Extra is the Heir of Life and Death

The conversation drifted on easily, the kind of warm, half-awake small talk that only existed between two people comfortable enough to let silence fill the gaps without awkwardness. Belle was still wrapped in her blanket like a monochrome dumpling, and I was still sitting beside her, resisting every impulse to poke her cheeks just to see her grumble.

Then, when the mood was just right, I leaned back casually and said, "Sooo… since you're up now… think you could give me a few spoilers for the Hollowveil excursion?"

Belle went still.

Not dramatically.

Not stiffly.

Just… still.

Even though her eyes were covered, I could feel the stare. That silent, icy judgment that radiated through the blindfold like a laser beam.

"…Spoilers?" she repeated, voice dangerously neutral.

I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. You know. Just a few details. A little insider knowledge. A teeny tiny edge." I tapped my temple knowingly. "After all, knowledge is pow-"

THWACK.

A harmless but decisive karate chop struck the top of my head.

"Ow!" I rubbed the spot, glaring at her in deeply wounded betrayal. "Belle! Abuse! Violence! I'm filing a complaint with..."

"No, you're not," she said calmly, lowering her hand like nothing happened.

I pouted.

She ignored it.

Then she spoke again, voice shifting into something soft but firm.

"Instead of begging for spoilers," she said, "I'll give you advice."

I blinked. "Advice? Like… moral guidance? Battle strategy? Cooking tips? Because I'm already great at the last one."

Belle turned her head slightly toward me, just enough for me to feel the judging intensify.

"…No," she said.

"Hey, I am great at cooking."

"You burn water."

"That happened once. And the pot was already dangerously unstable."

Belle sighed, long-suffering and fond.

"My advice," she said, ignoring my slander against cookware, "will help you far more than any spoiler."

I raised a brow, leaning closer with exaggerated seriousness.

"Well then," I said, "bestow your wisdom upon me, oh mighty Belle."

She tightened the blanket around her shoulders, took a small breath, and prepared to give me whatever sage, mysterious, totally-not-spoiler advice she had in mind.

Her expression shifted, still playful, but with that sharp edge she gets whenever she's about to tell me something I'm absolutely going to hate.

"You really shouldn't take the excursion so lightly," she says, adjusting the blanket around herself like some smug little monarch. "Because of that stunt you pulled in the entrance exam."

I blink. "Stunt?"

"...decimating an elephant that no one was supposed to beat," she raises her voice just enough to roll over mine, "the staff had to… adjust a few things."

I pause. "Belle. What does adjust mean?"

That smile crawls onto her face sweet, pretty, and malicious enough to make the devil reconsider all his life choices.

"They added a lot of monsters," she says as if she's casually discussing lunch, "made specifically to target the top ten students."

I stare at her. "…Made specifically?"

"Mm-hm." She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Designed, tested, and prepared with your faces in mind. The academy got really excited after your… performance."

"My perf-Belle, that thing wasn't a performance. It tried to turn me into a smear on the floor."

"Yes, yes, very traumatic." She waves a hand like she's humoring a child. "Anyway, you should know a good number of them are at the Gemini stage now."

I just… blink at her.

Belle tilts her head, smile widening like the devil just whispered a joke in her ear. "You'll be fine… probably."

My mouth opens.

Closes.

Opens again.

The scream forming inside me feels existential.

"Belle," I whisper, "I thought the excursion would be a little harder than expected. Not 'I will be hunted by custom-made nightmares.'"

She pats my shoulder with the gentle encouragement someone might give a guy about to walk into a dentist's office.

"Think of it as motivation," she chirps.

"I'm thinking of it as sabotage."

"Semantics," she replies, unapologetic.

I drag my hands down my face. "Oh, I'm so incredibly dead."

She just laughs and somehow, that makes the whole disaster feel the tiniest bit lighter.

I open my mouth, ready to fire back with something cocky, something along the lines of I'll dominate every monster they throw at me, because I refuse to be seen as rattled.

But before I can get a word out, Belle reaches forward and presses a single finger against my lips.

Soft. Cool. Firm enough to shut me up instantly.

My entire brain stutters.

She isn't smiling now.

