TRHK Chapter 10

With the trowel I'd brought, I dug the herb up carefully and put it into my pouch. Looking around, I found a few more of the same herb growing nearby and repeated the process.

Two hours in. One kind, barely. Three more still to go—and already a swell of pride, like I'd finished the whole job.

"Just three more kinds left. Once we have those, we can start the treatment!"

Kahron met the good news with total indifference. It was his own illness being cured—why did he care so little? Even coming out here felt like something he'd only done to shut me up—like tossing a dog scraps just to make it stop tailing him.

For some reason, I felt sulky. My own goal, in the end, was only using his help to break the magical servitude contract and run. But somehow I'd started wanting to cure his madness quickly, all the same. I want to make him regret not trusting me.

Rustle.

Something moved in the underbrush. Startled, I pressed myself close behind Kahron and hid. My whole body locked up.

"Skree-ik!"

Some creature, animal or monster I couldn't tell, resembling a squirrel, burst out of the bushes and scrambled up a tree in a blur. Seeing it, I let out a breath of relief.

"If you're that scared, why not just go back?"

Kahron glanced down at me, still huddled behind him. Sure another monster had shown up, I'd shrunk into myself—now I answered him, awkward.

"I can't. I still need to find the herbs. And……."

I glanced up at him, working hard, as always, not to notice his mouth.

"If something happens, you'll save me, won't you?"

……Would he, though? He'd save me. He did before, even without the contract—so now, even more, right? Though back then, if Knight Commander Landale hadn't ordered it, who knew how that would have gone.

Kahron studied me with an indifferent look. He was so tall that meeting his eyes up close meant cranking my neck all the way back. I brushed a hand through my hair, which had gone wild at some point, for no real reason. Stealing glances at him, gauging him, Kahron smiled.

"I'll save you?"

The question came back at me with something meaningful in it, and my heart lurched. He started walking again immediately. Even though I was still standing there, dazed, he never looked back.

"So you won't?"

I snapped out of it too late and trotted after him to ask. Monsters hadn't even shown up yet, and already I was interrogating him as if I were in crisis. Because without Kahron, I really was just monster food.

"Not searching?"

But his calm counter-question—just go find your herbs—made me give it up. Instead I put all my attention into the search. I was supposed to be the one with the herbalist's knowledge; I couldn't let it be just Kahron finding things—I'd lose face entirely. Wasn't the real problem that his trust in me was already lacking?

I must have dragged my trembling, worn-out legs around for another hour. At last I managed to find one more kind of herb. Just one stalk this time, but finding even that much made me glad.

"Look at this, Kahron!"

I'd wanted to explain a bit more about the herb, sound like an expert. But the moment I saw him with his head bowed, gripping his forehead, the words dropped straight back down my throat. Alarmed, I hurried to him.

"Are you all right?"

The headache, flaring up again? It really did seem like I'd landed in this world right around when his madness had started getting worse.

I shoved the Cheveurn herb I'd gathered along the way against his lips, and this time he took it without much resistance. Seeing that made him seem even more pitiable to me somehow. This filthy-tempered man—how much must it hurt him……

"Chew it well before you swal—……."

I was in the middle of a reminder—chewing mattered, or the medicine's effect would be cut in half—when my arm was seized and yanked forward. In the next moment, I was kissing Kahron.

"Hh."

It felt entirely different from the first time, which had been more like being devoured. The bitterness of the herb was still there, but the way his tongue moved inside my mouth, toying with it, was different. Deeper, somehow. Sharper……

"Mmn……."

When my tongue was licked from underneath, a moan slipped out of me before I could stop it. Embarrassed, I tried to pull away, but a strong arm caught my waist and our bodies pressed flush together.

What is this, exactly……?

I wondered, dazed, while our wet tongues tangled together. The first time, our mouths had crashed together to get the medicine into him. But now? He'd already swallowed the herb. Why do this at all……?

"Ahn."

Kahron's tongue pushed deep, pressing against the root of my tongue, again and again. I kept making strange sounds without meaning to, breath coming ragged. The longer the kiss went on, the more this strange tingling feeling built between my thighs.

My legs buckled under me and my body started sinking lower, and he caught one of my thighs over my skirt, pulling it in closer against him. I understood it was meant to hold me up, but the placement of the hand on my thigh was dangerous. Any higher and it'd grab my ass outright—I braced for it, sick with nerves.

"Hah—bitter."

He pulled his mouth away for a moment, let out a low breath, and grumbled. I stayed leaning against him, busy replaying what had just happened. Confusion seemed to have pooled in my throat.

