Chapter 36: Only as a Friend

I didn’t lift my head right away.

I knew I should. I had fallen on top of Eris by accident, and my face was currently somewhere it definitely shouldn’t be.

But the softness surrounding my cheek and the warmth radiating from her body made it difficult to obey the orders coming from my rational mind. Even through her thin T-shirt, I could hear her heartbeat and feel her chest rise slightly with every breath.

Could I pretend to be asleep and stay like this all night?

It didn’t take long for me to realize how stupid that idea was. We had been fighting over the laptop just a few seconds ago. There was no chance Eris would believe I had suddenly fallen asleep.

Even so, enjoying this comfortable position for a little longer was extremely tempting.

The more I thought about it, the warmer my entire body became and the faster my heart started beating. Since my head was resting directly on her chest, there was no way Eris couldn’t hear those rapid beats.

For some reason, she didn’t push me away.

She didn’t move, speak, or make the slightest attempt to get me off her. I wanted to raise my head and look at her face, but I was afraid of the reaction waiting for me.

Maybe she was furious.

Maybe she had frozen from embarrassment.

Or perhaps she was deciding how to kill me.

None of those possibilities made staying where I was any more reasonable.

Just as I prepared to pull away, I noticed that Eris’s breathing had changed. It was faster and less steady than usual, and her chest moved faintly beneath my face.

I finally gathered enough courage to lift my head slightly.

Eris didn’t look as angry as I had expected.

Her cheeks were red, and she had covered her mouth with the back of one hand. Her mismatched eyes refused to meet mine, staring instead at an empty corner of the room as though it had suddenly become the most fascinating place in the world.

Her crimson hair was spread across the bed. Her T-shirt had ridden up slightly during the fall, exposing a small part of her flat stomach, but this time I didn’t dare lower my eyes.

"Eris?"

Her red eye turned toward me for a moment before quickly looking away again.

"Noc..." Her voice was much weaker than usual, and she sounded slightly out of breath. "It’s touching me."

I frowned.

Touching her?

What was she talking about?

My hands were planted on the bed on either side of her body, and my knees were far enough away that they couldn’t be hurting her. Maybe the ends of my wet hair were brushing against her face, but there was no reason for her to look this embarrassed over that.

My mind searched for the answer for several seconds.

Then I noticed the stiffness between my legs and realized it was pressing against Eris’s thigh.

Right...

Little Noctis was enjoying the moment far more openly than I was.

My eyes widened.

"Ah—!"

I scrambled backward in a panic. In my haste, I nearly fell off the edge of the bed, but I caught myself against the floor at the last second.

"I’m sorry!"

My voice echoed through the room much louder than necessary.

"I really didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I didn’t fall on you intentionally, and that happened on its own—"

Unable to figure out how to finish the sentence, I shut my mouth.

The truth was, I hadn’t wanted to pull away at all.

Part of me had wanted to remain between her soft breasts a little longer and find out what would happen if I didn’t move. But I couldn’t give in to thoughts like that.

Eris was Noctis’s childhood friend, and she trusted me.

Besides, I had an angel.

I still didn’t know her real name, and she still thought I was a girl, but staying in bed with another girl like this felt as though I were betraying my angel.

Eris slowly sat up. She pulled down her T-shirt to cover her exposed stomach, though the blush on her face still hadn’t faded.

"It’s fine," she said.

"Really?"

"You’re a man too, after all."

She still wasn’t looking at me as she said it. After tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she hurriedly sat on the edge of the bed.

"I should take a shower too."

Without waiting for my response, she stood, took the clean clothes from her bag, and quickly left the room.

When I heard the bathroom door close, I found myself alone on the edge of the bed.

Or rather, alone with little Noctis.

I looked down and sighed.

"Look at the mess you caused."

Naturally, he didn’t answer.

I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling for a while, trying to calm down by thinking about completely unrelated things. I went through my goal of forty pull-ups, the cosplay contest, and the professional contestants I might have to face.

When none of that worked, I pictured Lucian Evernight’s cold face from the global rankings.

That method proved extremely effective.

After some time, the sound of running water from the bathroom stopped. When the door opened, I quickly sat up and retrieved my laptop from the pillow as if nothing had happened.

Eris returned to the room a few minutes later.

Her crimson hair was still damp, with tiny drops of water falling from the ends onto her shoulders. She wore the loose T-shirt and short shorts she had brought to sleep in.

After sitting on the edge of the bed, she wrapped one finger around a strand of red hair. She played with it several times while avoiding my eyes, and an awkward silence spread through the room.

I didn’t want to discuss what had happened.

Apparently, neither did she.

"Do you want to watch anime?" she asked.

Instead of questioning how suddenly the offer had come, I immediately nodded.

"Sure."

Eris’s shoulders lowered slightly in relief. She took the laptop from me, settled in the middle of the bed, and opened a streaming platform.

