I am so terribly sorry for taking so long to update. I am currently burning up with a fever, and I don't exactly have that much free time to do this so I decided that I'll leave you guys with this long chapter until the next time I update. And I'm breaking my curfew right now, so I'm sorry that I can't reply to the reviews.

Enjoy.

You know that feeling when you don't feel tired but the second you lay down on your bed, your whole body just begs you to go to sleep?

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt the minute the door closed behind Usui. Only the fatigue that I felt probably exceeds any that any of you have ever felt before. Because, chances are, you never had your hands and legs bonded before.

And you probably never had a – I'll admit it – really attractive guy harass you – yes, that, I consider, as a sexual harassment – on a king-sized bed, under a thick comforter, with you barely clothed.

Anyone wants to correct me?

No, I don't think so.

So when I finally settled down to sleep – I placed myself on the very edge of the bed, on the off chance that Usui would come back and sleep on the same bed as I was – it really wasn't that hard to close my eyes and wander off to my dreamland.

Which consisted of me, draped in a sleeveless dress so fancy and exposing that I felt like a princess, sitting on a bench, canopied by branches and leaves so thick that it provided me with no light whatsoever to see who I was sitting with.

Beside me was a man's silhouette in clothing that looked like mine, only male version.

My white-horse-riding, heart-twanging prince charming, I thought.

He was saying a bunch of nonsense about how beautiful and graceful I looked, and my mouth moved, complimenting him back with words I never knew existed.

It was a beautiful scene, really it was. It was not the first time I had dreamed about it, but I don't usually brag about dreams like that.

When I was young, my dad used to tell me stories about how one day I would meet my 'one true love' and how he would be the best man on earth, just like himself. My dad, I mean.

Yeah, apparently, the best man on earth thought that leaving his wife and two daughters isn't an immoral thing to do.

Then my mom, who had always been there when my dad told me the story, informed me that my destined lover wasn't going to be like him at all, after he left us. Which, if you think about it, wasn't all that comforting, since I bet my mom's mother had told her that before.

But it was only when I had turned sixteen that I finally realized how desperate I was for a man. I mean, yeah, I was hostile toward men and I place no trust in them, but that didn't mean that I wasn't longing for the time where a guy would caress my cheeks, whispering soothing words in my ears while I sleep.

Okay, that sounds creepy. But… whatever.

So that was what my prince charming did in my dream.

He placed my head down onto his lap, his fingers dancing around my face gently, like silk being dragged through the wind. He whispered promises of how he would make 'our love' work and that we would have each other, forever. For a second, I felt like I was in heaven.

A gentle breeze strolled by, and my hair got blown. I didn't care about my hair sticking on my face, he was going to scoop it up and tuck it behind my ear, anyway.

Only, he didn't.

Instead, I felt him tug under my dress – my sleeveless dress – and my eyes popped open.

Only when I opened my eyes, I didn't see a silhouette of the same guy who had lent me his lap to lay my head on. You know who I saw?

You guessed it: Usui.

"Gah!" I shoved him away from my face and rolled sideways, away from him.

Usui quickly straightened up, both of his hands up – the universal sign to saying 'whoah-chill-dude-I'm-not-going-to-do-anything' – and quickly backed away like I was on fire.

"What," I demanded, "are you doing?"

"I was trying to change you into a dress. You were shivering like crazy. And your fever isn't going down, either," he said.

Was he out of his freaking mind?

"What, you were planning to change a member of the opposite sex, without their permission, when they are asleep?" I yelled at him, my hands over my chest to calm my pounding heart. "What are you? A… a…" I was going to say rapist, but I didn't want to risk being sexually harassed again, so I said, "An ignoramus with frail and miniscule intellect?"

How's that for vocabulary, huh?

He squinted at me, his face evidently saying, "What does that mean?"

Or I hoped it was what the expression was saying, anyway.

"No, I believe I am not an uneducated man with tiny knowledge."

Well, so much for my expression-reading.

"Couldn't you just wake me up? Like how any other people would do?" I asked, and not in a very feminine way, either. "Because you definitely, without a doubt, have no knowledge about a female's personal space. And how you are invading mine."

"Look," he said, and it was only then that I realized how tired he looked. He had shadows under his eyes and the tone he was speaking in wasn't a bit filled with authority. "Just change, okay? You're really boiling up."

I stayed quiet for a moment, and that was when I noticed that the pounding wasn't from my heart. It was from my head. My vision was blurry, my eyes filled with tears. Nausea filled my stomach. I was freezing outside, while burning inside.

And I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it was.

"Here," Usui handed me a folded white thing, which I assumed to be the dress he was trying to change me into.

