Chapter 42
To confess one thing, I have rarely hugged another person, including in my previous life.
At most, my parents and Ruby?
Even then, I was always the one being hugged, not the one doing the hugging.
So Heter’s breath and warmth within my arms were bound to feel unfamiliar.
‘I hope I don’t smell of sweat?’
We had walked around the territory more than usual while sightseeing, after all, so the thought crossed my mind.
If I’d known I would have to hug Heter like this, I wouldn’t have bought skewers from the street.
Once I started worrying about the smell, I couldn’t stop feeling anxious.
‘Should I pull away now?’
The thought crossed my mind for a moment, but.
Squeeze.
No, that wasn’t it.
Besides, I had been the one to say I would hug him first, and Heter’s trembling had visibly subsided.
“…!, !!”
“Kyaah!”
“Eek!”
“Hmm….”
After I embraced Heter, I couldn’t properly hear what was happening in the puppet show, either.
Judging by the audience’s reactions, something serious or shocking seemed to be unfolding.
Right now, Heter’s breathing was more stimulating than the puppets’ dialogue, and the warmth of his body through his clothes affected me more than the puppets’ movements.
It seemed watching the performance was out of the question.
‘It can’t be helped….’
Since things had come to this, I had no choice but to observe Heter.
When else would I have the chance to examine him this closely?
Of course, given his personality, he would gladly show me his face if I asked, but he would undoubtedly try to tease me with some sly remark.
Swoosh.
First, I carefully ran my fingers through Heter’s hair.
‘Wow, it’s really soft.’
I had thought Heter’s hair seemed silkier and more lustrous lately, but touching it made the difference obvious.
Then there were the muscles I could feel through his clothes.
Having worked out to some extent in my previous life, I could roughly estimate how much effort it would take to build this much muscle.
He must have trained consistently for a very long time.
‘Impressive.’
I wanted to touch him a little more.
Why is it that, when people see a muscular man, regardless of gender, they think, ‘I’d like to touch him at least once’?
That’s all I mean by wanting to touch him. There’s absolutely no other meaning to it.
I had observed his hair and body, so now only his face remained.
‘It’s a little disappointing that I can’t see his face because of his chest.’
If not for this mass of flesh he had buried his face in, I might have been able to glimpse part of Heter’s face.
‘Hmm….’
As I absently stroked Heter’s head, it suddenly occurred to me that he resembled a golden retriever.
His sturdy build, the color of his hair resembling a golden retriever’s fur, and even his high body temperature were all similar.
Could this be why I had thought he was cute earlier?
I had preferred dogs to cats in my previous life, too.
‘Right, giving him a bracelet was basically the same as giving a dog a collar.’
Thinking of it that way was strangely convincing… Yeah, right.
‘If the bracelet counts as a leash, then how are you going to explain the ring in your pocket?’
Yes, unlike the bracelet, the ring wasn’t something I would buy just because he resembled a dog.
‘…Fine, let’s admit it.’
From that night when I talked with Heter while lying in bed through the time he rescued me from the barbarians, the distance between us had clearly narrowed.
If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have fed him myself today, willingly held out my hand, or embraced him first like this.
Well, I suppose it can’t be helped.
As I’d thought before, the years I’d lived as a woman were nearly catching up to the years I’d lived as a man.
It was only natural for my values to change as the years passed.
Besides, Heter had always shown interest in me and had often helped me when I was in danger.
It would be stranger if I didn’t develop feelings like these.
Even so, it was true that I didn’t want to believe it.
Acknowledging the feelings I now had for Heter was tantamount to denying my former self.
‘This is annoying.’
I wasn’t even going through puberty, so how had I ended up examining my identity at this age?
“Look what you’ve done to me.”
I muttered softly as I looked at Heter nestled in my arms.
If only this guy weren’t here, I wouldn’t be so confused right now.
“Geez.”
Suddenly finding him irritating, I poked Heter in the side with a finger.
“!”
“Oh.”
Heter flinched in my arms, apparently startled by the sudden contact.
Seeing that, a desire to tease him a little more began to well up from deep within me.
“Take that, take that.”
“!”
Unable to resist that sinister urge, I began poking Heter randomly in the neck, back, sides, and wherever else I could.
It was partly revenge for all the times he had teased me, and it also felt as though the stress caused by all this self-examination was easing.
“My lady?”
Eventually, Heter sensed something was strange and tried to lift his head to meet my gaze, but.
“Amy!!”
“!”
The moment the puppet’s eerie voice rang out, he ducked his head again.
“Pfft.”
The moment I failed to hold back a laugh at how cute he looked.
“Ahem.”
“Oh.”
The audience member sitting beside us gave me another warning cough.
‘…What was I doing?’
I had only just lamented how painful it was to deny who I had been in my previous life, and already I was thinking he was cute again.
I even enjoyed tormenting him?
No, it was more serious than that.
To be precise, I didn’t like seeing Heter suffer; I liked the way he clung to me while he was being tormented.
‘Tch.’
It seemed that before long, I might have to deny that part of myself all over again.
***
“What?”
Lil couldn’t hide his bewilderment as he looked at Alice and Heter.
The man was more frightened than the woman?
That wasn’t particularly strange.
Though it was rare, he had seen couples like that before, and men occasionally fainted while watching the puppet show.
What surprised him was Alice.
“Hic!”
“Eek!”
While everyone around her was startled, Alice remained focused solely on Heter, who was nestled in her arms.
How could she be so fearless that everyone around her was screaming in terror while she alone remained so calm?
“This won’t do.”
For his theory to work, it wouldn’t do for only one of the lovers to be frightened.
Love was not something one person could accomplish alone, after all.
“It can’t be helped.”
Lil adjusted the puppets’ movements.
The climax.
The scene in which Amy discovered Louis sitting beside an audience member, despite believing he had been completely destroyed.
No matter how brave she was, Lil thought even she would be startled if a puppet she believed had been destroyed appeared right behind her.
“Is it all over now?”
Amy had destroyed the demon-possessed puppet Louis with the help of a priest from the church.
As the audience began to sigh with relief after Louis, who had committed terrible atrocities, had been destroyed.
“Huh?”
“Hee-hee.”
At last, Louis appeared intact in the seat behind Alice.
“Kyaah!”
“Gasp!”
“Eek…!”
As expected, screams erupted from the audience, but none of them were the reaction Lil wanted.
Why?
“Heh-heh….”
Because Alice’s eyes held only Heter, not the puppet Lil was operating.
Only then did Lil realize that he had chosen the wrong target from the very beginning.
“There wasn’t anything for me to help with in the first place.”
The purpose of this puppet show was to help relationships progress beyond friendship and toward romance, but that woman already seemed to like the man.
***
Louis’s curse will continue….”
“Huh?”
At some point, the curtain fell, and the puppet show came to an end.
“It’s over already?”
Seeing the audience members clutching their chests or rising from their seats one by one with pale faces, it seemed the show really was over.
“Next time, I should at least find out what genre it is beforehand.”
Just as I was about to tell Heter that the performance had ended.
‘Wait.’
My hand, reaching toward his shoulder, faltered.
‘Even if I got up now, I’d only have to stand in line and wait because everyone is trying to leave, right?’
There were so many audience members that I’d have to wait a long time if I got up now.
Wouldn’t it be better to sit and wait until the crowd had thinned out?
Hmm, even I had to admit that was a reasonable idea.
So even after the puppet show had ended, I remained seated for quite some time while hugging Heter.
Until every guest except us had left.