Sophie giggled softly and licked her lips. "Nothing."

She crawled forwards like a lioness creeping towards its prey. She then got on top of Lone and firmly wrapped her legs around his waist before licking his cheek playfully. "Don't you love what you see? What you feel?"

Lone felt several urges, one of which was to push the girl off of himself again, but she now had him trapped with her legs. He’d likely hurt her if he got forceful which he’d rather avoid.

His situation didn't improve when the very next second, she coiled her arms around his neck and purposefully leaned back so if he wanted to look down at her and meet her eyes, he'd be able to see every part of her sweat-covered body.

It took an incredible amount of willpower for Lone to not do something entirely hormonal in nature. "No, I do. You're... insanely attractive, but I don't get it. Why're you coming on to me so strongly?"

"Hehe... We haven't come anywhere... yet..." Sophie's hot breath brushed against his chest and her words made his heart pound furiously.

"We can hear it... Thump... Thump... Thump... What's wrong with a little fun?" Sophie dragged her tongue across Lone's lips and ran her fingers through his hair. "We want to have a little bit of fun..."

Lone had talked to a lot of people in his brief 24-years of life. Now, he was no extrovert but he thought himself to be pretty damned perceptive when it came to social habits.

Sophie, or whoever he was talking to, had just shown one that was entirely foreign to the Sophie he knew.

"'We'?" he asked, suspicion lacing his tone.

Sophie's expression crumpled a little bit. "I. I meant 'I'. Come on... stop asking silly questions and just sleep with me... I want you inside me, you want to be inside me... Win-win, no?"

Something was definitely going on. Lone was sure of it now. "I don't know how I feel about you, Soph. I won’t go and lie. I think, emphasis on think, I'm in love with you.”

His confession came easily since deep down, he didn’t expect anything. Hell, he didn’t even know if he was really talking to Sophie right now.

This could be some sort of shapeshifting demon trying to extract his soul for all he knew. That had its own appeal, in truth.

He steeled his mind and said, “I wanna talk to you about my feelings before we do anything we might regret. We're going to be stuck together for as long as we're on this planet I think, and I don't want to ruin our relationship.”

Lone smiled wryly as he finished his little speech by asking, “Can you give me some space to think about things if this is how you really feel about me? I can't focus right now when you're all that's filling my mind. Uh, if you are Sophie. God, I hope you are. This’ll be very awkward if not."

He prayed to whoever was listening that the woman mounting him right now wasn’t actually Rewal'eh using some illusion magic of some sort.

Sophie's cheeks flushed red for the first time all night. "… You are being honest?"

Lone leaned his forehead against hers. "I am."

He gazed into her grey and lifeless eyes before he smiled warmly. "I don't know why you're acting like this, but we have time to work this out, to work us out. Assuming there will be an us once everything’s been hashed out and whatnot."

"W-We are lost for words..." Sophie's grasp with her arms and legs loosened a little bit.

"There you go again with the 'we'." Lone saw another crack appear in Sophie's expression at the mention of that.

"We can talk about that too. I'd be stupid to not expect some baggage with a girl who's had your life. If you want to talk about it, I'm all ears, you know? I have some stuff I wouldn't mind sharing as well, though I doubt it can compare to what you might tell me..." Lone offered.

After all, sorry as his tale was, he could barely imagine how it stacked up against the life of a 1,000-year-old woman from the middle ages who claims to have killed God himself.

He saw something change in Sophie’s eyes. She was clearly considering his words deeply and in that moment of concentration, something had slipped through.

Something recognisable.

An endless dream. Countless experiences with Lone. Most of which, involved playing with his tails.

Sophie was a simple girl. She wasn't sure what was going on, but her mind felt as clear as it had ever felt.

However, suddenly this never-ending fantasy collapsed almost as if it had never been there to begin with.

Sophie blinked her eyes several times as she adjusted to her body. It took her a few seconds to realise that she'd been asleep.

'Weird. Why aren't I lying down? What am I hugging? Why are my legs wrapped around it? My forehead feels warm...' she thought in succession slowly but clearly.

The second she processed the information her Mana Sensing was feeding to her, she immediately felt her entire face heat up.

She was sat on top of the cross-legged Lone. Okay, normal enough by her standards. However, she was naked and she was hugging him.

None of that was unique but all together? It was very odd and extremely embarrassing.

Even worse, both of their bodies were covered in sweat and she could taste something sweet and unfamiliar in her mouth.

A few seconds of awkward silence passed while she stared at Lone and he stared right back into her eyes.

Eventually, something changed. Memories alien to her flashed through her mind. Memories of the last 20 minutes.

Half of that time was spent lying in bed naked in her adult body, the other half, however…

"Oh, oh no!" Sophie squealed as she let go of Lone and practically jumped away from him.

She grabbed the sheets that had been tossed aside and covered herself with them. After seeing her memories, she was suddenly very conscious of her body.

"I'll kill her..." she mumbled.

Perplexion filled Lone's complexion. "Kill who?"

Tears threatened to bubble out of Sophie's eyes. For the first time in a very, very, very, very long time, Sophie was angry and incredibly upset.

