Barn felt the different texture beneath his fingers and understood what had caused all of this.
The sensation from the fingers Hancock held in her hand alerted Barn that something was wrong. Unlike the impossibly smooth skin he had touched before, what he felt beneath his fingertips was somewhat rough, even searing.
Of course, Barn knew where the problem lay. He also knew about the past Hancock could barely bring herself to speak of.
He pulled his hand free of Hancock's soft, smooth grasp, his fingers leaving her back, which should have been perfectly smooth.
Barn withdrew his hand without saying a word. He raised it, then raised it again, but in the end, he only sighed.
By then, Hancock had dressed and slowly turned around. Barn had expected her face to be drenched in tears, but it wasn't.
There wasn't a single tear on Hancock's face. Instead, she was utterly calm-eerily calm, like a condemned prisoner awaiting judgment.
Perhaps she had already imagined far too many possible endings. The worst might have been the man before her turning around and leaving...
The innocent, carefree Hancock from before was gone. So was the Hancock whose smile had bloomed like a flower. In her place stood a cold, expressionless Hancock.
Perhaps this icy Hancock was what Barn had wanted, but now that she had truly become like this, he found it difficult to accept.
Although Barn couldn't see, he could still sense the change that had come over Hancock.
"Amazon Lily cannot have a ruler who was once a slave."
Hancock spoke flatly but with absolute conviction, and Barn's body trembled slightly.
He slowly raised his head and "looked" toward Gloriosa, then turned toward Hancock again.
Others always found this remarkable about Barn. He could always make people forget he was