"I love you."
At that moment, time seemed to stop entirely.
My heart began to beat so fast that I was worried that it was going to explode.
"I love you...I love you...Cordelia, I love you so much that I feel like I'm going to die..."
Then, for a split second, I could feel a tiny crack forming in the carefully built stone walls that surrounded my heart.
I widened my eyes and pushed Ace away in surprise.
No...
This was bad...
Bad...bad...bad...
"Cordelia..." Ace murmured.
I wasn't even able to move an inch as he wrapped his arms around me and held me against his chest, which felt so hot that it was almost comparable to fire.
With my head pushed up against his chest, I could hear a loud, thrashing heartbeat coming from within him that took my breath away.
"I'm sorry...I should have told you much earlier, right?" Ace murmured.
I opened my mouth slowly but no words came out.
Indescribable tears began to well up in my eyes against my will.
What does this mean...?
No...
I shouldn't misunderstand him...
After all, there was still that tiny chance...that tiny chance that he meant it platonically...
...Like a friend...
Yes...like a friend...
"Ah...and before you misunderstand, I meant it romantically, Cordelia. Not like a friend," Ace said as he ducked his face in front of me, removing all of my doubts.
It was as if though he were able to read my mind.
Romantically...?
I could feel my complexion becoming pale and I felt a little sick too.
No...
This can't be happening...
This was bad...
Definitely bad...
"Do you really hate it that much?" Ace asked with a small pained chuckle when he noticed the look of despair on my face.
"...Ace...that's not it...I just..." I tried to speak but all that came out of my mouth was just a jumble of incoherent phrases.
I felt so dizzy that I almost fell to the ground.
His face turned dark as he watched me struggle.
"Cordelia...If you hate it so much...what are you going to do now that I've told you...?" Ace asked me, his voice a little scarier than normal.
"I..."
"Do you hate me?" Ace murmured as the light in his eyes slowly faded away.
It was as if though his heart was dying as we spoke.
I bit my tongue.
"N-No...! That's not it," I shouted as I shook my head quickly.
"Then what?" he asked.
His voice was cold and prickly.
Somehow, it seemed as if though he had completely lost his rationality, but at the same time, was sane enough to not go on a rampage.
"Why...Why...How...I just don't understand..." I murmured quietly.
Before I had even realized it, tears were dripping down my face.
I tried to rub them away but it was as if though my tears had become unstoppable rivers.
Ace stiffened a little at the sight of me in tears and he slowly bent down so he could look at me eye-to-eye.
"What do you mean?" Ace asked as his eyes softened.
With his large, warm hands, he started smearing my tears away.
The feelings of his fingers gliding across my cheeks felt ticklish and, at the same time, comforting.
He seemed to be treating me like a piece of fragile glass that could break at the slightest movement.
He was so gentle.
Much too gentle.
"You...y-you can't love someone like me..." I said in a shaky voice.
"Why not, Cordelia?" Ace asked me as his gleaming emerald eyes stared straight into mine.
It was as if he were looking for answers to the questions he had been holding onto for a long time.
"Why can't I...?" Ace murmured.
"I'm not...Ace...I'm not someone who can be loved..." I cried.
Tears flowed from my eyes uncontrollably and I stifled the loud wails that threatened to escape my mouth.
"You can't love me, Ace...You just can't...It's impossible..."
For a moment, Ace was silent.
He seemed confused.
I opened my mouth up to explain...to explain anything to him.
But I couldn't.
"Clara...$%//!*&!!!! Go /^%(?# your*^#! B-tch&*)??>/}{|!#"
"?<%# Please...(&^?}! stop... (&%$ Mom&^(!{—hurts{??;$%"
Before I could even say a word, voices flooded my mind and my head erupted in piercing, burning pain.
"You(&%{||#! Sh-t^()&%! Leave&^"?>(%$!"
"No&%$ please(&%?{#&—hurts(&%<}#$"
I screamed as I grasped my head.
It was painful.
So painful.
The most pain that I had ever felt in my life.
"Cordelia...? Cordelia?! Hey, are you okay?!" Ace yelled as he grasped my shoulders to keep me from falling to the ground.
But I couldn't hear him.
"Ah!&%(??;$ Fault&%&?>#! Unlucky&%$#"
"You*&%^ Hell&#!$%(&{| Clara&%$#(};<?"
The world around me begun to spin around and I felt so nauseous that I threw up on the ground.
But it still didn't stop and I let out a painful cry.
"Cordelia! Hey! Cordelia?!"
I slipped in and out of consciousness.
I didn't even know what was happening anymore.
"It'll...be...wait...please...okay...Cordelia..."
I think Ace was holding me...carrying me somewhere...
He was saying something, but I couldn't hear or see him anymore.
"You*^%$!??; Forgot??<)(&%$"
"%$#(&Don't &%!#()Forget—"
Another bout of pain knocked all the air out of me and my vision turned white.
