Fortunately, before his ribs were crushed, his words seemed to have made some impression on Rose. The strangling arms loosened. With the airway that opened all at once, his vision was dizzy.
“Right. Anyway, Elijah is mine…… Right?”
“Yeah, ……that’s right.”
……Was breaking all the furniture and making a mess something to be this happy about? To the point of not being able to control his strength? If he made him happy two more times, he might really become a lump of dough.
It was truly incomprehensible. Elijah watched Rose carrying the broken bed frame outside with a bewildered feeling. Though he didn’t know which of his actions had caused it, Rose continued to look in a good mood even after that.
While he was moving the broken furniture outside, Elijah looked around the house that was so messy he didn’t know where to start and discovered something.
“Igrit.”
He picked up Igrit, who was lying among the broken metal pieces and feathers scattered messily, and exhaled a sigh of relief while examining the stuffed body here and there.
“Are you okay?”
It was extremely fortunate that it wasn’t hurt, but beyond being safe, somehow the smile seemed deeper than usual. Did Igrit originally have this expression? Elijah wiped off the dust while stroking the facial features that somehow felt unfamiliar with his fingertips.
He carefully sat Igrit on the table and swept the floor, reproaching himself for his recklessness. In any case, this incident was truly dangerous. Not knowing magic formulas was one thing, but the biggest problem was that he had no sense at all of how much mana he should release.
Elijah hid his clasped hands inside his sleeves and briefly shuddered. Who would have known that the house would end up like this from just a handful of mana released as lightly as exhaling breath?
No matter how much it was an emergency situation, he shouldn’t have attempted magic recklessly…….
He felt unnecessarily sorry toward Rose. Come to think of it, he too had once tied young Rose to the bed when he went down to the settlement alone. It was purely an action out of worry for him. At that time, Rose had waited obediently without a single complaint…….
You’re not a little kid, Elijah. The situation is different from then.
Elijah quietly stared at Igrit, whose center of gravity tilted toward the head and was smoothly collapsing.
“……”
Perhaps Igrit’s point was valid. He wasn’t a small child who would get lost in the forest. Igrit’s head, which seemed particularly full of laughter, dropped onto the table with a thud.
If you hadn’t broken the restraint, what do you think would have happened?
“Elijah.”
Elijah, startled by the voice heard from behind, looked up at Rose who had approached before him at some point. Rose, whose smile had completely disappeared, seemed suddenly angry for some reason.
“What are you doing?”
He immediately lifted Elijah and sat him on the table, grabbing his ankle.
“You’re hurt.”
Elijah looked down at his foot held in his hand.
“Ah……”
Only then did he feel pain in the sole of his foot. It seemed he had stepped wrongly on a broken chain fragment. Elijah frowned, curling his toes. It must have been embedded quite deeply, as blood flowed profusely along Rose’s fingers.
“Usually you say it hurts well, but you didn’t know about this?”
“……I guess I didn’t notice while thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“……”
Rose, who had placed Elijah’s foot on his thigh without caring that his clothes were stained with blood, asked while stopping the bleeding. Perhaps stimulated by the smell of blood, his pupils were greatly dilated.
“……Hm?”
Sharp fangs protruded between slightly parted lips. Elijah, who had been staring down at them, belatedly made excuses.
“Just, wondering when I’d finish cleaning everything up……”
“I’ll do it all.”
A large hand wrapped around his bony ankle. The touch of the grip with low body temperature was similar to that of the restraint.
‘If I hadn’t broken it, would Rose have obediently released it?’
Looking at Rose, who was bent over and focused only on examining the wound, Elijah swallowed the question that had been circling in his throat. It was a question whose answer couldn’t be known unless experienced.
Fortunately, there was no occasion to see the restraint again after that.
* * *
Until the snow completely melted, Elijah suffered from colds two more times. In the meantime, the warm wind that had steadily pushed winter away brought spring richly to this deep forest.
However, Elijah still couldn’t walk freely without Rose’s permission. After he hurt his foot by stepping wrongly on metal fragments, Rose’s overprotectiveness had become even worse.
Newly sprouted grass tickled the soles of his feet. It was a sensation he was feeling after a truly long time. Having perfectly good legs yet repeatedly going back and forth through the forest while being carried by him every time, at some point even floating letters began to feel like an extremely cumbersome routine.
He wondered if he really needed to keep writing when there was no one to read them anyway, but then he couldn’t quit easily because that would make him a disciple who didn’t uphold his Master’s will.
The paper boat that left Elijah’s hands, who was crouched in front of the stream, floated along the water surface. It was the moment he was blankly staring at the trajectory of the paper boat floating away while waiting for Rose who had gone to pick up firewood to use in the kitchen.
Suddenly an unfamiliar hand popped out and picked up the paper boat. Elijah’s eyes, which had been full of drowsiness, trembled with bewilderment in an instant.
