By Zephyria 
Aska was wearing a nasty expression, clearly aware of my displeasure. I was overcome with fear that he would do something troublesome without warning.
It was obvious that if Aska’s true nature was revealed, it would spread uncontrollably. Killing those who knew the truth was only a temporary solution; how could I silence so many people?
The moment this secret was unintentionally leaked even once, it would be as good as being revealed to everyone.
I stared at Aska, wondering how to deal with this situation, and then said, “Show me now.”
“What?”
“Your original form.”
“Here? All of it?”
Aska’s eyes widened in surprise. I hadn’t seen it since we came out of the Ruins underground. Aska didn’t seem to like his original form, so I hadn’t bothered to ask him to show it to me again.
“Why all of a sudden?”
Aska made it clear with his whole body that he didn’t want to. But when I just kept staring at him without saying anything, he had no choice but to start transforming.
The word “transforming” was a bit funny, but there was no other word to replace it. Suddenly, wings and a tail appeared, his nails became sharp, and horns sprouted on his forehead…
No matter how you looked at it, he couldn’t be called human anymore. But it seemed a little different from the first time I saw it. I observed Aska standing still, circling around him, and then reached out my hand.
I gently scratched the thin membrane of his wings with my fingernail, and Aska’s tail contorted in a zigzag pattern.
“Don’t touch me!”
He shuddered and cringed, making me want to tease him more, but that wasn’t the important thing right now.
“It seems a little smaller?”
Before, Aska’s wings were large enough to cover both of us, including himself. And when I looked closely, his tail was shorter than before.
The horns were originally small, about the size of millet grains, but now there wasn’t even a trace of them.
At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but when I looked at it closely, there were definitely changes.
“Did you make it smaller on purpose?”
“What?”
“Why are your wings so small? And your tail is short too.”
Maybe it was because I touched his wings, but Aska wrapped his arms around himself and glared at me with wary eyes. It was an overreaction, considering I only touched him lightly with my fingertips.
Was it because of his rebellious nature? Or was it because he looked too vulnerable? When I came to my senses, I was holding Aska tightly so he couldn’t move, and I had his wing in my mouth.
“Hey!”
Aska screamed in horror. It was partly because of my bizarre behavior, but probably more because blood was streaming down my chin.
The part I touched was soft, but I happened to bite down on a rough spot. The belated pain made me open my mouth, and I saw Aska’s black wings covered in blood.
“Are you crazy? What are you doing all of a sudden?”
I quickly ran my tongue over my palate, lips, and gums. It was torn and tattered, with no intact spots. Aska grabbed my chin with a pale face and looked anxiously into my bleeding mouth.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
Of course, it hurt, and the metallic taste of blood was disgusting, but the wound wasn’t deep. It would heal quickly anyway.
“What are you, a dog? Why are you biting all of a sudden?”
“The more you overreact, the more I want to mess with you.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t believe it.”
I didn’t want to swallow the lukewarm blood, so I kept it in my mouth and mumbled, and Aska sighed. Aska put his sleeve to my mouth and pressed down hard.
“Spit it out.”
I pushed the blood that had accumulated under my tongue out. The wet cloth felt damp and unpleasant, so I frowned and suddenly wondered. Why doesn’t he want me to eat it and tells me to spit it out? Even when we went to Grandma’s house, and now, does he not want to eat blood anymore?
“I can’t even hit you.”
Aska kept getting annoyed, as if he couldn’t believe it. I felt embarrassed for no reason and grumbled.
“I didn’t know it would be so prickly.”
“No, can’t you tell by looking? It’s super sharp! Especially the ends!”
Anyone could see that it looked terrifying, like it would tear flesh if you touched it. I turned my head away, pretending not to see, and grabbed Aska’s hand.
“Anyway, let’s go.”
“Go where? Turn your face so I can wipe the blood off.”
Even with those words, I didn’t stop and kept walking towards the door. Aska must have thought something was strange, so he braced his legs and resisted.
