novel
| ← Ch.066 | Ch.068 → |
After escaping from Twins's weird plot, SoYoon headed to Heart's house. When she stepped foot inside his office, Heart immediately held her, removed her mask, and massaged her lips with his.
"Your lips seem to be a bit more swollen than the last time I saw you?"
Instead of answering, she took off her sword without removing it from the sheath and handed it to Heart. Heart removed the sword and found it battered and dinged.
He had a habit of not letting anyone in when SoYoon came over so he stepped outside, handed the sword to his men and returned back to the sofa placing SoYoon on his lap.
"You got hurt here yesterday."
He reassured her that it was just a small scratch and changed the subject. His large hot hands wrapped around her face.
"Do you have any requests left to fulfill?"
"I don't."
"Really? Then..."
He lowered his head and kissed her lightly. Then his eyes glimmered.
"Stay the night."
His fingers drummed against her back like he was playing a piano.
SoYoon bit her lip as his fingers hit the between her shoulder blades and swept down her spine.
"You answer?"
Heart bit her ear lightly. She flinched at the sound in her ear then after a moment's hesitation, she answered.
"... Okay."
Heart laughed after releasing her ear.
He hugged her then got up and headed toward his desk that was piled with work. They looked to be confidential documents but he showed them to her as if they weren't important.
"I don't think I should be seeing some of those."
"There is nothing in Wonderland that you are not allowed to see, my Whitey."
Heart looked at his papers with his eyes, signed with his hands, and kissed her face all over with his lips. As Heart spent his time busily, SoYoon picked up a novel sitting on the desk.
It was the second installment of a trilogy. Figuring it will be an interesting read after browsing through it, she poked at the left arm wrapped around her waist.
"What, White?"
Heart removed his gaze from the documents and kissed the palm of the hand that was poking him. Then he sucked on the tips of her fingers.
SoYoon removed her hand from his mouth and placed them over her stomach so that he couldn't get at it again. Heart then spun her around and started to kiss her passionately. And so their conversation only continued after several minutes elapsed.
"Where's the first book of this novel?"
"In the bookcase on the far right."
SoYoon unwrapped his arms from her waist and headed to the bookcase. She pulled out the first and third book and came back. He watched SoYoon's actions then when she naturally came back to him, he hugged her and laughed.
"What?"
He placed her back on his lap and shook his head. SoYoon followed where he lead her and leaned on his chest as she opened the book.
When SoYoon lifted her head after finishing the first book, a long time had passed. Heart had already finished all his work and was now watching her with his head propped against his hands.
"You should have told me."
As she mumbled this to Heart, he smiled and pet her head.
"You looked to be concentrating so hard on it. It could have been dangerous if I interrupted."
"I wasn't concentrating that hard."
It hadn't been bad but it was not worth concentrating all her energy on. As he had said, it had been comfortable. Only after meeting Heart's eyes did she realize why. Where she was, she didn't need to be wary of her surroundings.
"It's time to eat dinner so you should stop reading for today. If it was that entertaining, you can come tomorrow and read the rest of it. And you can read the final book the day after tomorrow."
"... I'll pass."
SoYoon answered and came down from his lap. Oh, I failed. Heart, afraid that she would change her mind about staying the night, hurriedly lifted her up and took her to the bedroom where their meal was waiting.
***
Her name was Alice Liddell. But all of a sudden, she had lost her body, her name, and her life. The moment the girl who stole her body had stabbed her, she thought she would truly die.
Right before she took her last breath, however, she felt herself bounce out of her body and fly away to some unknown place. She realized that she had fallen into another body, but that was it. In her 18 years, she had never felt this feeling of heaviness. And although she had regained consciousness, she could not move her body.
It was only after a long time in this new body that the situation changed. Something rough but squishy touched her lips. The heaviness she felt was sucked away to that area. Only then was she able to open her heavy eyelids and start to move.
The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a brown-haired boy. She had been able to glimpse her body thief's memories and figured out the boy's name at once: March.
Alice—although thinking about that girl made her furious, it didn't change the fact that everyone knew her as Alice, and according to her memories, this boy had liked her. And so, she became defensive toward March. Fortunately, he understood her caution as a normal reaction of a girl who had just woken up in a foreign place.
March told her about many things: where this place was, who found her, how she came to be at this house, and how long it had been since she woke up. The thing she felt most relieved about was that the body she was now inhabiting was a corpse.
March didn't know it, but him telling her that made her drastically relax her caution. His sister was also very nice. Dor, finding out that she would fall asleep often, watched over her as if they were sisters.
She didn't have to endure the difficulties that she had anticipated when she had walked into Wonderland in the past. She was able to bury the thorn in her past of her parents' passing and losing her body, and her stiff tongue soon came back to normal. The siblings asked for her name, and she told them a new one. She took one syllable from her original name and her surname and put it together.
"Li, a. My name."
She formed her short name.
After Twins failed at imprisoning SoYoon, they kept circling her, trying to find different ways to get to her. Every time they saw her from afar, however, they could hear her alto voice echoing around their ears.
"Why are you doing this?"
Why couldn't they answer that? They simply could have told her they wanted her. They contemplated their answer because they couldn't figure out the mixed feelings of lust and fear they continued to have whenever they met her. The answer would not come to them, however.
One night as the sun set over the horizon, Dee was loitering around SoYoon's house and saw her returning home. The pale girl was bathed in a pink aura as if she had been dipped into the sunset.
They didn't realize it, but it was the same feeling they had when they had first met her. She disappeared into an alleyway, but their gaze still followed her path.
They neither liked nor disliked the color pink. However, that pink somehow looked different. It was gentler and sweeter and softer. Twins realized what it reminded them of.
"Ah, I must be going crazy." They chuckled at their insanity.
Pink cotton candy—it didn't have any resemblance to that girl. But still, they were unable to resist the temptation to lick, bite, and melt over her body.
They only came back to their senses when they heard a familiar voice from far away. The voice didn't trigger a fond memory, so they weren't feeling particularly good about it.
"Oh? You're that person who was with Rabbit last time."
"Dor!"
Rabbit—with that one word, he remembered where he had heard that voice, and he turned his head toward it. The brown-haired boy and girl and a black-haired girl stood there. The second girl was someone he hadn't seen before, but Twins didn't pay her much attention. Anyone new who entered here usually got killed soon anyway.
"What are you doing? Are you waiting for Rabbit?"
"Hey! I said, come over here!"
"Why? He's a friend of Rabbit."
Friends with Rabbit. He somehow felt offended by that assumption but suppressed his annoyance.
"What are you doing?" Dee bitterly asked her, but Dor smiled and turned to the other girl.
"I'm taking a walk with my brother and Li. Li has to walk a bit slowly because she just woke up. That's what my brother told me."
"I see."
"Rabbit's house is that way. Do you not know the way? Should I take you there?"
Dee looked down at Dor with a strange feeling in his stomach. Her offer to take him to SoYoon's house made his heart suddenly beat faster, however. Would I be able to see her again then? he wondered.
Dee was about to blurt out an answer when he heard, "What are you doing here?"
That voice had been repeating loudly in his head. Twins forgot everything they were doing and stared at White Rabbit. Nothing came into their view except her.
On the other hand, SoYoon came face-to-face with the recently woken up girl for the first time. And although she was hiding behind March's back, she greeted them, warily bowing her head.
"Thank—thank you. I heard you were the one who saved me."
"I didn't do anything great to warrant your thanks."
If she had stirred just a little bit later, SoYoon would have handed her over to Duke alive. So the only thing that truly kept her alive was timing.
| ← Ch. 066 | Ch. 068 → |