# Chapter 45
They say during adolescence, your child no longer feels like your own. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s truly an accurate expression.
“Arden. Don’t you think this is too much?”
“…What’s too much?”
“I’m not a damn machine!”
My shoulders jerked in surprise at the loud voice. Rite’s face was completely contorted. He looked at me with lips bitten and eyes wavering with intense emotion.
“When I do something you don’t like, don’t try to disassemble and reassemble me—try to think about why this bastard is acting this way. When I tell you I feel blue sadness, don’t try to teach me that sadness doesn’t have a color, but focus on the fact that I’m sad. I’m not trying to make you understand the color of sadness anyway.”
I couldn’t understand his words immediately. Rite’s way of speaking wasn’t direct, so sometimes it was difficult to comprehend.
I’m not even sure if my confused mind interpreted it correctly. Was he saying I lacked empathy? Rite’s sensibilities were so delicate that they were too difficult for me to handle. I had no pride in thinking I could resolve all of the child’s desires and deficiencies. I had known for a long time that I didn’t have the ability to control every situation.
Raising a child in the forest, there were countless reasons to be sensitive, and I always had to be on high alert. At this rate, I’d start growing scales on my body too. I was already overloaded. I didn’t have that many functions to begin with. It was Rite who added various functions to me, someone who had spent a lifetime at a desk.
I alternated between looking at Rite growling in front of me and the rattling door. Two bombs had dropped, and I couldn’t properly handle either one.
“Don’t shout.”
“Ha… is that all you have to say right now?”
“Please, can we talk after dealing with that person first?”
“You’re really going to open that door, leaving me behind?”
Jack was practically throwing himself against the door now. He probably thought something was happening inside. It wasn’t a wrong assumption, but I wished he knew that the person making this situation worse was himself.
Jack was the one more likely to listen to rational words. However, if I opened the door and tried to talk to Jack, Rite wouldn’t stay quiet. Rite becomes anxious when I’m not by his side.
“What are you thinking, Arden?”
A way to talk to Jack without moving from Rite’s side. The solution was simpler than expected. I could just shout from here to communicate. Wondering why I hadn’t thought of this before, I opened my mouth.
“Ja…”
As I inhaled and parted my lips to utter a syllable, suddenly my vision rotated. My body was losing balance and falling. With a loud thud, my body fell backward, but nothing hurt badly.
“Arden! Answer me if you’re there!”
I couldn’t answer Jack’s shout. One of Rite’s hands, who was now straddling my waist, was covering my mouth. I stared up at Rite blankly, unable to even blink. My entire view was shadowed by Rite’s body.
“I’m begging you, Arden…”
“…”
“Don’t prioritize others over me.”
Both Rite and I were breathing heavily. Our chests were rising and falling rapidly, and our lips were exhaling heat. Hot breath pooled inside Rite’s palm.
“If you keep acting like that, I can’t help but feel the difference between you and me. No matter how many times I tell myself it’s nothing, not to worry or speculate alone, whenever you do that…”
I could feel Rite’s emotions boiling over more and more. The hand blocking my voice applied more and more pressure. My breathing became rougher against the tightly pressed palm.
“Anyway, you wouldn’t care even if I died.”
“…”
“You’d be sad, I guess. But you’d soon forget about someone like me and move on.”
I wanted to ask what he was talking about, but the hand showed no sign of moving. If you’re asking me a question, you should let me answer. My gaze towards Rite was surely not gentle, but Rite wasn’t afraid at all.
“Then one day, you might suddenly think, ‘Ah, actually it’s fortunate. Now that the burden is gone, it’s so much more comfortable.'”
“…Mmph.”
“You’d feel relieved, right? Unburdened! You’d live like that, dating and loving ordinary humans. Forgetting about a child like me!”
I was angry. Angry at Rite for covering my mouth and spouting such nonsense.
I shook my head and struggled to break free from the restraint, but the more I did, the stronger Rite’s grip became. I wanted to escape from this hand right now and shout that it wasn’t true, to demand how he could judge me like that through whatever thought process.
After all I’ve done raising you.
“But you know what, Arden? I’m not like that.”
“Mmph!”
“Without you, I have no meaning. Without you, who would accept me? Who would love me?”
