By Zephyria 
His eyes felt dry. Chrissy let out a groan, his brow furrowing. For some reason, his eyelids wouldn’t open, so he rubbed his eyelids roughly with his hand. Then, an unexpected voice suddenly drifted toward him.
“Leave it be. Rubbing them like that will only damage your eyes further.”
The cool, low voice was certainly familiar. Chrissy paused for a moment, then took his hand away from his eyes and slowly opened his vision. After a few attempts, his blurry focus snapped into place, and he was able to identify the owner of the voice. Nathaniel Miller was looking down at him, sitting in a chair beside the bed.
For a while, Chrissy stared at him in silence. His mind became cluttered as he tried to grasp the situation. This wasn’t the bedroom where he had fallen asleep. He instinctively realized from the faint scent of pheromones lingering in the air that this was Nathaniel’s bedroom. The problem was why he was lying here, in Nathaniel’s bed. Furthermore, Nathaniel Miller’s appearance was completely different from the one he had seen the day before. His sunken cheeks and the shadows under his eyes made him look exhausted. It was as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night.
Surely he wasn’t just sitting there watching me the whole time.
Everything about the situation was incomprehensible. After lying there for a while, he gave up on thinking and hesitantly pushed himself up.
“……What? What happened?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer immediately to the tone mixed with questioning and wariness. He looked into Chrissy’s face as if observing him for a moment before slowly speaking.
“Do you not remember?”
“Remember what?”
He asked again in a mutter that sounded like he was talking to himself, but instead of answering, Nathaniel stroked his chin with one hand as if lost in thought. Feeling inexplicably anxious, Chrissy repeatedly gripped and released the sheets.
“Just tell me. I don’t like it when you stall like this.”
When he urged him as coldly as possible, Nathaniel let out a short sigh, brushed back his hair, and finally spoke.
“It seems you had a bad dream last night.”
“……I did?”
“Yes.”
When he asked after a pause, the answer came immediately this time. To the bewildered Chrissy, he continued.
“If you don’t remember, it can’t be helped. Go take a shower first; I’ll prepare a meal.”
“What?”
Nathaniel continued to say only confusing things. Chrissy asked reflexively, but the man made no further comment and attempted to leave the room. Unable to let him go, Chrissy called out to stop him.
“Miller!”
At the urgent voice, Nathaniel, who was about to open the door and leave, stopped in his tracks and looked back. Chrissy continued speaking while still sitting on the bed.
“What did I do yesterday? Tell me what happened.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth, but the sound flowed out after a slight pause.
“If you don’t remember, then that’s fine.”
“What do you mean ‘fine’…….”
Chrissy was about to say, This is about my own business, so what do you mean it’s fine? but Nathaniel added before he could.
“Sometimes it’s better not to know. The fact that you don’t remember probably means it’s something you don’t need to know.”
Suddenly, he sensed a strange atmosphere in his words. Chrissy asked suspiciously, his brow furrowed.
“Is it you who doesn’t need to know? Or is it me?”
Then, unexpectedly, a faint smile played on Nathaniel’s lips. To the momentarily stunned Chrissy, he replied simply.
“Both.”
With those words, Nathaniel left the room. Left alone, Chrissy just blinked in sheer bewilderment before finally snapping back to his senses. In the end, he hadn’t received a single proper answer from Nathaniel. What on earth happened?
His memories were fragmented. He felt like he had dreamed of his childhood, but it wasn’t clear. Could it have been a dream about ‘that incident’? How much had he told that man? Surely he hadn’t confessed everything……?
Amidst the mental clutter, he grew anxious. How much did that man know about him?
For Nathaniel Miller, digging up someone’s background would be easier than twisting a child’s arm. Provided he simply had the will to do so.
While showering in the bathroom, Chrissy soon shook his head violently. Thinking such useless thoughts was merely a waste of time. If that man wouldn’t speak, there was no need for him to agonize over it and struggle to dig it out.
What mattered now was finding Detective Simmons and punishing those bastards.
Having reached a conclusion, he hurried to finish his shower and stepped out. After changing clothes for work, his mind felt organized, and he felt like his usual self. The condition of his ankle had improved significantly; though some slight discomfort remained, he didn’t feel any major problems.
Alright, let’s go.
Nodding to himself in the mirror, Chrissy readily left the room and headed downstairs. A savory scent of butter spreading through the living room suddenly brought on a wave of hunger. Perhaps he had already grown accustomed to staying in this house, as his feet habitually led him toward the breakfast room.
The table was already set. After glancing at the back of the tall man frying bacon, Chrissy intentionally pulled out the chair with a loud noise. After signaling his arrival and taking a seat, Nathaniel, who had just removed the bacon from the frying pan, brought it over on a plate.
Looking at the plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, and several small pancakes, Chrissy instinctively looked up, and Nathaniel proceeded to place a basket containing various types of bread. Only after placing a small glass pot of maple syrup and butter did Nathaniel finally take his seat.
The small table suited for a breakfast room was already nearly full.
“If it’s too much, leave some.”
Nathaniel spoke nonchalantly to Chrissy, who was silently staring down at the plate. Watching Nathaniel pour maple syrup over the pancakes, Chrissy frowned and tilted his head.
What is this? Something feels off.
He had already seen this man cook several times, so there was no reason to be surprised or bewildered now. Moreover, it wasn’t that kind of feeling. Tilting his head at the unknown sense of discrepancy, he cut a pancake with a fork and put it in his mouth, just as Nathaniel stood up. As Nathaniel returned, naturally bringing wine and glasses, Chrissy blankly thought, Drinking wine from the morning…
Suddenly, Chrissy realized the identity of the discrepancy he had felt, and his eyes widened.
“Your leg.”
As he shouted urgently, Nathaniel, who was just about to sit down, paused. Chrissy didn’t stop there and continued to point it out.
“Where is your cane? You haven’t been using it for a while now, have you? Don’t tell me you’ve been pretending to be injured even though you’re all healed? Why?”
“Ah…….”
Only then did a thin smile form on Nathaniel’s lips. Sitting leisurely in the chair and facing Chrissy, he spoke as if it were nothing.
“I can’t tell if you’re just slow or if you simply weren’t interested in me to have only noticed now.”
Chrissy was momentarily speechless at the absurd statement. Who was the one who had been limping around with a cane until now, and how could he spout such nonsense?
“Anyone would be fooled like me if you limp with a cane right in front of them.”
He said this sarcastically, meaning You put on a show in front of me, but Nathaniel continued to pour the wine with a smiling face.
“I was advised to be as careful as possible. Think of it as insurance, so to speak.”
He then added, staring at Chrissy.
“There will be additional tests soon. I’ll find out for sure whether the damage is permanent or not…….”
Nathaniel’s voice trailed off strangely as he narrowed his eyes.
“Aren’t you curious?”