The whole way to home it was quiet and I thought about what happened while still having tons of questions inside of my mind. There were so many things that I couldn’t explain that it frightened me. But also the look on Ciel’s face after he saw Sebastian and me was quite terrifying but at the same time reasonable because this wasn’t the kind of thing that a mistress and a butler should do with each other.
“We arrived.” said Ciel who looked out of the window.
“I see. Prepare some tea for me immediately, Sebastian.” I said.
“I’ll make sure you wounds won’t get infected first.” said Sebastian.
“I’ll do that. You prepare the tea.” said Ciel.
Sebastian’s expression was... nothing. You couldn’t read his mind anymore, you couldn’t see what he was thinking at all.
“Alright then.” he said.
Ciel opened the door of the carriage and he helped me stepping out.
“Can you first make sure you get me out of this dress?” I asked annoyed because I almost tripped over my sleeve again.
“As you wish, my lady.” said Ciel who bowed and leaded me towards the mansion.
He brought me to the living room as Sebastian walked towards the kitchen to prepare some tea that I would be enjoying.
As we walked, Ciel suddenly put his hand behind my back like he was afraid I was going to fall. It felt like he was worried and showed that in a rare manner. It was something he had never done before. And because of what happened before, I didn’t ask anything about it and pretended that I didn’t notice him being all stiff for a sudden.
“Please sit down. I’m going to take care of your wounds, my lady.”
“That’s alright, it are all just scratches.”
Ciel smiled awkwardly, knowing that I was lying about it. It weren’t scratches at all, but at least it had stopped bleeding already.
Ciel cleaned my wounds.
“It stings...”
He grinned.
“If I don’t do this, it will get infected and you will get an even bigger sting.”
“It’s not like I asked to get hurt.”
“It looked like you were, though.”
I didn’t answer that. It was true that I wanted to get hurt because I loved the feeling of physical pain as I fell down and there was blood dripping almost everywhere on my body. It was a great thing that I survived from falling so hard, but I was a countess and had to make sure I wouldn’t be too weak that I couldn’t even handle such a pain. I worked out, a lot. But at the same time I stopped eating. The only thing that kept me alive in the years that I locked myself in my room, were the muscles that I created by working out. Well, they weren’t big or something. It was only enough to keep me alive. Locking myself inside meant the world. It meant no food, only water or things from the garden, which I also barely saw and when I saw it, I didn’t want to work in it so most of the things that grew there were weeds.
“Almost finished.” mumbled Ciel who put on a bandage on my head and leg.
I watched every move that he made and it surprised me that he did everything so careful. He knew I didn’t cry fast even if I was in pain. He could’ve done it quicker if he worked a little less careful.
“And finished.” he said as he stood up again, looking at me with a weird smile on his face.
I didn’t want to say thank you. I didn’t feel like saying so either way.
Ciel kept staring at me as if there was something really weird on my face and there was nothing to hear who could interrupt the silence created between us.
“My lady, is it alright for me to ask you a question?” he asked suddenly.
“Depends on the question.”I said.
He breathed in and looked at the ground for a while, after that his eyes found mine again.
“Have you fallen for someone before?” he asked.
My eyes widened and I just stared at him. Of every single question I expected, this wasn’t the one. And that was because there was something odd about this question. He knew that I hadn’t fallen in love with my fiancée and neither did I in any other boy. He knew that my heart was only filled with much hatred that kept me from loving someone so deeply, that I would be able to die for him or her. The only thing I had in my heart was the revenge for my parents who got killed because of something ridiculous. Something I had found out, today.
“What is this question? You know that my heart isn’t filled with stuff like that. I have never, ever, felt that way about another human before.”I said clearly.
“I never said it had to be a human though.”
On that very moment, Sebastian interrupted us. It was if he choose his time to come in, very carefully to interrupt us, or he was just stupid and walked in every single time without noticing the atmosphere coming from the room. But thinking about it, demons weren’t stupid and heard more than people did.
“Your tea, young lady.” he said.
“Yes, bring it to my study room. There is something I need to do upstairs.”
“As you wish.”