She felt betrayed by her other self. This wasn't what she wanted at all. This was far from the reason she had sealed away her other, older, typically wiser self.

Still, she felt wholly justified in her decision to do so now regardless of her original intent.

She could admit that she held feelings for the man before her, she could be clueless at times but she wasn’t stupid.

However, in spite of that, her other self had stolen so many firsts from him and ruined any chance of a slow build-up in their budding love.

Tears spilt out of her eyes and hatred began to bubble and brew inside of her; hatred directed at herself.

Lone panicked when he saw Sophie's face shift to that of a person who had been hurt, robbed and quite possibly used.

He thought she had every right to hold those feelings for him after what he’d said. It wasn’t the reaction he wanted but it made sense to him.

Lone reached over and grabbed her shoulder firmly but with care. "I'm not rejecting you, Soph. I just want to talk about everything first, okay?"

He almost fumbled his words mid-sentence. Honestly, seeing Sophie crying like a wounded animal stung more than he had even expected it to.

He’d never really held feelings for anyone, whether ones of friendship or of love in over ten years. Not since… then.

Sophie was different though. She cared about him. She'd saved his damned life twice already.

She listened to everything he said and tried to empathise with him even if she rarely understood what he was talking about.

She acted comfortable around him and wasn't afraid of some skinship. Above all else though, she treated him like a human being.

He really didn’t want to lose what they had right now. It meant a surprising amount to him.

So, in an attempt to calm her and maybe soothe some of her seething emotions, he said "I want to sleep with you, really, I do. I desperately want to. My body is screaming at me to kiss you again and to hold you in my arms. I just can't until we both confirm our feelings and talk about things, okay? You’re… rather important to me. An Anchor, remember?"

Sophie shook her head and the dam holding back her tears burst open. What was once a few droplets turned into a venerable flood.

She tried to form a smile as she replied, "It's not... it's not that! I... I need some time alone…"

Sophie picked herself up and ran out of the bedroom and made for the living room while still clutching the sheets tightly.

Lone sat there stunned for a few moments before he undid his crossed legs and flopped onto his back.

He covered his face with one hand and mumbled, "What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Sophie, now back in her youngest form, was curled up in a ball on the sofa in the living room with the bedsheets covering her entire body.

Her face was badly stained with wet streaks, a tell-tale sign of her sobbing.

"What am I supposed to do?" Sophie's mind hurt as she stressed herself for an answer. "I-I'm not like that... Should I tell him about her? About the other me?"

She squeezed her knees and firmly shut her eyes.

"I don't know what to do!" she screamed into her chest.

She felt a throbbing pain in her head and it was getting hard to think. Soon, the feeling spread across her entire body and she started crying once again. Minutes, maybe hours passed.

The heart-breaking sound of her weeping was interrupted by a long sigh and a short sentence. "Fuck. I should have pulled myself together sooner."

An arm wrapped around her and pulled her into an embrace. She could feel several soft sensations coil around her slowly which calmed her by a surprising degree.

A warm hand brought itself to her face and wiped away her tears.

"I'm sorry," the man cuddling her said with a pained expression on his face.

"Lone?" Now it was Sophie's turn to be confused.

He shook his head and smiled wryly. "This is all my fault. I had no idea what you were going through, and I thoughtlessly got too close to you without realising what I was doing."

Sophie's heart skipped a beat and she felt it sink a few fathoms. "Lo-"

A finger pressed against her lips to interrupt her. "Let me finish."

He pulled his finger away, leaving a lingering taste that Sophie craved more of.

He puckered his lips in thought before saying, "I definitely feel something for you, Soph. Could be love, could just be my horny side wanting to bang your adult form. I've legitimately never felt like this before, so I’ve no clue. But… I look at you... and I get these urges. Urges to protect and hold you, urges to do more... adult things with your older body clouding my mind, dominating my every thought.”

He chuckled. “It’s pretty distracting."

Sophie was tongue-tied, which was good for Lone since he had more left to say. "I still have no idea what's going on with you. I had some time to think about it, unfortunately, since I left you here... I don't know if you have schizophrenia, if you're bipolar, if you have a split personality, or maybe something else entirely different, but we can work it out together, can’t we?"

He smiled and said, “I mean, no matter what, we’re kinda attached at the hip. Yay for fucky sealing magic from unhelpful gods, right?”

Sophie watched with her Mana Sensing as his smile brightened before he kissed the top of her head and then tapped her skull lightly.

"Everyone's a little fucked up in here. Even me. I never got diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure I have depression and I used to be suicidal. Maybe I still am. I dunno, what with how I keep throwing myself at the goblins like I do... Maybe I want them to kill me and just end this...” his words trailed off.

He shook his head and refocused. “Anyway, I also have a decent among of trauma. Nothing special. Everyone’s got their demons but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to get help. Let's work these issues out together, okay? Be the help we both need? Can’t exactly visit a professional here on Goblin island, haha."

Sophie felt a warmth spread throughout her entire body until a deep sadness took its place.

She let go of the bedsheets and returned Lone's embrace with her own. "Mmm. I'd like that., to, uh, talk."