My Stupid Heart! (KiriBaku x Reader)

Chapter Fourty-Eight

—First Person POV.—

Seconds went by.

The world had stilled as my words took their time filtering through the air and confused gazes widened into shocked stares.

Then, as the sound of another piece of silverware clamors onto the floor, chaos erupts.

Coughs and hacks brandished my hearing from across the table as I falter in my spot—body relaxing when Eijiro finally drops the bread from his grasp and a hand clasps onto my hip, holding me up.

My chest rose and fell in heavy breaths with the diminishing of panic to my core and I relax my grip when Katsuki shifts his hand to help me move back due to practically falling across his lap.

There's a few servants and knights that hurry to the Prince sitting at the end of the table—many checking while the other half rushed to take away the tainted food.

When I had drifted back, I went to sit in my seat only to realize that the oak had been casted to the floor during my commotion, causing my dazed body to nearly fall on my ass.

Thankfully, Katsuki had tightened his grip to keep me upright before trailing his hand upwards to rest on my waist as he stood from his own chair.

"You okay?" His voice cuts through my surroundings —so distinct and familiar that all I can do is tilt my gaze up to meet his.

My chest churned with a hurricane of emotions.

Death kissed us sweetly against chapped lips, only to dissipate like a shadow in the night moments prior.

It was rewarded with soft words of concern that made me nod—prescribed from a specific person with fiery eyes, eyes that almost lost its flame to a singular taste of destiny.

To even imagine that fire washed away by something as cowardly as poison, was an infuriating thought on its own—to poison someone as independently strong and narcissistically powerful as him just didn't make sense.

The Barbarian Prince and His Dragon..

Death by poison.

No, that did not sit right.

I blink when his hand urges me to the side before making me plop down in his seat—touch briefly leaving when he circled around the back of the chair and returning on my opposite shoulder, closer to the heterochromic man who was still seated.

My head cranes to the side when a calloused hand envelopes my own, his other claws gently tracing up and down my forearm in a soothing manner.

He's alive.

I have to let that knowledge wash over, like a repetition of an old guitar, strumming repeatedly in my head—each string only pressing harder against my heart, it made my eyes sting with unshed tears of overwhelming gratefulness.

"How'd you know it was poisoned?" Eijiro's voice finally meets my attention and I shake away the shock that had taken hold of my soul.

"The smell, during winter animals get desperate when it comes to food and planting traps of poison that won't affect their meat works well to keep me from freezing my ass off." I breathe, turning my hand slightly to rub my thumb over his scaled knuckle.

A chuckle escapes his lips and I glance up as a bewildered expression dances across my features "What?" I inquire, causing the Dragon to simply shake his head.

"Just feels like I learn something new about you everyday," Is his reply, followed by a gentle hum "Aishiteru.." He watches me with dilated pupils and I quirk a brow towards the familiar word.