It was a sigh of mixed emotions. Chersenia, who was standing in the middle of the market, slowly moved her steps. She had to go home first. Ben said he’d wait.
She arrived at the end of a rather quiet market through a crowded crowd. A little further and she will find a road connected to the forest. She strode steadily to head home to Ben.
“Did you happen to see a boy over 16 and a woman with red hair?”
Chersenia’s steps stopped.
‘Isn’t that about me?’
Her head twisted in the direction of the sound. She stood there hiding her face. Two men were asking the market merchant. One of them was an employee she saw at a gambling place currency exchange. Knowing that he was from the gambling house, Chersenia was convinced that they were looking for her.
“Well, I don’t think I’ve seen them.”
“Yes, I see.”
They moved back with irritated looks. They seemed to have made a fool of herself. Chersenia hid herself in the shadow of a nearby alley, hoping not to get caught. The black hood she is wearing just in time may blend her figure with the shadow and not noticeable by the people.
Why are they looking for me? I know it can’t be because they have a pure intention.
‘What should I do?’
Chersenia agonized. Let’s get ’em right now and find out why? Or should she just get out of here and go? At that moment, they passed the alley where Chersenia was hiding. She held her breath quietly.
“Let’s go around one more lap and that’s it.”
The sound of their conversation was heard lightly with the sound of their footsteps. Chersenia stared at the back of the two men as they were moving away.
She knows he’s the currency exchange employee. She was sure it was the Viscount’s work.
‘Why the hell?’
Chersenia touched her chin with her finger. He hid himself because he didn’t have money right away. She declared that she would come for money a week later. What if the Viscount didn’t want to pay her from the beginning?
‘No way.’
Her red eyes flashed like flames. If that’s true, the only hypothesis to implement it has risen in her head. How to not have to pay her. The way to not pay her in a neat way.
“To get rid of me.”1
When she finished thinking, she felt all the reason was calming. He didn’t want to pay her from the start….
But everything was her own hypothesis, and it’s too early to jump to conclusions. When they disappeared from sight, Chersenia walked away from the darkness.
She had to go home first. Those who were asking around the market’s merchants may have gone home too. Ben’s face, as he saw her off with a clear smile under the sun, crossed her mind.
Chersenia steps became even faster. She couldn’t tell if it was because she didn’t want to lose her collateral before receiving her money or purely because she was worried about Ben.
She just had to make sure he was home as soon as possible.
Ben stayed home after bidding Chersenia’s farewell and was cleaning up his pounding heart. His heart has been strange since yesterday evening. From her patting him, to cutting his hair in the morning.
When Chersenia’s hands touched his body, his whole body kept burning and his heart was beating fast.
“Ha….”
He breathed heavily to calm himself down. He felt a little calmer after repeating it several times. Only then did Ben look over the empty cabin. The cottage where she left him alone felt cold.
The cabin was like a cozy haven when he was with Chersenia. When they were together, it was like a comfortable and warm place to rest, but now alone, he’s shivering cold.
It was just one empty spot of Chersenia, yet even the temperature in the cabin was different. Ben shuddered at the cold digging through his thin clothes. It’s been four days since he has lived here.
He is so used to living with Chersenia. The days he spent with her were warm and loving enough to make him forget the years of his gloomy, lonely life.
The hard times of the past were only four days ago, but he felt it was as distant as the past year.
“You shouldn’t get too used to it….”
A sad voice settled down within the cabin. Chersenia only took him as a collateral, and in three days he will be returned with the money exchanged. A bitter smile hung around his mouth.
To be greedy is to burden Chersenia. He can never do that.
A week’s worth of happiness is enough. Don’t be a burden to her. Ben sat on a table chair, where Chersenia sat all the time, to avoid the cold. He was wondering if there was any warmth left from her. But it was only colder because of the wind blowing off the trees. He stretched out one hand on the table and buried his face.
Ben, who slightly turned his head to the side, held another hand of his in his subdued black eyes. It was a hand with nothing but bones, but it looked much better than before because the wound healed and he gained a little weight.
Ben’s gaze stopped at the tip of his finger. As if he had honey on his fingers, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. His long fingertips were wrapped around by a bandage that Chersenia had personally attached.
‘Uh. Does it sting?’
Chersenia drew her face closer as she looked at his hands bleeding from a piece of glass. She was in pain instead as if she had been cut herself. The touch of her applying the bitter salve medicine was very careful, and there was no such thing as lovey-dovey behavior when her lips were blowing up the wound to make the disinfectant run smoothly.
Chersenia was a very kind lady, even though she seemed to act cold-hearted. She can be seen as straight-forward from the eyes of others, but she was only a good-hearted woman who could not lie because she was very straight-forward.
“Ben.”
Ben smiled up like a balloon and laughed over his name. It was the first time that his hair grew and someone called him by his name. He loved the name and the first calls she made. Ben kissed the bandage on his hand carefully.
The bandage was smeared with her love. Also, there was a heart that worried about him. Ben just remembered about Chersenia. On the first day, in the dusk of the moonlight, the way she calmed him and her hand stroked his front hair with a smile.
From his wound to her red lips blowing air to his wound. Her red and thick lips resembling pomegranates seem to have a sweet aroma and taste if one takes a bite.
‘I’d like to taste it.. ‘
“Huck!”
He jumped up in surprise. What the hell is this impure idea? His face was so red it was about to burst.