"I knew him."
The little girl answered lightly.
Xiao Xiao was slightly taken aback.
He quickly understood.
"You didn't appear before him looking the way you do now."
Otherwise...
How could the boy have failed to recognize the little girl?
"Mm."
The little girl nodded.
"That's right."
"I didn't look like this when I appeared before him."
Thinking of the times the boy had confided in him after meeting him, Xiao Xiao wondered: if the boy knew that the person he'd been searching for so earnestly had just been standing right in front of him, and that he'd even spoken with her...
What would he think?
Xiao Xiao lowered his eyes slightly.
He looked at the little girl.
"Why didn't you tell him who you were just now?"
Huh?
The little girl tilted her head.
Her face was full of innocent cheer.
"Why?"
Xiao Xiao's voice remained gentle.
Unhurried.
"I thought..."
"You two got along well."
"Mm."
The little girl nodded.
"We did get along pretty well."
"I saw him quite a lot."
"Then..."
Since they got along well, and she'd met a friend she hadn't seen in a long time...
"Why not say hello?"
"Why?"
The little girl's answer left Xiao Xiao feeling a little helpless.
Were they back where they'd started?
Xiao Xiao didn't answer.
He just looked quietly at the little girl.
The little girl gazed back at Xiao Xiao with wide eyes.
After their few encounters, and because he'd treated her to ice cream, the little girl had a very good impression of this human.
Tomato
"Why did you suddenly stop seeing him back then?"
Xiao Xiao changed the question.
It was something the boy had always been unable to let go of, too.
If the