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Chapter 2
“Let go of her hand right now!”
A cold, sunken voice came from beside me. When I barely turned my eyes that way, I saw Nocturne twisting Sam’s wrist.
“You little brat! Do you even know who I am?!”
Sam yanked me sharply toward him. As I was about to fall, Nocturne grabbed me and shouted,
“Take your filthy hands off her!”
Sam’s face twisted more and more viciously. He snapped his head toward me and snarled with a face flushed bright red.
“You little punks dare to disrespect me?”
Sam roughly twisted my wrist. It hurt so badly that tears welled up in my eyes.
“Ahh!”
In an instant, Nocturne grabbed Sam’s other arm and bent it sharply behind his back. For a moment, it looked like flames flickered in Nocturne’s eyes.
“Gaaah! Y-you little bastard!”
Even though Sam was much bigger than him, he let out a groan of pain, glaring wildly as his arm was held by Nocturne’s small hand.
“Let go now, or your arm will break.”
Sam shoved me away roughly, pulled a knife from his chest, and twisted his body to point it at Nocturne—
—but the knife had already been knocked far from his hand.
How dare he point a dangerous knife at such a small, cute kid?
Unable to suppress my rising anger, I grabbed a broom and rushed at Sam. But before I could reach him, Nocturne had already driven his head straight into Sam’s stomach with lightning speed.
Thud!
Sam was sent flying backward.
The fight ended in an instant.
Robin, who was heading home from work, hurriedly broke up the brawl, but by then, our faces were already full of scratches.
“Ahh, gently, Robin, gently. It hurts.”
“I told you not to go there! You knew it was dangerous!”
Robin scolded me while applying medicine to the wounds on my face.
“What happened to your face, girl? Red, you’re old enough to get married now!”
“Ow… Robin, be gentle! It really hurts…!”
“You only call me ‘big brother’ at times like this, Red!”
“It’s because of me, so I’ll take responsibility for Red!”
At Nocturne’s words, Robin’s eyes widened.
“Pfft—hahaha! Red, you heard him, right? That’s your future husband talking. From now on, don’t get hurt and grow up well.”
“Nocturne! You can’t joke about things like that!”
“I-I’m not joking! I’ll take responsibility for Red! I’m going to marry Red!”
Seeing Nocturne’s serious expression, I couldn’t help but laugh.
A few days later, I heard some strange news.
Sam had become half-paralyzed and would have to live on a bed for the rest of his life.
“Karma, I guess? He always looked down on people and beat up kids weaker than him. Serves him right.”
I muttered to myself in satisfaction. Then Nocturne, beside me, asked hesitantly,
“…Is that a good thing?”
“Hmm?”
“Red, you said ‘serves him right.’ Does that mean it’s good that he got hurt?”
“Ah…”
If I said it was good that someone got hurt, Nocturne might misunderstand!
“It’s not that it’s good that he got hurt…”
Nocturne stared at me with a face full of curiosity.
Answer properly, me! I have to explain this well so this pure child doesn’t misunderstand!
Since Nocturne had lost his memories and only had me to rely on, how I explained things to him would shape how he thought.
It was true that I thought Sam getting hurt served him right, but thinking that someone getting hurt was “good” was still wrong…
“Red, what is ‘karma’? I-I want to know what that is.”
Nocturne looked at me with shining golden eyes.
I’d been spacing out too long.
“It means… you get back what you give.”
“If you get it back, then that means it’s good, right?”
Huh? Well… in a way… but…
This was exactly the kind of moment where I had to be careful with my words. A pure child could take it the wrong way. Answer! Answer!
“No, getting it back and getting hurt aren’t good things.”
The smile disappeared from Nocturne’s face.
Cause and effect. Karma.
Depending on how I explained it, this innocent child’s attitude could change.
I grabbed Nocturne’s shoulders with both hands and met his eyes.
