It's dumb.
The way he nods, and eagerly leaves, not waiting but quite knowing she's going to follow, and suddenly everything turns a light shade of pink.
Her worlds shines as she looks at him. At his back moving, bobbling every time he takes a step because he's obviously walking lazily, and because she knows he's bored.
And that's the thing; she knows. She doesn't wonder, nor does she tries to assume it, she just knows, and it's as if there was an instant link between the two of them, because a second doesn't pass before he declares his boredom in only one mundane sound.
He sighs, and it sounds as if he just voiced a million complains about how this world is gray and how his life is entirely boring.
His next steps are the same and it's frustrating, because she knows they are not.
Because he starts calculating his footsteps in an attempt to never step on the marked lines of the floor.
Because one moment his hands are hid and in the other one is playing with the keys of what she can only assume are for his door, and the other is hitting his thigh, making a small rhythm that, for whatever reason, she is familiar with.
It's impossible, and she's too old for this. She's been alive for too long to be experiencing something strange and new, and she isn't naive enough to think it's love at first sight.
But he turns, looks at her with squinted eyes for a second and then turns back to look at his way and in an instant she knows he's detected her discomfort. Her troubled thoughts, and he snickers.
"You're thinking out loud" He goes and she can't help but let out a breath she was most certainly not holding, because he apparently knows too. Because he notices without trying, because he doesn't mention it, because he's fine with it.
She's a goddess and he's most likely only a human, but they've connected.
She's heard about it. In ancient stories that dragons and humans both wrote. She's heard about the typical girls, the typical boy, and extremely unlikely situation and love, but she never believed it'd happen to her. She didn't think it even existed. And it happened on a rainy, uneventful day at a human park in an strange, human world.
But now she's here and it's stupid, because she's sure she was only following, and now she's walking by his side. Reading his expression, looking into his uninterested eyes. Brown, shady, tired, and all the same beautiful.
She doesn't realise when he starts staring back.
"You have pretty eyes" He's complimenting her with kind words, but his eyes aren't twinkling with adoring intensity, nor are they gobsmacked by her natural colours.
Natural colours, because she has unconsciously forgotten to keep up her illusion, because her horns are showing, and her eyes are glowing.
He examines them for only a second before he turns around and continues with his journey.
She doesn't miss his smile as he goes, but doesn't comment on it either.
There is no going around it, he's like a magnet and she's suddenly made completely out of metal, because the attraction is too much. The distance seems horrendous in a second so she scooches over the way Tohru does on her beloved Master, but unlike Kobayashi, he doesn't mind, he doesn't push her away, and she's sure he likes it when her back is lightly being pet.
It's mind blasting that she, an exiled deity, could lose herself over the touch of a mere human, but in a blink of an eye he's already unlocking his door, they already reached the complex and she is most certainly not drooling.
She wonders if this is how Tohru feels around Kobayashi.
Suddenly, all those inexplicable moods, all that strange behaviour Tohru usually had around Kobayashi seems rather easy to understand. Seems honest enough, more than an excuse.
She questions herself the third time he calls her name and she doesn't reply.
His apartment isn't a fancy castle, being smaller than Kobayashi's own, but she can't get herself to mind. There's papers everywhere, scattered like trash but with interesting things on them. Drawings of things she's never seen before, texts and notes, all scratched, all disposed, all broken, and she can't stop herself from picking one up and smile.
The drawing is clearly a dragon in all its glory, soaring in the free sky with strong wings and clearly a strong mind, and it's all too sudden before she realizes her wrong doings and leaves the drawing back on its place. It being the cold floor.
A dumb metaphor, if she allowed her mind to think about it.
"Lucoa" It happens again and this time she scolds herself internally, because if this keep going it's probably going to start annoying him.
"Bruce" It feels good, the way his lips curve just a little when his name comes out of her mouth and the heart she had forgot she had starts beating too fast.
She's ancient, born before humanity itself, but her heart is beating as if it was the first time she did a mischievous act as a goddess, all those eons back.
"Would you like tea?" He asks and she nods instantly, not because she's thirsty, but because it's something he is offering and it's not something she can deny, "Make yourself comfortable" And she knows he's said this only for traditional matters because it's obvious he doesn't mind; she could spend her days naked lazily in his room and he probably wouldn't mind.
It's as if they've known each other for years.
She walks around the place she already feels comfortable with, peeking with curiosity at the rooms and what they might contain, and so far, everything is extremely not out of the ordinary. No secret basement, no enchantment room, just him, his scent and his mundane things.
It's enough to keep her thrilled until the tea is done.
Too fast, she scolds herself -again- after he calls her name and she sprints at speed not possibly human and appears in front of him, eager, stupid, dumbfounded.
He just blinks and delivers, and she has to admit, the tea is not bad.
If it had actually gone into her belly, and not spurted out as surprise shocks her.
He's asked a question, she's sure; something between the lines of You are not from around here, and You're not a human, and both seem more like statements than actual question, but she's too scared to answer.
What if he runs away from her? What if he gets scared? What if he starts treating her differently? and her minds keeps running, looking for good excuses, some actual reasons and a way to disappear.
It's useless, she knows; she'd be found out if she dares lie to him, so she sighs and lowers her head, apologizing in advance.
"I'm a dragon" She splurts out as she conjures a basic spell to clear out the mess she's made out of such tea.
