Some Wings Must Bleed

Chapter 23 - Kisses and Potatoes

"Hello." I greeted the chef, walking into the kitchen and watching as three maids came rushing to my side.

"What kind of dress did you pick out?" One on the asked.

Oh, right.

"It's a sleeveless ball gown. It's very silky and simple, but I like elegant things like that." I said with a smile on my face, although it felt oddly wrong to tell them such things.

The girls squealed and congratulated me and I thanked them, making my way to the chef. "Excuse me, my hunter is sick and needs food to take with his medication, do you think you could speedily whip something up?" I asked.

"Already ahead of you my lady!" The chef called, taking two plates off of the counter. "Your cousin Trisha already ate, and I knew you would be hungry too so I made mashed potatoes." He said, handing the warm dishes to me.

"Thank you, you're an angel." I complimented, kissing the stout man on the cheek and walking out of the kitchen.

See? Kisses happen all the time. Plus Kurapika is high on medication and has a horrible fever! There's a reasonable explanation, I'm just freaking out because I'm stressed.

I made my way back to Kurapika's room to see the blonde awake and sitting up as Trisha listened to his heartbeat and spoke to him.

Oh no. I'm not mentally prepared for him to be awake yet.

"H-hey." I stuttered, placing the plates on the bedside table.

"Hello (y/n), I'm sorry about your dress fitting, I hope I didn't ruin it for you." He said comfortably as Trisha backed away from him.

Wha- it couldn't be...

"He doesn't really remember anything from the end of the dress fitting up to now, not that he missed much..." Trisha said, obviously trying to tell me that he didn't remember kissing me.

He doesn't remember our kiss? And that means he doesn't remember our conversation either...

"I see. Well I'm glad that you're awake now." I said, placing one of the plates onto the blonde's lap and giving him a spoon.

"You should eat, it'll help you not get sick from the medicine." I said.

"His fine motor skills aren't exactly at the top of their game right now, so if he can't eat much that's alright." Trisha explained, smiling at us before leaving the room.

"Fine motor skills?" I repeated to myself, pausing for a moment before hearing a clatter behind me.

I turned to Kurapika to see that he dropped his fork onto his plate.

Fine motor skills. He can't use his fork. This is just my luck.

"I'm not that hungry to be quite honest. I never get hungry when I'm sick." Kurapika said, his dark eyes glossy.

"That's ridiculous, you need to eat. I'll feed you. Oh, and we should take your contacts out, I don't want you falling asleep with them in." I stated, going to the bathroom and grabbing the container that held his contacts.

"That's quite alright, I don't feel comfortable to have my contacts out." He said, watching me as I came to his side once again.

"Unfortunately it's for your health, and that means it's not an option. Plus you already know that I don't care what color your eyes are." I replied, handing the container to the blonde and bringing my chair closer to the bed.

He sighed and took his contacts out, putting them into their compartments while I took his plate from him. "Do you feel any better?" I asked, moving the potatoes around the dish with the spoon.

"I feel fine."

"Just fine?"

"I feel like we've had this conversation before."

"Yes, when we were riding our horses. Unfortunately, you weren't honest with me and ended up bedridden with a bad fever. Isn't that a shame?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy.

"Sounds tragic." He said in a monotone voice, making me giggle.

See? Everything is fine! Maybe him not remembering is for the best!

I took a spoonful of the food and placed it in front of Kurapika's face. He stared at it for a moment before chuckling. "What? What's so funny?" I asked, my arm still partially extended.

"This is ridiculous. With all due respect, I refuse to be spoon fed." He said, gently pushing the spoon back to me.

"I don't care about your big stupid hunter pride, I just want you to not die. Eat the damn potatoes." I said sternly, shoving the spoon into Kurapika's mouth.

The blonde looked up to me as if he wanted to say something, but his mouth was preoccupied with food, so I simply took the spoon back and smiled in victory. "See? That wasn't so bad~" I mused, smirking at the boy as he looked at me with annoyed eyes. "What? Chew your food, you look dumb." I added, looking back to the plate and getting another spoonful of the potatoes.

Kurapika sighed in defeat and swallowed, looking up to me with his now grey eyes. I looked into them for a moment, getting lost in the beautiful sadness that glazed over them and sighing myself. "Is something wrong?" He asked, snapping me out of my trance.

I shook my head and cleared my throat, giving him another spoonful that he happily took from me.

So cute~

"Nothing is wrong, no." I said simply.

"I don't believe you." Kurapika retorted, a smirk on his face. "It's like you think I don't know what goes on inside that complicated brain of yours." He added, biting down on another spoonful of food I gave him.

"You saw me in there. I threw up. That's how much I don't want to marry Kenta." I admitted. "I put in an effort today. I mean, I gave Kenta a chance. I let him kiss me. But kissing him made me realize even more that I could never love him. I, apologize for unloading all of this on to you..." I trailed off, my gaze still on the dish sitting in my lap.

"Please, don't feel bad. This might be a rather odd thing to say, but it brings me strange comfort that you don't like a man like that. You are truly one of my closest friends, so I want you to be happy of course, but I also don't want you to be happy with a man that wouldn't treat you well, does that make sense?" He said, his head turning from his hands to face me once more.

I pushed away the blush that threatened to spread onto my cheeks and nodded.

Funny, he basically said the same thing to me earlier, just using less advanced terminology.

'one of my closest friends'

I smiled and set his empty plate on the bedside table. "You should get more rest now, I want you in tip top shape as soon as possible."

"Why is that?"

"Well, you've been here for more than two weeks and still haven't seen the village's divine library." I said, a smile emerging onto my face as I stood up and made my way to the door.

"I look forward to it." He said, turning his back to me and laying on his side.

My gaze lingered on the blonde for a moment more before I left his room and went to my own. I got ready for bed, but decided to practice my transforming instead of trying to sleep.

Transforming takes more of my energy, so maybe I'll actually be able to sleep instead of staring at the ceiling and overthinking everything.

Authors note: girl I have PLANS for this book.