I Killed Them

Her face turned pale inch by inch, her already pallid complexion becoming almost transparent.

The anger and killing intent in her eyes faded rapidly, replaced by an overwhelming panic that nearly spilled from them.

She muttered to herself, shaking her head faster and faster, her pink hair whipping back and forth. "You didn't kill them, so the one who killed them was-"

Her words cut off abruptly.

She lowered her head and looked at her hands.

Her stomach churned violently.

Kexi watched her expression change from anger to confusion, from confusion to terror, and from terror to a kind of bottomless, heartbreaking despair.

He didn't know what she was thinking, but he had a faint feeling that what he'd just said hadn't made things better. Instead, it seemed to have sent them in an even worse direction.

"Um, are you all right?" He carefully released her wrist, his voice tentative.

Aemeath didn't answer.

She simply raised her eyes to him, slowly, inch by inch. All the fury in her golden eyes had gone out, leaving only a hollow, deathly gray confusion.

"I ate them.

I ate every last one of them.

I have no home to go back to.

I have no family left."

Her voice began to tremble, tears welled up in her eyes again, and she cried out in despair,

"Why?! Why didn't you kill me that day?! Then they wouldn't have died..."

Kexi froze.

It took him a while to piece her words together with the clues from before, and then his eyes widened too.

She thought he had killed her family, so she had come after him for revenge.

But her family had only been knocked unconscious by him. They hadn't died.

And she had mistakenly thought they were dead, so she had-

Kexi's stomach churned too.

"You..." He struggled to get the words out. "You ate them?"

Aemeath didn't answer.

She simply closed her eyes, and two streams of tears slipped from their corners.

Kexi fell silent.

The room was so quiet that all he could hear was her muffled sobbing and the occasional rumble of her stomach.

Even now, her stomach was still traitorously growling with hunger, as if cruelly reminding her that the family members she had eaten had probably been digested long ago.

Kexi took a deep breath, reached into his pack, and pulled something out. Without looking back, he held it out to her.

It was a piece of osmanthus cake.

Suisui had made it. After three days, it was no longer very fresh. Its surface was a little dry, and its edges were somewhat hard, but the sweet fragrance of osmanthus still escaped the paper wrapping and filled the quiet room.

"Have something to eat first," he said softly, without turning to look at her.

Aemeath looked at the osmanthus cake he held out.

Her hand moved slightly, but she didn't take it.

Her gaze shifted from the cake to the back of Kexi's head, a tangle of emotions churning in her golden eyes.

Hatred, grievance, shame, despair, and something she didn't recognize that made her eyes sting.

She didn't know whether she should take it.

This man was her enemy. Only moments ago, she had been biting his neck.

Though he wasn't the one who had directly killed her family, he had indeed started it all.

If he hadn't knocked her family unconscious, she wouldn't have eaten them by mistake.

If he hadn't peed in her lake, she wouldn't hate him so much. When all was said and done, it was all his fault.

"Look, miss, you-"

Before Kexi could finish, his hand was empty.

A grimy little hand snatched the osmanthus cake away in the blink of an eye, and the sound of ravenous chewing came from behind him.

Kexi froze and slowly turned around, seeing a sight he would never forget.

The pink-haired girl who had just been strangling him, biting his throat, and trying to take him down with her was now sitting cross-legged on his bed, cramming osmanthus cake into her mouth with both hands. Her cheeks bulged like a hamster's, and crumbs covered her mouth and face.

She ate hungrily and fiercely, like a little beast on the verge of fainting from hunger.

No, she was a little beast on the verge of fainting from hunger.

The osmanthus cake was too dry. She choked, rolled her eyes, and had to pound her chest hard before she could swallow it. Then she continued stuffing it into her mouth.

Kexi stared, dumbfounded by how seamlessly she had switched between the two states.

"You... this is..." He watched her demolish three pieces of osmanthus cake in mere moments, a jumble of feelings in his heart. "Is it good?"

Aemeath didn't answer.

She was busy licking the crumbs from her fingers, her pink tongue gliding over her fingertips and curling the last speck of osmanthus into her mouth.

Her brows were still furrowed, and her eyes were still red, but the air of someone ready to tear Kexi apart and eat him alive had vanished completely.

Three pieces of osmanthus cake had utterly dismantled it.

After licking her fingers clean, she looked up at Kexi. There was hatred in her eyes, grievance, killing intent with nowhere to go, and a trace of satisfaction that she desperately tried, but failed, to suppress.

It was that trace of satisfaction that made her glare at him again in embarrassed anger after she finished licking her fingers.

"It's not good," she said, her voice hoarse and stubborn, a speck of osmanthus still clinging to the corner of her mouth.

"Um, although I was indeed in the wrong first, and I shouldn't have peed in the lake where you were bathing or knocked your family unconscious, strictly speaking, eating them was a decision you made yourself. You can't pin all the blame on me, can you?"

Aemeath's hand froze.

She stopped licking her fingers, her hand suspended in midair. The satisfaction in her golden eyes was shattered by those words, replaced by a renewed surge of killing intent.

She spoke slowly, enunciating every word as though reading out a death sentence.

"Say that again."

Kexi quickly caught the flame reigniting in her eyes and promptly raised both hands in surrender. "All right, all right, my fault. It's all my fault. But logically speaking-"

Her fingers began reaching for his neck again.

Kexi drew his neck back. "Fine, I'll drop it."

But Aemeath's fingers didn't actually reach him.

Her hand hung in the air for a long moment before she slowly withdrew it, lowered it to her side, and curled it into a feeble fist.

Her shoulders slumped, as though all her strength had suddenly been drained away.

She knew she was being unreasonable.

She knew she couldn't blame him for everything that had happened.

He hadn't known there was someone in the lake, hadn't known those snow leopards were her family, and hadn't known she was taking human form.

He had just been passing by. He'd gotten into a fight, taken a piss, and then flown away.

She was the one who had misjudged the situation.

She was the one who had put her family on the fire.

She was the one who had eaten them, piece by piece.

But what could she do?

Could she blame herself?

If she took all the responsibility onto her own shoulders, she would break down on the spot.

She needed someone to hate, a reason to go on living.

So she had to hate him.

Even if it made no logical sense, even if she herself knew it was unfair.

She still had to hate him.

Because if she didn't hate him, she would have to hate herself.

Kexi looked at her expression and didn't press the point.

He turned, pulled another piece of osmanthus cake from his pack, and placed it beside her hand.

This time, she didn't hesitate. She silently picked it up, lowered her head, and ate it in little bites.

This time, she ate very slowly, chewing gently, and the trembling in her shoulders gradually subsided.

A long silence passed.

"My name is Aemeath." Her voice was muffled, with half a piece of osmanthus cake still in her mouth. "Aemeath of the Snowy Velvet Seal clan."

"What?! You're Aemeath?!"