Chapter 1 — The boundary line, the marriage between a girl and a wolf. Part 15
"I wonder?" My lips contorted into a smile and I tilted my head forward. "Couldn"t it have been just some random stray dog that coincidentally happened to appear there?"
"You"re lying!"
For once, she spoke with confidence, and her words continued like water from a broken dam.
"It couldn"t have been, the timing was too perfect…and your att.i.tude today was somewhat weird as well. You seemed too confident… Actually, no, you"re always like that."
She stopped for a moment.
"Right, yeah—you seemed happy, so happy that you weren"t able to contain it any longer. You were just like that. Normally you would only look coldly at everyone, but today, you smiled to provoke us, and while it seemed like you would have been harmed by the dog that had appeared, it wasn"t there after I had called for help and you were completely unscathed. So I thought that maybe I"d be the next one going through that… so, umm, I"m sorry, please forgive me!" she shouted and bowed.
Everything made sense now. She had realized the danger that she was in and came to protect herself.
I walked up to her and gently patted her on the shoulder.
"It"s okay, I don"t mind it at all."
"You"ll forgive me?" She looked up at me as she spoke.
On her anxious face, a large smile started spreading. She seemed to feel relief from the bottom of her heart.
"This is not about forgiving or not forgiving, nor is it about liking or hating. I"m just annoyed. Annoyed at everything: everything that my hands touch."
She froze where she was standing, her bright smile wearing off and once again turning into fear.
"Calm down, I"m used to despising others, almost as much as I"m used to being despised. I won"t pull anything funny."
She started rattling.
"So, goodbye for now, until we meet again."
I turned around and walked away from her, and almost immediately, a cry followed.
Smiling wryly, I turned around.
"Shiro, what happened?"
He had been camouflaging himself within the shadows, hiding under the trees and the buildings, and in his mouth was Mouse"s right arm which he had apparently bitten off.
That arm grasped a sharp and thin folding pocket knife.
Still holding that arm in his mouth, Shiro looked at me and shook his head.
I nodded silently.
The blood gushing from her wound formed a puddle on the road and as Mouse continued to squirm around, blood splattered everywhere, making splashing sounds like the ones made by kids when playing in puddles.
She"d probably feel better if she would just faint.
I took a few steps towards her and looked down at her as the smell of blood a.s.saulted my nose.
"Were you trying to kill me?"
She didn"t answer. Her movements simply stopped and without even attempting to put pressure on her wound, she just kept mumbling something.
I bent down towards her and started putting pressure on the vein at her right shoulder to stop the bleeding while I tried to listen to her.
"I don"t want to die. I don"t want to die. I don"t want to die. If I don"t kill you. If I don"t kill you. If I don"t kill you. I"ll get killed. I"ll get killed. Why? Why? I was supposed to be doing okay, I wasn"t standing out and I wasn"t being bullied, I was doing everything perfectly, so why do I have to die? I don"t want to die, I don"t want to die, not yet- Notyetnotyetnotyetnotyetsomeonesavemepleasedon"tleavemeheredon"tleavemedon"tleavemeIdon"twanttodiesavemesaveme- save me, someone save me please."
"All you had to do was run away."
She had probably thought about it, but ended up deciding against it.
In the end, for whose sake was it that she didn"t run away?
I wasn"t at all interested in knowing her name, but I still talked with her.
"Press here." I gently caressed her cheek with my palm and her eyes started looking slightly livelier.
"I don"t want to die, I don"t want to-"
I grabbed her left hand and made her put pressure on her right shoulder, then I stood up.
"ahh." She looked upwards.
I stood like a shadow between the evening sun and her, a shadow projecting from my body and long hair, a small darkness.
Seeing something, her expression changed.