Kyle began to stop the bleeding. His fingers carefully pressed on Noah’s nose, exerting enough force to cease the bleeding. When the blood stopped to some extent, he scanned her thoroughly, wiping her face with a handkerchief. His arms gripped her shoulders but with the utmost care, making sure she was uninjured.
I think the butler’s got to worry about not my body, but my mind. But Noah was annoyed to even say that. It was the first time for a few months that she displayed laziness, but if her thoughts become words, Kyle would only stare at her in disbelief.
Noah opened her arms despite her grousing mind. Kyle, who was examining her right shoulder, looked embarrassed. “Why… why? What does that look mean?”
“Please put me on that chair,” Noah responded. Inward, she was already expecting to hear his usual retort ‘I’m not your nanny,’ all the while doing her request. However, Noah’s assumptions were proven wrong.
“Muell, move Noah over the chair,” Kyle instructed, to which the red-eyed boy immediately obeyed. Noah’s body flopped on the chair, and she carefully settled on the seat, murmuring a word of thanks to Muell. “Uh… Thank you, Mu.”
“It might bleed again, so why don’t you sit down for a moment? Until it stops completely. If you’re sleepy, you can go to sleep.” Kyle draped a blanket over her shoulder, but this time, his eyes didn’t meet Noah’s. However, he still took a seat next to her instead of distancing himself.
For a moment, Noah thought he was avoiding her. Was it only her misunderstanding? Noah simply leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, but the urge to sleep had already left her. She asked, “How far is it to Tauren?”
“We just got out of the Noviscosha Mountains. By the time the sun comes up, we’ll stop at a nearby village.”
Kyle’s last word was followed by a moment of silence. Again, Noah assumed he would ask what happened while they were gone, but Kyle merely fixed his posture so that she could lean on him more comfortably and remained silent. In fact, it was a bit of a relief.
Noah’s experience underneath the unassuming town of Noviscosha was now as if it were years ago. Instead, what echoed endlessly in her head was the moment they sought her real body.
What the fairies told her was right. Park Noah’s body was not dead yet, nor buried, nor cremated, but was found by a friend in Goshiwon and taken to a hospital for a while before being moved to another place within a day. The place where her body was relocated was the house she had lived in for about twelve years until she became independent at the age of twenty years old.
Upon discovering herself laid on a bed, she was sucked into her body that boasted perfect harmony with her soul. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she opened the window wide, ready to leave the house.
“Noah…”
But she had an unexpected encounter. Before her, her mother looked at her wide astonished eyes.
“Noah, you’re awake…”
Was it a good choice to turn her back on her mother there? Noah closed her eyes tight; her thoughts cast back to that time, which lingered like an afterimage. Eventually, she fluttered her eyes open, and her gaze was confronted by a pair of red orbs. She stared back at the little child, who was sitting on Kyle’s lap.
From the moment she returned to where she originally lived until the moment she left, Muell was her only company. Seeing the confusion in her eyes, the boy knew his master’s sentiments. He whispered quietly, “Noah needs more sleep. I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be by Noah’s side.”
His heartfelt, encouraging promise caused a small burst of laughter to slip from Noah’s lips. She embraced Muell tighter and snuggled a little closer to Kyle, who covered her eyes with a low sigh. “Get some more sleep, Miss Noah. I’ll wake you up when we arrive.”
The words of the people who certainly wouldn’t abandon her no matter what the circumstance pacified Noah’s quivering heart. Soon, she fell into a deep slumber once more, where she watched the dreams that trickled, but never awoke again with a bloody nose.