酷视

And before long, Fay followed in my steps, carefully stepping into the waters.

At first, she probed the temperature with just the tip of her feet\'s fingers.

"Ah!" she squealed a bit when she realized just how hot the water was, only to throw a wary glance at my blissful expression before gritting her teeth and pushing her foot down. Soon, she managed to walk into the bath… Only to steel herself, close her eyes, and take a full dive by simply squatting down.

Fay\'s white hair appeared to merge with the bubbles of the shampoo as she kept still for a short while, getting herself used to the warmth. And as she moved up and threw her head to the back…

\'Damn,\' lazily opening my eyes, I couldn\'t help but adore the sight.

By now, Fay\'s body had no secrets for me. In the last few times we did it, I was sure to explore every nook and cranny of it. But with water trickling down her curves, her breasts perking up while glistering with the reflected light of the bathroom gentle neons and her hair falling perfectly flat down her back…

"Come here," I called the girl out, only to have her turn her head, and smile a little, before casually walking towards me and lowering herself down, settling her soft bum down on my thigh.

As we didn\'t really have any plans to screw and contaminate the bath\'s water with our own juices, she opted to sit sideways on my leg rather than nesting down on my lap and grinding her ass on my crotch.

Nevertheless, when Fay leaned down to the side and rested on my chest, I couldn\'t stop myself from reaching out around her back only to have one of my hands fall down on her breast and grope away.

"Mhmmm," Fay mused a little, her lips curving up in a small smile. And as she slightly parted her eyelids and threw a sideways look at my face, she asked, "Do you want to?"

With my fingers sinking into the flesh of her boob, I shook my head. "Nah, I just wanted to feel you up a bit," I replied with all the honesty I could muster, trying to ignore how Fay twisted her body only to press her front against my chest when she asked.

"A pity," Fay grinned… but after the short yet intense time we spent together, I could tell she didn\'t really mean it. Without the sparks of excitement flashing in her eyes, she was obviously more interested in just snuggling in this hot, relaxing bath over simply screwing around.

We already did it, after all, and this bath was still a first for her.

"Now then, where should I begin?" I muttered while stretching my spine to the back and resting it on the angled wall of the bath. Basking in hot water, surrounded by nothing but the slightly citrusy smell of the scented soap and with Fay\'s body pressing down on me while I played around with her breast…

It was a damn heavy task to think. All I wanted to do at this moment was to relax and abandon all thought… But wasn\'t willing to let the momentary desire go against the very reason why we were in this bath, to begin with.

And sure, watching how Fay skipped around in amusement when she discovered all sorts of functions of the shower, from controlling the temperature and the volume of the water at the standing hydromassage ending, it was still just a prelude to the main goal.

In the end, cleaning ourselves up, teaching Fay how to use all sorts of devices in the bath and now finally relaxing in the pool-like water basin… Those were all just the preparations to make our talk a bit less tense than it was going to be.

While I didn\'t have to worry about any of the topics I had in mind making Fay anxious about our relationship, it didn\'t mean those topics were all that simple to talk about.

"First things first, let\'s gather all that we know," I muttered, not even sure if for the sake of guiding Fay along my thoughts or simply voicing out instructions to be then forced to follow them. "There\'s someone or something capable of manipulating auras or infusing them upon others."

I pried my eyes open and stole a glance at Fay\'s suddenly focused face.

"And manipulating auras is obviously not something that I would expect anyone in this world to know anything about. That goes without saying!"

Now, came the first problematic moment. A revelation that forced me to stop acting humble and reasonable and accept the fact that after all that happened…

After all that happened, assuming I wasn\'t in the very middle of everything was just an attempt at shedding responsibility rather than a wariness over contracting a main character syndrome.

And with that decision made, I finally opened up my mouth again.

"And for all that we know, all the victims of the aura manipulation were, in one way or form, related to my misery."

I felt my face twitch when I uttered those disastrous, self-centered words. For who the hell I was to assume everything was all about me?

But so far, we\'ve only discovered my aunt, my former and allegedly cheating ex to be the carrier of this awful stench of an aura. Them… and me myself.