"Wh—why…….”

"You did it too, didn't you?"

That was the answer that came back at me.

"That time, I—I only did that because you wouldn't take the herb……."

If he'd taken it fine on his own, the way he just had, would I have ever shoved my mouth against his in the first place? And after all the effort I'd made to forget it since, here we were, right back where we started.

"What?"

I don't know whether my voice had trailed off too quietly for him to hear, or whether he was pretending not to hear just to torment me. I glared hard at him, and Kahron's mouth curved into a nasty, delinquent smile as he bent his head down again.

Surely not, I thought—and then my mouth was eaten again. He bit gently at my lower lip and a moan slipped out of me.

"Ah…….”

I was so startled my head went to a mess of scribbles, like someone had scrawled all over the inside of it. It wasn't only that he'd bitten my lip. It was that his hand—already teetering on my thigh—finally closed around my ass.

If not for the skirt, I would have felt the grip of his hand far more nakedly. My face went hot enough to melt. The cheek of my ass he'd grabbed felt hot too. I twisted my head away from his mouth and managed to speak.

"Wh—what, hh, what are you doing?"

I reached back to stop his hand mauling my ass freely, grabbing the back of it, but that was all I managed. If anything, he only clamped down harder on my ass. It was just a numb slab of flesh, not sensitive enough to really hurt—but the shame was another matter.

"You, though…….”

Kahron asked, sounding genuinely curious. Even doing something this strange, this indecent, his face somehow still looked almost sacred.

"Is it wet down there too?"

He said it with a short kiss pressed to my lips, and the question was stranger than strange even accounting for how strange he'd already been. Wet down there—from the context, "here" seemed to mean my mouth, but the word wet made my face go even hotter. And "down there"—what did he even mean by—

"D—don't say things like that. Get your h—hand off. Hk!"

I told him to take his hand off, and instead his other hand joined the first on my ass. Both cheeks of my ass got shoved and squeezed, mauled shapeless under his hands, doing whatever the hell they wanted.

The limit came when he pulled each cheek outward, apart. For a second it felt like my crotch had been bared straight to open air, and I slammed my fist into his chest.

Kahron didn't so much as flinch—like hitting a wall—but he must have realized I was genuinely struggling, because he finally let go of my ass, which he'd been groping wildly the whole time. It throbbed like I'd been struck there. I had no idea what any of this was supposed to be.

"Ow."

Face blank as ever, Kahron glanced down, late, at the spot where I'd hit him, and said it in a tone that held no pain at all. At this point he was openly, shamelessly mocking me.

"If you—if you do that again……. I'll go on alone."

I said it to warn him. But the moment it left my mouth, I realized my mistake. I'd dragged Kahron out here in the first place because I was too scared of monsters to be alone—what exactly was I planning to go off and do by myself?

I corrected myself quickly.

"Once we're out of this forest, I mean. Until then, I'll stay with you."

Kahron, who'd been staring at me blankly through all this, suddenly burst out laughing.

"Ha ha."

After carrying on like a common ruffian a moment ago, his laugh came out clear and light, like a boy's. Seeing it needled me a little, but I still couldn't bring myself to threaten to leave alone again. It would only make things harder for me.

"Let's head back for today."

I said, looking up at the sky, which had gone dim without my noticing. The forest darkened faster than most places, thanks to the shade the branches threw.

Kahron nodded without complaint.

Fortunately, today's harvest hadn't come to nothing. I walked carefully, cradling the pouch of herbs.

"Want me to carry you if you're tired?"

I was watching him openly, on guard in case he tried something strange again, and Kahron offered, gentle. Of course, based on everything he'd done so far, when he was smiling or acting gentle……his real intentions were probably the opposite.

"No."

I refused, firm, and he took it plainly, no fuss.

The soft patter of our footsteps filled the space between us. It had been so long since I'd last walked through a forest with someone else that the whole thing felt slightly unreal. No—that wasn't the only reason.

I was pretending to be unaffected, but in my head, I was still replaying what had happened earlier, over and over.

The soft, practiced way our tongues had tangled. My ass, mauled into a mess by his kneading. If I checked in a mirror, there'd probably be handprints left. No—they'd be stark and obvious, no question. I touched my cheeks, which had started heating up again.

"……."

I'd figured he'd just take off on his own without a word, but Kahron, surprisingly, didn't leave me behind even once we cleared the forest and entered the town. His pace was still quick, but not so quick I couldn't keep up.

I was caught up in an odd feeling, watching his back—closer now than it used to be—when—

"Maylin! Do you remember me?"

Someone caught my arm from behind and stopped me.