By Zephyria 
Left alone in the drawing room, I became lost in thought. I stared blankly at the dried fruit and tea on the table.
Mahir had made it sound trivial, but he meant that he wouldn’t concern himself with what happened in Talim anymore. Was it because I hid things? Would things have been different if I had told him the truth? Or was it, as Mahir said, because I was all grown up now?
I didn’t know the reason, but being told to handle things on my own didn’t feel so great. I had always wanted to grow up quickly because I found his constant meddling annoying, but perhaps that wasn’t really what I wanted?
Still unsure of my own feelings, I slowly walked to the room where Aska was waiting. My mind had been complicated, but the thought of seeing Aska cleared away the clutter.
I sighed and flung open the door. At the same time, there was a crash from the bedroom, and Aska rushed towards me at high speed. I quickly closed the door and, as soon as I saw Aska, asked bluntly,
“Why were you hanging on the wall?”
“I woke up and couldn’t find you.”
“So you were hanging on the wall to find me?”
“No, I was hungry, but there’s nothing to eat… You should have left me some food before you left!”
Aska retorted, raising his voice at me. I said with a dumbfounded expression,
“What if you had been caught?”
“But I wasn’t.”
“How were you hanging on the wall? What if you had fallen?”
“There were places to step and protruding parts… Ah, anyway, no one saw me.”
At those words, I went to the window and leaned my upper body out to examine the wall. As Aska said, there were quite a few gaps and protrusions where one could place their feet.
Even so, to step on these and move while clinging to the wall as if climbing a mountain? I had been scolded by Mahir a lot for acting recklessly when I was young, but I had never done anything like this.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“Okay.”
Aska pouted and kicked the floor with his foot, but obediently replied. I told the Servant to bring some food, then sat Aska down on a chair and carefully examined the soles of his feet and his forearms.
“Your injuries have all healed.”
I had expected it, but it was like magic. To heal completely overnight, as if the wounds had never been there.
“Does drinking blood heal injuries?”
I tilted my head and muttered to myself, then suddenly noticed Aska’s face. He had certainly caused a ruckus when he first went crazy, but somehow he was quiet today.
“Don’t you remember what happened yesterday?”
I asked with a questioning look, and Aska looked at me and replied briefly.
“I do.”
“You remember?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“…”
But why is he so quiet today? Of course, being quiet is much better than causing a ruckus, but it felt somehow unfair that he was acting so nonchalant.
“You remember saying you would drink my blood, too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you remember spitting chicken blood on my face?”
Aska nodded, then frowned.
“Don’t ever give me that stuff again.”
“You’re picky, too? Can’t you just eat whatever I give you?”
“It tastes bad.”
“Just think of it as medicine. Drinking blood heals injuries, so it’s not entirely wrong.”
Aska was about to retort at my words, then tilted his head. He seemed to agree with part of what I said. Seeing that, I quickly added,
“It’s too hard and painful to give you blood every time. You keep biting and sucking…”
As I spoke, I remembered how messed up my body had become. I tried to take off the clothes I was wearing to show Aska the state I was in, but it wasn’t easy to take off the uniform.
I didn’t know where the brooches or pins were fixed, and I didn’t know where to start or how to take it off. As I kept pulling at the clothes without taking them off, Aska asked with a puzzled expression,
“What are you doing?”
“No, how do I… Ugh.”
I could ask the Servant to undress me, but then Aska would have to hide again… Anyway, it was annoying, so I ended up tearing off the clothes I was wearing, revealing my bare body. I roughly tore only the top and showed him one by one the blue and red marks.
“You did all this.”
“Sorry about that.”
I thought he would be more embarrassed or startled if he saw it with his own eyes, but Aska’s reaction was more bland than I had expected. I frowned and asked,
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Then what else should I say? I’m sorry. I’ll let you bite me instead.”
“…”
Aska held out his slender, pale arm to me. I was so dumbfounded that I couldn’t say anything and just blinked, and Aska said as if explaining,
“I’ve been thinking about it?”
I listened intently to Aska’s words. I was so curious as to what thoughts he had and how he had changed his mind so much in such a short period of time.