“Where are you going? If you go there, it’s outside.”
“I know.”
I answered, pulling the hand I was holding tightly. He had been dragged once, but that was it. Now, no matter how much I pulled, he wouldn’t budge, so I had no choice but to turn around.
Just a moment ago, his tail was slightly raised in the air, but now it was drooping on the floor.
“You wanted to let people know you’re a Magical creature, right?”
Aska’s brow furrowed instantly at my words.
“So you’re saying we should go out like this? Is that why you suddenly told me to transform?”
“What’s wrong with how you look? You’re pretty.”
It was sincere, but judging from his expression, it didn’t seem to resonate with Aska.
“Didn’t you want to do it first?”
“I said let’s tell only a few people we can trust, not announce it like this.”
I sighed at his nonchalant words.
“Aska.”
“What.”
I clicked my tongue at his childish answer and said, “The more people who know a secret, the higher the chance of it being leaked. And the moment even one person knows, it’s no longer a secret.”
“That’s why I said let’s tell only people we can trust. Like Mahir.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘like Mahir.’ There’s only one Mahir in the world.”
“No, I mean, what I mean is…”
Aska’s voice grew louder and louder, as if he was frustrated. I grabbed his lips tightly with my index finger and thumb.
“I know what you mean. But telling a few people we can trust is no different from just declaring to everyone that you’re a Magical creature. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the latter be better to deal with?”
Aska shook his head, pushed my hand away, and asked, “Why? Why is it no different?”
“Because there’s no such thing as a permanent secret in the world. So stop talking and follow me. Before those who want to collect you start running wild because the secret has leaked, I need to stake my claim first.”
If I said it was mine, not just a strange Magical creature, no one would dare to covet him.
Even after saying this, Aska continued to resist and didn’t move. He had a worried face, as if he had to reveal his flaws to the whole world.
“You don’t want to?”
Aska nodded slightly at my question. It was natural. Aska felt inferior because he wasn’t human in the first place.
Even so, he decided to reveal his identity to a limited number of people he could trust, fearing that he would go crazy and attack me again. In fact, Aska himself would want to hide his identity the most.
Why doesn’t he know me so well? I feel like I’ve shown him enough and explained it to him, but he still doesn’t know me as a person.
“Either tell everyone or keep it a secret from everyone. There are only two options.”
“Why are you so extreme?”
“You decide.”
As I said that, I kept noticing the tail drooping on the floor. When we were in the Ruins, it would wag whenever Aska spoke, but now it wasn’t moving at all.
It looked like a scolded puppy, so I had no choice but to back down.
“Are you that worried? That you’ll attack me again? But when you think about it, it wasn’t even an attack. You were just hungry.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“So don’t keep holding back until you’re hungry, and eat regularly…”
In my dream, I had experienced how terrible and dreadful Aska’s hunger was. It was to the point where normal thinking was impossible, but Aska was still resisting like this.
I thought there must be a reason, so I kept pretending not to know, but it seemed like it was all useless. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have said something like telling other people about his identity to prepare for the future.
“Why aren’t you eating blood again? If you keep not eating it, you’ll lose your mind like last time, right? You ate so much at once back then…”
I almost ate my insides, I was about to say, but I stopped. I had a feeling that Aska would be shocked if I said that. So I softened my words a beat later.
“You drank a lot more than usual.”
Even after softening my words, Aska’s face turned pale. His already white face turned as white as paper in real time.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not saying that to hear an apology, but to say that if you keep doing this, something like that might happen again.”
“No, I really won’t do that anymore.”
I tilted my head at his firm words, and a hypothesis flashed through my mind like lightning. I felt the blood drain from my face in an instant.
“Do you perhaps eat something else?”
Even when Aska kept not eating blood, I had never thought of this even once. It was partly because he hadn’t touched anything other than my blood since he was young, but I just had a vague conviction that he would never eat anything else.
Drinking someone else’s blood was almost like adultery. It was the same as not suspecting your spouse of cheating for no reason.