Chapter 118
If it had been Blanche, she would have flinched at that look and immediately pulled away from me. But Ska didn’t retreat so obediently.
Maybe his contrarian streak kicked in. Instead, he lifted his upper body and pressed even closer, to the point of resting his chin on my shoulder.
It looked exactly as if Ska were hugging me from behind.
“Skar-gard.”
“What did I do?”
“Get off me. Now.”
“I don’t want to. Am I sticking to you? Danae isn’t saying anything, so why are you making a fuss? Does Danae belong to you?”
It was a rather childish rebuttal, but it wasn’t wrong.
The one Ska was clinging to was me, not Rien, so Rien technically had no reason to warn him.
Caught off guard by that unexpectedly logical strike, Rien shut his mouth tight.
Apparently pleased that he’d rendered Rien speechless, Ska tightened the arm wrapped around my waist and let out a snort.
“I’m her friend, and you’re her physician. Friends hugging each other is fine, but a physician hugging a patient? That’d be a weird picture.”
“Danae.”
Rien, who had been staring at the smug Ska, turned his gaze to me this time.
His eyes clearly asked whether I was really going to keep letting this happen.
I don’t really mind, though.
Maybe because I’d seen Ska so often in his cat form, even now it just felt like I was being held by a giant cat.
Besides…
For some reason, seeing Rien frown in displeasure was oddly satisfying.
He was someone whose expression rarely changed, so it had been a long time since I’d seen this side of him.
It was the same in my past life.
I used to pull all kinds of pranks, trying to shake my master out of that perpetually stoic expression.
Well, my success rate had been abysmally low.
But maybe it’s because he’s handsome. Even his scowl looks like a painting.
As I leaned against Ska and quietly observed Rien, his handsome face suddenly closed the distance until it was right in front of my nose.
Startled by how close he was, I widened my eyes—just as Rien reached out and grabbed the back of Ska’s neck.
The moment I realized what he was doing, the heavy weight I’d felt behind me vanished.
With one hand, Rien lifted Ska and tossed him onto the floor.
“Ugh!”
Ska, sprawled on the ground, rubbed his sore backside and glared up at Rien.
“Danae. The physician just threw your friend. I think you should scold the physician on your friend’s behalf.”
Rien sighed at the tattling Ska, then ran a tired hand through his hair.
“Are you planning to keep this up, Skar-gard?”
“Why? Watching this makes your insides burn? If it’s unfair, why don’t you reach out too?”
As Ska brushed himself off and stood up, his voice lost all its earlier playfulness.
“You can’t touch her, but you can’t leave either, so you just circle around like a dog that needs to pee. What a sight, Rien.”
Clicking his tongue at Rien, Ska then turned to look at me. His eyes were full of dissatisfaction.
“Hey. You said you’d protect me. Why aren’t you doing it? Hurry up and take my side.”
“I never said I’d protect you. You just decided that on your own.”
“…Did you?”
“You did.”
I was completely confident. I had no memory of agreeing to protect him.
Ska rolled his eyes as he searched his memory, then seemed to realize the truth. He puffed out his lips in a sulk.
“If my friend won’t protect me, I’m leaving. If I stick around Rien, I’m the only one who loses. Call me later when you’re going to hunt demonkind.”
“Oh. You’ll help with that?”
“Not ‘help,’ exactly. That’s our duty in the first place. If anything, you’re the one helping us.”
Maintaining the balance of the world was their responsibility.
Demonkind threatens that balance, so even if I don’t ask, Ska has no choice but to step in.
If that was the case, then I should feel relieved… no, wait.
“What? Then helping me yesterday wasn’t just because I asked? It was something you were supposed to do anyway?”
Last night, I’d borrowed Ska’s power to stop the monster invasion. In return, Ska had demanded that I become his “friend.”
But based on what he’d just said, dealing with monsters was part of his duty regardless.
As if my reasoning was correct, Ska didn’t even try to refute it and quietly turned his head away, avoiding my gaze.
“You said the contract was what mattered. It’s your fault for not reading every clause carefully, friend.”
This…
He’d thrown my own words right back at me, exactly what I’d said when I first brought him to the estate.
Gaping in indignation, I watched as Ska waved cheerfully and swiftly slipped out of the consultation room.
Now only Rien and I remained. With the noisy Ska gone, the room quickly filled with silence.
Rien was the first to break it.
“Please do not get too close to him.”
“We’re not that close.”
“And yet you allow that kind of distance?”
“That kind of distance?”
I blinked in confusion, then recalled how Ska had hugged me earlier.
“I didn’t allow it. He did it on his own.”
“And when someone you haven’t allowed does that, you simply let it happen?”
“That depends on the person.”
Ska wasn’t someone I needed to be wary of.
To me, he was basically a cat, and I was sure he’d only done it to provoke Rien anyway.
“So… Ska is someone you ‘just let be,’ then?”
Rien’s polite speech suddenly grew noticeably shorter.
“How many people fall into that category?”
“Uh… well…”
I pictured a few faces in my mind and folded my fingers one by one.
If Lucas or Baratheon or Sische did something like that, I’d probably just let it slide too.
Because they’re my brothers!
So that made three. I folded down three fingers.
And next would be…
Before I could think of anyone else, Rien let out a sigh.
“I didn’t mean for you to actually count.”
“Oh? You didn’t?”
I blinked, bewildered, having been sincerely pondering his question.
If you didn’t want me to count, then why ask something like that?
At my utterly confused gaze, Rien sighed once more.
“And besides…”
His eyes landed on my hand, where three fingers were folded. Just like when Ska had hugged me, his brow was deeply furrowed.
“You found three people in that short amount of time?”
“Yes. Lucas, Theon, and Sische. My brothers are fine.”
At the mention of those three names, I could see the tension in Rien’s brow ease just a little.
“Then what about me?”
“…Pardon?”
“Am I also someone you would ‘just let be’?”
Rien’s eyes fixed directly on me.
Would I just let Rien do that?
Staring blankly at his unnecessarily handsome face, I tried to imagine the scene.
If Rien hugged me, like Ska did…
But for some reason, I couldn’t picture it clearly at all.
I just can’t imagine it.
It was strange.
I could easily imagine Lucas or Baratheon or Sische doing it. I could even picture Hedin or Zedin without much trouble.
So why can’t I imagine Rien doing it?
Come to think of it, even in my past life, Rien had never hugged me.
Maybe he did when I was very young…
But those memories were faint. The memories that remained clearly with me started from around when I was ten years old.
As I stared at Rien’s face in silence, feeling puzzled, he tilted his head slightly.
“Ah. I was genuinely asking that question. I suddenly got curious.”
“Yes. I thought so, so I tried to think seriously about it… but I don’t know. I can’t imagine you hugging me, Rien.”
I turned it over in my head again, but still no clear image came up.
Well. Can’t be helped.
“Let’s test it.”
“…Test it?”
Rien replied a beat—no, two beats—too late.
His expression looked the same as usual, yet somehow he seemed completely dazed.
What’s with him? If you can’t imagine it, the only option is to try it, right?
It was a perfectly logical conclusion.
I shrugged and stood up.
“It’s not that hard. Hugging someone doesn’t wear them down or anything.”
I spread my arms wide toward Rien.
“Go on. Hug me. You need to find out whether you’re someone I’d ‘just let be,’ too.”