She shouldn't be doing this.
This breaks rules, breaks traditions, breaks the usual hatred dragons always had against humans, but his eyes are intense on her, analysing.
"You don't look like a- ah" His eyes open wide if only for a second, as if his half cutted question had suddenly been answered alone.
She has to stiffen a giggle as he stays still for a moment, and her eyes stare in awe as all the questions he surely has in his mind start getting answered by themselves.
An smart human, then.
"So this is an illusion?" His voice seems only slightly disappointed and it's enough to make her flinch, so she eagerly starts shaking her head in denial.
"This are my scales- this" She grabs her shirt and stretches it a bit, making her breast squash together, pronouncing them, "Are my scales"
He smiles, his eyes showing a mischievous glint that kids have whenever they're about to make a bad joke.
"Then you're lacking off scales" He says and it's the first time in her life she's blushing, because no, she isn't lacking off scales; she's sure, and yes, she's been called out for wearing revealing clothes before.
So she switches, fast enough to startle her human companion, to the sweater Kobayashi recommended her to use.
It was still too small for her, still too tight and still too revealing, but it covered more, and her mind could only work so much with his brown eyes so intensely judging her every action.
He seems to like it, and it doesn't take them long before they are smiling and talking again.
"Am I to expect you, a dragon, a carnivorous entity compared to the likes of magical deities, to erase me from this universe any second now?" And it's the second time she's spitting tea on him, the second time she uses that particularly convenient spell and the second time she apologizes.
"Of course not!" She manages between apologies and dumbstruck disbelieve that he would think like that, though she can't blame him.
Tohru would have already erased everyone if it weren't for Kobayashi.
"We have rules...well, I've broken some of them, but others remain, and we are not allowed to inflict damage to humans from other worlds" And she covers her mouth because she just spilled the beans.
He just smiles and chuckles.
"So I was right" And the question he asked her minutes ago about her origins crossed her mind.
"That, you were" She comments if only to add text to their small chattery.
Their chattery continues and so does the increment of her interest on him.
He asks dumb questions, about magic, about their function, about how they, dragons, exist, how they reproduce and how does everything works and she's eagerly replying to every single one of them. She's not like Tohru, ignorantly powerful enough to make her day a day with only brute force; she's an exiled goddess, she knows the story of her world and many others, the explanation to what seems to bend reality and the meaning of many things, and she's happy to realise that he's absorbing everything quickly enough for her not to repeat herself.
It crosses her mind, at some point, that maybe even the entire knowledge of everything isn't enough to satisfy the boy in front of her.
She regrets that at some point, she has already talked about the insane war that has been going on between humans and dragons to him.
It's a fair fight, she declares, corrects, tries, because she doesn't want him thinking that she has a superiority complex like Tohru and other dragons, and because it's true. Some decades, it's the dragons that rule over humans, and other decades, it's the humans that do.
"Humans have learned the art of dark magic and holy whispering, after all" And she doesn't have to explain the fact that no matter the size, magic affects every being the same because he already knows, he's already figure it out.
So he nods, and it's the first time he doesn't offer a question, but words of informative facts.
"It's funny" He says with an honest smile on his face, "Even worlds apart, the correlations that humans have with dragons still exist, although through different view manners" He inhales and she makes sure to let out some of her magical scent into the air so he can absorb it, "See, in games" He makes sure she understands that he's referring to the games that Fafnir seems to be engrossed with before he continues, "It's almost always the holy knight" Flashes of strong individuals surrounded by steel armour that use divine prays as a source of power invade her mind, "Against the dark dragon, the strong dragon, the powerful dragon" And he goes on describing them and it's too much of a coincidence that he's describing the exact same dragons that she could easily find in her world for her not to question her doubts.
"And you've played those games?" She asks, disappointment filling her chest in selfish, immature ways that shouldn't exist inside the body.
"And you've killed some of those humans?" He attacks back, because he isn't some weakling and she should've expected it, but the feeling of shame and guilt washes over her just like the rain did hours ago.
She doesn't finish her babblering apologise before he chuckles and stands up.
"I don't see how that relates to this" Of course, he uses logic she never thought of, because she's come to realise he may just be smarter than her, and continues, "The only thing I keep feeling is this...link" He says, patting his chest, "Lie to me" It's probably the first order anyone has done towards her and her back trembles.
"I'm not cursed" And his eyes widen because-
"Yes you are" She smiles at what seems to be the first thing to actually impress him enough, "I just...I-"
"You know" She finishes and he nods eagerly, walking around and sitting on the sofa in front of a T.V.
He doesn't question if its her magic's doing because he knows she's just as confused as he is, and instead he sighs.
"And here I thought things were gonna stay boring for the rest of my life" She chuckles and moves to sit by his side, awaiting orders, awaiting questions, eager for him to have some use for her.
It's always been her dream, to be useful, to serve and to help. To have somewhere to stay, to have people accepting her, to have people loving her.
It's good to know that at the very least, she could stay for as long as she desired.
He knows she knows she can stay for as long as she wants.
She knows he knows she wants to.
Sorry for taking so long, things are a lil' complicated around here.
For the last part of this chapter, if you read the manga you can realise that Lucoa's wish is indeed have a home and be useful to someone.
I hope it's not too bad, this chapter.
See you later XOXOXO- Paw