Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 411. Intended or not

Henry’s POV

I was being pulled back into my body and opened my eyes, which I had involuntarily closed at some point.

"Hmm, it didn’t work." Kenny snapped his eyes open and propped himself on his elbows to look at me.

"What do you mean? I was inside the vision just now," I said, seeing him raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"I was too, but I didn’t see you." He looked at our interlocked fingers.

"You weren’t inside your ’future self’s’ body; you were there in third person?"

"Yeah, in my present body and in third person. The fact that I had been inside that woman’s body during that night was an exception—at least since I had leveled up. Maybe because the coin revealed the heart, and I felt her feelings."

I tilted my head and looked at the green wall color surrounding the brown door while answering.

"I did feel her feelings as well, although surely not as intense as you."

"Damn, you did?" He squeezed my hand.

"Mhm, it was really... unpleasant." I looked back at his bright red eyes.

"Yeah, I know." He nodded.

"But I prefer that to you being alone in there." I told him in all honesty, and I saw him nod.

"Me too."

I stroked a bit of hair out of his face with the hand not holding his.

"This time, I didn’t hear anything inside the vision."

"Me neither; the coin only revealed the woman’s eyes, so we could only watch." He let go of my hand and turned his body to lie on his back.

The moment he positioned himself again, I grabbed his hand once more.

While I leaned against the wall behind the mattress, Kenny was lying a bit lower, so I could see his body, though not his face anymore.

I put my attention on my ears to hear if Mrs. Howard was talking to someone, but she had apparently gone into her room. That she wasn’t talking with Ethan, that there was no screaming—I was relieved—at the same time fearing that this was the calm before the storm.

Which was possible, given that we would go fight tomorrow, and Mrs. Howard, no matter how rash, wouldn’t start a fight when we would face ’danger’ again so soon.

"I also didn’t have night vision." I said.

"You didn’t? Did you have it that night?"

"I didn’t really notice at that time, but no."

"...Well. Let’s be happy that you can see them with me in the first place—" He turned his head back enough to take a look at me.

I was playing with his beautiful hand when I suddenly pulled him up.

"Hey!" Kenny grumbled when I dragged him on top of my body, though he still searched for a comfortable position before leaning his head back so that it rested on my shoulder.

I nuzzled his hair with my nose, breathing in his addicting scent, when he continued with his sentence.

"It’s so annoying to always recount the visions; now you know, even though we don’t see each other in them."

"Mhm." I chuckled while hugging him and squeezing him.

We heard two pairs of steps leaving the house; my guess was that it was the staff sergeant and Ethan. This was good; there was no possibility for Mrs. Howard to complain to the latter now.

Ethan said he would prepare the center, and as usual, he efficiently put it into action.

"So what should we do regarding the fucking huge number of rats? A machine gun would be more effective than an arrow gun." He closed his eyes and sighed.

"But then they can nitpick regarding you using a gun."

"...What if I conjure a machine gun up? Then put it back, and the bullets disappear. Will they notice? How thoroughly will they examine the half a million rat corpses?"

I hummed, unhappy about a possible solution that didn’t include me using any way to prove myself.

"They won’t know either, because nobody anticipated you going through with it."

"Yeah. Pfft, I can’t wait for their faces. Do we have a machine gun?"

"I was in the attic and didn’t see one."

He sighed.

"Let’s ask Ethan later."

"They will probably stay there for the night; you heard them go just now, didn’t you?" I asked.

"Yeah. Though, I have no idea what exactly they would do there for a whole night, besides opening the doors for the rats to reach the garden. He even said he would take a few more people with him."

"Probably putting up cameras so that they can watch us fight." I chuckled and changed the topic, uninterested in Ethan’s problems.

"You look so good when you draw." I squeezed him again and nibbled on the upper tip of his ear.

"I thought you had your eyes closed."

I let go of his ear to whisper into it.

"Mhm, that was on purpose, so you wouldn’t know that I was watching you secretly."

"But now you spilled it anyway." He chuckled.

"Yeah, it’s a secret I am telling you; that’s the reason I’m whispering."

"Oh~ I got it. Thanks for being so open about your creepiness." He whispered back.

"Sure. Don’t tell anyone else." I kissed his temple, and Kenny laughed.

"Yeah, yeah. This stays between us."

We fell silent, and I thought of a way to use the crystals to attack. Somehow, maybe because I had thirsted for a way to protect Kenny, the crystals instantly expanded into a shield once I tried to multiply them.

Using them for anything else, or forming something other than a shield, felt as if I was bending them in the wrong direction.

It felt nearly impossible to do so forcefully or just with my thoughts alone.

"The kid still doesn’t have a name..." Kenny interrupted the silence after some time.

"Did you think of something?" I asked.

"How about..." He paused as if he were purposefully trying to build up momentum.

"..." He turned his head slightly to look at me, while my eyes involuntarily fell on his lips.

"...Hannibal." He said, and seeing his enthralling lips utter the name I had used for my first few years of life sent a pleasant shudder down my body and my mind into a daze.

"How about we call him Hannibal~?" He chuckled before breaking out into laughter.

I attacked his cheek, nibbling on the soft flesh, while he tried to push me away, continuing to laugh.

He turned away, and following the motion, I ended up on top of him.

I attacked his neck next while he tried to wriggle away.

"BAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!"

"I really shouldn’t have told you!" We rolled to the side, and Kenny tried to flee, but I latched onto his neck while holding onto his body with all my might.

"Bahhahah! You didn’t tell me; I found out myself!"

I thought for a second and remembered that he got it from his first vision of the commander, but it was me who confirmed it with freezing when he called that name to test it.

