Chapter 432 - Massage

Chapter 432: 432 - Massage

The carved wooden door of the office closed silently behind them, but the silence that settled over the hallway was anything but calm.

Lisa walked with quick, stiff steps, her tail swishing side to side in a nervous rhythm completely different from the elegant sway she usually showed. Her entire face was still taken over by an intense red, so strong it managed to show through her white fur and remain perfectly visible even under the hallway’s dim light.

She stopped suddenly, turning to face Lohan with an expression mixing murderous fury and a shame too deep to be fully hidden.

"You are not telling anyone about this," she said, her voice coming out cold and cutting, every word pronounced as rigidly as a soldier’s. "Not Dylan, not Alice, not the dumbest clone you’ve got scattered around. No one, Halon. Ever."

Lohan laughed mentally, amused by her attempt to sound threatening while her whole face was still that color.

"Relax, Lisa, I’m not a blabbermouth, I don’t even have a mouth for that." He replied jokingly, but vibrated his gelatin in a sort of reassuring gesture, speaking in a serious tone right after. "This stays between us, I promise."

"It better..." She shot back, still not sure how to react properly. "Because if this leaks somehow, I swear I’ll..."

"You’ll do what?" Lohan teased, unable to resist. "Lock me in a vault? I’m basically gelatin already, Lisa, I fit under doors."

"I’ll figure something out," she replied, but her growl came out much weaker than she probably intended.

Internally, however, far from Lohan’s eyes and perception, what was going on inside Lisa was far more complicated than the cold facade she was trying to keep up.

Her chest was still tight, a strange tightness that had nothing to do with real anger. It felt more like that dizzy feeling that came after running too fast, or jumping from somewhere high without knowing exactly where you’d land. She could feel her own heart beating at an uncomfortable pace, and as much as she wanted to blame all of it on irritation, she knew, deep down, it wasn’t just that.

It was the first time in her life she had allowed something like that in a premeditated way, completely different from the last massage he had given her. And it wasn’t the physical intimacy itself that had left her like that, the intimacy was relatively harmless, but rather the complete vulnerability it had demanded of her. Saying yes to let someone touch her like that, with such care, without controlling every second of the situation like she normally did with absolutely everything in her life, had been a completely new experience and, as much as she hated to admit it, exciting in a way she had never felt before.

’This doesn’t mean anything,’ she thought, trying to convince herself as she walked back toward the main hall. ’It was just a silly compensation. I only agreed because he was being too annoying insisting on it. There’s nothing more to it.’

But the warmth that still pulsed beneath her skin, even minutes after they had left the office, stubbornly kept contradicting that reasoning.

Lohan, with no idea at all of the internal storm going on inside his partner, kept rolling along calmly beside her, still a little surprised by how the whole thing had turned out.

’I can’t believe she actually agreed...’ he thought, mentally replaying the last few minutes. ’I made that request more as a joke, like, thinking she’d curse me out and walk off until we forgot about it and moved on to the next topic. But she actually stood there, letting me do it.’

And the most interesting part of all, in Lohan’s view, was noticing, partway through the massage itself, that Lisa was genuinely enjoying it. She tried to hide it the whole time, of course, keeping her posture rigid and her comments sarcastic, but he could feel through the texture of her skin, through every small involuntary relaxing of her tense muscles, that it was having a real effect on her. Unlike the previous massage he had given her, where she was exhausted and unconsciously accepted the massage while enjoying it, this time she had to allow him to give her the massage already knowing his "bad intention" behind it.

At one point, she had even let out a quiet sigh, almost inaudible, one she probably hadn’t even noticed had slipped out.

Not that anything happened beyond that. Lohan knew exactly where the boundaries of that relationship stood, and he would never have crossed even an inch beyond what was appropriate. But even so, even though it was just an "innocent" massage between "two guild partners" and best friends, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he had felt a little embarrassed in the process.

There was something about that closeness, about the quiet trust she showed by letting him take care of her like that, that touched something inside his core in a way he hadn’t expected.

’It was good,’ he thought, simply, without trying to overcomplicate his own feelings. ’It was really good.’

They walked in silence through the rest of the hallway, each lost in their own thoughts, until they reached the main hall on the top floor of the headquarters tree.

Fortunately, no one there seemed to have noticed anything strange at all. Dylan was focused on organizing some scrolls at a nearby table, discussing quietly with one of the veteran members about the day’s task distribution. Alice sat in a comfortable armchair near the window, distractedly playing with a small orb of magical light, clearly bored waiting for something that had nothing to do with them.

Neither of them so much as glanced toward Lisa and Lohan with any hint of suspicion.

"See?" Lohan remarked quietly through the mental link. "Nobody noticed a thing."

"Shut up," Lisa whispered back, still trying to regain full control over her own facial expression.

Urgently needing a moment to breathe and sort out her own thoughts, Lisa walked over to the large stone balcony that stretched along the side of the main hall, resting her front paws on the carved edge and letting the cool breeze at that altitude hit her face.

Lohan followed her, rolling calmly to settle beside her, taking in the vast landscape of Mythlorien stretching out below them. The canopies of the giant trees glowed under the afternoon sunlight, and in the distance small colorful specks could be seen moving among the branches, probably other guild members coming back from missions or training.

"Better now?" Lohan asked, his tone gentle, without a trace of teasing this time.

Lisa sighed, letting her shoulders relax slightly for the first time since they had left the office.

"A little," she admitted, still not looking directly at him. "Just... give me a moment before I act normal again, okay?"

"As long as you need, Lisa." Lohan replied, genuinely.

They stayed there for a few minutes, enjoying the fresh air and the comfortable silence between them, until Lisa finally composed herself enough for her blush to fade to an almost imperceptible level.

[NunuNote: I really wanted to write this scene XD]