By the time Shalnark followed A Luo's directions and arrived in the town where they were staying, Chrollo had mostly recovered. At the very least, he could take care of himself again.
A Luo stood in the hospital room, gazing through the window at the moon hanging high in the night sky.
"Chrollo, you..."
After a moment's hesitation, she finally asked the question that had weighed on her mind ever since she woke up.
"Why did you try to save me that day?"
He hadn't actually managed to save her, and they had both ended up in the hands of that lunatic Luka.
But that day, just before she lost consciousness completely, she had seen Chrollo charging desperately toward her, ignoring the people behind him who were trying to kill him.
So why had he tried to save her?
Every time before that, he had been the one tormenting her!
A Luo even believed that, if necessary, Chrollo wouldn't hesitate to kill her. So why had this man chosen to save her at that moment?
Wasn't he far too full of contradictions?
No matter how she thought about it, A Luo couldn't understand, so today she had simply asked him outright.
Chrollo lay in the hospital bed, looking uncharacteristically weak. Prolonged blood loss had made his face even paler, and against that pallor, his ink-black eyes sent an inexplicable chill through anyone who looked at him.
He gave a quiet cough. Suddenly, it was as though he had shed his usual inscrutable facade, revealing something sincere and gentle underneath.
"Because I'm rather fond of you, A Luo. I suppose I don't want you to die."
Those ink-black eyes flickered as Chrollo remembered a little black cat he had happened to find as a child.
The little black cat was adorable,