It was then that I realized. Rite wasn’t talking to me. By speaking to himself, he was belittling himself and building his anxiety.
“No matter what human you meet, there’s no one who needs you as much as I do.”
It was a desperate and pitiful voice. The pathetically trembling voice, the tears dropping from purple eyes, the palm that cradled the back of my head even while knocking me down. It was completely different from the person who had been angry just moments ago.
Rite was crying.
When a child cries, it seems like even your body and mind freeze. Whether as a young child or now, when he’s grown taller than me.
“Don’t abandon me, Arden.”
“…”
“You’re all I have.”
Who else would accept someone like me if not Arden? His whispered voice was shabby and pitiful.
I couldn’t figure Rite out. He would act violently, then childishly like now. Rite’s emotions flipped countless times in a day, and horns and scales appeared and disappeared repeatedly. He was that unstable and anxious. I thought he was controlling himself well as his body grew, but it felt like we had gone back to his childhood. Back to when we practiced putting away horns with a strawberry tart.
“Only you would stay by my side after seeing me like this!”
After Rite’s wail, the sound of the door rattling continued. Even with this unstable behavior, the door didn’t open. I don’t know what force was blocking that door, but it was quite solid.
I wanted to shout at Jack to please stop and go back. Thinking that the door noise was continuously triggering Rite’s anxiety made me sensitive too.
I tried to move my lips to say something to Rite, but it was useless. I sighed, but even that hit the large palm.
“How could I look at anyone other than you, Arden?”
“…”
“How can you look at anyone other than me?”
“…”
“You and I are family.”
The only one. The unique one. Listening to Rite’s voice, I squeezed my eyes shut. It was painful to look at Rite’s face distorted in agony. Rite’s words made me despair.
The reality that the only person who could be by Rite’s side was a traitor with his feet bound to the cold Winter Forest was devastating. Having nothing, all he wanted was my attention. He didn’t know how to dream of more, nor how to covet more. I wanted to cry too. It shouldn’t have been difficult to suppress emotions. As I swallowed to hold back tears, my chest heaved greatly.
“Open your eyes, Arden.”
The escape of my vision was brief. Even that wasn’t permitted as Rite commanded. I obediently followed his voice. When Rite cried, I wanted to give him anything. I didn’t want Rite to be sad or to struggle. I didn’t want him to follow the path of a monster, toyed with by such a fate.
The commotion at the entrance bothered me, but I didn’t look that way. What made Rite most anxious wasn’t the door noise, but me responding to Jack.
“Why are you making that expression?”
“…”
“You look like you’ve been hit by stones from others.”
Rite didn’t know. That I was partly to blame for Rite being hit with stones. A traitor raising a future traitor—it was bound to attract criticism. The stones aimed at me had also ricocheted onto Rite.
But I wanted Rite not to know that. Whether it was shame or bluster, I didn’t know, but I wanted to look like a slightly better person, at least to Rite.
When the inside feels turbulent, even breathing becomes chaotic. Rite’s palm became damp. Perhaps feeling this, the force blocking my mouth gradually weakened.
“When you make that expression, it makes me feel like I’m the bad person.”
I pushed Rite’s hand away and partially raised my upper body, supporting myself on my elbows. My view was still lower than Rite’s, but it was better than before.
“I won’t abandon you.”
“…How would I…”
“No matter what happens, I won’t abandon you. Even if you make unreasonable demands and upset me, even if some other person comes along.”
“…”
“I won’t abandon you.”
Rite needed to believe that at least. I knew how difficult that was. Even in the orphanage, I had to try not to become a useless child, and with Plin, I immersed myself more in engineering so as not to be a burden. I felt I needed to show that I had at least some use so that Plin wouldn’t abandon me.
In the end, Plin didn’t abandon me. He never neglected me. Though he wasn’t an affectionate or delicate person, he clearly treated me as more than just a student. If I had parents, the closest person would be Plin.
The assurance that a guardian won’t abandon you. Rite needed to know the comfort and ease that could be enjoyed after having that assurance.
“You’re all I have too.”
You’re the only one left in my world too. I didn’t say that out loud, unsure if Rite would feel the same way after knowing my past.
“No one is more precious to me than you. So just believe it. If you don’t, it’s your loss. Stop pushing yourself so hard.”
