By Zephyria 
I naturally expected a negative reaction, but Aska didn’t open his mouth easily. His trembling pupils only increased the possibility of infidelity.
I was dumbfounded and asked again.
“Is it true? I won’t get mad, so tell me honestly.”
“It’s a lie.”
His confident tone made me feel dizzy for a moment, and I closed my eyes. In the darkness, afterimages of light moved chaotically.
I had never imagined this, so I didn’t know how to react. It wasn’t a problem that could be solved by simply getting angry. Just as a complex emotion that couldn’t be defined by a single word was slowly raising its head from deep inside my stomach, Aska sighed.
“I didn’t drink anyone else’s blood.”
I opened my eyes at those words. Aska’s expression looked troubled. I constantly doubted whether it was a lie or not, and then asked.
“Then why were you so slow to answer?”
“I was debating whether to lie or not.”
What was that supposed to mean? I was dumbfounded, but I could breathe a little easier than before. Feeling drained, I roughly swept everything off the display case and sat on the edge of it. The ornaments all fell and shattered, but I was too tired to care.
“You startled me. Even as a joke, don’t say things like that in the future.”
“Do you hate the idea of me drinking someone else’s blood that much?”
Aska tilted his head and asked, as if my reaction was unexpected. Did he really need to be told? I looked at Aska, who was approaching while avoiding the shards scattered on the floor, with a dumbfounded expression and warned him.
“It’s not just a matter of disliking it, so don’t really do it. In the future…”
I was about to naturally threaten him, but I stopped. Even so, there was no need to say harsh words when it wasn’t really happening. I seemed too excited, so I took a few deep breaths and said.
“What do you mean you were debating whether to lie or not?”
“If I just said I didn’t drink blood, you would have asked why.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
I smoothed Aska’s hair, which was close to me, and tucked it behind his shoulder. I could see his face, which had been stubbornly stiff until just now, gradually relaxing. Aska hesitated, moving his lips, and then shook his head lightly.
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just… yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you would be annoying and make fun of me.”
Aska seemed serious in his own way, but I didn’t feel that way at all. The way he pouted with a sulky expression was just funny. But, as Aska said, I shouldn’t make fun of him even after hearing those words, so I desperately tried to keep a straight face.
“I won’t make fun of you, so tell me why.”
But my efforts were not enough, and Aska frowned and turned his head.
“Never mind. Just laugh.”
As soon as those words were finished, a hollow laugh burst out of my mouth without me realizing it. Aska glared and complained.
“You really laugh just because I told you to?”
“Anyway, don’t drink anyone else’s blood. Got it?”
Aska nodded and looked at me cautiously.
“Aren’t you going to ask anything else?”
“What can I do when you don’t want to tell me? I can’t force you to open your mouth through torture. Just tell me later when you want to.”
As long as it wasn’t infidelity or anything similar, I didn’t really have any intention of stopping Aska from doing anything. That went for touching my body as well.
I wanted to let him do whatever he wanted, whether he wanted to stick a weapon-like object into my body, feed me blood, or feed me saliva. The reason I didn’t bother to ask about the abnormal phenomena happening in my body was similar.
I had faith that he wouldn’t harm me, and even if he did, it didn’t really matter. There must have been a reason why he had to do it.
Anyway, as long as he was a good husband and stayed by my side, anything was fine.
“It’s just…”
At that moment, Aska hesitated and opened his mouth. He hesitated for a long time, choosing his words, and then frowned.
“It’s just that you seem to keep misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding what?”
I said it was okay if he didn’t tell me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious.
“That I made you like that so I could eat comfortably.”
What did he mean by making me like that? Was he talking about how my wounds healed quickly even when I got hurt?
Aska’s face was full of injustice, as if it wasn’t a problem he had been thinking about for a day or two. Come to think of it, he had actually said that before, and my thoughts hadn’t changed much even now. He had to make wounds to drink blood, and it was obviously beneficial to have the ability to heal quickly.
