Except for Ketir, who had fussed over him with an almost annoying level of concern, the return to the office had been fairly uneventful. But once he was half-dragged back inside, that suffocating tension clamped back around his throat like a vice.
Did I greet him properly? Was my expression weird? Was I walking funny?
He spun his thoughts around and around, trying to remember, but nothing clear came to mind.
Not a good sign. It wasn’t that things had gone smoothly—he just couldn’t remember much at all. His mind had been that scrambled.
Even now, it was the same. By all rights, he should’ve already turned back into a human and crept up next to Justyn, but Ries chose instead to curl up in the corner of the office—unchanged, unmoving.
I need time to recover.
Specifically, time to restore his mental health.
Objectively speaking, this was a wise move. He just hadn’t taken into account how that choice might feel to the man quietly watching him from behind.
Behind his mask, Justyn’s red eyes sank low with quiet intensity. He recalled the subtle words Ketir had murmured before stepping out of the room:
“He seems a bit off today. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear to be a physical issue…”
And Justyn had already been burdened by countless worries stacked one atop another. Now, seeing Ries act so out of character—it would’ve been stranger not to be concerned.
Long since unable to focus on his work, Justyn eventually rose to his feet and made his way toward his companion.
His gaze, steady and solemn, swept slowly across the curled-up figure.
A corner he never usually stepped into. A cushion meticulously brought along. A pink tongue busily grooming a front paw. From the looks of it, Ries hadn’t even noticed he was being watched.
Relief flickered through Justyn’s thoughts.
No signs of discomfort… That’s good.
But he couldn’t relax just yet.
Justyn approached cautiously, speaking his name in the softest, gentlest voice he could manage. He had hoped to start a light conversation, just to gauge things more closely.
“Ries.”
“KYAAOONG!!”
His care had absolutely no effect. In fact, Ries’s reaction was worse than expected. Not only did he flinch, he literally leapt into the air in panic.
Thankfully, there was no clumsy landing or painful crash. Justyn had already reached out, gently catching him before he could slam into anything.
“……”
But for Ries, that only made things worse.
Just when his heartbeat had almost begun to settle, it kicked up again in a furious, chaotic rhythm. The places where Justyn’s hands touched him felt like they were burning, even through the layer of fur.
On instinct, he thrashed all four limbs. Maybe because of that wild struggle, he managed to wriggle out of his master’s grip fairly quickly—but then came the real problem.
He landed neatly on all fours, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie back down. He couldn’t even turn his head. His neck creaked like a rusted hinge, barely able to move.
The thick silence around him might as well have been screaming: Why the hell were you being so obvious? Justyn totally noticed!
Of course he did. Justyn wasn’t stupid. At this point, it was obvious that Ries was acting weird. His mind blanked all over again.
W-what should I say?
If he asked why Ries hadn’t turned into a human yet? What if he asked why he was avoiding him?
And knowing Justyn, he might not even ask anything. He’d probably just assume he’d done something wrong and start apologizing first.
And the problem was… even if he did do that, Ries didn’t have a single explanation ready.
Talking about Hillein was out of the question—way too soon. As for explaining the feelings he was struggling with right now… He wasn’t confident at all. His head spun like a carousel.
But when Justyn finally spoke…
“…You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
That was it. That was all he asked.
The moment the gentle question left his master’s lips, Ries forgot to even breathe. He could only blink up in a daze.
Justyn’s eyes were clouded with emotion. Ries didn’t have any special power to read someone’s feelings perfectly, but even he could tell what that look meant.
That’s… worry.
“…Myaong.”
He shook his head like he was in a trance. Only then did Justyn exhale slowly and retreat a step. His gloved hand brushed lightly—so very lightly—across the top of Ries’s head.
And that was the end of it. Justyn returned to his desk, resuming his work, and Ries could only stare at his back in a daze.
He’d been trying so hard to avoid looking at him—so why was it suddenly so hard to look away?
And then a realization struck him like a wave.
He’s giving me space.
Not because he’d stopped worrying, or stopped caring—but because he’d sensed Ries felt overwhelmed, and wanted to ease that burden.
The thought that he might’ve hurt Justyn without realizing it clung to his mind like a shadow. And yet, at the same time, Hillein’s words played over and over in his head like a skipping record.
