Becoming A God In Another World With My Crush

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The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the temple ruins. The sky was coloured gold and rose, the kind of light that made even broken things look beautiful. Xander walked slowly, boots crunching over loose stone. His body still ached, but it was the kind of ache that reminded him he was miraculously still alive.

'I sure hope I've got plot armor in this world.' He thought to himself.

Then he saw her.

Iris sat on the temple steps, a book open in her lap, her legs tucked beneath her. Her brown skin glowed in the sunlight—warm, radiant, like polished bronze kissed by fire itself. The wind played with the edges of her hair, and when she looked up, her green eyes caught the light like glass catching flame.

They stared at each other for a long moment and Xander's heart did something weird in his chest.

'Do I hug her? Say I missed her? Gods, what do I even—'

"Hey," he said, voice a little rough. "How're you feeling?"

Iris blinked, then smiled a little. "Like I got hit by a lightning bolt and then run over by a bus."

Xander huffed a laugh. "Yeah. That makes two of us."

She closed her book and set it aside, staring at her hand. "I'm okay, though. Just… surprised. I didn't know I could do that. Magic," she said. "Aura. Whatever that was. It just… happened."

Xander nodded slowly, stepping closer. "We've been out for two days."

Her eyes widened. "Two days?"

"Yeah. You missed all the fun. Screaming. Rituals. Me almost dying. Classic stuff."

She snorted. "Sounds like I picked the right time to nap."

She paused, then added, "I heard about what happened. After I passed out. The ritual. The… outburst."

Xander rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly very interested in the ground. "Yeah… that happened."

She looked at him for a long moment, like there was something she was desperately trying to figure out and Xander shifted under her gaze.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said quickly, looking away. But not before he caught it, the faintest blush on her cheeks as she brushed her hair behind her ears.

Or maybe it was the sunlight.

Or maybe he was just hallucinating out of madness of this point.

He cleared his throat. "Anyway. I didn't explode. So that's a win."

Iris stood up slowly, brushing dust from her dress as she stepped toward him. Xander didn't move as she stopped just in front of him, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating off her skin. Close enough that the scent of her hair, something soft and floral, like jasmine and rain wrapped around him like a spell.

He could only blink in confusion in response to her proximity, then, gently, she reached up and touched the side of his face. Her fingers were warm and steady. Familiar in a way that made his chest ache, but because of his mind and his heart running miles a minute at her voluntary touch, he couldn't quite figure out what it reminded him of.

Xander was frozen in disbelief. 'What is she doing? Is she still concussed?'

He could see the flecks of gold in her green eyes now, shinning in the sunlight. And when her skin met his, the pink Kaelhi companion mark began to glow soft and pulsing, like a heartbeat, Xander glanced down to her chest, between the new angle of the valley of her supple beasts, lay the mark.

She didn't say anything when he glanced down to her chest then looked up at her again, even when Xander thought she would slap the living daylights out of him for glancing down at her tits.

"I'm glad the ritual wasn't a failure," she said quietly, stroking his cheek as she did so, "I'm glad you're okay."

Xander swallowed hard. His voice came out sounding like it didn't even belong to him. "Y-yeah. Me too. I thought I was gonna die, honestly—"

He laughed nervously, but it cracked halfway through. Iris smiled and she pulled her hand back…

…and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Ow—what was that for?!" Xander rubbed his shoulder, glaring at her like she'd just committed a war crime.

Iris grinned, completely unbothered. "For almost blowing up the temple, genius."

He scoffed. "That wasn't my fault! I was literally possessed by a time bomb death crystal."

"That you swallowed," She raised an eyebrow. "And yet somehow, you still managed to make it even more dramatic, nerd."

Xander opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Okay, fair."

Iris laughed—really laughed—and the sound made something in his chest loosen. Like maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay.

Maybe he wasn't going to die at some point in this ridiculous world he was fated to save, she turned toward the temple doors, her wavy curls bouncing with each step. "Come on, dinner's ready. Vimea and the others made something weird again."

Xander followed, falling into step beside her.

"Define weird," he said cautiously.

"There's meat," she replied. "But what kind of meat though?"

He groaned. "Great. Can't wait to eat a cursed vegetable."

They walked up the steps together, the last light of the sun casting long shadows behind them. And Xander wondered if the tension between them had softened into something warm and familiar.

Like maybe this, whatever this was—wasn't so complicated after all.

The temple doors creaked shut behind them, muffling the sound of laughter and footsteps. But, high above, where the broken spires of the temple reached toward the darkening sky, a figure crouched in silence.

Cloaked in shadow and still as a statue,

their serpentine yellow eyes gleamed beneath the hood, inhumane looking as they waited for the perfect time to strike.

The figure tilted their head slightly, as if amused by what they saw. The smile that curled across their face wasn't kind. It was the kind of smile that knew things, the kind that promised ruin, death and destruction.

A whisper escaped their lips, carried by the wind like a curse.

"Found you." the woman said, "Looks like Dragan was right, after all...this is going to be fun after all."