“I asked you for blood, or I cried and clung to you like a baby, and I sucked and bit your flesh like sucking on a bottle.”
“You did. And you were so ashamed you wanted to die. And you’re still a baby.”
“Shut up, you bastard. Anyway, when I think about it, that’s when I’m not in my right mind. Right?”
At those words, I nodded with a bewildered expression.
“The point is, it’s not something I did of my own will.”
“…”
“So it’s not something I did. So I don’t have to be ashamed. Why? Because it’s not something I did.”
“…”
It was a miraculous logic.
It sounded plausible at first, but it was definitely sophistry. But it wasn’t easy to explain the reason for something so obvious in a way that the other person could understand. I paused for a moment to organize my thoughts, then decided to teach the young beast why he shouldn’t bite people.
“You’re saying it’s not your fault because you didn’t do it of your own will?”
“Yeah.”
“Because you weren’t in your right mind?”
Aska nodded with a confident expression at my question. Seeing that, I asked again.
“Then does that mean people who aren’t in their right mind don’t have to take responsibility for their actions, no matter what they do? Have you ever seen a drunk person?”
“…”
Aska’s expression, which had been so proud, gradually turned sour. He looked at me silently, then asked something unexpected.
“What’s drunk?”
“…”
I almost lost my strength in my legs for a moment. I had a strong urge to give up on explaining everything, but I held back for now. It wasn’t certain, but Aska seemed to lose his mind when he was injured or drank blood, so he had to be aware of the danger of that part himself.
“Have you ever seen someone drunk?”
I sighed and said, and Aska avoided my gaze a couple of times, looking elsewhere, then nodded.
“What was it like?”
“Staggering…”
“What else?”
“Cursing… Hitting, too, and breaking things…”
His pronunciation was unclear and slow, but Aska still accurately described a drunk person.
“You don’t know because you haven’t drunk alcohol, but some people lose their sense of judgment like that when they’re drunk. They can’t even stand up straight, and they do things they would never do when they’re in their right mind. Some parents hit their children, and some curse at their spouses. They don’t even remember the next day, so are those people innocent?”
“…”
“A drunk person killed someone and set fire to a house. Is that person innocent? Because they don’t remember? Because it wasn’t their will? Because they would never have done that if they had been in their right mind?”
“…”
Aska lacked basic manners, and his verbal and physical habits were very bad, but that was because he had never been taught. I hadn’t known him for long, but if I explained things well enough for him to understand, he wouldn’t insist that something wrong was right, at least.
And as I expected, Aska shook his head, even though his expression was sullen.
“Then can you say that to me, after you made my body like this, saying you don’t remember what happened last night?”
“…”
“Can you, or can’t you?”
“…”
He didn’t answer until the end, but he already seemed to realize that he shouldn’t. Watching him look dejected without even making eye contact with me, I suddenly wanted to tease him again. My mouth itched to tell him to repeat the words, “I’m sorry, I won’t do that again,” but I barely managed to hold back.
“We don’t know why you’re regressing like that, so let’s be careful. Don’t take it for granted. You can’t control your body when you’re in that state, either.”
“…”
At my words, Aska pouted his lips slightly with a crestfallen expression. I was worried that he would start crying, so I took out the dried fruit from the sleeve of the clothes I had torn a little while ago. It had been in the drawing room, and I had remembered that Aska liked it, so I had taken it before coming out.
When I unwrapped the cloth, Aska raised his head and looked at it. The eyes that had been drooping with dejection just a moment ago sparkled as soon as he discovered the dried fruit. I didn’t say anything and handed it over. Aska asked me with a brightened face,
“Is it mine?”
I looked at his face, which had changed as if he were a different person, for a moment, then nodded. Then Aska reached out his small hand, grabbed a handful of it, and stuffed it all into his mouth. His cheeks were so full that they bulged out. He looked like a white pig that had been starving for a month, chewing and eating the dried fruit with his mouth full.
Without realizing it, I reached out and pressed down on his cheek, and Aska frowned and pushed my hand away. His expression was fierce, but it was better than before, so I kept poking him.