CH 31

“……….”

I couldn’t seem to calm myself down. My mind just kept replaying the situation from right before and wasn’t letting it go.

“…….I’ll die. I’ll just die right here.”

Of course, the people here wouldn’t know who I am, but the fact that I had done such a thing was a huge scratch to my pride.

“Diiiiiie…………..Air, stop………….please.”

I wanted to become a handful of dust that was gently sprinkled onto a river. Then, I wanted to be eaten by fish, then caught by a fisherman, then food on someone’s table and then become fertilizer for the earth. That would probably be a lot more useful than what I did just now.

He said to grab others’ attention, so my mind went to my past life when I had a part-time job as an event employee and danced to gain others’ attention. I jumped onto stage because it was an emergency. In my last life, this was okay because I was wearing a character costume while dancing. But this was different. My face was completely exposed.

Moreover, this was something that I chose to do so it was more embarrassing. Oh, man. Oh man. I’m ruined. Why did I do that? Why was this the only thing that I could think of?

I squirmed in the face of the consequences of my actions. I looked down and squatted down, then looked up at the ceiling as all of my strength left my body.

When I looked in front of me, Yves was standing right there. He stared at me with unreadable silver eyes.

“Let’s go.”

He said just those two words and turned around. I couldn’t see even a bit of the shocked expression he had before on his face.

Looking at Yves, it seemed that he had accomplished what he wanted. Seriously, if he didn’t pay me generously for this I wasn’t going to let him be. I needed mental, physical compensation for this. Of course, this was all my doing but it was still because of him. I decided to just argue that point.

Yves, who had walked away from me without even turning, stood and watched me from a distance. It seemed like I should slowly get ready to head out.

I checked the tables where the target was, and saw that they were already gone. People still kept looking my way ever so often. I grit my teeth as I tried to ignore their gazes.

When I tried to add some strength to my legs to stand up, something weird happened. I couldn’t stand up fully and fell on the floor when I got halfway up. Yves saw that something was wrong and came back to where I was sitting.

My legs were cramping up. I must have been too nervous: my legs wouldn’t work. I tried to stand up as hard as I could and held onto the wall to get up. My legs shook, but I was able to take a step with my weight mostly on the wall.

Yves sent me a look asking me what I was doing. Then, he shot me a look full of pity and grabbed my arm.

“Lean.”

Yves held me up as I shook. Then, it looked like he was uncomfortable and just put me on his back. I disagreed at first, but even I thought that it would be easier for me to be on his back so I let it be.

In the end, I was on Yves’ back the whole trip even though my legs were fine. Not even joking, but this was the first time in both my first and current lives, in thirty years, that I had physical contact like this with a man who wasn’t part of my family. I was extremely uncomfortable. I floundered on his back after a moment.

“Let me down.”

I threw a small tantrum demanding to walk on my own, so he put me down. But as soon as I got down, I tripped on the spot. My legs still couldn’t seem to work.

And now, I even sprained my ankle. It felt like I had landed on it wrong when I fell before. Yves looked at me with a look that sarcastically said, ‘Good job’ to me.

When I fell, Yves wordlessly helped me back up and put me back on his back with an annoyed expression. I would’ve been embarrassed on a normal day, but the dancing before was too powerful to make me embarrassed about this right now.

‘Haaaah, I’m really ruining my image in a lot of ways today.’

I just stared blankly at the slum streets as I sat on his back. We were definitely going to bump into the women from earlier, so I did have to stay on his back anyway.

I tried my hardest to physically avoid touching any more of Yves than necessary, but soon gave up and completely leaned on him. Yves, who was wordlessly carrying me and walking, felt comfortable. Maybe it was because his back was warm, but my body slowly relaxed and it felt like I was going to fall asleep. But who did I think I was? I wasn’t going to sleep.

Like how after running track, you run as fast as you can and pass out, my body was basically the same. My mental and physical capabilities were done.

Yves’ back felt so comfortable it was almost suspicious that my exhaustion suddenly dissipated.

Smirk.

It was because Yves, who was completely quiet until now, had a smile on his face without reason. It wasn’t difficult for me to figure out that he was smiling because of me. But it was just conjecture and I couldn’t be completely sure. My eyes blinked wide open and I paid special attention to his sudden action.

“Man, I’m in trouble.”

“……….”

Yves muttered quietly. But I was right behind him and I could hear his voice clearly. When I asked him what he kept thinking about in a cold tone, he just casually said that it was nothing.

He went back to staying silent for a bit longer. He had a cold expression on his face, as if asking when he had ever smiled in his life. So I thought he wouldn’t smile again. But,

Smirk.

Yves raised one corner of his mouth and laughed lightly. I could hear a bit of derision coming from it. Well, that’s what I felt. It wasn’t a crime to laugh but I frowned as I felt shame and embarrassment crawling back into my mind.

