오작교는 싫습니다

34

Squeak-

When I heard the sound of a door opening with the key, I immediately stood up.

I was getting bored so I was happy that he came back. I put down the book I was reading and ran over to Yves. To be honest, I was rolling around and was just about to ask if I could eat the two unopened bags of snacks in the corner.

Yves stared as I ran over to him with a bunch of snacks in my arms with a strange look on his face.

It looked kind of sad, kind of anguished. The one thing that I was sure of was that he looked a lot more tired than before.

“…….”

Yves always liked to play with my hair. He followed the curls of my hair and twisted it accordingly. When he saw my fingers fiddling in his sight, he would play with my fingers. We didn’t have much conversation going between ourselves, but Yves always had those strange quirks of his.

I looked at Yves and began to speak, watching as he cautiously played with my hair with an exhausted look on his face.

“Are you okay?”

It was obvious from a glance that he wasn’t okay. I regretted asking as soon as the question left my mouth.

“Shushu. Wait.”

Yves, who had just continued to watch me without a word, pulled me towards him. Then, he carefully hugged me and apologized with a curt “Sorry.”

It was so sudden, and from someone that I hadn’t expected, that I was surprised. But I stayed still because he really looked like he was struggling.

He felt like just another boy instead of the proxy leader of a giant guild. I felt worse for Yves thinking that he was a few years younger than myself in the past. I was always ready to fight against Hylli, but I was strangely weak against Yves. Oh, I thought I was kind of weak against Cory, too. I was reminded of the time I hugged him last time.

“Why does this feel strangely comforting?”

Yves muttered to himself and hugged me tighter.

Weird, he repeated to himself in a mutter.

On days that are rough, there are times when you just miss the warmth of another person. I had days like that too. Days when I just wanted to close my eyes and hug someone without a single thought. I thought Yves felt like that too.

I didn’t know what had happened with the guild leader, but seeing how he was right now, I was sure that there was an incident that had messed with his emotions.

I patted his back softly. Yves seemed to jolt slightly, then buried his face into my shoulder. He hugged me as if he was trying to chase after me. I almost lost my balance. I was only able to catch him because I was in my adult form. If I was in my normal appearance, I would’ve fallen down.

Yves stayed like that for a while. Then, after seemingly calming down, Yves let me go.

When I saw his face, he had put on a cold expression once more. He looked at me, sighed, then opened his mouth.

“Shushu, let’s go undercover one more time.”

At his suggestion, I nodded without comment.

Then, with a calm expression on his face, he returned back to his seat and continued working on what he had been working on before he left.

Yves tried to sign a few documents, but he couldn’t grab his pen properly. A few of his fingers had been horribly bent out of shape. Even when the bones of his fingers had been broken, he tried to force them to move.