to mind the other party’s feelings.
In the end I squeezed my eyes shut and shouted. Without meaning to, my true feelings burst out.
"Aaah! I hate it when you’re human!!"
"..."
Why no answer. Don’t tell me he was actually hurt.
In the quieted air I cracked one eye. Varen’s expression had frozen cold.
"Why do you hate it."
So he wasn’t hurt—he was mad.
I curled up my whole body and clutched my pounding left chest. I had kissed Varen while he was Humanized, but that was when the innocent monster didn’t know what it meant.
"I’ll do it when you’re a dragon... when you’re in dragon form."
"I want to do it now."
"Gods, why!"
His blue eyes blazed. The clear lake was gone; a gaze full of intent flicked between my eyes and my lips.
"When I’m in dragon form, your lips are too small."
"..."
"They still look small now."
No. At this rate I’d get taken. I could not let my lips be stolen by this pitch-black—no, snow-white—male thing.
I had no chance in a physical struggle, and he didn’t seem likely to listen to reason. What on earth was I supposed to do.
"Ceryl, keep your promise."
I still hadn’t found a sharp solution when Varen’s face drew closer and closer.
I pressed myself to the wall as much as possible, but there was nowhere left to retreat. At the closed distance I could now feel Varen’s breath.
The hot exhale whitened my brain. No clever trick came to mind to escape this bind.
What do I do. At this moment, why did Kallen’s words pop up. Would a real dragon faint if I punched him on the nose?
But even looking at it, if I hit that sculpted bridge of his nose I’d only wreck # Nоvеlight # my own hand. So I started to lift a clenched fist, then opened my palm.
"Mm."
And right before docking with Varen, I clapped both hands over my mouth. By a hair, Varen’s lips landed on the back of my hand.
Maybe the sensation wasn’t what he wanted, because he knit his brows. In the blue eyes meeting mine over my palm, sorrow and gloom swam.
"...Do you only like my dragon form?"
Yes. Sorry, but yes.
If I answered like that I might make him cry, so I nodded vigorously only on the inside.
Even so, Varen read my refusal and, with a sulky face, moved away from me. Only then did I let out the breath I’d been holding.
"That’s too much. The form is different, but this is me too."
A pouty tone that didn’t match the looks and size and, above all, the low voice.
But that tone was exactly what shrank the gap between Varen’s true body and his Humanization. Short, awkward, childlike in its own way.
"Of course I know. You’re still Varen now."
"Then why do you only kiss me when I’m a dragon."
Up until a moment ago I’d been the one under threat, but somehow it felt like I was the one who had to apologize.
Honestly... I wanted to grab him by the collar and tell him to stop being creepy. I really didn’t want to see an adult man deflated because he didn’t get a kiss.
But precisely at times like this, one should show an adult’s generosity.
"Varen, don’t take it so hard. Okay?"
"Why do you dislike this form?"
"Hey, who said I dislike it. That’s not it."
"..."
"But a kiss is a bit much."
At that firm refusal to the end, Varen’s shoulders drooped. Even folded in half they were as big as a door, so it didn’t make him look that pitiable.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand Varen’s confusion. When he was a dragon I’d smacked kisses on him with all the who’s a good boy, my baby energy.
But that was human-to-monster. Human-to-human was different, wasn’t it.
In the present or the past, I wasn’t the affectionate type to begin with. Realizing that, I felt unfair inside.
In my life I’d never been this kind and given this much closeness to an adult man.
I almost got put on probation for being rude even to my major professor. On clinical rotations I constantly got complaints from male guardians.
"Hey, but I’m aggrieved too. Do you even know how gentle I am with you? I don’t do this with other men."
What I blurted in irritation sounded a bit odd even to me.
Luckily, Varen didn’t catch the skeevy nuance. He still glared at me with wounded eyes.
"You’re gentle with other males."
"I meant human men. I’m good to monsters regardless of sex, that’s all."
"I’m a monster too."
"Who doesn’t know that? But right now you’re in human form."
"How different is that."
Does he not look in mirrors.
The elegant golden dragon and the just-big human body were heaven and earth apart.
His forced insistence didn’t communicate. With that childish way of speech that bit the tail of every sentence, I threw up my hands and feet both.
"Right now you don’t have a tail, a tail."
"Tail?"
"Yeah. I like ones with tails. Okay? Can we be done now?"
I met childishness with childishness. Ending the nutritionless conversation, I turned my body. Even an hour would do; I just wanted to go into the cabin and take a nap.
Then a voice of dogged persistence that knew no giving up pinned my feet.
"So having a tail is all it takes?"
Fatigue and irritation overlapped and my head throbbed.
Why was he being so annoying today. Maybe I should’ve just given him one hot kiss and gotten it over with.
Scratching my head hard, I looked back. Varen was standing stock-still with a strangely grim air.
"...What are you doing."
He was so unpredictable that tension rose on its own.
But Varen didn’t move at all. He just stared holes through my face. It looked like beams might shoot from his eyes any second.
Or—was he casting a spell? Well. If it was Varen, he’d do a thing like that and more.
With a dragon who didn’t look before he leaped, I had no idea what he’d do to me. Better a single kiss than getting hit with some weird magic—that was the conclusion I reached.
Fine then. It’s not like lips wear down. I’d think of it as a headbutt and smear once.
"Alright. Once, okay?"
"..."
"But it doesn’t have to be the lips, does it. Right?"
But contrary to my resolve, as I got closer to Varen my instincts recoiled.
A kiss on the back of the hand is supposed to mean respect. Couldn’t he compromise at that level.
While I was going over the meaning of kisses by body part, suddenly I felt a sensation on my back both unfamiliar and familiar.
"...Huh?"
It felt like a thick boa slithering. Yet even so, through my clothes the sensation was cold and damp.
It was the very feeling I’d had hours ago on the slide, on the plane.
"Varen... what is this?"
A golden tail came from behind Varen’s back, swung half a circle, and wrapped around my waist. Even after that it had length to spare; now it slithered up my chest on the opposite side.
The feel and shape were familiar, but the size wasn’t what I usually saw. It was a dragon’s tail matched exactly to a Humanized body.
"You... what on earth is this..."
It was truly one shock after another. Without knowing it, both my hands began to tremble.
The tail crawling over my body moved slowly. It felt like a spark of current ran through every place it touched.
"You said a tail was all it takes."
Varen pulled me close with his tail. Then, face flushing as if embarrassed, he asked in a voice that lacked confidence:
"Is it too small, so you dislike it?"
"You..."
"I can still give you a plane ride."
Varen’s words didn’t reach my ears. Right now I couldn’t focus on senses like hearing. Every single cell was fervently responding to touch.
The thing that had been creeping by itself jumped into my arms, and I grabbed it in both arms so it wouldn’t slip.
"You—you! If you could do this, you should’ve brought it out sooner!"
A dragon tail that fit perfectly in one embrace. Madness.
I gently kneaded a dragon tail as thick as my thigh. When the size had been big, I’d only felt the scales; holding it in one hand, I could feel every muscle twitching sensitively.
At that ecstatic, lovable sensation my eyes closed of their own accord. I stroked the tail-feathers that had shrunk along with it. My breath grew rough without me noticing.
"Ha... haa..."
In the past he would’ve snapped at me not to grope him. Now, maybe because he’d grown used to my touch, Varen meekly offered up his tail.
And in a voice brighter than a moment ago, he asked:
"It’s not too small?"
"No? Smaller is better? Though big is nice too."
"I’m glad it pleases you."
"It’s cool and fits right in my arms... It’s like a bamboo-wife."
"A wife you were parted from?"
