# Chapter 91
Ion, who had been recalling Claudia, found his attention completely stolen by Levi, who was kneading his hand like a toy while looking at it with curiosity.
‘Why is he so cute?’
Ion couldn’t take his eyes off Levi, unaware of how much intangible honey was dripping from his gaze. Feeling the stare, Levi looked back blankly before trying to withdraw his hand, which finally snapped Ion back to his senses.
Ion quickly wrapped his arm around Levi’s waist to stop him from moving away, opening his eyes drowsily.
“Why are you pulling away?”
“Because you look like you want to eat me.”
Ion flinched and answered promptly.
“I won’t eat you.”
He said that, but somehow his gaze kept trying to move downward from Levi’s face. He tried to turn his eyes away, clinging to the thread of his reason, but then he felt Levi’s thin, soft waist against his arm.
‘I can’t eat him yet. …Not yet.’
Ion, not even aware of what he was muttering, couldn’t hide his flushed face until they left the bath.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Sleep well.”
Hest smiled kindly toward Levi, who was sitting across from him at a table with refreshments and tea. It was such a rare expression that Ion had never seen it in all the days he had known Hest.
Levi had been semi-forcibly seated next to Ion and was now sleeping, leaning against his sturdy shoulder, unable to resist his drowsiness. Until just a while ago, he had been looking at Hest with an expression full of wariness, but after eating a few sweet pastries, he seemed to have relaxed, showing this defenseless appearance.
Ion embraced Levi’s shoulder that was leaning against him while glaring at Hest with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t pounce on him.”
“Who are you calling a beast…”
Hest, who momentarily showed a fierce expression, softened his face immediately as he looked at Levi.
“It’s amazing. It’s already surprising that you managed to bring him here after all that commotion, but to think you’ve already made him this soft.”
“Hest is the surprising one. I didn’t know you could make such a creepy expression.”
“Are you picking a fight?”
“Half right, but half is because I’m genuinely surprised. I knew you liked Levi, but the Hest I remember had a face so prickly it was irritating.”
It wasn’t unreasonable for Ion to say that.
The last time Hest had Levi directly in front of him like this was 15 years ago.
Back then, there was a fresh 20-year-old Hest, who for whatever reason treated Levi prickly. Of course, even that prickliness couldn’t hide the affection that peeked through, but it was certainly surprising to Ion, for whom those memories were still vivid.
Ion thought Hest would frown and snap back, but surprisingly, Hest chuckled and lowered his eyes.
“I was young back then too. I tried to persuade him to live together in the mansion like before for 2 years, but he just kept shutting himself up in the Black Forest. How could I have looked pleased? …He forgot me completely too.”
Hest exhaled a long breath as if releasing years of deep sighs and leaned back against the sofa with a bitter face. Even so, his gaze never left the sleeping Levi.
“I’m different now than I was then. I’ve matured and my mindset and thoughts have… changed somewhat.”
There was a strange darkness in Hest’s words. However, one thing was certain: Hest’s gaze toward Levi was not much different from his affectionate looks from 15 years ago, which is why Ion couldn’t help but trust him considerably.
By the time Ion’s warm black tea had been reduced by half.
Hest, who had been silently watching Levi and lost in thought until then, opened his mouth.
“Do you know why Levi is asleep?”
“…I do.”
How could he not know?
Levi appeared human, but he was definitely not human. Even setting aside the abilities through the Black Hand or the existence of his core, there were many differences.
Levi seemed able to learn basic emotions that humans inherently possess from birth, but he found it quite difficult to empathize with them. Compared to 15 years ago, he now seemed to have various emotions and moved according to his own purposes, which made him very human-like now.
But besides that, there were many things that were different from humans, both then and now.
He didn’t need nutritional intake through food to survive like humans do, nor did he have various desires, including appetite. He didn’t need rest to replenish energy, and he didn’t need to sleep.
Yet Levi was sleeping like a human. As if he didn’t have the strength to overcome the drowsiness washing over him.
Ion looked down at the ring attached to Levi’s Black Hand. The white bracelet, densely filled with characters, somehow looked precarious, as if it would crack and break at any moment.
He knew well because he had heard it from Chepel Lance. What role that ring played, what the amount of strange characters appearing on its surface meant.
