It’s A Wonderful Life - Volume 2 Chapter 21 2.12

Ira was dragged out of the bed by his irate Host, forced to stand as she shook him wildly. His head was flown about and he distractedly felt something snap.

“Ow.” Ira said emotionlessly.

Her eyes had a manic gleam as she demanded, “You have to help me, System!”

Ira grabbed a hold of her arms and forced her to stop shaking him. “Help you with what? What did you do now?”

“I don’t know!” she hung her and sounded on the verge of tears as she continued, “I tried to get close to him, and his guards stopped me! They actually pushed me into the ground and one of them was going to use a spell! I barely got away in time! You have to help me!”

A commotion sounded at the door to Silas’ room. Ira saw as multiple little dots, among them the Second Prince and his guards as well as Silas, approached the rooms.

It wouldn’t take them long to arrive.

Ira took a deep breath and resigned himself to dealing with this idiocy for a few more minutes. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

She let him go and stepped back. “But I don’t know!”

“Did you leak state secrets? Try to murder anybody close to the prince? Try to blackmail him? Demand that he leave his fiance for you again? What?” Ira listed things he could imagine her doing and watched as her face went delightfully red.

Something had certainly struck a cord with her.

She shook her head and cried out pitifully. “NO! I would never do anything like that!”

Ira rose an eyebrow in serious doubt. “You already told the prince to leave his fiance.”

“Well, that was… that was different. Anyway, that’s not what this is about!” she stubbornly insisted.

“So you do know what’s wrong?”

She took several more steps back from him. “I… I don’t… it’s… difficult to explain.”

“Try me.” Ira stated.

She looked everywhere but at him, while the dots were coming ever closer. “I, sort of, maybe, told him that I’m… pregnant.”

Her voice got progressively lower with each word and with the last damning one, she was simply whispering. Ira wondered exactly how much an idiot a person could be and the answer was once more given in the form of his Host.

“I can’t help you with that.” Ira deadpanned.

“But- but you have to!” she objected in a loud voice. The door to the room was opened and through it, he could see a total of five people. There was the Second Prince and his two guards, Silas and the Second Prince’s fiance. All of them were staring at his Host with a variety of hostility.

She turned around when she heard the door open and her face went through weird mess at the sight of the Second Prince.

The others entered the room that actually wasn’t that crammed, because it was a really big room. Ira kept his eyes on the ones with the obvious weapons and Silas crossed over the length of the room to get to Ira. When he arrived by Ira’s side, he asked, “Are you alright, Bran?”

Ira just nodded.

His attention was focused on his Host and whatever was about to happen. He had a feeling he wouldn’t want to miss it.

As always, he was right.

The accusations between his Host and the Second Prince started flying immediately, drawing his Host’s attention away from the rest of the people. This would prove to be fatal as the guards moved into position to presumably kill her. She had made a nuisance of herself and a future king simply couldn’t have it. Especially if she started spreading rumors that she was pregnant, which Ira knew she was not. He would have seen a brand new life sign in her stomach as soon as the baby was conceived.

There was none, so she wasn’t pregnant.

As the argument heated up, his Host did what all Hosts did. Try to solve the problem by force. She headed her magic for some no doubt impressive spell, but before she could cast it, red bloomed on her chest.

Behind his Host, with a sword still through his Host’s chest, was the Second Prince’s fiance, looking disturbingly calm for committing murder.

His Host had no time to do anything at all before she died, as the sword had gone straight through her heart. When the murderer pulled out the sword, his Host’s body collapsed like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

The words Mission Failed blazed across his vision.

His Host’s soul left Eliza’s body and this world, to return to the Waiting Room.

Ira immediately began the process of cutting his connection to his current body.

Before he could finish, Silas embraced him from behind. Ira glanced over his shoulder to see an uncharacteristic look of panic on his face. Despite himself, he was still curious, so he asked, “What?”

“I love you.” Silas stated and hugged Ira tighter, until it almost felt like his ribs were about to break.

Ira hummed. “So you’ve said.”

Silas squeezed him even tighter. “Then why do you insist on leaving me?”

Ira didn’t bother to wonder why he knew that he was leaving. Silas was undoubtedly a genius powerhouse. Instead, he answered, “Because I don’t love you.”

He was spun around and kissed before he could get another word out.

It was a kiss of desperation.

He found himself responding to it because, well, why not? It was a nice kiss and he had started getting used to kissing Silas. The man knew what he was doing and he was very very good at it.

He ignored the commotion that was going on in the background. Silas tilted his head and kissed him deeper, while Ira did what he could to keep up. His hands hung onto Silas’ shoulders and he was aware, in the back of his mind, that there was a distinct lack of disgust in him.

The pleasure from the kiss kept him from paying any attention to the wriggling feeling of something blossoming on his skin.

When he finally back for air and Silas leaned back so he was no longer being squeezed to death, Ira flickered his eyes open. He wasn’t sure when he had closed them, but the sight that met him was no longer a panicked Silas, but rather a satisfied one. Ira frowned in confusion and the man answered the unasked question by saying, “You can’t leave me.”