For a moment, I felt like I could see a faint outline of a man hovering over me, calling out to me.
I tried to reach out to him, but my hands wouldn't move.
"Ace...I..." I managed to open my mouth up to speak.
But, suddenly, my voice went away as if it never existed in the first place.
...Ace...you know...I love you too.
They were the words I wasn't able to say.
"&$%??() Clara$#!&}"
"...Clara&*$%^#?()"
"&$#!{;?Murderer!"
And then, I passed out.
.
.
.
.
.
Special: The Impenetrable Fortress (Part 1)
(A/N: Slight Trigger Warning! Do not read any further if you are sensitive to abuse.)
Cordelia POV
Where was I?
I couldn't tell if I was up or down, left or right, or here or there.
It was scary, black, and frighteningly cold.
I blinked open my eyes and was met with an unfamiliar room.
It felt unfamiliar to me...
...But I recognized it almost immediately.
How could I forget?
"...Ah...it's this place..." I murmured.
The room was completely dark without a single ounce of light and the walls were a dirty shade of worn-out beige.
There was a dusty kitchen in the corner of the room that was covered slightly with mold and an old, pink futon in the opposite corner that seemed much too small for an adult to sleep in.
No pictures were hung on the walls.
And the floor was littered with empty beer bottles, trash bags, and old clothes.
How could I forget?
"Haha...I wonder why I'm back here again..." I chuckled at the ridiculousness of my current situation.
But I wasn't able to laugh for long and, soon, my smile disappeared without a single trace.
I stared emptily into the air without knowing what to do.
Ah...
I was back in...this place...
My place before I met the gods and reincarnated...
...this horrible planet.
Earth.
The sweaty, suffocating smell of old liquor burned my nose and stung my eyes.
I rubbed my eyes by reflex and then realized that my hands were much rougher than I remembered them to be.
My skin was tanner and I felt a little taller too.
And when I turned my head, brown hair fell over my eyes and covered a part of my vision.
Hah...
I was back in my old body too, wasn't I?
I gripped both of my hands tightly into fists and I felt tears threaten to fall out of my eyes at any moment.
Was it all just a dream?
Reincarnating into another world...
Was it all just a dream?
And just when I thought that there was someone out there who could love me...who could love someone like me...I had to be reminded of my reality.
It was as if though the world were screaming at me to not forget.
That I should never forget who I really am.
"Ace...Please help me..." I whispered through my shaky voice, "I think...I think I'm going to die if I stay here any longer..."
But, of course, no one came to save me.
All that responded to me was pure silence.
Painful, burning silence.
With a bitter smile, I gave up all hope and stumbled over to the corner of the room, where the small, pink futon was.
Pictures of Disney princesses were printed all over it and there were so many holes in it that it was comparable to swiss cheese.
It was my futon.
The futon I had slept with for 16 years of my life in my past life.
I had a strong urge to burn it to ashes...to forget that something like it had ever existed in the first place...but I couldn't.
Because there was something else here that I hated much more than this old futon.
I heard a small click as the door to the small apartment opened.
There were people laughing outside.
Speak of the devil.
"Goodbye...Let's meet again, Joe, when we have time," a woman's voice said seductively with a coquettish laugh.
"Hah...Are you sure you...urp...don't a...wanna me to stay overrr a bit longerrr..." a man said in a slurred voice, clearly showing that he was either drunk or heavily intoxicated.
"Shhh...No, I can't. My daughter is at home, you see," the woman said as she quickly pushed the drunk man away before she took a few steps into the apartment and closed the door behind her.
But the drunk man was persistent and slipped his fingers through the crack of the doorway before the woman could close it shut.
"Why are you rrrunning away...? We haven't had enough funnn yet," the man hiccuped as he pried open the door with his hands.
The woman was prepared though and moved his unsteady hands away from the doorframe before slamming the door shut in his face as harshly as she could.
She clicked the door shut and turned around.
There was a smile plastered so thickly onto her face that it took her a moment to be able to harden her expression.
She whipped out a bright red purse and quickly opened it, pulling out a large wad of cash.
With a satisfied look on her face, she flipped through each bill.
The woman didn't say anything, but I could tell exactly what she was thinking.
'Old men are so easy to scam.'
It was a strange feeling to see this woman again.
She wore gaudy makeup that easily attracted quite a bit of attention and had a small mole underneath her right eye.
Her smooth, wavy hair was a shade of auburn and her eyes were dark brown.
I had forgotten what she looked like over time but, now that I could see her again, I didn't feel much of anything anymore.
My original mother.
She stuffed the money back into the purse in one quick motion and turned her head up to look at me once she realized that I was staring at her.
"What the hell are you looking at, b-tch?" she asked as she gave me a cold, irritated stare in return.
"...Sorry," I replied as I turned my eyes away from her.
