The Sweetest Gift, The Most Cruel Curse

All right.

We'll talk about it when the time comes.

I don't really want to travel. Can I just stay in the hotel?

Really? That's great. I've been wanting to ditch those two stinking dumbasses forever.

For Ash, he had all the perfunctory answers he could ever need. After all, Sonia's invitation was so tactful that he could easily pretend he thought it really was just a trip. Besides, this was hardly the right occasion to sit down and talk things through. Maybe Angel Hunting would end in the next second. Maybe she would be sent back in the next second. As long as he brushed it off, he could keep running from the problem.

A hemp rope always snapped at its weakest point, and the one who had done nothing wrong was always the first to get hurt.

But Ash couldn't do it.

He couldn't pretend not to see the pleading and sorrow in the girl's eyes. She was like a plastic bag drifting along the roadside, suspecting that all she held inside was wind no one wanted.

She was not some blunt, straightforward person. She was eloquent, clever, mischievous, and a little sharp-tongued. But when it came to feelings, she was far braver than he was, advancing fiercely without hesitation. When she liked someone, even her brows smiled. When she hated someone, her little mouth could pout hard enough to hang a kettle from it. When she got angry, she cried from sheer rage. When she wanted something, she clung to it and refused to let go.

For example, right now, she had both arms wrapped around Ash. Ash felt that unless he cut himself in half at the waist, there was no escaping her grasp, as if she would cut down anyone who dared hurt him, and