Chapter 46
<48화>
Thud.
Presently, there was a dull sound as the ropes were loosened.
“There, the ropes are off. Now, answer me—”
“Yah!”
Now was my chance.
The moment the ropes fell away, I pulled the blowgun from my pocket and took a deep breath, preparing to fire.
“Ah—”
The boy opened his mouth right in front of the needle.
If I shot him in the mouth, he’d die instantly.
“Eek!”
I had no intention of killing him, so I jerked the blowgun away with a scream. At that exact moment, he suddenly gave my finger a sharp little nip.
“Wh-What was that?!”
It didn’t even hurt, but I was so startled that I squeezed my eyes shut reflexively.
“Are—are you a former knight or a spy or something? Why are you so fearless?!”
The strong recognize the strong. No, the crazy recognize the crazy.
The moment I saw him open his mouth even after seeing the poison needle, I realized it.
Common sense didn’t apply to this kid.
Which meant I couldn’t win.
‘What is he planning to do with me now?’
Is he really going to eat me? But how?
Roasted?
‘I shouldn’t have let my guard down just because the baby followed me so well. A cat is an animal that can bolt anywhere at any time, and I completely forgot that.’
If I could, I wanted to go back to the moment I was holding the baby in the garden.
By now, May must be getting scolded for losing me.
Knox would be worried sick, too.
Perhaps it was the anxiety of facing death, but a thousand thoughts raced through my head as my body trembled. Then—
Ptui.
“Fine. You don’t even taste good.”
With a surly voice, he let go of my finger, and it dropped away.
I slowly opened my tightly shut eyes.
The boy was staring intently at my face.
Then, as if he had lost interest, he shrugged his shoulders.
“If you’re not going to answer, I’m leaving. This is boring.”
He started walking away as if he were actually going home—
“Are you going to answer or not?”
Spin. He stopped in his tracks and asked again.
Ah, the answer.
Gauging the situation for a moment, I gave a fluttering wave and smiled.
“Bye-bye.”
“…….”
His eyebrows slanted upward at my words. Seeing his lips slowly pouting into a duck face, he seemed thoroughly offended.
Yet, the boy didn’t move.
Even as his dissatisfaction grew and the frown lines around his mouth deepened.
For some reason, he remained standing by my side before kicking at a random pebble.
“Why did you save me?”
The same question followed.
“Did you just save me for no reason at all?”
It was strange.
It was clearly the same question as before, but this time, I could sense a hint of sadness in it.
“…How irresponsible. I had high expectations. You were the first person to ever look at me like that.”
Startled by his following words, I finally looked up.
The boy was staring down at the pebble he had kicked.
And right then.
The sun shining through the forest shifted, casting a deep shadow between me and the boy.
He had definitely been sparkling before.
He had definitely looked full of curiosity.
But now, shrouded in darkness, the child looked familiar, as if he had finally found his true colors.
As if the very first emotion he had ever learned was loneliness.
Suddenly, I realized.
The emptiness I felt while hiding alone in the Duke’s Castle, staring at the vacant hallways.
The hollow version of myself from back then overlapped with this boy.
And so, without thinking, I spoke.
“Actually, I lost my memory.”
I ended up telling a lie.
“…What?”
His violet eyes, hidden in the shadows, met mine.
Then, his mouth hanging open in surprise, the boy suddenly took a step out of the darkness.
“That look in your eyes right now.”
“…Huh?”
“When you saved me, you looked at me with those exact eyes.”
“…Eh?”
He was born in the snowy fields. But before he could even see the light of the world, he was captured by humans.
Thus, when he opened his eyes for the first time, what he saw was not his family or his mother cat, but iron bars.
‘What is this? What’s with his eye color? It’s ominous, isn’t it?’
He remembered the gaze of the first living creature that ever looked at him.
It was threatening and harsh.
It took a long time for him to realize that the word ’ominous’ referred to him, and that the emotion behind that word was a bad one.
‘Ominous.’