"There’s a new isekai anime," she said. "It premiered today."

The screen showed a black-haired boy holding a sword in front of a magical city. The description beneath the title explained that he had been summoned to another world, possessed a power level of zero, and awakened a hidden ability after being rejected by everyone.

"It looks incredibly original," I said.

"Don’t start complaining before we’ve even watched it."

"The title has twenty words."

"That means it’s good."

Eris started the episode and placed the laptop near the foot of the bed. Then she turned off the lights and lay down beside me without hesitation.

She had already returned to her usual relaxed behavior, as though the embarrassing incident from a few minutes ago had never happened.

When she slipped beneath the same blanket, her shoulder touched mine. As she stretched out her legs, her bare foot settled over mine. Instead of pulling it back, she moved it slightly until she found a comfortable position.

The pale light from the laptop illuminated one side of her face. Her damp crimson hair was spread over the pillow, and her mismatched eyes were completely focused on the anime.

I couldn’t follow what was happening on the screen at all.

Had the protagonist been hit by a car?

Or had he died of a heart attack?

I saw him meet a goddess and choose a special ability, but I missed which one he had selected. My eyes kept drifting toward Eris every few seconds.

Sometimes I looked at the faint shadow her eyelashes cast beneath the screen’s light, sometimes at the gentle curve of her nose, and sometimes at her slightly parted lips as she breathed.

The fact that her foot remained pressed against mine beneath the blanket wasn’t making it any easier to calm down.

Please behave, little Noctis.

We’ve embarrassed ourselves enough for one day.

When Eris suddenly turned toward me, I immediately fixed my eyes on the screen.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"You were looking at me."

"The screen is on this side."

"The screen is in front of our feet."

"I have a wide field of vision."

Eris raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but she didn’t pause the episode. A few seconds later, she turned her attention back to the anime.

This time, I genuinely tried to focus on the screen.

The protagonist had arrived in the other world, checked his stats, and found himself fighting a giant rabbit in a forest. After the rabbit shattered a tree with a single attack, the hero panicked and ran away.

The scene felt strangely familiar.

"I would run faster," I said.

"You used to collapse after one pull-up."

"I can do five now."

"What an incredible achievement."

"I’ll increase that number tomorrow."

Eris smiled faintly and continued watching without another comment.

When the first episode ended, she sat up and climbed out from beneath the blanket.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"I’m getting something."

She returned a few minutes later with a large bag of chips and two cold drinks from the refrigerator. After opening the bag and placing it between us on the bed, she started the second episode.

"I thought we were only watching one."

"The second episode is available too."

When the second episode ended, she started the third.

Then the fourth.

We spent nearly two hours lying in bed and watching anime. While sharing the bag of chips between us, we mocked the characters for every stupid decision they made.

Eris had realized in the first episode that the protagonist’s magic teacher was secretly evil. I had thought it was far too obvious to be anything but a misdirection and refused to agree with her.

When the teacher was revealed to be evil at the end of the third episode, Eris spent the next half hour rubbing it in my face.

As the night went on, our conversations slowly became less frequent.

Halfway through the fourth episode, I heard a long yawn. When I turned my head, Eris was struggling to keep her eyes open.

"If you want to sleep, we can turn it off."

"I’m watching," she mumbled.

A few minutes later, her eyes closed completely.

At first, I thought she was merely resting them, but when her breathing slowed and became steady, I realized she had genuinely fallen asleep. Part of her crimson hair had fallen across her face, and one hand rested loosely beside the bag of chips.

I slowly sat up to turn off the laptop.

Trying to avoid waking her, I moved as quietly as possible. I paused the video, closed the screen, and placed the computer on the bedside table.

After sealing the bag of chips and moving the empty drink cans aside, I returned to bed.

Eris had turned toward me, with one hand resting beneath her cheek. All the mischief and jealousy usually present on her face had disappeared in her sleep, replaced by an exceptionally peaceful expression.

I silently watched her for a while.

When Noctis was rejected by his family, everyone had distanced themselves from him.

Eris had been the only person who stayed.

When I ignored her messages, she hadn’t merely gotten angry. She had come all the way to my apartment to make sure I was truly all right. The moment she heard that my siblings were mocking me, she had become angry enough to risk setting my room on fire. And because she believed I lacked the courage to enter the contest myself, she had secretly registered me for it.

She was annoying, pushy, and far too comfortable in my home.

Even so, for the first time, I fully realized how fortunate I was to have someone like her in my life.

I didn’t know how much of this feeling had come from Noctis.

Perhaps that no longer mattered.

I rested my head on the pillow and turned toward her.

"I love you, Eris," I whispered.

She was asleep, anyway.

Besides, I had only meant it as a friend.

At least, that was what I told myself.

A faint smile remained on my face as I closed my eyes, and before long, I fell asleep while listening to her steady breathing.