ABFR 06

Chapter 6

“Hey, you just had a rude thought, didn’t you?”

“Would I really do that?”

“Then what were you thinking?”

When I coldly pressed him for an answer, Reilly lowered his gaze without saying anything. Then he took hold of each of my wrists and raised them up before asking another question.

“Did you eat dinner before going to sleep?”

“Why are you suddenly asking me that?”

“Did you eat?”

“I stayed up all night for several days and then passed out from exhaustion. Do you think I had time to eat in between?”

I struggled and grunted as I tried to pull my hands out of his grasp, then asked irritably. Unlike me, he stood there holding my wrists with an utterly calm expression and asked again.

“Then did you eat anything after waking up?”

“No. I called you as soon as I woke up. Do you think I had time to eat during that?”

“You drank beer.”

“I didn’t have to do anything more than open the can……. And beer fills you up, too…….”

Hearing my answer, Reilly frowned again.

“When was your last meal?”

“Ramen yesterday morning. Or I guess it was brunch.”

“How many servings of ramen?”

“Uh……. Half a serving? I left a little.”

“…….”

Reilly lowered his violet eyes and stared at me coldly. After looking at me for a while, he let out a deep sigh.

“What is your weight? You were 39 kilograms last month.”

Why had the conversation suddenly turned to this?

I narrowed my eyes into triangles, but answered obediently for the moment.

“I haven’t checked, so I don’t know. Last week, I was 38……?”

“How did you lose even more?”

“Shut up. What am I supposed to do if I just don’t gain weight?”

With the hand I had finally pulled free, I clenched my fist tightly and punched him in the stomach several times. But once again, it seemed to have no effect.

“No matter how many times you hit me, it feels like a cat’s soft paw. I am trying my best not to break your bones simply by breathing.”

“Why does everything you say have to be so annoying?”

“Please do not drink too much alcohol. And make sure you eat properly. It would be nice if you did not stay up all night either, but at the very least, do not live with your days and nights completely reversed. Of course you do not gain weight when you do not eat.”

“Oh, come on. I eat when I eat.”

I snapped at him, but Reilly did not seem to take my words seriously this time either. He grabbed each of my wrists with one hand and moved them aside, then deliberately let out several deep sighs before speaking again.

“You must have ruined your health again.”

“I already ran into my doctor on the street last week and got a lecture. Are you going to nag me too?”

I snorted and struggled to pull my hands free again. Reilly narrowed his eyes and asked in surprise.

“You have a personal doctor? I understand that only a small number of people in this society have one.”

“He’s not really a personal doctor. I just mean the internal medicine doctor I go to regularly.”

“How often do you have to visit a neighborhood doctor for him to recognize Ajin on the street?”

“Well, I’ve been going there regularly for the past four years, so…….”

“‘Four years’?”

Reilly immediately picked up on that point and questioned me.

I flinched and quietly lowered my gaze.

Reilly still did not know how I had lived during those four years between returning from the world inside the novel and meeting him again. He seemed to have assumed that the reason I had not been writing was simply that I was going through a slump, since creative work was my profession anyway. But he knew nothing beyond that.

To be honest, I did not want to tell him.

I did not want him to know that I was someone who could be affected so deeply by someone like Reilly Kraha. And especially in our current relationship, where neither of us had made our feelings clear and we were merely feeling each other out, I wanted to keep it that way even more.

I lowered my gaze sullenly and muttered unhappily.

“That doctor opened his clinic about five years ago.”

It wasn’t a lie.

When I answered gloomily, Reilly stared at me with his violet eyes coldly lowered. Only after quite some time did he finally look away.

“Tomorrow, I will feed you myself, so let us open a dessert shop, even if it is only for one month.”

“Huh? I’m done with work, so I’m planning to make lunch plans. I called you because I wanted to tell you that my schedule is free from the evening onward……”

“With whom?”

“With the freshmen.”

As soon as he heard that, Reilly immediately hardened his expression and asked.

“Are they men?”

Here we go again.

At the same argument coming up yet again, a curse slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Ah, fuck, you’re seriously annoying. Whenever someone around me happens to be a man, you always act like this……”

“To be honest, I dislike women too.”

“I knew you’d give me an even crazier answer! But seriously, what is your problem? Whether they’re women or men, what does it matter if I want to meet my friends?”

When I coldly demanded an answer, Reilly Kraha raised his chin arrogantly, as if he were about to say something completely natural and obvious.

“You have always been popular with women. Especially younger women.”

I knew who he was talking about, but that was a distortion of the truth!

He was acting like this because I had once been close to the girl who should originally have been the heroine of that world.

Honestly, if there was one person among all those human garbage who made me think, ‘So this is what a romantic heroine is supposed to be like,’ then of course I would want to be friends with her!

It was true that she followed me around, and I did like her quite a lot.

But girls do that kind of thing with each other all the time, don’t they?

Sometimes we ate together, played together, went around together, whispered to each other when we were alone, and even had sleepovers once or twice!