He muttered behind the iron bars. It was the first emotion he had ever learned in his life.
About a month later, a man who happened to see him shouted.
‘Is this a beast or a monster?’
‘Who knows. I have no idea what it’ll turn into when it grows up.’
‘Should I throw it away?’
‘What if it threatens people once it’s out? Just leave it be. If we don’t give it food or water, it’ll just starve to death.’
‘…Fine, then.’
Spitting into the cage, the man walked past.
After that, they stopped feeding him. At least before, they had always given him food scraps.
‘I want to eat something. It feels like my stomach is shrinking.’
If he couldn’t eat anything…
‘I hope time ends quickly so the pain goes away.’
As a month passed, his mind began to grow hazy.
He used to sit and play by catching dust motes in the air, but now, just lying down felt more comfortable.
Even breathing was difficult, and by the time his vision grew blurry with sleep crust, a second emotion was added to his world.
Ennui and resignation.
The nameless cat was dying day by day.
Just as he was about to close his eyes, wishing for it all to end quickly.
‘It’s a cat.’
A pair of blue eyes appeared out of nowhere.
‘……?’
‘The cat is dying. Oh no.’
Small hands struggled to pull him out, and those blue eyes were fixed on him.
It wasn’t an ominous gaze.
Nor was it the indifferent gaze he had felt since they stopped giving him scraps.
This was…
…This was.
“What is it?”
He tilted his head.
Recalling his past memories, he leaned his head to the side.
“How should I know?”
Aisha was glaring at him with a dissatisfied look, her arms crossed.
Then, letting out a long sigh from her small mouth, she raised her index finger as if to wrap up the conversation.
“So, you’re saying I looked at you with a strange look in my eyes?”
“Yeah.”
“And I saved you?”
“Yeah.”
Sparkle.
For the first time, it felt like this conversation was going somewhere.
Thinking that the long-awaited answer was finally coming, he clenched his fists and beamed with anticipation.
“…Ummm.”
However.
“…A-As I said before…?”
Cold sweat erupted like a fountain on the top of her blonde head.
“I—I actually had an accident a long time ago and suffered a shock. I lost my memory of several events after that!”
Clap.
Aisha spoke, clapping her hands as if she had finally remembered the answer.
But the boy was puzzled.
“Lost your memory? Did the memory die?”
“No. It disappeared, but it’s not dead.”
Isn’t that the same as being dead?
In truth, he didn’t know the exact meaning of losing something. He had never had anything to lose in the first place.
So, he crossed his arms confidently and raised an eyebrow.
“If it disappeared, it’s dead.”
Not to be outdone, Aisha crossed her arms as well.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
As the conversation showed no sign of ending, the boy let out a huff and turned his head away.
“The animals near me never came back once they disappeared.”
“Huh?”
“So if they disappear, they’re dead. They all died.”
Stunned by his somewhat grounded reasoning, Aisha’s blue eyes went wide.
“…….”
Since he was technically right, she had nothing to say.
‘So Aisha’s memory isn’t lost, it’s dead.’
“…If you didn’t know, now you do.”
Winning at anything was good. It was better to be the one catching than the one being eaten.
“…….”
Although he took a triumphant pose with his arms crossed, for some reason, he felt even more depressed.
But then.
“Here, look.”
A small fist was thrust into the air.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my hair tie. I’ll give it to you.”
One side of Aisha’s hair had come undone, and she stood there with raised eyebrows and a brave, firm set to her mouth.
“This is yours now. It’s your possession.”
“This is mine? My possession?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa.”
A hair tie? What was that?
He was full of questions about everything, but the boy took the hair tie for now.
Then, with a beaming smile, Aisha carefully gathered the white hair covering his forehead and tied it up with the hair tie.
“This is how you do it. Now you can see better, right?”
“Oh. Whoa.”
With his hair tied up like an apple stem, Aisha pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh, but he was simply amazed that he could see clearly.
“This is an apology.”
“An apology?”
“Yeah. Because I made you sad and made you angry, I fixed it for you.”