Then, I checked my hands and saw that my hands were red. It wasn’t just my face, but my entire body that was blushing.

Yves seemed to realize that I flinched at his laugh and just smirked. When Yves smiled, he didn’t just smile. It looked like he was laughing at you.

Yves’ occasional laughter continued even after we had left the slums. Damn it. My head hurt.

I stopped being embarrassed by his laugh and just stared at the sky above me.

Once we were done with our work for the day, it was slightly late in the afternoon. The sky was dark, but the red from the sun wasn’t all gone yet. Summer was slowly passing onto autumn, so the evening breeze felt cool.

The cool breeze slowly cooled down my sweat. The wind swept my bangs away to the side. I could feel my hair becoming more and more messy, but I didn’t really care.

I could hear the townspeople laughing, adding background noise to my thoughts. The sound of laughter and merchants selling their wares filled the air.

Because it was slowly growing later, bars and entertainment stores were slowly opening for their evening guests. The smell of food wafted through the air too. My mood grew lighter as I felt more relaxed.

I almost found myself beginning to hum a melody with the cool breeze, but blocked my mouth before it could come out. I had almost released the demon called ‘song’. I couldn’t show Yves any more embarrassing parts of myself.

I’d lost my mental sensibilities once, and now I was about to lose it permanently. Whose back was I on to lose my senses like this?

“Do you like chicken skewers?”

Yves stared at a chicken skewer stall next to us and asked. I tensed as he began to speak. What did he mean, did I like chicken skewers? What kind of ploy was this? When I didn’t respond, he turned his head to look at me. At his sudden stare, I just blurted out a response.

“Yes, well…….”

When I replied positively, Yves bought two skewers from the stall. I thought he was going to give me one and eat the other, but he gave both of them to me. I found Yves, who gave me both of the skewers, suspicious. He definitely wasn’t the kind of person to do this, so why was he giving me food like this? Did he drug it?

“Why all of a sudden?”

When I asked, Yves responded.

“I could hear a gurgle.”

“It was probably you.”

Instead of a response, Yves just smirked at me.

…….damn it. Ah, goddamn it.

It was so quiet that even I couldn’t hear it, but it was obvious that he had heard the sound from my stomach when I was basically stuck on his back. As he had said, I had only eaten a single piece of a sandwich so I really was hungry.

Because Yves didn’t eat a lot, I had followed.

But seriously, nothing was going right today. At this point, I didn’t have anything to be embarrassed by in front of him. He knew everything shameful about me except for my godforsaken singing skills.

I stayed on his back, holding a chicken skewer in each hand, and thought. But why was he giving me both of them? Was he seriously telling me to eat both of them?

I stared at Yves and realized. He was holding me with both hands so he didn’t have a hand to eat with. Then what, did he want me to feed him?

I frowned, then put a chicken skewer near his mouth. But Yves didn’t eat it.

“I gave both for you to eat.”

I tilted my head in confusion at his unexpected response.

“Why?”

“It looked like you needed to eat both to fill your stomach.”

Just to add on, this particular stall had a really big portion size. They added a ton of meat and vegetables so just one was enough to be a single meal. So, he was basically telling me that I looked like I ate a lot.

I had thought that I was skinny, but did I gain weight recently……?

Well, I was ugly to begin with so adding a layer of fat wouldn’t change too much, would it…..? I wanted to eat both, but I didn’t want to get uglier.

I was feeling slightly down until Yves continued to speak.

“You’re at the age where you’re growing a lot. Eat a lot when you can.”

I didn’t know what else to say.

He wasn’t saying this to mock me. Of course, seeing the smirk on his lips showed me that he was slightly mocking me. But I wondered if I had too much of a negative opinion about Yves.

But thinking back, Yves, who was telling me to eat both skewers, didn’t eat anything at all that day. If this was about growing, he had to care more.

I pointed the skewer near his mouth again.

“You starved all day. I ate that sandwich earlier.”

“I don’t……”

“Eat it.”

When I spoke threateningly, Yves seemingly gave up and ate a bit of the vegetables on the skewer. Then, he said that he was done. I was floored.

Thinking back, Yves only drank milk yesterday and didn’t eat anything else. Today, he had only drank water and didn’t eat anything.

Speaking of, whenever we were together he only ate a weird powder medicine and didn’t eat anything else. Seeing powder medicine made me think of drugs, but that wasn’t it. It just looked like medicine he was taking.

When I prodded him to eat more, Yves didn’t even respond now. I gave up and started eat both of the skewers, one skewer in each hand. I wasn’t going to ask someone who didn’t want to eat to eat more.

“Don’t spill sauce on my back.”

Yves said, stopping to speak as if nervous. I told him that I would try not to spill, and if I did that I would spell it away.

As if satisfied, Yves wordlessly continued walking.