Chapter 223: Morning After

"..."

"There’s still time. Talk things through properly with Nuoya before he truly comes to hate you."

Silence fell.

Viktor did not respond, and Igor said nothing more.

The room soon became quiet again, with only the faint sound of breathing filling the silence. Qiu Nuoya quietly closed his eyes.

The next morning, when Qiu Nuoya woke up, Viktor was already awake. The moment Qiu Nuoya looked at him, Viktor awkwardly turned his eyes away.

He looked almost like a child who had gotten into a fight with a friend, which reminded Qiu Nuoya of the conversation between Igor and Viktor that he had heard while half-asleep the night before.

Viktor was an adult. He was older than anyone else present, knowledgeable, dependable, and someone Qiu Nuoya could rely on like an older brother. But when it came to whether he was truly mature on the inside, perhaps that was a different matter.

Qiu Nuoya himself was technically an old man on the inside, yet because he looked like a child, everyone treated him like one. To be honest, he did not think his own personality was particularly mature either.

"Good morning, Viktor."

"...Good morning."

Viktor seemed surprised that Qiu Nuoya had spoken to him. Although he answered, his expression remained awkward. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but perhaps he could not think of the right words, because he turned his eyes away again.

"Hey, Viktor, will you tie my hair for me?"

"Huh?"

"I still can’t tie my hair properly by myself with the hair cord you picked out for me yesterday. So could you tie it for me?"

Qiu Nuoya held out the hair cord.

Viktor hesitantly took it from him and, just as he always did, began gently combing through Qiu Nuoya’s hair.

"Your hair has gotten quite long."

"Yeah, I suppose it has."

"You cannot even take care of your own hair properly. What are you planning to do if I am no longer around?"

"Hmm... I guess I’ll just cut it."

"...After all the effort I put into growing it this beautifully, what a waste."

"Yeah, I suppose so. But there isn’t much I can do with hair this long by myself, so I don’t really have a choice."

Viktor was the one who took care of Qiu Nuoya’s hair. Qiu Nuoya doubted that he could have grown it this long and kept it looking so neat if he had been taking care of it himself. Viktor carefully and patiently combed through Qiu Nuoya’s long hair, taking his time to make sure not a single strand remained tangled.

"Hair is a mage’s life."

"Didn’t you say that was just a superstition, Viktor?"

"I will be the one to tie your hair. So until I say otherwise, you are not allowed to cut it."

"Ehh..."

It was a trivial conversation, just another ordinary day in Qiu Nuoya’s life.

"Once I say you cannot, you cannot."

With that final warning, Qiu Nuoya could only give a wry smile. Viktor skillfully worked the hair cord into Qiu Nuoya’s neatly combed hair, then secured it with a hair clasp with a soft click.

"All done."

"Thanks. As expected, it looks much nicer when you do it, Viktor."

"I have had plenty of practice."

"Then I’ll leave taking care of my hair to you from now on, Viktor."

When Qiu Nuoya answered that way, Viktor blinked his eyes.

Then he nodded with an expression that looked as though he might cry at any moment.

When Xiao Tao woke up that morning, the two people who had gotten into such a spectacular argument in front of everyone last night were, for some reason, now acting as though they were getting along perfectly and flirting right in front of him.

The scene unfolding before his eyes was simply Viktor sitting there and carefully combing through Qiu Nuoya’s long hair over and over again.

To put it bluntly, both of them had such incredible looks that the scene felt like something straight out of a drama.

Viktor had a beautiful face, but his personality was harsh, making him exactly the kind of person Xiao Tao found difficult to deal with. Qiu Nuoya had repeatedly spoken up for him, almost as though he were protecting him from Viktor. Yet for some reason, Viktor’s attitude toward him, whom he seemed to regard as a complete enemy, had never changed.

They had only known each other for a few days, and Xiao Tao could not think of anything he had done that would have made Viktor dislike him.

Could it really be because I’m this feminine and pathetic?

Xiao Tao felt that he had learned enough from his admittedly short life to understand that confident people apparently tended to dislike people like him. Even so, if that was the case, Xiao Tao wished they would simply leave him alone. Why did Viktor have to take his anger out on him?

Wouldn’t it be better for both of us if we just stayed out of each other’s way?

"Taotao, good morning. Huh? Those two..."

His childhood friend, who had already become completely accustomed to this world, tilted her head with the same puzzled expression Xiao Tao had as she looked at the scene unfolding before them.

Yesterday, Qiu Nuoya had been so angry, yet now he was sitting there looking completely relaxed as Viktor gently combed through his hair. Viktor, meanwhile, continued combing Qiu Nuoya’s hair with a slightly troubled expression, yet somehow he also looked happy.

Shangguan Wan’er asked Xiao Tao, "What exactly is the relationship between those two?"

That’s what he want to know too.

"Hey, do you think those two are dating?"

"What!? No way. They’re both guys!"

The two of them had close relationship, but they were both men. Xiao Tao did not know what the moral standards of this world were like, but at least he did not think they were all that different from the world they had lived in before.