By Zephyria 
Seriously, is this even something to cry about? I couldn’t understand it, and I had no idea how to comfort Aska to stop his tears.
“If you don’t want them to think it’s weird, just don’t drink blood in front of them.”
And anyway, we probably won’t see them again, so why worry about something so pointless… I swallowed the rest of my words, but Aska mumbled with anxious eyes.
“What if they find out…?”
“Then don’t get caught. And so what if they think it’s weird? It’s not like drinking blood is that incredibly strange.”
“It’s not strange?”
I nodded at his questioning look.
“I’ve had blood before too.”
“You? Why? When?”
“A while ago… around your age? Anyway, I had it around that time too. With other people. So it’s not a super weird thing.”
Not that it’s common, though. I swallowed those words again, and Aska’s eyes widened.
“Why would you drink it?”
“Because there’s nothing else to eat.”
Aska started to say something to my words, then closed his mouth. And after moving his lips a few times, he muttered quietly.
“Now that I think about it, when I was little, if there was nothing to eat, I’d pick up weird stuff and eat it.”
“You’re still young.”
“Don’t piss me off, you fuck. Seriously. Is that what’s important right now?”
“Hey, why the swearing all of a sudden…”
Just a moment ago, he was sobbing like a child, and suddenly he was swearing. I frowned with a dumbfounded expression. Aska, not paying any attention, sighed, hugged his knees, and lowered his head.
“Anyway, even if we put the blood aside, it still means I’m not human…”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, ‘so what’? If I’m not human… it’s weird, that’s why.”
I felt like I understood something, but I didn’t really. He doesn’t like it because he’s surrounded by humans, but if he’s not human, he’ll be seen as weird? I guess that could be true, but it was still strange to cry this much over something like that.
“There are plenty of weird people even if they are human.”
“What does that mean?”
At my words, Aska raised his head and looked at me. His face was still wet, and his eyes were red, but tears weren’t flowing anymore.
“Even if you drink blood and you’re not human, there are more weird people in the world than you.”
“Weirder people?”
“Yeah, and if you don’t like it, you can hide it. Just don’t drink blood in front of other people. Anyway, I’m the only one in the world who knows you’re not human, so why is it such a big deal that you came all the way here naked to cry?”
Aska seemed like he wanted to argue, but he just pouted his lips and couldn’t say anything.
“And if you want to be human, can’t you just think of yourself as human?”
“Does it work that way just because I think so?”
“Why wouldn’t it? If you live like a human, that’s what you are.”
“What is that…”
Actually, I don’t really know what I’m saying either. But it couldn’t be helped. I can’t empathize with Aska’s sadness.
Is it such an important issue whether you’re human or a monster? Wouldn’t it be better if wounds healed faster? Of course, it’s a bit of a flaw that you don’t know when you might go crazy…
“What does it mean to live like a human?”
Aska glanced at me and asked, as if he hadn’t dismissed my words as nonsense. I took the opportunity to smile and gave Aska a warning.
“First of all, normal humans don’t run around outside naked.”
“……”
“They don’t jump out of windows either.”
“……”
“They probably don’t punch people who haven’t done anything wrong.”
“……”
“They don’t swear all the time either.”
As I was rambling on, Aska retorted with a dissatisfied expression.
“They do swear, though?”
“Who?”
“Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of people swear. Are you just lying every time you open your mouth? You fucking liar.”
I ignored Aska’s grumbling and examined his body. I remembered that there was a strange mark on the floor a little while ago.
“How much did people swear in my neighborhood? And there were a lot of people going in and out of windows. They took off their clothes when it was hot too. You tell me not to lie to you, but why are you lying to me? Now that I think about it, there were a lot of people fighting too.”
Aska tilted his head, as if recalling the past, and kept talking without stopping. Meanwhile, I stood Aska up, turned him around, and checked for any injuries.
There was a thin scratch on his left forearm, but it was such a small scratch that it was embarrassing to even call it an injury. The problem was his foot. Blood was still seeping out, probably from stepping on something wrong.
How long will this take to heal? I don’t think the wound on his arm healed right away either, but I didn’t know how long it would take to recover. Are there any conditions? Or does it just take time…?
As I was lost in thought, looking at his small, injured foot, Aska suddenly grabbed my hair and pulled. It wasn’t pulled hard enough to hurt, so it wasn’t painful. I was just a little surprised that my head was suddenly lifted.
“What does it mean to live like a human?”
“Do you have to ask that question while grabbing my hair like this?”
“Is it living like a human if you get paid to work, live in a nice house, eat every meal, make friends, get married, and have kids?”
“Can you let go of my hair first?”
“I don’t really know what it means to live like a human. Do you have to know how to write? But then what about people who don’t have money? Can’t those people live like humans even if they want to?”