“They say he might suddenly not wake up one day.”
Levi starting to doze off meant he was reaching a state of starvation.
Normally, when reaching starvation, only the instinct to take life would remain, leading to a rampage, but the white ring attached to Levi’s Black Hand gave endless sleep instead of a rampage. That was safer for both Levi and humans than going on a rampage in search of food.
‘But staying asleep in a state of starvation for a long time can’t possibly be beneficial.’
Chepel had said the same thing.
So the best option was to either provide nourishment before Levi fell completely into starvation or have him absorb the ‘black fragment’ Chepel mentioned. The biggest problem was that Raziel had that fragment.
As if reading Ion’s mind, who was thinking that Raziel needed to be captured and killed, Hest’s eyes suddenly took on a different light.
Hest stared expressionlessly at Ion, whose gaze was fixed on Levi, then took a sip of the black tea that had gone cold. In his mind, he pictured the face of Chepel, who would act in his stead two days later.
Ion, who had practically confined Hest to the guest room after he said he would sleep in the same bed as Levi, carried the sleeping Levi to his bedroom. As he carefully laid him down on the soft bed, Levi opened his eyes.
“Are you awake?”
Thinking he had woken Levi because he hadn’t been careful enough, Ion stroked his black hair and kissed his forehead.
“Go back to sleep. It’s still the middle of the night.”
Levi, who had been slowly blinking with dazed eyes, looked toward the door.
“That person from earlier…?”
“Hest? I’ve locked him in another room.”
When Ion casually smiled, Levi, who had been recalling Hest’s smiling face, asked as if muttering.
“Does he know my former self from 15 years ago well too?”
“Hmm— Not as well as I do, but he knows you well. For the two years you spent in the Black Forest before meeting me, Hest took care of you in various ways.”
“Two years…”
Fifteen years and two years.
It was a time the current Levi couldn’t remember at all, but Ion didn’t seem to be lying.
‘Still, I shouldn’t trust him yet.’
Raziel had said that all humans tell lies with a straight face. So he should trust only him, his only kin and brother.
While he couldn’t assert that Raziel’s words weren’t lies either, at least his Black Hand was real. And so was the familiar scent he felt from him.
Recalling Raziel, Levi closed his eyes, turning his head away from both the door and Ion.
“Are you still sleepy?”
Though sleep had completely fled the moment he opened his eyes, Levi didn’t bother to respond. Ion stroked Levi, who had turned his back as if facing a wall, thinking it was fortunate enough that he wasn’t pushing his hand away.
“Keep sleeping. I have things to do, so I won’t be able to sleep until morning.”
“…I might run away.”
“If you really intended to run away, you wouldn’t have said that.”
Ion, speaking as if he knew Levi too well, left the room with a gentle “Good night.”
Levi, who had been lying on his side just blinking his eyes, turned his body again to look at the doorway.
The only presence remaining was the two servants placed there for his convenience. Today, there was no chain rattling with shackles on his ankle, and no Ion sleeping soundly beside him. If he wanted to, he could easily escape.
But Levi had no intention of doing so. And Ion knew that too well.
If he had wanted to escape, he would have already left the mansion when he had knocked Ion unconscious the day before. There had been ample opportunity even when they entered the Black Forest alone, leaving the attendants outside the entrance, but Levi deliberately didn’t run away.
He also wanted to know exactly what kind of person Ion was, and now Ion had said he would let him meet Iellin, who definitely held clues about his past memories.
He couldn’t fully trust the words of Ion or Hest, who were enemies in the heart of enemy territory. Whether they really met him 15 years ago, whatever they did with him then, whatever they said to him and whatever emotions they showed him, he would not hastily believe them.
But Iellin was different. He was a soldier from the same Caron Empire whom he had met at the Iron Fortress, and he knew exactly what the woman’s voice in his head was saying. He felt that Iellin’s words were trustworthy enough.
Even now, the message he had engraved in the Black Forest remained clear: “don’t forget.”
‘I hope to meet him again soon.’
Although he hadn’t properly seen Iellin’s face, he felt that something would change when he met him.
That night.
A strange man stepped into Levi’s bedroom, where he had been lying still in bed with eyes wide open.
