Chapter 30: Tea Time (2)

I decided to draw a line between us so that I wouldn’t get caught up in his crazy pace any more than I needed to. Our conversation was on the verge of getting out of hand.

“That’s enough,” my tone was firm. “You don’t have to pay me back for anything. If you want to try doing something like that, you should try it with someone else and not me.”

At this, Kyle scowled intensely, “Why should I do it with someone else?”

His voice was dripping with displeasure at my suggestion, and his face contorted in disgust as if he didn’t even want to imagine himself doing so.

After all, doesn’t he also consider me part of the ‘someone else’ category?

He hadn’t acted so reviled when he first suggested doing it with me.

Honestly, I couldn’t figure out his criteria for who was or was not worth his concern.

“Why are you suddenly mentioning other people?” he continued, no less displeased than before. “Is there someone else you’re thinking of?”

“Yes?” I replied without thinking. My mind was still a bit preoccupied with understanding his strange behavior.

“And are you speaking from experience?”

“Yes… Wait, what?”

When I carelessly answered his unexpected question, Kyle looked incredulous.

“You mean there’s someone else besides me?” his tone was full of bewilderment.

I was momentarily suffocated by how dense the air seemed to become, almost as if a heavy weight had been placed on my body.

Then, Kyle’s eyes seemed listless and slowly began to turn red. Before long, his irises became completely crimson and his pupils narrowed like the dragon’s eyes—a sign that often preceded catastrophe.

“Who is it? Who did that to you? Or were you the one who did it to someone else? Who is that person?”

When I didn’t immediately respond to his barrage of questions, I could feel a dark pressure coming from his voice despite his seemingly calm exterior.

“Tell me quickly.”

I was momentarily surprised by the denseness of the air surrounding me, so much so that I nearly felt suffocated, but I soon returned to my senses.

“No, never,” I shook my head earnestly. “I have never done anything like that with anyone else.”

“Really?”

“Of course. There’s no reason for me to lie about something like that.”

Kyle’s stare bored into my very core as if he were determined to make absolutely certain I had given him my real answer. I looked back at him without losing my composure.

“Then, if you understand what I’m saying,” I continued, “I hope you will realize that you can’t just casually offer to do things like lick someone’s tongue. Regardless of the circumstance, you can’t do it, so please control yourself.”

“Alright. If what you say is true, then I’ll refrain from doing so.”

Kyle bent his opinion more easily than I thought He would. His voice had also returned to normal, and I saw that his eye color was slowly fading back to their normal hue.

I’m so surprised. Why was he suddenly acting like that?

As far as I knew, Kyle Romani was normally pretty docile and tolerant to many things when his curse wasn’t actively demanding blood.

I couldn’t figure out what part of our conversation had suddenly agitated him to such a degree.

This shouldn’t be happening.

I sucked my thumb to get rid of the cause of our quarrel as soon as possible, and the buzzing sensation quickly dissipated from my tongue. Small wounds I was able to treat with just one finger.

As I did so, I could feel his gaze on me once more.

He regarded me with the same peculiar expression he had every time I dried his hair. There was nowhere for me to turn to escape his gaze, so I decided to busy myself with drinking the remaining tea in my cup, but there was still so much left in the pot.

Can I finish this?

My palate scarcely registered the once pleasant taste of the tea after how much I drank of it in order to avoid meeting Kyle’s eyes. It was awful.

Only

***

Three days passed in a flash.

Soon it was already the day before Kyle was scheduled to leave for his meeting.

For the past few days, I had been busy spending most of my time wandering around the mansion visiting as many of the house staff as I could. I needed to finish quietly saying my goodbyes in my heart to all the people I had come to know and the place I had grown attached to.

No one was suspicious of me. They seemed to think that my recent burst of activity around the mansion was my way of celebrating my freedom after having been confined to my chambers for some time.

Well, I was also acting as I normally did, so there was nothing strange about my behavior for anyone to be suspicious of.

Out of all the people I went to visit, Sejan was the only one whom I couldn’t find. He was nowhere in the training hall, but I didn’t ask where he went.

After all, I only met him once. I’ll go back to my own world soon and we won’t see each other anymore, so I don’t have to be so attached to him.