Not teasing.

Not being the gremlin menace she usually is.

She's… serious.

"When you pray for rain," she says quietly, like she's quoting something she isn't sure she should be saying, "you gotta deal with the mud too."

It hits out of nowhere cryptic, weighty, completely unrelated to everything we were talking about. For a second, I forget how to breathe. Her expression is unreadable behind the blindfold, but her voice carries something I can't quite decipher.

Warning? Worry? Experience?

I don't know.

She slowly pulls her finger back, letting her hand fall into her lap. I watch her, waiting half expecting her to tease me again. But she doesn't.

Instead, Belle turns her face toward me, blindfold tilted just slightly like she's looking right into me despite the cloth.

Her lips part.

She draws in a slow breath, and when she speaks again, her voice shifts, soft but edged with that strange seriousness that never fails to make me sit up straighter.

"Sebastian," she murmurs, "every affinity has its own flaw."

I blink. "Huh?"

"If you don't know that flaw," she continues, unbothered by my confusion, "or if you misunderstand it… it can be detrimental to you. Sometimes fatally so."

I stare at her like she just started speaking in ancient dragon tongue.

What flaw?

What affinity?

Why was she saying this like it was the most obvious thing in the world?

I open my mouth. "Belle, I-"

Before I can even form a proper question, she leans forward and kisses my cheek.

My brain error messages.

Just a light press of her lips, warm and gone in an instant, but it feels like someone just dropped a comet through my skull.

She pulls back with the faintest smile, the kind that somehow feels both shy and smug."I'm sleepy," she says simply, like kissing me was the logical transition into announcing nap time.

And then...

Without waiting for a response, without giving me even a millisecond to process what just happened, Belle shifts her position, tugs the blanket tighter around herself, and just… lays down.

Right on my lap.

Her head settles against me, her hair brushing my stomach, her entire body relaxing like she's been waiting all day for this.

I freeze.

Absolutely freeze.

My hands hover in the air like I'm afraid gravity will explode if I set them down. My brain is cycling through at least eight different questions, three emotional crises, and one very serious debate on whether I'm hallucinating.

Belle lets out a tiny sigh soft, content, trusting.

And I, Sebastian Nekros, feared apex, walking calamity, unbothered emperor of deadpanning…

…am sitting here with a girl asleep on my lap and no idea what dimension I've just been transported into.

Her earlier words echo again.

"Every affinity has its flaw."

I don't get it.

I don't get any of this.

But as I stare down at her, her blindfold peaceful, her breathing even, her warmth sinking into me, one very dumb, very petty thought rises to the top:

I was supposed to lie on your lap.

---

I sit there like a statue long after Belle drifts off, her breathing deep and steady across my lap. My brain, which had previously evacuated the premises entirely, starts limping back online one thought at a time.

Okay.

Okay, Sebastian.

Let's… process.

She said something serious. Something important. Something about…

Right.

Affinities.

Flaws.

Mud and rain.

Maybe a prophecy?

Maybe a threat?

Maybe she was just tired and decided to speak in metaphors like an old monk on a mountain.

I try to replay her words in my mind, but...

Nothing.

It's like someone took an eraser to that part of my memory. Clean wiped. Gone. The harder I try to remember, the fuzzier it gets.

I grimace.

Yeah, okay, I know I have the memory span of a goldfish with a head injury, but come on, Belle said it seriously. She never says serious things casually. And for me to forget that quickly? That's… weird.

Really weird.

I open my mouth to mutter something, but a wave of exhaustion suddenly hits me so fast it almost knocks me over. My thoughts start slipping apart like wet sand between fingers.

…Sleep.

That's right. I should sleep.

Belle's warm against me, the room feels soft and quiet, and my eyelids are suddenly made of lead. Just a short nap. Just until my head clears.

Yeah. Sleep.

Before I can question why I'm so tired, or why it feels almost forced, my body slumps back in the chair, my hand resting lightly on Belle's shoulder.

My eyes close on their own.

And just like that, I fall asleep.

A/N: I used a reference from a movie I watched a few days ago. If someone can comment the name of the movie and the reference within 24 hours, I'll upload a new chapter.