If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up as soon as possible.
"This'll be your living expenses this week," my mother said as she placed a bill on the kitchen counter.
It was a single twenty-dollar bill, just as always.
"Do you have something you want to say?" she asked, her voice continually cold.
"...No."
"Also, I heard from your school that you've been getting involved with the wrong crowd. Make sure you don't cause any trouble. Your father and I don't have any time to fix your mistakes."
I gripped my hands at her words.
It was a nostalgic feeling to be spoken to like this again.
But even though my heart felt like it was currently being shredded to pieces, I smiled.
"Since when did you care about what I did?" I asked without hiding the animosity in my voice.
My mother widened her eyes and blinked a few times in confusion at what I had said.
She must be confused as to why her submissive daughter was talking back to her all of a sudden.
But I didn't care anymore.
Even while I was dying in my past life, this woman and her husband never visited me once.
Even though they should have been my parents.
"What the f-ck has gotten into you?! You little b-tch," the woman stepped over to me threateningly with her hand raised.
I flinched.
Haha...
I've seen plenty of scary monsters...
But mother will always be the scariest of them all.
She struck down her hand across my cheek and an unfamiliar fire-like pain stung me in return.
How long has it been since I felt so much pain like this from such a weak slap...?
"You should be thankful. There's not a lot of people who would be willing to take in a criminal like you, you know."
"I haven't done anything wrong," I murmured in reply.
"Clara. Smith. Your first wrong is existing under this roof without a single ounce of gratitude for what I have done to raise you," my mother said with a mixture of confusion and irritation intertwined in her voice.
"..."
The sound of my old name sounded wrong for me to hear.
Clara Smith.
It was as if she were calling out the name of a stranger—of someone I didn't know anymore.
"And your second wrong is...Hmm, let's not talk about it unless we want to trigger your PTSD again, okay?" she smiled as if she were doing me a great favor.
I bit my tongue.
I knew exactly what she was trying to imply.
Unbeknownst to my mother though, I had gotten over 'that trauma' years ago.
But I didn't tell her that, because she would never believe me.
After all, to her, ever since yesterday, I was just a trembling little girl who would do anything she asked for.
Ringgg...
A foreign-sounding, yet familiar, ringtone rang throughout the room.
My mother pulled open her purse and took out a small, buzzing device, otherwise known as a phone.
"Hey, baby~ Yeah...mhm, yes. I'll see you soon, okay? 'Kay, I'll be ready in a few minutes, Antonio," my mother said flirtatiously as she picked up the call.
Hah.
Just like I had always remembered, she was dancing around with different men every night without a single regard for her husband, my father.
I didn't pity my father though.
I hated him as much as I hated this woman right here too.
She ended the call and smiled as she tried to guess how much pocket-money she would earn from this affair.
"Make sure you don't cause any trouble and don't say a word to your father when he comes back," my mother said quickly as she redid her makeup using an old, cracked mirror.
When she was satisfied with the results, she packed away all of her makeup and quickly put on a new pair of heels before leaving the apartment without a single word of goodbye.
I felt sick to my stomach.
The moment I could hear the door close, I immediately stumbled over to the kitchen counter and threw up straight into the sink.
"Ugh..."
I rinsed my mouth with the tap water and let the remainder of the vomit swirl away with it.
My accelerated heartbeat quickly calmed itself and I tried to rationally think of all the possibilities for why I was here.
From what I could tell, I was either suddenly transported back into the past with all of my memories intact, or...everything I thought I knew was just a figment of my imagination.
Reincarnating...
Living a new life...
Falling in love...
All of it might just be a dream.
"No..." I murmured through gritted teeth.
No way.
No way was the past sixteen years of my life 'just a dream.'
I refuse to believe it.
I refuse to believe that it was all fake.
There has to be a reason why I was sent back here.
And I was going to do everything in my power to figure out why.
I won't give up.
I'll find a way back to you...
I promise.
Ace.
-----------------------------------------
A/N: Wooooo~ It is now time for the arc that you didn't know that you were waiting for this whole time! Cordelia is back on Earth in her old body, 'Clara Smith'! I wonder why...
Hehe~ Maybe Cordelia's secret past might be uncovered during this arc...Maybe you guys might find out why she's so dense too...Who knows~? (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Also, did you all think that Ace's confession would be that easy?!?! Did you think I would be nice and let it all go smoothly?!?!
HAHAHAHA~ NEVERRRR!!! SUFFERRRR!!!
Ahem.
Anyway, thanks again to all of my readers/voters/commenters! I love you all (even if I like torturing you)~ And your comments last chapter made me laugh so much! Fufufu~
I looked over everyone's answer to the survey I wrote last week and I want to thank everyone who responded to it! Thank you! It'll help me a lot while I decide what to do~
Stay safe, everyone!
Okie byeee!
Word Count: 2673