However, it was also true that she was one of the people toward whom Reilly had shown the most obvious jealousy and possessiveness in that world.

When Reilly was being a complete bastard, I had even once clung to the back of that girl—who was a head shorter than I had been at the time—and taken shelter behind her.

Several memories flashed through my mind like a dying man’s life flashing before his eyes. Without realizing it, I opened my eyes wide and pressed my lips together.

But then I thought, Why should I be intimidated by him?

So I glared at him even harder and lifted my chin.

“Hey, what am I supposed to do if I’m popular?”

“From the beginning, I dislike you being around women more. When your companion is a woman, you eagerly throw yourself into her arms, don’t you?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Then why do you go anywhere you please, shedding fur and purring, when you have a butler?”

“Maybe your personality really is the problem.”

I answered with a regretful expression, but Reilly did not seem to regret anything at all.

In any case, this man seriously needed to reflect on his character several times over.

“If I stop you from meeting your female friends, you will not come to me either. That is why I am putting up with it.”

“Do you even hear yourself? The moment you said something that ridiculous out loud, you stopped putting up with it.”

“I am saying that I am dissatisfied. What does my personal dissatisfaction have to do with you?”

This crazy bastard.

I instinctively raised my middle finger, but then hurriedly lowered it after noticing the eyes around us and answered as politely as I could.

“Reilly.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going home.”

“Eat something before you go. You look like you will break while walking.”

“Fuck off. I’m not going to break. By your standards, everyone in the world must be a matchstick that snaps with the slightest bit of force! Besides, you’re not even my butler anymore.”

I answered irritably and once again tried to lightly push his shoulder with my fingertips.

But for some reason, his shoulder did not move this time.

Usually, whenever I gently pushed him with my fingertips, he would move back on his own. After he came to my world, the difference in our physiques had become even greater, so he would usually step back even when I barely put any strength into the push.

But this time, something unexpected happened.

I absentmindedly looked up after encountering that unexpected wall, only to suddenly meet a pair of icy violet eyes looking down at me coldly.

His delicate face, as perfectly crafted as a doll’s, stared down at me with an emotionless and ruthlessly cold gaze.

Reilly Kraha placed his hands on both sides of me and firmly gripped the railing.

I was trapped within his arms with nowhere to escape.

My back bent slightly backward.

I hurriedly pressed my hand against Reilly’s chest once more, but he still showed no intention of moving away.

“Why……. Why?”

“Say that again.”

“Again? Um, I’m not going to break? Don’t think according to your standards?”

“Why am I not your butler?”

So that was it?

No, but no matter how I thought about it, I could not understand why he was so angry.

Was that really something worth getting angry about?

Regardless, could our current relationship really be called that of a butler and master?

I frowned and knitted my brows, then carefully chose my words so that I could give him a reasonable answer to his question.

“No……. Think about it. Isn’t that right? What kind of relationship do we have right now? How can you call this a butler-and-master relationship? We live our own separate lives and meet occasionally to take walks, go for drives, watch movies, visit each other’s homes, sit next to each other while doing our own work or eating. You cook for me and make desserts…….”

The more I talked, the more I realized there was no word other than ‘lovers’ that could explain our relationship.

In fact, I had even told Dr. Jung Si-hoon that Reilly Kraha was my boyfriend.

That was exactly what we were.

Our current relationship was closer to that of an ordinary couple than a butler and master.

However, Reilly had never once said or done anything like that since coming to this world.

If he had naturally kissed me or slept with me, I would have thought of it as something natural too.

But he had strangely never touched me.

He had not even hugged me unless there was an actual reason for the hug.

This was the same man who had suddenly kissed me when we first became close, back when it seemed like we were starting to flirt with each other.

If he suddenly acted like this now, it was only natural for me to suspect something.

Perhaps, after actually meeting me again, he had discovered that something was different from what he had expected.

I did not believe that passionate, novel-like love really existed, nor did I believe it could last forever.

But precisely because of that, I had no interest in a lukewarm relationship that continued only because of habit or a sense of responsibility.

I did not want to cling to Reilly Kraha, insisting that I loved him when he did not love me.

“For now, I just can’t call you my butler.”

“Then?”

Reilly asked coldly, his voice carrying the sweet tone he always used when he was extremely angry.

“What am I to you right now?”

Hearing those words, I hesitated and tried to take a step backward.

Then I remembered the railing pressed firmly against my back and let out a deep sigh.

Instead of giving him a proper answer, I threw the same question back at him.

“Then what am I to you right now?”

For some reason, Reilly Kraha’s expression became even more frightening.

“…….”

“…….”

Silence continued for a while.

The longer the silence lasted, the more uncomfortable my stomach became.

Perhaps I had secretly wanted him to answer straightforwardly that we were dating.

If I pushed him a little more, I might have been able to make him say that we were lovers.

But if he had already indirectly rejected that idea once, I did not want to press him like that.

That was the most indirect hint I could give from my side.

But he only looked down at me with an extremely cold and composed expression before answering icily.

“If that is how you put it, then I suppose I am nothing to you.”