Kamian lifted me up and gently wrapped his hands around my trembling arm. As I looked at my arm tightly held within his grasp, a sigh escaped my lips. Despite my lack of appetite, I diligently nourished myself with meals and exercised daily, but this cursed body of mine clung only to the bare minimum of fat and muscle required for survival.

"I understand," I murmured softly.

As my tensed muscles slowly relaxed, my head began to spin. Leaning my forehead against Kamian's chest, I took a slow breath. Kamian continued to caress my arm without pausing, whispering affectionately.

"Shall I hold you?"

"It's alright. There will come a time when you make me fall."

I exerted force on my head and pressed it firmly against his chest before releasing it. Walking towards the bench where Kamian had been lying earlier, I stretched my body out in the same position. Compared to Kamian, whose long legs extended well beyond the bench, my legs barely reached my ankles.

"Go inside and rest. If you sweat and catch a cold in this chilly breeze, it won't do."

Kamian carefully gathered the spilled potatoes and placed them neatly in the basket beside the bench, lightly tapping my stomach.

The wind gently rustling my hair felt just right for falling asleep. However, at the mention of a cold, my eyes snapped open. With an immune system resembling thin ice, my feeble body was prone to succumbing to even the mildest cold virus.

As I reached out my hand, Kamian skillfully supported the back of my neck, helping me to rise. I walked past Kamian without a word and headed towards home.

In the moment of reaching for the doorknob, an uneasiness grazed my skin. When I turned around, I saw Kamian still standing near the bench. Under normal circumstances, he would be like a shadow, following closely behind me, or sticking by my side, lightly brushing the back of my hand. It was only natural that something seemed amiss.

"Aren't you coming in?"

The sun was slowly tilting towards the west. A reddish hue spread across the sky, resembling watercolor along the trajectory of the sun. Under the twilight, Kamian's crimson eyes emitted a peculiar glow.

"I need to go to Mr. Corner's farm. The fence is broken again."

Kamian stretched his arms behind his shoulders and lazily stretched, causing his shirt, perfectly fitted to his body, to tighten and, with a sudden snap, the button near his chest flew off.

As his navy-blue shirt loosened, his firm chest muscles jutted out.

"Oh..."

Kamian picked up two fallen buttons from the ground and roughly ran his fingers through his hair.

"Just need to sew these back on."

His actions caught my attention. Seems like all the muscles in my body were drawn to him.

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"Well then, let me wash up and we can go together."

"No, it's not a good idea. It'll get colder if we go out."

"If we layer on three or four layers, it'll be fine. I also want to see how much the baby goats have grown after such a long time."

Kamian didn't respond and started walking to where I stood. Then he reached out and overlapped his hand with mine, pulling the door open.

From my fifteen years of experience, silence was never allowed. So I followed Kamian, pretending not to know, and said, "Am I going too? Huh? You don't need to give me permission to go. If I want to go, I'll go." I glanced at Kamian, waiting for his reaction. However, Kamian firmly sealed his lips and focused on threading the needle to sew the button. Well, he's resolute.

I lightly patted his bare back with the palm of my hand. The flexing muscles on his back twitched. After putting down the shirt that Kamian was holding, he turned around and embraced me all at once. My arms naturally wrapped around Kamian's neck.

"Let go?"

"Don't walk around the house all sweaty. Go wash up."

Kamian put me down in the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Curious if there was any smell, I sniffed my arm. There was a faint smell of sweat.

"...I guess I should wash up."

After thoroughly washing every nook and cranny of my body, I put on several layers of clothing. Even though I wrapped myself tightly with clothes, I still felt the chilling cold as soon as I stepped out of the bathroom. With my teeth clenched, I occasionally jogged to the bedroom.

Just as I was about to burrow into the covers, a note was caught on my fingertips.

“Don't lie down until your hair is dry.”

The neat handwriting, resembling a textbook, was undoubtedly Kamian's. Always nagging. I was about to throw away the note when I noticed there was something written below it.

“We'll have dinner at Mr. Corner's place and be back. Don't wait for me. See you later.”

"Wow... This guy really went alone."

I crumpled the note under my hand with a pathetic sound.

"He just randomly went to the farm?"

I clenched my fists tightly but quickly gave up.

I knew very well that Kamian didn't go alone because he was annoyed with me or considered me a burden. If it weren't for today, I would have just put on thicker clothes and gone to the farm together. Kamian also liked having me by his side.

"That day referred to the secretive act between Liv and Kamian, where they exchanged a predetermined price for their agreement.

In exchange for granting human wishes, demons gained ownership of their souls after death. These souls could be consumed as a source of magical energy or combined with the bodies of other demons to create powerful soldiers. The uses were varied. However, the crucial point was that once the ownership of a soul was transferred, it lost its sense of self and eventually perished, serving as a tool without finding a place in either the celestial or infernal realms.

While it could be chilling to consider the position of a soul being pledged as collateral, I did not feel any apprehension. After all, it was Liv who had made the contract, not me.

Among demons, human souls were highly sought after and considered valuable. There were numerous cases of other demons seizing the souls when the contracting human died, attempting to absorb them.

To prevent such unforeseen circumstances, demons periodically drank the blood of the contractors, binding their souls. It was akin to writing your name on an item you owned.

Kamian and I performed the soul-binding ritual every fortnight. When we were younger, I lightly wounded my fingertips, and Kamian would suck on the blood. However, it turned out that such a small amount of blood was insufficient to firmly bind the soul. Since then, Kamian started sinking his fangs directly into my neck.

As a result, there remained an indelible scar, like a cruel mark, on the left side of my neck.