“I’ll help you climbing up the stairs. I know how clumsy you are.” grinned Ciel. I wasn’t able to smile back or say anything back at all. I was feeling uncomfortable after he asked me that question. It was like he wanted me to notice something, but I wasn’t able too. And the fact that he said “I never said that it had to be a human” made me feel all awkward. Did he really thought that I loved Sebastian? And asking me that question myself...did I?
When I walked into the study room, I immediately walked towards the huge window which showed me the garden and a little more of the world.
I heard Sebasian pouring the tea in a cup and leaving the room right after that. I wondered if Ciel was still in the room with me, but I got that answer very soon when suddenly he was standing next to me, looking out of the window together with me.
“It gives you some peace at mind, looking at the garden, looking outside, doesn’t it?”
“It does.” I answered him shortly.
He turned himself to me.
“Don’t be so cold towards me.” he said suddenly.
I looked to him, surprised. I was hostile towards everyone and I didn’t really understand why he thought it was especially against him.
“I am cold towards everyone.”
“Not towards Sebastian!”
My eyes widened, what was he talking about? Was this just a continuing of the question before? What was wrong with Ciel?
“How dare you to say things like that to me. Who do you think you are? Know your place!”
He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye.
“You tell me that right now because I am right! Tell me the truth, Katherine.”
It was the first time he called me liked that and it angered me, even though I didn’t know why. Was it because he was my butler?
I slapped him, right into the face.
“You dog! Know your place, don’t you dare to touch your master like that. And don’t you dare to call me like that after again.”
He looked surprised because I had slapped him right into the face but I felt like he deserved it.
“I am just trying to get closer to you, my lady.” he said. Why did his face looked so upset?
“Getting closer? For what? The contract? It’s close enough, you guys are going to eat my soul anyway. Let this be and don’t you dare to speak up to me like that again, dog.”
He looked at the ground and smirked.
“Woof.” he said and after that he left the room. Leaving me behind, frowning.
“Sebastian!”
It was in the middle of the night and I couldn’t sleep. I knew exactly why, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it anyway.
In a minute he was already standing in my room with a candle in his hand.
“Aren’t you asleep yet, young lady?” he asked surprised.
“I am not, as you can see. I want you to get me asleep.”
He laughed a little and showed me his eye closing smile.
“How do you want me to do that, exactly?”
I thought about it for a while and before I realized I was already walking with the most weird idea in my mind.
“Act like a cat.”
It didn’t make any sense, but that small ‘woof’ from Ciel kept on bothering me.
“Eh? E-excuse me?” asked Sebastian astonished.
“Do as I say.” I said while I covered my face with my hand to hide my cheeks that turned red.
“But, young lady, are you serious?”
I didn’t look at his face, it would probably show an expression that would say: ‘you just turned mad’, and he was probably red.
“Just do it already!”
“U-uh, yes.”
He sat down next to me on my bed and it only took him a while to bury his face in my hair and lay down next to me as I turned my face away from him. I felt his presence and body against mine and a sudden warmth flew into my body. He sniffed my hair and wrapped his arms around me when I suddenly heard his voice:
“Meow.”
My eyes widened and I moved away from him, looking at him with an astonished expression.
“What are you doing!?”
He sat up and looked at me like there was again something wrong with me, which wasn’t because he was the one acting like an idiot. Why did he come so close, what was wrong with him?
“I am acting like a cat.” he said.
“Of what kind of cat are you thinking?”
“A fluffy one.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.” I said as I stood up from my bed and walked towards the room. He kept sitting there in my place instead.
“Am I crazy, Sebastian?” I asked him.
He was silence for a while and I heard he moved himself on the bed.
“In which way?”
“Every way. In life.”
“You are not crazy. You are you and no matter what people say or tell you, you put out your neck to proof them wrong. Even if that means doing the things you don’t like. Some people will call that craziness, I rather call it pride.”
I thought about what he said. But he didn’t really understand me, but he didn’t know about the conversation I had with Ciel earlier.
“And... in love?”
I heard his breath stopping and he moved on the bed like it suddenly became something awkward and before I even noticed, he was standing next to me together looking out of the window just like with Ciel and me before.
“You don’t love, you hate. That is what you tell us, that you only have hatred inside of you.”
I sighed.
“Do you think I am unable to love?”
“You are not a demon. You are not unable to love.”
But the more he talked, the less I understood what I was doing to myself. Loving was indeed something impossible for me.