Crisis Alchemist-nim

My vision flashed, and by the time what was coming out of my mouth was indistinguishable between words and cries, something of Master’s that had been stirring inside my body finally quieted down.

A movement as if meticulously checking how many wrinkles were etched inside my body.

A feeling like prying open a space that physically couldn’t be entered.

If asked whether it felt good or bad, I would say it felt good… but I didn’t want to experience it again.

“Are you alright?”

“Ah… yes… well.”

“Your face looks like you have some complaint.”

While I was wrapped in a towel and grumbling internally, Master, who was cleaning the bathroom, spoke with a calm expression.

Wrapped around her wrist… What is that? Why is it here?

Anyway. As I watched the vine extending from her wrist wriggle its body, crisscrossing the bathroom floor, I felt a slight shiver…

It was because the thought that it had been moving around inside my body like that crossed my mind.

“…Not really.”

When I replied, feigning calmness and clearing my throat, Master continued cleaning without a word.

Then, from beside me, I heard a quiet, soft breathing sound.

With no strength left in my body, I barely managed to turn my head and look, and there was Cecil, fast asleep.

In my mind, which had gone blank from pleasure, the events that had just transpired began to resurface one by one.

…My face felt a little hot. My ears were also warm, making me wonder if they looked red from the outside.

With words of love whispered, having that, that done to me really… made me feel strange.

When I tried hard to shake my head to forget, a pain surged from my waist.

Enough to make me cry out without realizing it.

Hearing that sound, Master spoke in an awkward voice.

“…I’ll finish quickly, so just bear with it a little longer.”

“Yes….”

As I clutched my trembling waist and buried my face in my knees… I wondered what on earth I should do.

That Cecil’s love was not the love between parent and child… I vaguely felt I knew that.

Or perhaps… it was just the natural arousal that accompanied such an act….

I wasn’t sure how to react.

More than anything, the biggest problem, I thought, was that I currently… had no energy to worry about such things.

‘…How did it come to this?’

I didn’t really… do anything that would make someone fall in love, did I?

On the other hand, even if I hadn’t changed like this… would it have turned out this way?

That thought also crossed my mind.

But my thoughts and memories didn’t continue beyond that.

Because my body, having surpassed its limits, began to lose consciousness.

I, who had blinked my eyelashes a few times, eventually sank into darkness.

When I lifted my heavy eyelids, I saw a familiar ceiling.

A chuckle escaped me at the fact that I had already grown accustomed to it after staying for only a short while, but with the chuckle came a pain from my waist, making my face contort.

In my hazy mind, just woken from sleep, there were no thoughts at all.

Wriggling my body, which still felt a shallow pain from my waist and a sense of exhaustion, I just lay blankly on the soft bed sheets.

I didn’t feel like getting up.

‘Maybe I’ll feel better if I drink some Potion.’

As I attributed it to my body feeling stiff and burrowed deeper into the blanket, the door burst open with a bang!

Pain surged from my startled body, digging into my brain.

“Hieuk!?”

At the same time, Master’s voice was heard.

“…If you’re awake, why don’t you come out? Why are you still like that?”

At Master’s question, I mumbled for a moment.

Saying that my back hurt from the aftermath of ‘that’ and I didn’t want to get up… wasn’t that a bit embarrassing?

Thinking that, in a way, Master also had a considerable share in it, I peeked my head out, and Master cleared her throat and settled onto a nearby chair.

“Well, you must be in too much pain to get up.”

“…Someone who knows so well, why say such a thing unnecessarily?”

“It seems you don’t want to drink the Potion.”

At my grumbling, Master chuckled, and shook a Potion bottle containing red liquid.

Seeing the brilliantly shining Potion, I unconsciously swallowed.

When I poked my head out, I saw that besides the Potion, there was a tray on the table. Steaming soup, salad, bread, and milk were on it.

Master placed the Potion bottle out of my reach, then helped me sit up and lean my upper body against the bed’s headboard.

And then… she picked up a spoon and continued speaking.

“Don’t try to rely too much on medicine. I thought you… should experience that pain, even if just a little.”

“…What are you suddenly talking about?”

“Are you asking because you don’t know?”

With a clinking sound, fragrant soup was offered right in front of my nose.

Master’s nagging also came with it….

“You, treating your body so carelessly-“

“Ah, I get it, so don’t say it! Haeup!”

Since I could guess what Master was about to say, I mumbled loudly, and took the spoon in front of my mouth.

It was vegetable soup with an excellent savory flavor.

‘…It’s not like I wanted to do any of that.’

Still, the soup was delicious, so I found myself sucking on the spoon, slurp, slurp, without realizing it.

As the spoon was roughly pulled away, a long silver string stretched out.

I felt a pain on my forehead.

