Chapter 321: Chapter 336: Testing.

I scratched my head, staring at myself in the mirror back in my own room. I had accepted my new form… At least until I figured out how to revert… But I couldn’t get over how different I was acting. Every time I wanted to say sorry, I just naturally didn’t… In every situation in which I would normally feel embarrassed, I wasn’t. It was like my personality had become the one on the back burner… Which is the opposite of what i thought would happen.

I had set my clothes out to dry and changed again, properly dressing myself. It was like my mind had overlapped with that of the dragons, but all of the places where we were incompatible just canceled each other out, instead of combining. ‘I feel like my brains melting… That won’t literally happen right?’

‘I should confirm something…’ properly drying my hair I tied it back again and slowly made my way to my brother's room, all the while second-guessing myself. Instead of hesitating though and thinking it through, I simply went ahead full bore. Without bothering to knock I walked right in. Gild was in bed, someone was in the shower, and the third person was nowhere to be seen. “Hey Gild, I need a favor.”

He slowly sat up, jumping down from his bed and spinning in the air, landing softly, his whole bodily absorbing the impact from the landing like a loose spring. “Sure…” He groaned, covering his yawn as he rubbed his hair, pushing it back and making it spike up. “I wasn’t getting any more sleep anyway…”

“I know that feeling…”

He looked over to the wall his knives were sticking out of and started collecting them, putting them all on a desk. “What do you need? Your brother is out training so hopefully it’s something I can do without him?”

“Oh… Yeah… It’s better if he stays out of this one… Take your shirt off, You’re pretty attractive, I need to check something.”

He slowly turned around to face me. “What…”

‘Right… Was that too forward? I knew this was weird… Wait… Am I more awkward now that I don’t get embarrassed… There’s no way right?’ “I’m, testing a theory, I need to see if I’m attracted to you or not.”

“And the best way to test that is…”

“Probably for you to take off your clothes… Or at least most of them.”

“Yeah… I’m not doing that… Your brother would kill me…”

He jumped up onto a dresser, sitting up high as we calmly stared at each other for a moment. ‘It’s not even really a question… I’m way more awkward like this… It’s like I’ve lost all ability to think before speaking…’ I sighed. “Well… I certainly won’t force you… But this really bothers me… I’m going to need to test this somehow… Any other ideas?”

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“Ideas…” He said slowly, crossing an ankle over his knee and leaning forward. “To be clear… You're testing whether or not you're attracted to me specifically? Or…” He scratched his head. “I mean, there are plenty of ways we could test that without getting me killed right?”

‘I may have given him the wrong idea…’ “Sorry, no not you specifically. Ever since I… Uh, started looking like this… I stopped getting embarrassed… Or so I thought. It is a lot harder for me to get embarrassed?” I shook my head slowing my speech. “The bigger change is that I don’t really feel anything around men anymore… There are other things… And other reasons too… But…” I sighed. “I guess I’m just a little confused more than anything… Before I could even figure anything out… I ended up here…”

The sound of running water suddenly stopped in the bathroom as the tap closed.

“I think I get it… Basically, you used to be very reserved and timid, which indirectly made it hard for you to speak your mind… But now that you aren't you just say whatever pops into your head, and you're worried that will cause problems… Oh as for the actual issue at hand though there's an easy solution for that.”

‘Is that what’s happening? How did he get that conclusion? Wait so… This is a pain…’ “What’s the solution?”

He casually stood up and walked over to the bathroom door, picking the lock in a few seconds and throwing it open, revealing Kai standing there in nothing but his underwear and a towel hanging around his shoulders, frozen stiff at the sight of us staring at him. My body reacted on its own, grabbing the door from Gild and slamming it shut again.

“Well. It appears there is still something in there that reacts.” He said calmly, walking back to the dresser and leaning against it.

Though it was certaintly a shock, my heart rate was calm. I reacted… But… “I’m not blushing am I?”

“No.”

“My heartbeat feels steady too… It was more like an instinctive reaction… Honestly, I feel even more confused now…”

Kai quickly got dressed and barged out of the bathroom. “GILD! You picked the lock!”

He silently turned away.

‘Yeah… He has a right to be mad.’ I imagined if the roles were reversed, and at the thought finally started to feel a little embarrassed… Though I couldn’t exactly tell the reason. “I’m…” ‘There it is again… It’s hard to apologize… I guess it wasn’t really my fault technically… But… it’s like I can’t say it…’

They both stared at me, waiting for me to continue. All I could do was sigh and return to the previous conversation. “My gut reaction was to close the door, but if I’m being honest I felt nothing.”

Kai practically turned to stone where he stood as Gild stepped closer. “Ok… And if I did this?” He walked up and poked me in the cheek before patting me on the head.

I growled and he stopped. “What’s that supposed to test anyway… At any rate… I don’t hate it…”

He moved a finger under my chin and slightly pulled my face closer to his. “And how about now?”

“I… feel kind of nauseous…”

He lowered his hand and stepped away. “Yeah, well. I think it’s safe to say that your fears have been confirmed… Either that or you just find me repulsive specifically…”

“No no, It’s not that… I don’t know you that well but I think I like you just fine… I mean… At the very least I definitely don’t dislike you.” I calmly closed my eyes for a moment, placing my palms over my temples and tilting my head back. ‘So merging our souls made this much of a difference? I don’t… This feels so wrong…’ “It’s like my head and my body are on two different pages… Not only that, but like each one is torn in half…”

I sighed, trying my best to smile. “Guess I killed the mood huh… I should probably get going. Oh and Kai.”

He looked over at me.

“So– Hm… I’m– I feel really bad that I saw you like that.” ‘That’s like the same thing as saying sorry right? And I do feel bad about it… But I just can’t get the right words out in this form…’

He slowly turned back to Gild. “I think… I might just stay inside today after all…” he muttered weakly as if all his strength had been sapped.

Deciding it was best to not make it worse… I kept my mouth shut and just left. ‘Well… Now that that’s settled… At least I know…. I wasn’t planning on getting married anyway… And having kids just sounds painful… That all being said… I never agreed to this…’