"Are you comfortable?" As he put me down from his soldiers, "Let me get my keys from my pocket." Kibo said.
It was a strange location. We were somewhere between the forest with a single house in the isolated region, covered with tall trees.
"Here it is." He said as he picked it out from beneath the carpet.
I would have never put it in such a careless area.
"Okay then, Welcome to my home sweet home, -elf-chan-! The name's Yuuno Kibo, your personal caretaker." He said with a happy face.
Several days passed by and I was still the same as ever. At the very least, he didn't do anything bad to me in that duration.
"Huh? What, you wanna have a sip?" Kibo said with a smirk, as he found me looking at him, while cooking the soup.
"…no…" I said.
"See, a few days back, you weren't even able to look anywhere, leave the talking aside. You are recovering comparatively faster now." He said while pouring the soup into the cups.
"Now, drink it, and get a stronger quickly too." He gave me the cup and started to gobble up his own.
More days passed by and I was finally able to use my body without any restraints. My legs were moving again and the light bruises were healed silently.
I opened myself to the cool wind around me while walking silently through the trees around the house.
'How long has it been since I felt something like this?' I thought.
After walking for a bit, I sat under a tree like I did before all the predicament. Soon after, lots of birds and squirrels and other small animals gathered around me.
"Are you having fun?" Kibo asked me as he walked past me, holding the bundle of chopped wood on the top of his shoulder.
"…What….you…doing…?" Although my body had recovered, my voice was still lacking.
"Well, I lost my job so I have to do something to earn the money, right?" He said as he walked towards the garden beside the house and sat down there.
I don't know why I was like that. Such cruel things were done to me by the humans but still…still, he seemed different from those people. He gave the kind of security which, if, I didn't get at that time, I would have died.
'But, how should I ask this to him?' I thought as I stood up and walked inside the garden. I looked at him and then sat down beside him.
"Ho? What is it, you, worried about me?" He asked with a chuckle while wiping off his sweat.
"….why….?" I said.
"Hmm?"
"…you…helped…me…why…?" I asked while staggering my words.
"That's a great question you have there, but, even I don't know why I did it…" He answered.
"Uh?"
"You know, the best thing you can give someone and the worst thing you can take away from them…is their freedom. I just acted on a whim with that mindset." He said while looking into my eyes with a firm expression.
"But…why…me?…many…more….there….why…not…them?"
"When I first looked at you, I could feel it in your eyes, that dead will, your pain and suffering, I could sense it and I felt like if I didn't do anything at that moment, something bad may happen to you. That was just my action, from a personal perspective, nothing heroic of the sort, after all, I did leave the others alone."
As I heard those words, my lips started to tremble. From the time I met him, it was nothing but blessing for me. He took care of me even though I was a useless burden, He relieved me every single day since then, without an annoyed expression on his face. And after hearing it from his lips, it seemed to heal my damaged heart and the cold tears started to wet my eyes as I started to smile while crying.
"Uh…eh….wait, why are you crying now? Did I say something wrong?" He started shouting while moving his hand all around my face.
I held his right hand and touched my cheek with it, "it's…nothing…" and held them still with my left hand.
He blushed for a moment, but it soon changed to a beautiful smile which purely reflected care.
"Thank….you…" I said with a wide smile but the tears didn't seem to stop.
He moved his hand from my cheeks, wiped off my tears, and said,"You deserve a normal life just like anyone else…so don't ever let it burden you, okay?"
"…Yeah…" I said happily.
"Well, there's still something I don't know." He said.
"W-What…?"
"You still haven't told me your name. I was the one who suddenly introduced me out of nowhere, so, well, you know, it feels strange conversing without a name."
"Me…no…name…I…a…stray…so…never…got…one…"
"Oh, is that so?" He said and started to squeeze his brain cells as if thinking something really complicated.
"Uh, how does…Ruchell…sound?" He said while blushing and scratching his forehead.
"It's…a…beautiful…name…" I said with a lively smile to which he reacted with an overjoyed expression.
"I still don't understand…Ms. Ruchell." Karma said as he stopped me in between. "If things were so merry between you both, what should I be contemplating through your past actions whenever his name came up? I don't get it."
"…Even, I don't know about that. Anyways, don't interrupt in between, I am already trying hard to bring most of the parts out." I said.
"I apologize, please continue." He replied to me with a stolid face, which did annoy me a bit.