"Don’t make fun of other people’s names!" I let go before sucking at his neck, hard.

"I didn’t; it was a legitimate offer!"

"Yeah, sure. That kid won’t be named after me." Surely he couldn’t be named after the person responsible for his mother’s death.

Kenny stopped resisting but continued to chuckle.

"I know, your name is yours...and your counterparts."

We ended with Kenny lying on his side and me holding onto him while on my side as well.

"Don’t remind me." Just thinking of the commander and the fact that we shared at least two names annoyed me.

"Well, all the deranged Kennys are also named Kenny, so I know how you feel."

"Can’t we just get rid of everyone and everything?" I whined, speaking my true thoughts, as Kenny patted my hands on his stomach.

"We are already going to get rid of many beings tomorrow anyway..." He tried to appease me, and I closed my eyes, reveling in his body warmth.

I could hear the brown-haired girl, apparently having finished cooking, walking through the house to inform Mrs. Howard and the kid that dinner was ready.

Her last stop was our room, though she just knocked for a short moment without saying anything before hurriedly leaving.

"Dinner is ready!" I said in a high-pitched voice into Kenny’s ear, imitating what the girl said to Mrs. Howard and the kid, but not to us.

"Thank you, girl." Kenny said with a super-grumpy, deepened voice, imitating Mrs. Howard’s response.

We both chuckled, and he started to stand up with difficulty as I continued to hold onto him.

A new scuffle nearly broke out when he managed to get us out of the bed and to the door.

The moment we left our room, I let go and walked behind him.

Kenny stopped and turned around, scrutinizing me for a moment before he took my wrist and dragged me inside the dining room.

Mrs. Howard and the kid were already seated, and it seemed that for dinner, it was only us four.

I was dragged to the bench and sat beside him while he filled my plate and I filled our glasses.

Nobody talked while Kenny and I ate, continuously filling our plates. For dinner, we had meat again, together with other protein sources, just like for lunch.

It seemed that Mrs. Howard was trying to strengthen us for tomorrow.

When everyone was finished, Mrs. Howard stood up and made herself one of those small coffees she preferred after eating.

"Go to sleep. Your punishment will be postponed; we will have mashed potatoes another time," she said after taking a seat at the table again and taking a sip of her drink.

"Alright." Kenny nudged me, and I stood up to make way.

This dinner was really very peaceful and silent.

Just as I thought, Mrs. Howard wouldn’t stir up a fuss a day before we would operate on a pest control mission.

"Good night," Kenny said, and I repeated after him before we left the room.

Back inside our room, he let himself fall on the bed in the same way he had done before.

"I am so stuffed."

"Same." I let myself fall beside him.

"Want to watch the dumb cartoon again?" Kenny asked, fishing for his phone.

"Yeah." I replied, waiting for him to get his phone out when nothing much happened for a few minutes.

I chuckled and pulled a dead-asleep Kenny to me, just like before.

He lay with his head on my chest, his arm around me while still on his stomach, and I felt the assurance by his weight.

With time at hand, I raised my hand and imagined the crystals appearing on top of my finger.

They appeared, and just like they always would, they slowly rotated.

I felt the urge to expand them, to use them as a shield just like always, and when I tried to picture them as an arrow, they didn’t react.

When I tried to send part of the little crystals away from me without letting them form a shield, they just traveled a bit before disappearing.

Damn.

It would have been perfect if I could use the little crystals as bullets, but it was either not possible or warranted much more training.

I closed my eyes, suppressing the need to reach to my right, where the paper airplanes were placed right beside the mattress.

But I couldn’t hold out anymore, letting my hand wander and grip, unfolding the paper airplane with both of my hands while he slept on my chest.

My breathing stopped when I finally got a look at Kenny’s masterpiece.

He had folded the paper in a way that the creases didn’t cover the person in the picture.

Strong and soft lines, each and every one of them assured and easy, as if he had drawn it a thousand times already.

Is that really me?

Do I really look like this?

Because just as I glorified him, it seemed that he was doing the same.

A breathtakingly beautiful person that I couldn’t align with a photo, video, or reflection I had seen in the past of myself, who was resting tranquilly on a sofa, his eyes closed, as if he were just taking a short nap.

He hadn’t drawn the IV; just me, the couch, a small window on the side, the paper planes, and me holding onto them as if they were my only and most precious.

I let go of the breath I was holding and placed the drawing beside me.

As if bewitched, my hand wandered back down the mattress, grabbing another paper plane.

The same motif, but simultaneously not even similar.

The shadows fell from a different side, making the person taking the nap seem mysterious and melancholic.

Again, the creases of the folded paper didn’t cover the body of said person; on the contrary, the triangle looked as if it was shielding him.

I stared at it for a long time before placing it cautiously by my side and reached for the next paper plane.

The shadows again changed; the person on the couch now appeared sharp and handsome, as if ready to strike at any moment, yet still protected by the creases surrounding him.

Before I noticed it, my hands were shaking, my eyes had moistened, and my heart was nearly beating out of my chest.

I unfolded each and every paper plane, seeing the shadows wander, as if a whole day was passing by with the sun changing its position around the motif.

Each time I was portrayed in another way, not one picture looking like the one before, but all of them displaying so much emotion that it was nothing short of a love declaration.

The last paper was the one Kenny didn’t get to finish—a sketch that was a bit rougher.

But it was evident that the artist not only knew his motif but also adored it.

This was a confession, no matter if intended or not.

I stroked over Kenny’s head, listening to every one of his deep breaths, while trying to calm my galloping heart so as not to wake him.

Unable to help myself, I nevertheless choked out the answer to his unintended confession.

"I love you too."

Madly, unstoppably, and all-pervasively.