Across the stream, a young man he was seeing for the first time stood.
“Excuse me……, by any chance.”
A voice that seemed to have just passed puberty, not yet matured, flowed from him. Elijah, who flinched and shrank his shoulders, stared at the young man, completely stiff.
It was the first time he had met someone other than Rose in the forest.
“By any chance, are you……”
The young man cautiously began with a voice that timidly shrank.
“Elijah-ssi?”
As his name came from his mouth, Elijah stood up in great surprise. How did that person know him? The name heard through the mouth of someone other than Rose sounded quite unfamiliar.
“I, I live at the ranch down below and my name is Gillie…… Are you Elijah-ssi?”
When Elijah didn’t answer rashly and was on guard, Gillie waved the paper boat held in his hand.
“You’re the person who floats letters here every day, right?”
“……Pardon?”
“I’m the person who’s been unintentionally intercepting these letters…… Weren’t you puzzled that no reply came to Master all this time? It’s probably because of me.”
Elijah’s eyes widened as if they would pop out. Seeing his shocked expression, Gillie was also considerably flustered and made excuses, not knowing what to do.
“At first, I really didn’t know it was a letter. I just thought it was a paper boat, but one day I unfolded it and there was a letter written inside……”
Gillie bowed his head, unable to bear this guilt. It was around last year that he realized this wasn’t a simple paper boat but a letter.
Before that, he had vaguely thought it was a boat floated by fairies, but as his mind grew and he no longer believed such fanciful stories, he began to be curious about the origin of the paper boats.
That very day, he unfolded all the paper boats he had preciously collected in a glass bottle. The boats he had started picking up whenever he occasionally discovered them like tokens of good fortune had accumulated in considerable quantity over several years.
Having belatedly learned that he had been intercepting dozens of letters someone had written all this time, how could he not feel guilty?
“……That letter.”
The other party, who had been silent the whole time, finally spoke. Gillie calmed his pounding heart and nodded toward him.
“Did you read all of it by any chance?”
“Yes……, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
As soon as he answered, the man’s face turned pale. He covered his mouth with one hand and stared piercingly at Gillie. At that intense gaze he couldn’t understand, Gillie was a bit flustered.
“I am……”
The man opened his mouth again. Gillie swallowed dry saliva and listened to his words. The voice that shrank like an ant trembled thinly.
“I, I am not Elijah.”
“……Pardon?”
What does this mean? You’re not Elijah-ssi?
“Then where is Elijah-ssi right now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gillie blinked with a blank face. Elijah, receiving that gaze, was equally flustered. The two people forgot their words for a while, facing each other without any answer like that.
Elijah felt a sense of crisis accompanied by a bit of shame. Even if there wasn’t some great secret, who would want to show their diary to others?
Moreover, truly great secrets were written in that diary. Things no one should know about, such as things about Rose.
Of course, no one would readily believe that vampires actually exist from a few crude lines of writing, but still Elijah was anxious. Since meeting Rose, his letters had always been filled only with stories about Rose, so it was natural.
“I don’t know such letters. Don’t come looking again.”
Denying everything. For Elijah, who didn’t have the skill to elaborately create a plausible excuse, this was the best option. However, Elijah’s clumsy lie, whose ability to deal with people was poor to the point of being almost a blank slate, rather gave Gillie certainty.
“You are Elijah-ssi, right?”
“……”
“I…… I know you’re surprised and flustered, but could you please listen to what I have to say first?”
He eventually crossed the stream and approached Elijah. Seeing him skillfully step on the stones protruding above the water surface and hop over, Elijah was startled.
“Don’t come closer!”
The composure he could barely maintain with a certain distance between them crumbled. As another person entered the close distance where hands could touch, his nerves stood on end. He felt unpleasant and scared as if his own territory had been invaded unexpectedly.
At Elijah’s words, Gillie, who stopped firmly in place, held out the paper boat. Elijah reflexively snatched the paper boat.
“Elijah-ssi.”
At that moment, Gillie grabbed his wrist. Elijah recoiled backward in fright, but it was already too late.
“I don’t mean anything by it……”
Gillie looked down at the other party and stopped speaking. Though he hadn’t gripped that hard, the man who had turned pale couldn’t pull out his caught wrist and twisted it here and there, not knowing what to do.
His thin body trembled like a person trapped in a snowstorm. Since the other party was this frightened, Gillie no longer had confidence to lead the conversation either.
“Let, let go……”
Elijah’s heart was pounding so much he felt like he would stop breathing. Even that simple phrase asking him to let go wouldn’t come out properly. The young man’s strength was so strong that his strangled wrist hurt too much.
“Elijah.”
That was when it happened. From inside the forest, Rose appeared holding an armful of branches. Elijah, who turned his head, felt relief and simultaneously a new anxiety struck him. The red gaze that slid diagonally touched the wrist held by Gillie.
