Chapter 23
After I washed Raven, fed him, and played with him for a long while after his splendid flight in the rear garden, it was already time to go to bed.
After having always been stubborn and angry because he wanted to sleep beside me, Raven climbed obediently onto his cushion on his own after James visited. It seemed he thought that if he behaved prettily and obediently, he would be able to live with me in the mansion forever.
I felt apologetic towards him, and my heart ached, but I hid my feelings behind a smiling face. Then I asked Raven, who was preparing to sleep,
“Do you want to sleep beside me today?”
Along with the question, I lifted the blanket slightly. The spot that had been coldly empty for several days was revealed as it was.
For a moment, Raven’s pupils trembled slightly. Soon, his head tilted subtly to the side.
Since I had forcibly made him sit on the cushion, saying that maybe his leg hadn’t healed because of me, it was only natural that he would find my sudden change in attitude strange.
Reading what was inside him, I laughed softly and added,
“Why? You don’t want to?”
“……”
Judging by his expression, it was clear that he didn’t dislike it. It seemed my sudden attitude of offering him the spot beside me made him both flustered and uneasy.
Since his master, who had learned that his leg was perfectly fine, might send him back at any moment, it was perhaps an understandable reaction.
The sight of him hesitating with suspicion instead of gladly accepting the good fortune that had come to him made one side of my heart ache.
He didn’t know that today was the last night he would spend with me. That didn’t mean my own heart was entirely at ease either. Even knowing that I had to send Raven away, I had impulsively made the offer because my hollow heart wanted to fall asleep holding him in my arms one last time.
Even though I tempted him several more times to come to the empty spot beside me, Raven only hesitated in place and showed no sign of approaching.
In the end, I fixed the blanket I had playfully lifted, turned my back to him, and lay down.
“If you don’t want to, then never mind. I’d be happy to sleep by myself with aaaall this space. Good night, then.”
“Caw.”
Only then did Raven belatedly spread his wings and fly to the spot beside me.
Soon, his two firmly healed legs lightly stepped onto the soft bed, and he strode toward me.
“…Caw.”
Very gentlemanly, he begged beside my ear, asking whether he could lie down next to me.
I barely held back the laughter that threatened to burst out and tried to pretend I was asleep. At my reaction, the sound of his crying grew even more sorrowful as he anxiously paced around the bed.
“…Caaaw.”
While listening to that sound, I suddenly imagined what he would have said if he were a person.
Please let me sleep beside you, would he have said? Or perhaps…
It was the moment I was spreading the wings of imagination on my own. A sudden impulse surged up, and I snapped my eyes open. Then I slowly turned onto my side and stared at Raven, who was desperately searching for me.
“Little one.”
“Caw.”
No sooner had I called him than an answer came back.
It seemed he had instinctively sensed that if he missed this chance, he would never be able to claim the spot beside me again.
“Do you want to sleep beside me?”
“Caw.”
“Then why didn’t you answer when I asked earlier?”
“……”
At my point, he avoided my gaze this time as if embarrassed. For some reason, that movement felt as though he was saying there were circumstances he couldn’t express in a crow’s body.
With a serious face, I asked him,
“Then it’s true that you want to sleep together with me, right? It’s not that you dislike me?”
“Caaaw.”
“Then since you hurt my feelings by not answering when I first asked, if you want to sleep with me, try kissing my cheek.”
“……”
For the first time, Raven showed signs of bewilderment. He seemed to be doubting whether he had heard correctly.
“Hurry.”
“……”
I shamelessly closed my eyes and offered my cheek. Then a gaze poured over me as if it might bore a hole through me. I could feel deep anguish and conflict from that gaze.
After standing there stupidly for a long while as if hesitating, he soon approached me very carefully. Then at last, he pressed his black beak onto my cheek.
“Ahaha.”
What a cute kiss.
Unable to hold back any longer, I burst into refreshing laughter, hugged him in my arms, and stroked him all over. Then I lightly kissed the crown of his head as he looked at me with a bewildered face.
“Ah, you’re so cute. How can you be this cute?”
At that moment, Raven’s body stiffened in my arms. His jet-black eyes became dizzyingly tangled with joy that seemed ready to burst, shyness, and a strange confusion.
Meeting those eyes, I brought out the words I had hidden until now.
“You’ll definitely be loved wherever you go, little one. You’re this lovable, so who could dislike you?”
“……”
“So forget all the bad things you heard while staying here when I wasn’t around. Even if I… made a big mistake toward you, I didn’t mean to do it on purpose, so forget that too. Alright?”
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