Since I couldn’t get through to him, I just grabbed one of Aska’s ankles while he was still holding my hair. His body tilted, but Aska grabbed my shoulder and balanced himself well, standing properly on one foot.
I lightly stamped his foot on the floor once, as if putting a seal, leaving a bloody footprint. He didn’t show any signs of pain, but it seemed difficult to walk like this, so I tried to pick him up, but Aska, who had been still until now, started to indiscriminately beat my head and shoulders.
“Put me down!”
“Your foot is hurt.”
“Ah, put me down!”
“Then can you walk in that state?”
It didn’t hurt even if I got hit, but that didn’t mean it was okay to keep getting beaten. Besides, it hit me near my cheekbone, and it hurt quite a bit.
In the end, I frowned and put Aska down on the floor. I wanted to pick him up and throw him away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because he might run away naked like a monkey again.
I left Aska standing on the floor and took three or four steps back.
“Come here.”
When I held out my hand, Aska glared at me and moved his legs. As expected, he was limping, as if he was feeling pain.
“Does it hurt?”
“No?”
“Another lie.”
“You lie too.”
“Is your lying the same as my lying?”
I sighed, and Aska, who had already come to my side, creating red footprints as he limped, hesitated and said.
“Then don’t hug me, give me a piggyback ride.”
“……”
I don’t know what this means either. He doesn’t like being hugged, but he’s okay with being carried on my back? I really couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, whether it was because he was still a child or because he wasn’t human.
Without a choice, I turned my back and bent over slightly, and Aska jumped up and clung to my back. The way he was acting was just like a monkey, and I couldn’t help but laugh even though I was dumbfounded.
“When you lived in the slums, was your house on a tree?”
“A tree? No? Why all of a sudden?”
“Well, jumping out of windows and all… Anyway, I thought you were jumping around really well.”
“I was the fastest runner in my neighborhood. And I was the best at climbing trees too.”
I listened to Aska’s boasting and slowly moved my legs, retracing the path I had come. It was getting dark all around because the sun was setting. This area wasn’t really visited or used due to its location, so it was only made into a garden, but I thought I should make something here.
“I was about the same speed as Pai when I ran. Have you ever run with a dog? Dogs have four legs, so they’re originally faster than people, but I was faster than a dog.”
“Yeah, it must have been nice to be faster than a dog.”
“I was the best fighter too, so no one could ignore me, and even the adults were afraid of me.”
“Yeah, it must have been nice to be good at fighting.”
I was vaguely responding and planning to build a Greenhouse that was isolated from the outside, when Aska grabbed my hair again.
“Hey, you’re not listening to me, are you?”
“You said you fight better than adults? And don’t grab my hair.”
“But why are you so nice to me?”
“Let go of my hair first.”
If someone else had seen this, wouldn’t they have drawn their sword to cut off Aska’s wrist? Aska, not knowing what he was doing to me, made a ‘tch’ sound and wrapped his arms around my neck. And he put his face near my neck, completely relaxed his body, and said.
“No one has ever given me a piggyback ride except for Grandma.”
“I’ve never given anyone a piggyback ride either.”
“Why are you giving me one?”
“You told me to?”
“Would you die if I told you to?”
Why is he being so extreme? I was dumbfounded, but I thought that I was definitely being very lenient with Aska. Even though we were married, Aska was doing excessive things as if it were nothing.
The reason I put up with all of this was probably because I wasn’t getting angry. If I was even a little upset or angry, I would have taken some kind of action, but there was none of that.
Maybe it was because I was too dumbfounded. It was a situation where I should be angry, but I was just so dumbfounded that I laughed?
Or is it because he’s pretty? Maybe it’s because he feels like a small, pretty pet. No one would sincerely get angry if a baby animal gently bit their finger with its glutinous rice cake-like teeth. Especially if that young animal is a rare species.
As I was thinking that, I suddenly realized that Aska, who had been chattering away until just a moment ago, had become too quiet. I turned my head slightly to the side and saw his face with his eyes closed. His breathing was also steady, so it seemed like he had fallen asleep.
I thought it would be better if he slept quietly, so I didn’t say anything more and increased my walking speed. But before long, I had no choice but to stop in my tracks.
“……”
Did I feel wrong? The moment I tilted my head, I felt a tickling sensation on my neck again. It felt familiar for some reason, so I turned my head with a ‘no way’ expression.
“……”
Aska had his lips pressed against my neck and was moving his tongue like a cat licking milk.
“Hey.”
I called out briefly, but there was no answer.
“Aska.”
It was the same even when I called his name. I sighed deeply and looked up at the darkened sky.
“Why is living so hard…”
The moment I realized that Aska’s condition wasn’t normal, my body and mind began to feel rapidly fatigued.