“Nocturne! What I’m saying is, when someone gets hurt, that’s a very sad thing. What I meant earlier was that you should treat people well in everyday life. If Sam had treated people well, someone might have helped him when he was in danger. This is what it means that his own actions came back to him.”
Nocturne’s expression changed again after hearing me. He must be scared he might get hurt like Sam. He’s still just a kid.
I firmly warned the anxious-looking Nocturne.
“Nocturne! You should never be like that. If you’re kind to people, kindness will come back to you too. Got it?”
With a face that looked like he had made up his mind, Nocturne said,
“Yeah. No matter what, I’ll be good to you, Red. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Anyone who even tries to touch you… I’ll make sure they get ‘what they deserve’.”
Huh? Is that how this is supposed to go?
Maybe because he’s still a kid, he’s making some big logical leaps.
“Nocturne, that’s not what I m—”
“Red, so just trust me from now on. Only look at me.”
“…O-okay. Yeah.”
Maybe the concept of karma is too hard for him? His words were a little strange, but maybe it was because he was still too young to fully understand.
When I first picked him up from that alley, he was smaller than me and looked younger, so I said he must be younger. Nocturne insisted that wasn’t true, and we couldn’t agree on his age—until we played rock-paper-scissors and I won, so he was officially set as eight years old.
Anyway, once Nocturne grew up a bit more and understood life in the slums, he’d slowly understand what I meant.
But contrary to my expectations, even after years passed in the slums, Nocturne remained in the exact same eight-year-old body, and I started to worry because he didn’t grow at all.
Meanwhile…
When he opened his eyes after being surrounded by a pure white light, he was standing in an unfamiliar alley.
‘This place…?’
Nothing came to mind.
Nocturne couldn’t remember where he came from or who he was, no matter how hard he tried.
He just felt that this filthy, run-down alley he stood in was completely unfamiliar, and he remained rooted to the spot.
Just imagining stepping even a little made him feel like the piles of trash and filth on the ground would cling to his feet, and he felt sick just thinking about it.
‘Why is it so dirty…?’
At the shocking filth filling his entire field of vision, Nocturne frowned without meaning to.
Vomit that made it very clear what someone had eaten the night before was scattered everywhere. Broken liquor bottles rolled around, and animal feces were smeared all over the ground where people had stepped on them.
As he tried not to gag at the scene, a girl in shabby clothes appeared.
She held a broom, tongs, and a sack.
As soon as the girl entered the alley, she spread out the sack and propped it up in the corner, immediately picking up trash and tossing it inside.
Then she went into the building deeper in the alley, brought out a wooden bucket, and disappeared again.
‘Where did she go?’
A moment later, she came back, grunting as she carried the bucket full of water and poured it generously over the vomit left from the night before.
She fetched water several times, until she had completely washed away all the vomit in the alley.
Nocturne couldn’t believe the sound he heard with his own ears.
‘She’s… humming? Here? She’s enjoying this? Cleaning that filth?’
He couldn’t believe it.
He was barely holding back from vomiting himself, while this girl was happily humming as she cleaned up the revolting mess.
She picked up garbage, washed away vomit, cleaned animal feces, swept fallen leaves, and gathered the trash into a corner and burned it.
‘She looks like a professional cleaner. What an interesting kid.’
But for some reason, the girl kept sharply glaring at Nocturne from time to time while cleaning.
Between strands of her hair that shook as she swept, he caught glimpses of eyes that looked like a clear, cloudless autumn sky.
Crystal-clear eyes that reminded him of sapphires. Her face was also quite neat and pretty.
When he awkwardly approached holding some trash, wanting to talk to her because it looked like magic the way the filthy alley became clean under her hands, her face—previously like a cat with raised fur—instantly softened.
And when a wound appeared on Red’s cute face, Nocturne couldn’t forgive Sam.
That night, using the cover of pitch-black darkness, Nocturne ambushed Sam and punished him several times more severely than what Red had suffered.
‘He deserved to be punished for daring to hurt Red.’