Master’s pure white hand flickered before my eyes. She had flicked my forehead.

As I rubbed my forehead and squinted my eyes, Master’s scolding poured out.

“…Eat normally, normally!”

“Ah, no, what did I do? Why are you suddenly like this?”

“That… Ah, it’s nothing.”

As injustice welled up and I got angry, Master, with a somewhat troubled expression, tried to gloss over it, then scooped soup into my mouth.

…This time, she didn’t say much, so I deliciously ate the soup, bread, salad, and even the milk.

My body, which had felt exhausted, seemed to regain its vitality.

Master took out a handkerchief, and wiped the crumbs and soup from my mouth.

“How clumsy, spilling it.”

“…Perhaps Master put it in wrong?”

“This one causes a fuss even when fed.”

In the room where a strange atmosphere had somehow flowed, a sense of familiarity began to settle.

Master, who had been handling me carefully, definitely seemed to be doing so when she grabbed the neck of the Potion bottle.

“Su-surely you’re not going to hit me with that, are you? I’m a patient, you know?”

“….”

“Cough, cough. If you do such a thing to this frail body….”

When I said that jokingly, Master’s face took on a strange light. Then, without a word, she opened the Potion bottle and offered it to me.

At Master’s suddenly strange demeanor, I just blinked and took the Potion bottle.

Gulp, gulp, as I swallowed, I felt the pain that had been rising from below gradually disappear.

“…Thank you.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“…Huh?”

“Even though you drank the Potion, your fatigue probably hasn’t gone away, so it would be good for you to rest a bit more.”

“Ye-es….”

Then, she gently stroked my light pink hair, and picked up the tray before standing.

Her face looked like she wanted to ask something more, but Master’s mouth ultimately remained closed.

As Master left the room, silence once again filled my room.

I thought about pulling the blanket over my head and going back to sleep, but perhaps because I had drunk the Potion, sleep wouldn’t come.

And Master’s expression when she left also came to mind.

‘Why that expression…?’

After pondering for a moment and finding no answer, I stretched and got out of bed.

As I slipped my feet into my slippers and stood upright, a tingling sensation rose from my toes and pierced through my head.

As I shivered and shook my head, my now all-too-familiar light pink hair obscured my vision.

I carefully gathered it, tied it with a string that was on the table, then stared blankly at the mirror.

When I subtly lowered my head, I saw handprints remaining on my thighs.

Peong!

It was as if I could still hear the sound in my ears.

To cool my flushed face, I wrapped a casually hung shawl around my body, and opened the veranda door.

As I faced the cool and sticky wind, while catching my breath.

Voices were heard from both sides.

When I looked around, Veronica and Claudia were looking at me from their verandas on either side.

…Even so, the distance was quite far, and because the wind was blowing fiercely, I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

“I can’t hear you well.”

When I shouted that, the two of them went inside.

I, too, despite having come out to cool my face, couldn’t withstand the fiercely blowing wind, and went back into the room, locking the veranda door.

Deolkeong, deolkeong.

Sounds that hadn’t been heard until just now began to be heard.

It seemed the weather had suddenly turned bad.

They say the sea is fickle.

I hadn’t expected the weather to turn bad so suddenly. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to leave the mansion for a while.

Just then, a noisy sound was heard from outside the door.

Following that, a loud knocking sound echoed through the room.

“…Come in.”

I didn’t ask who it was, but somehow I knew.

It was probably the two people who had been calling out from the verandas on either side.

With my voice, the door burst open, and faces I had expected appeared. Of course, there was also a face I hadn’t expected.

Veronica, Claudia, and… Cecil were standing there.

“What’s going on with all of you suddenly?”

“You, you were outside on the veranda in this weather, so….”

“Me too.”

“I came because I wanted to see Asha-nim!”

“…I see.”

I nodded and looked at Veronica. She seemed to have recovered completely from her illness, as her complexion looked good.

“Veronica, how’s your pain?”

“Uh? Uh, yeah. Thanks to your concern, I’m fine now….”

Looking again, it seemed she still had a slight fever.

As I shuffled over and sat on the bed, the three of them closed the door and came into the room.

…I wondered if it was too noisy for the morning, but I wouldn’t be able to go out anyway.

And it wasn’t a particularly bad feeling.

I waited for them to settle into chairs and on the bed respectively.

Then Cecil came running over, dododo, and hugged me, laughing.

“Asha-nim!”

“Uh, yeah.”

My face felt a little hot because of what happened yesterday, but I tried to reply calmly.

But then… at the words that followed from Cecil’s mouth, my body stiffened.

“Now… have Cecil and Asha-nim become lovers?”

“What?”

“What are you talking about?”

Towards my stiffened face, Veronica’s and Claudia’s gazes pierced.

I felt cold sweat trickling down my back.