I had told him several times that there was no point in continuing to feel sorry since he had to eat anyway. But that didn’t seem easy for Aska.
“I don’t want you to be in pain, it’s not like I did it so I could eat your blood more comfortably.”
“I know. Do you think I wouldn’t know that? It’s just that it also happened to work out that way.”
If Aska had done it to drink blood more comfortably, I would have gladly praised him, but I decided not to say this.
“So, you kept not drinking blood because of that? Because you didn’t want me to misunderstand?”
But I couldn’t praise him for this. It wasn’t just a matter of skipping meals. I was about to say something out of frustration, but Aska hurriedly added.
“It’s not like I just didn’t eat like last time, so you don’t have to worry about me getting weird.”
“If you didn’t just not eat, then what is it?”
Was there another way besides drinking other people’s blood? When I narrowed my eyes, Aska tilted his head with an ambiguous expression.
“I mean, I don’t know how to explain it… It just happened that way. Because I tried to.”
“What are you talking about?”
I couldn’t understand anything. Aska seemed just as frustrated.
“For example, let’s say I kept thinking it would be nice if I had four fingers.”
Why fingers all of a sudden? I didn’t know what he meant, but I nodded anyway.
“So, as I kept thinking about it, one day I had four fingers. But I don’t know how that’s possible. Do you understand?”
“……?”
So, he wished in his heart that he had four fingers, and his fingers actually decreased to four?
“Does that make sense?”
“It doesn’t. That’s why I don’t know how to explain it. Even if I try to say something to you, I don’t know how to start.”
Aska looked at me anxiously for a long time. Then he lowered his gaze and muttered.
“Actually, I kept thinking that I might not be a Magical creature. Because I’m different from other Magical creatures. I saw fish that looked like people while looking for you, and I often saw other races in my dreams, so I thought that even more. I thought I might just be something that disappeared now.”
“……”
“But because I’m a Magical creature…”
Suddenly, tears began to well up in his eyes without warning. I was so surprised that I gently stroked Aska’s cheek. And I wiped his eyes with my thumb and asked.
“So, were you sad?”
The disappointment Aska must have felt when the hope that he might not be disappeared must have been enormous. This is why hope is so scary. It was a problem that I let the Royal Physician examine Aska. I should have just not come if I had known this would happen.
“It’s not that I’m sad, I’m just scared.”
Aska mumbled in a nasal voice. Tears flowed endlessly from his closed eyes as he leaned on my palm. I couldn’t even wipe them away with my fingers anymore.
Seeing him sad, I felt miserable. I couldn’t readily think of a way to help him. While I was frantically racking my brain to think of a solution, Aska almost poured out his words.
“What if I lose my mind again and attack you? No one knows what kind of Magical creature I am, what my identity is. I don’t even know what I am. No matter what I do, I don’t know how it happens.”
“You were just hungry then. You don’t have to drink blood now, right? Like how your fingers became four, you just thought you didn’t want to drink blood, so you changed to the side where you don’t have to drink it.”
I said it to tell him not to worry, but Aska whined as if he was frustrated.
“How can I be relieved when I don’t even know how it changed? And if it happened because I was hungry, that means I could get weird for other reasons.”
I remembered when Aska was half out of his mind. He was so focused on quenching his thirst that he couldn’t control his strength and ate greedily.
He didn’t distinguish between blood and flesh and was just busy eating. The image of his face covered in blood, satisfied and happy to the point of convulsing, remained vividly in my mind.
“……”
Even as my mind was fading due to the pain, the only emotion I felt at that time was pride. The satisfaction that came from the fact that I was the only one who could make that monster tremble with such joy was great.
“Do you know what’s really scary?”
Aska asked with a distressed face. He had such a sad expression that I felt sorry for having such perverted thoughts even for a moment.
“The scariest thing is that no matter how much I try to hurt you, you won’t even think it’s dangerous.”
“……”
“You’re not even listening seriously now.”
“……”
Tears finally burst from Aska’s mouth, who was sobbing and shedding tears.