I eyed him suspiciously, thinking whether or not I should attack him when I was on my feet. It could work, I suppose, only my nausea was in the way.

Finally, having decided that it would just be a reckless move from my part to tackle him, I snatched the dress, its fabric soft against my freezing fingers, and stood up. That was when I realized something…

"Tell me, Prince Usui, how the heck am I supposed to change when my hands are bonded tight together?" This, I thought, can be my only chance to get Usui to open my shackles.

Really, I don't know why the call them shackles. They should've named them… thorn-kles?

Well, excuse me, but I didn't say that I was the naming type, did I?

But Usui didn't release me, much to my dismay. Instead, he tossed back my words at me, which I didn't find really pleasing.

"Which is exactly why," he said, "I was trying to get you into it myself. I figured it was better to have you unconscious – you know, so that you wouldn't feel so embarrassed about the whole thing – than to have you completely conscious and more than aware of what I was doing."

Gritting my teeth, I stormed – correction, hopped – towards the door Usui went in when he said he was going to take a bath.

"You wish!" I shouted without once looking at him. "I'm not going to ever – ever – let you change me into anything, you pervert! Invading my personal space is enough!"

And I slammed the door close.

I heaved a sigh and clicked a switch beside the wooden door frame. And to say that I was shocked would be an understatement of the grossest kind.

You won't believe it. The bathroom was as big as bedroom. All cream and gold and filled with marble-carved furniture. The floor and walls were covered with tiles. The only thing made out of wood was the legs of a stool.

On a corner was a short set of stairs, leading up to a big container with a faucet – learned that in school before – shooting out and curving back in. A bathtub, I believe that's called.

I tore my gaze away from the glittering bathtub and focused on getting myself dressed. Another look at the remaining furniture I haven't described would make me fascinate over the whole room and not actually doing what I was supposed to do.

I stripped myself off the blanket, which wasn't that hard since all I had to do was to let go of the pile I had scrunched up just above my chest. Getting into the white dress, however, wasn't all that easy.

But somehow, I managed to do it. Get into the dress, I mean. It had this zigzag lacing thing on the back that went down to my lower back, which meant I could just hop into the thing and weave it back up after.

Here's the thing about the whole lace thing, though. Once you unlaced it and you're in the dress, you need to lace it back up. And in order for a person to do that is to reach to her back. Quite impossible with bonded hands, isn't it?

Unless, of course, if there is another person there to help you lace it up. But the only person that was there was…

NO.

But, really, what choice did I have? I couldn't possibly go back to the towel and shiver the temperature out of me and have me frozen like icicles by morning. And I couldn't really stay in the bathroom for God knew how long. Usui would think I was attempting to escape – through the water drainage, since there wasn't any windows or doors except for the one I entered from – and force open the door and see me still trying to lace the dress all by myself and…

You get the picture.

I don't want you to think that I didn't try to lace it back. I really did. But, of course, it didn't work. Or else I wouldn't have done what I did.

With fitfully shaking hands, heart thrashing in my chest and cheeks burning, I opened the door just big enough to pop my head, and only my head, out.

"You done?" Usui looked up at from where he sat on the side of the bed.

"Umm," I blinked, my eyes looking at the floor, my toes, the legs of the bed, anywhere but him. "C-can you do me a favor?"

I couldn't believe I was going to do it. To ask a guy – a sexually harassing, personal space invading, arrogant, rich, Class prince – to help me lace up my dress. And probably exposing more skin than when I was only wearing the blanket.

Oh, God. I should've stayed in the bathroom. I don't care if he was going to see me trying to idiotically lace up the dress with my hands bonded, at least I wouldn't get the embarrassment of having to ask him to help me lace it up.

But it was too late then, wasn't it?

Usui blinked at me for a while – trying to comprehend what I just said, I supposed – before saying, "Yeah, sure."

I could swear my cheeks were vibrating with pinkish-red light when I was approaching him.

"C-can y-you l-l-l-lace t-the d-dress for m-me?" My fingers fidgeted the soft cloth of the dress.

Usui stood up then. When I stopped just two feet away from him, he circled me and stopped behind me. Soon after, I felt his fingers pulling up the laces, occasionally touching my skin in process.

All I thought when he started lacing it up was about how I wished he couldn't hear how hard my heart was punching my chest from the inside.

And how my body shivered a little whenever his fingers brushed against my skin.

And how much heat I was radiating out from my face.

My thoughts, however, were interrupted when the silence we were in was disturbed by Usui's voice.

"I'm sorry."

My eyes widened in shock. One, because I wouldn't have thought that such a phrase would ever escape the lips of the blonde. Two, because I had no idea why he was sorry and what he was sorry for.

