Chapter 489: Where am I, I wonder? Who am I, really?

Where am I, I wonder?

Who am I, really?

I don’t have any purpose, and I don’t even know where I’m supposed to go. Sometimes, I feel like... if something were to happen to you, my purpose in life would disappear along with you.

I know there’s already someone you love, but if you would just consider giving me a chance, I think we could be good together. So, if the person you want doesn’t have the slightest interest in you, then I think I’d be a good candidate for your next love.

Love,

Your secret admirer.

***

Hina looked at the letter that had been placed inside her shoe locker that morning with an expression of pure disgust before crumpling it up and tossing it into the trash. She had no idea who had written it, but whoever was responsible had managed to offend her before the school day had even properly begun.

As far as everyone knew, Kouhei was the only person she wanted, and that wasn’t going to change just because some anonymous person had decided to confess their feelings through a poorly timed letter. She had absolutely no interest in entertaining anyone else, especially someone who seemed to think they could simply volunteer themselves as her next romantic option.

Honestly, what kind of confession was that supposed to be? The writer had practically admitted that they were only interested in becoming her next choice if Kouhei somehow failed to return her feelings. Hina couldn’t decide whether the letter was insulting or just plain ridiculous, but either way, she certainly wasn’t going to keep it as a treasured memory.

"Hina!" Nagisa called out when she noticed her friend standing by the shoe lockers with an expression that suggested someone had ruined her entire morning. Unable to ignore how grumpy Hina looked, she walked over and tilted her head slightly. "Why do you look so upset this early in the morning? Is it because Kou-kun is meeting that woman next week?"

Initially, that hadn’t been the reason behind Hina’s bad mood, but the moment Nagisa brought it up, she immediately remembered something else that had been bothering her. Her already sour mood somehow managed to get even worse, and she could feel her irritation rising all over again.

"You just reminded me of something unpleasant," Hina replied, glaring at Nagisa with an expression that looked as though she’d eaten an entire plate of the spiciest food imaginable and was now looking for someone to blame.

Unfortunately for Nagisa, she had accidentally stepped directly onto a landmine.

That was right. Although Kouhei and the others had already returned from Japan, it was unlikely that they would be traveling back to Italy as frequently as they had before. Previously, they had been going back and forth between the two countries almost every day, but now that they had returned to Japan, things were supposed to become a little more settled.

At least, that was how it should have been.

The problem was that whenever Kouhei returned to Italy, he would have to meet with Aegis and Petra so they could activate Aegis’s ability. In practical terms, that meant having sex with them as part of the process of obtaining information that might help them discover a way to cure Kozue.

Unfortunately, Kozue was still frozen in time, and there was very little they could do about her current condition. Finding a cure was proving to be an incredibly difficult task, almost like searching for a single needle in a massive field of hay while having absolutely no idea where someone might have dropped it.

The longer Kozue remained in that state, the more frustrating the situation became for everyone involved. They couldn’t simply leave her that way forever, yet finding a solution wasn’t something they could accomplish just by wishing hard enough.

"Well, he doesn’t really have a choice, does he?" Nagisa said, trying to look at the situation from a more practical perspective. "Unless he does what he has to do, I don’t think there’s any other way for him to help Kozue right now. Considering his personality, I seriously doubt he’d just leave her frozen in time and pretend that everything was fine."

Nagisa paused for a moment before continuing, her expression becoming a little more serious as she considered the circumstances surrounding Kozue.

"Time might not be much of a problem for us, but that doesn’t mean we can just leave her like that. She’s still one of us, and she’s someone Kou-kun cares about. If there’s even a chance that this could help her, then I think it’s only natural for him to go through with it."

"Well, I understand that," Hina replied, letting out a small sigh as she looked away. "It’s not as though I can blame Kouhei for doing something like that. It’s simply part of his personality, and honestly, I think it’s completely natural for him to act that way."

She wasn’t happy about the situation, but she wasn’t unreasonable enough to pretend that Kouhei was doing something without a valid reason. If anything, she understood his decision better than most people would, which was precisely what made the whole situation so difficult for her to complain about.

"Normally, I wouldn’t even think about it that much," Hina continued, her voice growing quieter as she tried to explain what she really meant. "I’ve always known that Kouhei is such a remarkable man that I never expected a single woman to be enough to keep him tied down."

Nagisa found herself feeling a little conflicted after hearing that statement.

She could understand why Hina thought so highly of Kouhei, considering everything he had accomplished and the kind of person he was. There was certainly something special about him, and Nagisa wasn’t about to deny that he had qualities that made people naturally gravitate toward him.

