Chapter 124: A Date with the Villainess [Part-2]

Neo followed her side by side, making sure not to be left behind. She seemed to notice him trying to keep up with her pace, and she slowed her steps a little as they walked through the city.

"Hey, are you going to stay silent all day, or are you going to say something?"

Nora continued to walk without reacting to his words, and after a moment she finally replied.

"Do you have somewhere you wish to go?"

Neo pursed his lips, as he didn’t know. He hadn’t come here with any special plan to visit anywhere, and he had just come for a stroll.

"No..."

Nora gave him a sidelong glance, a judgemental look which clearly said, then why did you drag me here?

Neo just ignored her look and continued walking. The main reason for calling her out was to make her open up to him. He didn’t want her to hide secrets from him, and he wanted her to share her pain and difficulties with him, but he also knew that she wouldn’t answer if he asked her directly. In order to get an answer, he had to build up trust first, and only then would she listen to him and share her feelings.

Nora’s gaze swept from stall to stall in the market, until it stopped at one of the stalls where several hair bands were laid out.

Neo noticed her curiosity, and he held her hand immediately and dragged her towards the stall, as he knew she would never go there by herself.

"What are you doing-?"

He didn’t reply as he took her there.

The stall was run by an old woman with a warm smile, and the wooden table in front of her was covered with ribbons, hairpins, and headbands of every colour and shape. Nora’s eyes moved across them with the same blank expression as always, but Neo noticed that her gaze lingered a little longer on the silver ribbons, and he quietly made a note of it in his mind.

He let go of her hand and started looking through the stall himself, and after a few moments, his eyes stopped at something at the corner of the table. It was a headband with two small, glossy red horns attached to it, curved slightly at the tips, the kind that children wore during the harvest festival to play at being little devils.

A mischievous idea came to his mind, and he picked it up without hesitation.

"Auntie, I’ll take this one."

"Oh, such a nice choice, young man! It will look wonderful on your girlfriend."

Neo almost choked on his own breath, and he hurriedly paid the old woman while avoiding Nora’s eyes, though he could feel her gaze fixed on the side of his face. Then he turned around and, before she could say anything, placed the headband on top of her head, adjusting the horns so that they sat neatly among her violet hair.

"There. Perfect."

He pulled out a small mirror from the stall and held it in front of her.

Nora looked at her reflection blankly. The two small red horns stood on her head, bright against her dark violet hair, and her face beneath them remained as expressionless as ever, which only made the whole picture look funnier. Neo bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing, and then he looked at her with a smug, satisfied smile, as if he had just completed a great masterpiece.

’She looks so cute. Villainess with devil horns. It couldn’t be more fitting.’

Nora slowly shifted her eyes from the mirror to his face, and then she looked at the smug smile he was wearing. She said nothing at all, and she simply turned around and began to scan the table, her fingers moving across the headbands one by one with the focus of a general choosing her weapon.

Neo watched her with a faint sense of unease. ’Why do I feel like I’m about to regret something?’

Finally, Nora picked up a headband and examined it for a moment, and then she turned back to him with it in her hands. It was a soft white band with a pair of long, fluffy bunny ears attached to it, with a tiny pink ribbon tied at the base of one ear.

"Wait, Nora, what are you-"

Before he could finish, she stood on her toes, and with a speed that he could hardly follow, she placed the headband on his head and adjusted the ears with a calm, precise touch.

"..."

Neo froze. The soft ears flopped to either side of his face, and the pink ribbon bounced lightly as he turned his head, while the old woman at the stall covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. Some passers-by had already stopped to look, and a pair of young girls nearby began whispering to each other, glancing at him with sparkling eyes.

Nora held the mirror up in front of him, her face as calm as ever.

Neo looked at his reflection, a boy with silver hair, a handsome face, and a pair of fluffy white bunny ears, and he felt the heat climb up from his neck until his whole face turned red.

"N-Nora, this is..."

He reached up in a hurry to take it off, but before his fingers could even touch the ears, he felt a cold gaze fixed on him. He slowly turned his head, and Nora was looking at him with eyes so chilly that they could have frozen the entire marketplace, her lips pressed into a thin line, and her hand, which had been holding the mirror, was now resting on her hip.

She didn’t say a single word, but the message was clear.

If you take that off, I will make you regret it.

Neo’s hand stopped in the air, and a cold sweat ran down his back.

"B-but, Nora, people are looking at us..."

She tilted her head slightly, and the horns on her head tilted along with it, and the gaze she gave him did not change in the slightest.

Neo lowered his hand slowly, defeated. He had faced assassins, devil’s, dark elves, and even his own father’s lightning, but none of them had ever made his heart tremble like that look.

"...Fine. I’ll keep it on."

Nora gave a small nod of satisfaction, and then she turned around and walked away from the stall with perfect composure, as if she were not wearing a pair of red horns on her head. Neo paid for the bunny headband with trembling fingers, thanked the old woman, who was still laughing quietly, and hurried after her, trying to ignore the gazes of the people around him.

The two of them walked through the busy streets of Valoria with horns and bunny ears on their heads, and strangely, the attention they were getting was not as bad as Neo had feared. The people of the city smiled warmly when they passed by, a few children pointed at them excitedly, and an elderly couple sitting in front of a tea shop nodded at them with fond eyes, as if watching a pair of youngsters on their first date.

Neo pulled his hood lower over the ears, though it did not help much, and he glanced sideways at Nora, who was walking with her usual straight back and calm steps, looking at the stalls on either side with polite curiosity.

’Is she really not embarrassed at all? Or is she just good at hiding it?’

He kept looking at her until he noticed that the corner of her lips, the very tip, was curving slightly upward, so faintly that he almost thought it was a trick of the afternoon light. Neo’s heart skipped a beat, and his embarrassment suddenly felt like a small price to pay.

’Well... If it makes her smile, I can bear it.’