"For treating you so badly," he continued, his fingers not once stopping from weaving the silk lace. "I shouldn't have done so."

Treating me so badly? For one moment, I was completely perplexed as to what he just said.

But soon my mind was barraged with things my annoyed self thought he did that he should be ashamed about. Like, say, sexually harassing me on a bed? Not wanting to release me from the shackles? Trying to change me when I'm asleep without my permission?

Gee, I wonder what he was so sorry about.

"To make up for all that," he said, "I'm going to release you."

A shout of excitement was just about to escape my mouth when he quickly added, "In one condition, though. You have to promise me that you will never attempt to escape again."

Usually, I wouldn't have agreed to this, since, of course, the only reason I wanted to be released from my shackles was to escape. But I figured that being released but still in the castle was better than not being released at all.

So I nodded.

"And just so you know, you won't be serving me tomorrow. I just asked the authority to make you my servant so that they can spare you from public execution. If there isn't anyone in the room, you won't need to treat me like royalty," he said, his voice very gentle.

Then I felt his hand over a wound that hadn't healed yet on my back. Or should I say, a wound I got when the two guards stripped me off my clothes. I flinched when he traced it with his hand.

"Where'd you get this from?" he asked, suddenly sounding worried.

I clenched the dress. "W-when I was… The two guards…" I didn't want to say 'stripped,' but really, what choice did I have? "When the two guards stripped me…"

I could hear a soft gasp coming from Usui, before he beckoned me to lie down on the bed so that he could treat it.

"N-no, it's okay. It'll heal soon," I said, my feet not moving an inch. "I've dealt with worse wounds than that. Really, it'll be fine soon."

He looked worriedly me – now he was beside me and not behind me – and said, "No. It may get infected. Please, I insist."

"No!" I took another step back. Lying on the bed because I was placed there was one thing. Lying on the bed with orders from my mind would mean that I had completely lost my mind. If Usui thought that I was going to lie there and have him sexually harass me again, then he was wrong.

He sighed and approached me. I took another step back…

…Only I never got to land that foot, because in less than a tenth of a second, Usui was carrying me, bridal style, towards the bed.

"G-get me down!" I screamed while I thrashed around. But it was no use; he had an iron grip on me.

"This may be why your fever hasn't gone down yet. Your wounds may be infected already."

"But my wounds aren't infected!" I objected.

He laid me on my stomach gently on the bed, before sitting down beside me and unlacing the dress again.

"D-don't unlace it, idiot! What are you doing?" I craned my neck to face the blonde. "I told you, it's fine!"

"Shhh," he shushed. "I'm just going to give it some medicine. It doesn't look like it's infected yet, so it'll just prevent infection."

Usui stood up, went somewhere that I couldn't see because I was lying on my stomach, and went back with a wooden box filled with jars of things I didn't know. He popped open one and dropped a few drops of liquid on my back.

First it felt cold against my heating flesh. It was kind of soothing, for a moment. Like how ice would feel on a very hot day.

Then the liquid entered my wound, and I nearly passed out with the pain.

I tried to hide the wince that had escaped my mouth by clenching the bed sheet with both of my hands. But, of course, nothing gets by that perverted blonde.

"I know. It will hurt a bit, but it will be much better than infection," he said in turns to try to calm me down.

"Okay. So you applied the medicine. May I stand up now?" I asked, gritting my teeth in pain.

I was hoping for a, 'Oh yeah. Sure.' But I didn't get what I wanted.

Instead, I got the exact opposite of it.

"No. We are going to treat all of your wounds, no matter you like it or not," he said, tugging at the lace to unweave it.

All of my wounds? Well, that would mean me stripping back off, and I was not going to do that.

Usui seemed to have understood my discomfort about the subject, since a moment after I thought about it, he said, "The ones that I can reach without having to expose more of your skin than you would want to, I mean."

Really, I was confused. Usui was an idiotic stranger when I had met him in the woods. Then he had been a complete arrogant jerk when I first woke up in the room. And now he was as gentle as a feather!

Really, just how many sides can a person have?

"You can sleep, if you want," he said after having unwove the laces.

I was going to retort a very ugly word to him when a realization came in to me. You wouldn't feel the embarrassment of having a guy treat your wounds on your back that much if you're asleep. So if you think about it, he was actually offering something good.

But on the other hand, you would be completely unaware of what he's doing if you're asleep. So…

I shook my head to get rid of the latter. I was sure that he wouldn't do such a thing…

…Pretty sure, anyway.

So I closed my eyes and envisioned myself back with my prince charming from my dream. His delicate hands, caressing my skin, sending tingles all over my body.

And I was happy for a few hours before I was awakened by the sounds of the birds.

Oh, and the constant blow in my ear from a particular someone.

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