Chapter 432.


    <strong>Chapter 432. Soul Exchange. (4/7)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, I do.” Before I left the room at the hospital I’d actually ripped out and folded up a few pages from the notebook since I figured the carbon copy paper could prove to be quite useful. I’d never really considered how it could be used before since it was something I never used.


    <span style="font-weight:400">When I pulled out my pen and the folded papers from my pocket, Rosa said, “You sure are prepared.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I never know when there’ll be an opportunity to acquire a soul after all.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I wrote up a very rudimentary contract where Rosa would sell me her soul and receive nothing in return.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Here you go.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">When she signed it she asked curiously, “Did it work?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No… it doesn’t seem like it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How can you tell?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“My body reacts a certain way.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Can you see souls?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No, but I can taste them.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You mean you eat them?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t think I’m eating them.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You mean you aren’t going to eat me?” She had a mischievous smile as she asked that.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Enough with the innuendos.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Do souls taste good?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It depends.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You mean if I’m a rotten person it’ll taste bad?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No, I don’t think the taste depends on the person.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It doesn’t? Then what does it depend on?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I started writing up the serious contract while I exined, “Whether the deal was in my favor or not. If it was a shit deal it tastes sour and bitter. If it was a good deal it tastes sweet. The better the deal, the sweeter it tastes. The worse the deal, the more sour and bitter. Oh, there are also other effects that happen when it’s a bad deal though.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. What are the other effects?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Cold sweat and abnormal heart palpitations apanied by a stabbing pain. But from what I’ve experimented with, this is specifically in the case when a certain condition is offered in the contract.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What’s the condition?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s a trade secret.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why~ that’s not fair~ tell me~”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Here you go, please sign on the dotted line.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I won’t sign it if you don’t tell me.” She pursed her lips cutely.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then I guess it can’t be helped. I suppose we’ll just have to forget about this contract.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I moved to rip the contract in half, but Rosa snatched it out of my hand and grumbled, “Jeez, you’re supposed to cave in when your girlfriend asks you something sweetly.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Who made thatw?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I did.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“When?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just now.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sorry to inform you but I’m a hardened criminal who doesn’t abide by thew.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa disgruntledly signed the contract.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The second she did my face contorted and I shut my eyes tight. Sour! It was so freaking sour! What followed was a throbbing heart palpitation apanied by intense pain far worse than ever before. It felt like my heart was being forcefully ripped out. I started to sweat profusely. I grit my teeth through all of it and did my best to not let Rosa see by averting my head to the side away from her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I felt extremely lightheaded. I genuinely feared I’d fall out of the tree at this rate. I’d more or less gotten ustomed to these symptoms thest few times, but this time waspletely different. I hadn’t expected it’d be this awful. Was this the result of a devil selling his own soul to someone else? What the hell! Why’d nobody tell me it’d be this awful! This definitely wasn’t something I’d ever want to experience again.


    <span style="font-weight:400">However, something suddenly changed without warning. The extreme sourness was abruptly reced by an extremely sweet one. Sweeter than I’d ever tasted. That striking pain in my heart suddenly eased. What was left behind was a soothing sensation.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was bittersweet?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Screw you!


    <span style="font-weight:400">Bittersweet my ass!


    <span style="font-weight:400">Sweet and sour? What the hell is with that? I’d never had abination before. What was sweet and sour supposed to mean?


    <span style="font-weight:400">When I opened my eyes, I was blinded and had to immediately cover and shut them.


    <span style="font-weight:400">What the hell, it was night thest time I checked. Why’s it so bright all of a sudden?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Rosa, who noticed my peculiar action just now, suddenly asked.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I split my middle and ring finger apart and squinted to take a peak. It was still bright. Rosa couldn’t see this? What the hell is it?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa, can you see a bright light?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? A bright light… Ran! Don’t walk into the light!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m not dying… probably.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What do I do? Do I rip up the contract?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Absolutely not. I’m fine. I’m just experiencing something I never have before.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Did you do some drugs? I don’t see anything, it’s as dark as ever, are you sure you’re not just hallucinating?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Unless you slipped some weird mushrooms into the burger you made I should be clean.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It was just rabbit meat, some spices, and normal produce we bought from towns and cities along the way during the day.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh? So it was rabbit meat. I’ve never had rabbit meat before. I didn’t expect it’d taste so good.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Forget about the rabbit meat. What’s happening to you right now?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I lowered my hand and slowly opened my eyes. They gradually grew ustomed. It seems it appeared so bright at first because I’d suddenly switched from dark to bright without a chance for my eyes to adjust. It was simr to when you were blinded by headlights when they suddenly turned on in front of you.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Once my eyes adjusted to it, I could see a strange light in front of me, it was blurry and out of focus though. I couldn’t make much out of it when focusing on it directly. However, I quickly noticed something strange, if I focused on the background in the distance behind it, it came into focus.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Once the blurry brightness came into focus, I could make out a color. It was gray. But that’s not all I discovered. I realized it wasn’t the origin of the light. The origin was actually directly by my side.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I turned my head to Rosa and that brightness was radiating off of her. When focusing directly on her I couldn’t make out the color though.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What is it? Are you… okay?” Rosa seemed rather worried.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Uh… I’m not really too sure.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I tried to refocus my eyes on the soul. Rosa’s figure split in two as my eyes viewed her from two separate angles.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The blurry brightness came into focus again. It was still gray.


    <span style="font-weight:400">How peculiar.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Is what I’m looking at… her soul?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Are all souls gray or are there other colors?


    <span style="font-weight:400">If there are, what would the color represent though?


    <span style="font-weight:400">And why can I suddenly see it?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Is it because I went and sold my soul to her?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Can I see other people’s souls now too?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Can I see my own soul?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Wait, before that… souls… really exist and can be seen?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Even though I’d epted the existence of souls to a certain degree, I still held my doubts since I hadn’t seen one before.


    <span style="font-weight:400">But if this was really a soul… I had no way to deny its existence now.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Actually… isn’t this going to be really annoying seeing this all the time? It was kind of cool at first but… wouldn’t this make it a pain in the ass to fall asleep with her around?


    <span style="font-weight:400">I closed my eyes and confirmed I could still see the bright light through my eyelids. You’ve got to be kidding me.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why’d you close your eyes?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’m thinking about something very important.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How I’m supposed to fall asleep from now on.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I opened my eyes in time to see Rosa’s lips twitching.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s really the first thing you worry about?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Of course, sleep is very important.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaaah. If your first concern is that, I was worried about you for nothing.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I refocused on the blurry light around Rosa and made a new discovery. It had changed to green.


    <span style="font-weight:400">What caused this?


    <span style="font-weight:400">What changed?


    <span style="font-weight:400">Her mood?


    <span style="font-weight:400">If that was true, did that mean the color was rted to how she felt?


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa, sorry for worrying you. I love you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Pink. It had changed colors again. This time I’d seen it right as it happened. The change urred the second I told her I loved her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa moved in close and kissed me on the cheek.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s fine I guess. As long as you’re alright.” She shot a brilliant warm smile back at me.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It seemed the colors were basically a mood detector.


    <span style="font-weight:400">… so freaking useless. I don’t need to see her soul to know what mood she’s in.