And it went without saying that both of those women were a major source of grief in my life.

The intensity of that awful stench also matched the amount of pain they brought me, with my aunt nearly causing me to choke with how intense her aura was after years of bullying me, and my ex only having its faint scent after breaking my heart just recently.

\'Another connection to keep in mind,\' I thought, rolling my eyes at the mere memory of the two.

But for Fay to understand all that I was slowly starting to accept… I had to start from the very beginning.

"Do you have any idea how…" Fay stopped her question in the very middle of it, only to shake her head. "No, any idea when your life started to take a turn for worse?"

The look in her eyes was intense, but not invasive. She was focused on my words and keen to offer any kind of insight instead of trying to gather whatever bits of information I was willing to spare.

"My life started taking a turn for worse with the death of my late mom," I admitted the obvious.

Before that depressing event, my life was relatively carefree, as much as it could be with the sickness of my mom constantly looming over my mind. But with everything said and done, even while sick, she still managed to shield me from the wrath and ugliness of the world. story-source-NovelFire

Only when she died, I was forced to face it all… And all because of how I misunderstood her last words.

"On the other hand, things started to change a mere moment before I stepped into your world, back when I…" Suddenly, for how simple of a thing I was about to say, I stopped.

Because now that I wanted to talk about the event that brought the change to my sorry life, talk about the vision of my father… I realized that I hardly could remember a single detail of what happened!

"Things changed when I realized certain… discrepancy."

Stuck on the sudden question of how could I forget about the details of such an important moment, I decided to start a bit ahead of it.

"You see, the mindset, moral code of sorts that I decided to follow when guided by my mother\'s last words was the major factor before how bad my life turned out to be. And when I reached the absolute limit of what I could handle…"

This time, I turned silent for a different reason. I simply couldn\'t really tell what made me realize my mistake.

Was it how I pretty much couldn\'t handle it anymore? Or maybe it was a random stroke of enlightenment, fueled by my refusal to let things keep going as they were?

Puzzled, I shook my head a little before focusing on the lovely stress ball of Fay\'s breast in my hand. And after giving it a few squeezes, I finally regained the clarity of mind necessary to keep talking.

"And what mindset are we talking about?" Fay asked, forcing me to open my eyes and once again experience just how intensely focused her eyes were on me.

It was as if she didn\'t dare to miss a single word of mine in her desperate attempt to figure something out and thus be of practical use.

"My mom left me with just two words, be better," I confessed before following my words with a heavy sigh. "And I initially assumed she meant for me to climb above the stupid struggles and conflicts, be better than getting myself involved with them."

I shook my head, slightly ashamed by how stupid I had to be to end up with that kind of understanding of those two precious words. Because now that I thought back on it, how could I be better, if the very foundation of my attitude was pretty much an arrogant refusal to put others in my eyes?

"In the moment of weakness, desperation, or maybe just thanks to a stroke of luck slash enlightenment, I realized that this mindset was behind most of my troubles," I explained, only to feel Fay shift on my thigh.

"Yeah, yeah, I now know it was related to that dark aura, but back then…" I shook my head again. "Back then, I couldn\'t know. Still, as soon as I realized that this mindset had to be wrong for my mom would never wish my life to devolve into what it was at that moment…"

I cut my sentence short, not really sure what words to follow it with. And so, rather than taking a long pause to figure it out, I heaved another sigh before moving on.

"It was when I realized that my former mindset was wrong and decided to change it, that something happened."

Fay quite obviously tensed up, sensing that I was now approaching the very climax of my story. She even pushed herself off my chest, all for the sake of getting an even better look at my expression.

"And the moment this realization struck and I made the decision to follow it by changing my ways, a vision of my father came," I spoke out, only to gulp my saliva down when I realized just how little I could remember of that moment. "And that vision came with the gifts. Namely…"

I took a short pause to calm myself down, squeezing Fay\'s breast just a little tighter.

"Namely, my ability to open the portal to another world and the system that I\'ve already brought up."