However, she wasn’t entirely convinced that Kouhei was so extraordinary that one woman could never be enough for him.

In fact, Nagisa believed that Kouhei being together with Hina would have felt perfectly natural. The two of them had their own connection, and if things had gone differently, she could easily imagine them living together without needing to complicate their relationship with an entire harem.

Of course, things hadn’t turned out that way.

Kouhei had ended up taking the harem route, and Nagisa herself had become one of its members. Somewhere along the way, Hina seemed to have accepted that arrangement as part of Kouhei’s life, to the point that she had started treating it as something almost inevitable.

Nagisa couldn’t help wondering whether that way of thinking had gradually become ingrained in Hina’s mind.

Perhaps Hina had convinced herself that loving Kouhei meant accepting the possibility that he would continue bringing other women into his life. Perhaps she had even started believing that his greatness somehow made it impossible for him to be satisfied with just one person.

Whatever the case might have been, Nagisa couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else behind Hina’s words.

"I know that what you want is to make Kou-kun stronger, along with the entire Kouhei Faction," Nagisa said, carefully choosing her words as she continued the conversation. "And because of that, you see the women joining his harem as more than just romantic partners, don’t you? You want them to become important people who can support him and strengthen the faction as it continues to grow."

She paused briefly, watching Hina’s expression before asking the question that had been bothering her.

"But if that’s what you want, why are you so reluctant to let people who aren’t demons join the harem? Is it because you don’t think they’re trustworthy enough, or is there another reason you’re keeping to yourself?"

"It’s not even that..." Hina answered, her voice trailing off as she struggled to explain herself.

There was something about the situation that bothered her far more than the question of whether the other women could be trusted. It was a concern she had kept to herself for quite some time, and even thinking about it made her feel uneasy.

What if Kouhei ever rediscovered what it meant to live as an ordinary human being?

What if he eventually found himself longing for the life he had once lived before becoming a demon? If he fell in love with a human woman, there was a possibility that she might help him reconnect with the humanity he had left behind, allowing him to see his current existence from an entirely different perspective.

Perhaps he would begin to regret becoming a demon.

Perhaps he would start wondering whether his life would have been better if he had remained human.

And perhaps, after considering everything that had happened to him, he would eventually come to resent Hina for being part of the reason he had become what he was today.

That was the possibility that frightened her the most.

Hina could handle plenty of things in her life, and she could accept circumstances that would have been difficult for other people to endure. However, the thought of Kouhei looking at her with hatred was something she could barely bring herself to imagine.

If the day ever came when Kouhei genuinely hated her, Hina knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

She could accept him having other women in his life. She could even convince herself that sharing his affection was simply part of the path she had chosen. But losing the affection he had for her altogether was an entirely different matter, and it was something she never wanted to experience.

That fear was also why she had become so particular about the people allowed to get close to him.

Although the women she was worried about were technically human, they weren’t exactly ordinary people anymore. They had already crossed the boundaries that separated normal humans from the extraordinary, and their circumstances made them different from the average person Kouhei might encounter.

Still, Hina couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility that something might change one day.

Perhaps one of them could awaken something in Kouhei that he had forgotten about himself. Perhaps he would begin looking at his past differently, or perhaps he would realize that the life he had been living as a demon wasn’t necessarily the life he wanted forever.

There was no guarantee that any of those things would happen, but the possibility alone was enough to make Hina uncomfortable.

That was why, deep down, she didn’t want Kouhei to rediscover his humanity.

It wasn’t because she wanted to see him suffer, nor was it because she wanted to take away his freedom to decide what kind of person he wanted to become. The truth was much more selfish and far less noble than that.

She was afraid of losing him.

"I know I’m being selfish," Hina admitted quietly.

Nagisa looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say.

She still didn’t fully understand everything Hina was thinking, and she couldn’t pretend that she completely agreed with the way her friend viewed the situation. Nevertheless, she had caught a glimpse of something that she hadn’t noticed before, something that made her look at Hina a little differently.

The Hina she had known in the past had been almost completely expressionless most of the time. Her face rarely showed much emotion, and it was often difficult to tell what she was thinking unless someone knew her well enough to recognize the subtle changes in her behavior.

Lately, however, that seemed to be changing.

Hina was beginning to emotion than she used to, even if those emotions weren’t always pleasant ones. She could become jealous, frustrated, worried, and even frightened by the possibility of losing someone important to her.

For Nagisa, that change was difficult to overlook.

She couldn’t help smiling a little as she watched Hina struggle to put her feelings into words.