—My son isn’t the kind of person who’d say things like that to someone he didn’t have feelings for.
One of the lines that had shut Ries’s mouth back then.
That must have been what lit the fuse—because now, memory after memory flickered through his mind. Each one bringing with it some fragment of the feelings he’d had at the time, tickling his chest.
Ries curled into himself again, and the thought came unbidden:
Justyn really… isn’t the type to say things carelessly.
All of this—his turmoil—was because Justyn had treated him as someone special. After all this time together, how could he not have seen it?
And yet, Ries could swear he’d never thought of that specialness in that way. …Had he?
The runaway train of his thoughts screeched to a halt.
Really? Not even once?
Had he truly never wanted to define this feeling?
Still curled up, he quietly resumed the back-and-forth.
Asking himself, answering. Asking again, answering again. On and on, until finally—
Ries realized the truth: this back-and-forth had never been meaningless. The conclusion had been decided from the start.
The moment he acknowledged it, something warm—something indescribable—began to spread in the depths of his heart.
His chest tingled, then ached. His stomach churned so intensely it felt unbearable. Sometimes his fingertips buzzed like they were charged with static. Occasionally, it felt like he couldn’t breathe, as if the whole world had gone still.
“……”
Without thinking, Ries pressed his paw to his forehead.
Ah…
If he’d been in human form, he’d probably be letting out a thousand weary sighs right now. That was how deeply this late realization had rattled him.
Even when he replayed it again in his head—it was the same. How had he not noticed these crystal-clear physical reactions?
Unable to bear it any longer, he lunged at the nearby cushion and began tearing it to shreds.
At some point, he’d also started kicking it with his hind legs, hard. He wasn’t quite sure when that began—but it didn’t matter. What mattered now was that his entire world had just flipped upside down overnight.
Completely unaware that his master was still watching him closely, Ries released all his pent-up embarrassment, mortification, and self-loathing in the only way he could.
***
Another day passed.
Even now, the strange tension between Justyn and Ries remained unresolved.
Which made sense, in a way. It wasn’t like someone could just confess the moment they realized what they were feeling. Especially when that someone had only just accepted those feelings today.
Still stuck in his furball state, Ries continued to ponder his future with deadly seriousness.
I… I… I l-lo-lo… l-like Justyn…
But even in his own thoughts, he couldn’t finish the sentence.
It didn’t matter when it all began. Emotions never followed rules. Love… if that’s what it was… was even more unruly. You couldn’t decide when it started, or when it would end.
Hadn’t Hillein already driven that point home loud and clear?
Still—acknowledging it was one thing. Figuring out what to do next was a whole different beast.
If you thought about it, this was technically Ries’s second life.
Most of his human memories had faded, buried under fog—but he still retained enough basic knowledge to know how relationships typically worked.
And what “those kinds of things” entailed…
“……”
He froze. Completely. Like a statue.
Random, fragmented words started popping up in his brain like weeds.
Me? With Justyn? Doing… those kinds of… things…?
His head felt like it was on fire. He seriously began to wonder if steam might start coming out of his ears. His vision wavered, too—but nowhere in that scrambled mind did he find the option of “not doing it.”
Sefiut, naturally, noticed the strange behavior.
Amused, he watched the little cat’s head spin like a top. Eventually, he spoke up, casual and quiet.
“Not going out today?”
“MEYAH?!”
Ries nearly jumped out of his fur at the voice. For just speaking a single sentence, that reaction was absolutely hilarious. A chuckle slipped from the doll’s mouth.
Good. Encouraging Hillein yesterday had been the right call. Thanks to that, they were seeing real progress. If things kept going like this, he might soon witness the exact scene he’d been dreaming of.
Ries finally seemed to realize how much time had passed. He shot to his feet, bolting toward the door—but then paused. Stiff as a log, he slowly turned his body back around.
“Mmmmn. Meow.”
It was his farewell to Justyn. The feline equivalent of “See you later” or “I’ll be back.” The boy was nothing if not honest and transparent.
He left a quick parting meow, then zipped away again. So fast, he vanished from the office in the blink of an eye.
Sefiut let out a full-on laugh this time—but then, a quiet voice caught him off guard.
“Ancestor.”
Justyn. His descendant.