Ira tried to put some more space between them, but Silas was still holding him tight. “What?”

“You can’t.” Silas stated. “The curse will force you to be within fifteen meters of me at all times, otherwise you will feel pain until you pass out.”

Ira shook his head. “What curse? What are you blabbering about now?”

“The curse I just put on you.”

As Ira wondered about that, Silas undid his shirt and pulled it down over his arms. Ira watched as intricate tattoo-like symbols appeared and a bright glowed golden color. They appeared to be moving on his skin.

Silas took a hold of his chin and forced his head up. “With this, you can’t ever leave me.”

“Hmm.” Ira tilted his head sideways and examined it. His mind went over every piece of it until he reached the conclusion that it was harmless to him. It only bound the body and even if it had bound the soul, Ira’s soul was much too powerful to just be bound all willy-nilly.

Still, it was certainly, “Beautiful. It won’t stop me, though.”

Silas narrowed his eyes. “Yes, it will. That is forbidden magic. There is nothing more powerful than that.”

“Of course there is.” Ira commented. “But that doesn’t matter. There is nothing that can keep me in this world.”

“Not even the fact that you’re the only one I’ve ever loved and I would destroy the world without you?” Silas demanded.

Ira rose a skeptical eyebrow. “Really? This isn’t a teen drama, you know.”

“A what?” Silas asked, looking adorably bewildered.

Ira shook his head. “My job here is done now that Eliza is dead. There is no reason for me to stay.”

Silas demanded, “So you agreed to marry me, knowing it would never happen?”

“Yes.”

He found himself kissing again. Ira swallowed the sound of protest that wanted to leave his lips on reflex and instead enjoyed it shamelessly. His eyes slid closed and his thoughts cleared of his Host and missions and work. He instead took the time to get some selfish pleasure for his own. With his Host dead, the mission was officially over and he didn’t have to report anything that happened after. Not that he wouldn’t report it if asked, but it felt oddly private. Usually, he didn’t care about things like that.

He had found that a lot of things were different when he was with Silas. It was an odd feeling that he wasn’t sure he liked.

He was pushed down on the bed, which was still really comfortable so he wasn’t mad about that. In lieu of knowing what to do with his hands now that he wasn’t really resisting anymore, he let them rest by his side. Ira felt almost like he was floating where he laid.

He would really have to find someone else to kiss, test if this feeling was only with Silas or if it always felt like this, kissing.

Ira felt his shirt being pushed up and a hand touch his skin. He opened his eyes to see that Silas’ eyes were open as well. The man pushed his hand up further along Ira’s chest and he stopped kissing. Instead, Silas dropped kissing all over his neck, and he could clearly feel marks being made.

To be honest, he didn’t really know what was going on anymore. When he went back to his home, he would need to get some more hardcore manga and research this. He was starting to feel almost embarrassed by his lack of knowledge concerning things like this.

You know, s.e.x.

On that note, how did two males have s.e.x?

Again, a question for his manga to answer.

Silas mumbled into his neck, “See? I am everything you need. You don’t have to leave.”

Ira saw out of the corner of his eyes as the Second Prince stared at them with pure horror on his face. “You might be what I need, but that doesn’t mean you’re what I want.”

“Then I will make sure that I am all that you will every want.” Silas stated.

Ira rolled his eyes. “You can’t make sure of that.”

Silas hummed into his skin and continued his quest to mark him. Ira leaned back and enjoyed it, knowing full well that his soul was almost disconnected now. Just a few more to go and he would leave.

Curse his curiosity.

“So…” Ira began, “are you actually the Crown Prince?”

Silas stopped what he was doing and hugged Ira tighter. “Yes. I thought you knew that.”

“Hmm? Why? I don’t care about that.” Ira said thoughtlessly. But on that note… “If I had actually married you, would I have been king?”

He felt more than saw Silas laughing. “No. You would be the King’s Consort and you wound’t have any real power beyond my name.”

Ira sighed in disappointment. “Oh. More power is more fun, though.”

“If power is what it takes for you to stay here with me, I will gladly give you all of mine.” Silas promised fervently.

Ira gazed down at him silently for a few minutes.

In the end, he laid back down on the comfortable bed that felt like heaven and said, “This is the way things are. There is nothing you can do about it.”

He was really going to miss this bed.

Silas hugged him tighter. “I will follow you. No matter how far you run, I will follow you.”

“I’m not running, I’m just doing my job.” Ira grumbled out.

“Then why can’t you do your job with me?” Silas demanded harshly.

Ira smiled a little at that. “Because you’re not powerful enough.”

With that, he decided he had let this drag on too long. He did have other things to be doing, there was an unopened box of manga that he had just received before he began this mission and he had ordered another one that been on the way. He had been looking forwards to them for a while now.

Ira closed his eyes and cut the last of the connection tying him to this body and world. He really hoped that his new box of manga had arrived.