Chapter 1142: Vaguely Illegal
If one were ever to wonder what it’d be like to let out a sigh deep enough to empty an entire lifetime’s worth of regrets, then there’d really be no need to look any further, because Killian Nox woke up doing exactly that.
Okay, not an accurate depiction of what had happened, because it went more like this:
To be fair, the first few seconds of his regained consciousness were instead devoted to opening his eyes, discovering that they were still attached to his head, cautiously pinching his own cheek to verify that reality was, regrettably, still functioning as intended, and finally arriving at the deeply unfortunate conclusion that none of what had happened earlier had been a dream after all.
He was lying in a familiar medical bay bed.
Still wearing the exact same pajamas.
"..."
Killian moved like a man whose soul had yet to receive permission to return to his body.
Slowly, painstakingly, he pushed himself upright before reaching for his own hair with both hands, grabbing at it as though he were only one mildly inconvenient revelation away from complete insanity.
Now...
Did he sigh after that?
Ah.
Not quite yet.
Because before he could properly contemplate his life choices, formulate some sort of apology, devise a plan for repentance, or even settle on what kind of penance would be appropriate for whatever cosmic crime he’d apparently committed, he absentmindedly turned his head.
Only to jolt in surprise.
Standing near the doorway was Jax.
The redhead had apparently just returned, dressed in comfortable loungewear with a towel draped around his neck. One hand casually held the edge of the towel as he patiently dried his damp hair the old-fashioned way instead of using a dryer. Then again, considering there was still a Queen Bee happily (hopefully) gestating atop his head, manually drying it was probably the safer option.
At that point, Killian naturally assumed he knew exactly how the conversation would go.
Jax would probably say something like, "Oh, you’re awake."
Or perhaps, "Let me get the others."
As someone who was once a repeat patient and was relatively versed with what that was like, Killian had already decided he’d simply cut straight through the pleasantries, reassure the redhead that he was perfectly fine, and ask him to sit down so he could apologize before discussing what he felt was going to be monumental.
So he did exactly as planned.
"I’m fine, there’s no need to—"
The words stopped midway.
Not because Jax interrupted him.
The redhead hadn’t actually said a single thing.
But somehow, in that brief span of time when he blinked his confusion away, the redhead had already crossed the room and was now kneeling on the floor in front of the bed.
"...???"
To say Killian was surprised would’ve been a tremendous understatement.
That reaction hadn’t appeared anywhere in the conversation he’d painstakingly rehearsed inside his own head.
Unfortunately, what came next made even less sense.
"Damn! I’m really sorry!" Jax blurted out in one breath. "It’s because I’ve lost definition, isn’t it? They’ve been telling me not to do physically intensive activities lately, and I haven’t even been allowed to do sit-ups or push-ups, let alone lift weights...!"
Killian stared.
Sit-ups?
Definition?
Weights?
The young official listened to the stream of increasingly earnest self-reflection with complete bewilderment, wondering exactly how they had arrived at this point.
Who knew how long it took, but it was probably only after some asteroid struck somewhere out in space that the patient, who’d been sitting there in stunned silence ever since waking up, finally found his tongue.
"Wait a minute!" he blurted out. "What are you even talking about?! And why are you even kneeling?!"
Jax looked up at him with an expression so genuinely apologetic that it almost made Killian question whether he’d somehow missed several hours of conversation.
"About earlier," the redhead answered earnestly. "I was trying to apologize for earlier."
"What?!" Killian stared at him in disbelief, putting particular emphasis on his next words. "Why are you apologizing?"
That was the part he simply couldn’t understand.
If anyone should’ve been apologizing, it was him.
He was the accidental voyeur.
The one who could suddenly see things he had no right seeing.
More pointedly, he was the one who’d barged into someone else’s room like a lunatic before promptly passing out in spectacular fashion.
If anything, he ought to be crawling over broken glass or walking across a bed of nails before daring to show his face again.
So why exactly was Jax the one kneeling?
"Because I’ve probably gotten so repulsive that you ended up passing out after just one look!" Jax sighed dramatically before placing a hand over his own face in disappointment. "I just knew it. This is exactly why I asked if I could at least do some light exercises. But no. All I’ve been doing lately is eating."
Killian simply stared.
Repulsive?
Exercises?
Eating?
The normally intelligent son of House Nox looked as though his brain had completely refused to process the sequence of words it’d just received. His mouth hung slightly open while he tried to determine whether this conversation was actually happening or whether he’d somehow fainted again and entered a second dream.
"...Jax."
It took him several long seconds before he finally managed to speak.
"I... genuinely don’t know how to ask this without sounding completely insane." He rubbed at his forehead before forcing himself to continue. "Are you... assuming I passed out because you think your body looks... repulsive?"
Jax nodded with complete conviction and inexplicable resignation.
"Yeah."
He, someone who had always been easygoing even let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Well, what else could it be? I’d noticed there’d been changes, but I honestly didn’t think much of it. Then what happened earlier finally made me realize it’d probably gone too far."
Killian’s expression became impossible to describe.
If someone were asked to paint confusion itself, they probably could’ve used him as the reference.
"No!"
The denial came immediately.
"Where are you even getting any of this?" he demanded. "Who’d possibly find your body repulsive? Better yet, why would anyone even have the right to think about any of that in the first place?!"
There were so many things wrong with that entire line of reasoning that Killian genuinely couldn’t decide where to begin.
Should he first address the fact that he had absolutely no idea how Jax’s mind had managed to travel from Point A to whatever uncharted galaxy this conclusion had originated from?
Or perhaps the more pressing issue was that if Jax, of all people, genuinely believed he’d somehow become physically repulsive, then what exactly was someone like Killian, whose exercise routine had always been dictated purely by survival requirements, supposed to make of himself?
And even assuming there came a day when Jax’s appearance really did change...
So what?
Maybe other people would care.
Maybe some wouldn’t find it to their liking anymore.
But for someone to sincerely believe they owed another person an apology simply because their appearance had changed...
That was just—
Killian’s thoughts caught themselves halfway through an expletive before abruptly changing direction.
Wait.
He said he had noticed there’d been changes.
That...
That was probably the sentence he should’ve been paying attention to.
"What changes are you talking about?"
Really.
What series of events had convinced this absolute dingus that such an absurd conclusion was somehow the most reasonable explanation available?
