Chapter 62: chaptar: 61 . I.. I promise, I’ll figure a way out.

"Maybe you’re thinking too much. I’m fine."

​He saw a smile on the demon’s face for the very first time. But that smile... with forced, squeezed cheeks and trembling lips, it looked incredibly weird.

​Himanshu just stared at her without blinking for a moment, and then they both kept walking.

Why would a queen ever show her weakness to a normal human? Himanshu thought to himself.

​The next ten to fifteen minutes of the walk passed in that same heavy silence.

Not a single word was exchanged between them... until Himanshu read something weird on the ID of the author who wrote the demon’s manga.

​While walking, Himanshu’s feet suddenly stopped. His eyes lifted from the phone screen and locked straight onto the demon’s back.

​"Valoria..."

​She turned around, and her eyes were ready for answers, just like always.

​"Your... your name... is Eargel?" Himanshu’s eyes were wide open. Even he couldn’t believe what was written on the phone screen.

​The demon’s steps stopped right there. Her tense eyebrows suddenly narrowed.

"No... that’s my mother’s name," the demon said, stepping closer to Himanshu. There was a weird confusion in her voice.

​But Himanshu turned his phone screen straight toward the demon’s face.

"This is the author... the one who wrote you. He... he’s the one saying this."

​Looking at the phone screen, the demon narrowed her eyes and said in a slightly annoyed tone,

"Will you just believe anything anyone says?"

​Himanshu’s eyebrows tensed up even more. He looked at the demon with shock and a weird sense of fear.

"He’s your writer, Valoria! The one who wrote you! Why would he lie?" Himanshu’s voice had become a bit heavy and shaky.

​"Then what... what I saw in my dreams, was all of that a lie? I remember his name perfectly well!" The demon took another step forward. Glaring at Himanshu, she said in a very fierce voice, "And that name was... Eargel!"

​Himanshu was a writer himself. It didn’t take him even a second to understand that all these memories of the demon, her mother, her childhood... everything was just some human’s imagination. Which she, poor thing, had been carrying around as her reality all this time.

​"Hmmm..."

Himanshu took a deep breath and was just about to pull the phone away from her face when the demon’s eyes narrowed even more at the screen.

​She snatched the phone right out of Himanshu’s hands with a jerk.

​On the phone screen, the author was replying to his fans’ comments.

He had written:

​"Just kidding, she’s my fictional character. At one point I was actually thinking of... developing her as a slave to humans."

​And right below that, there was another fan’s comment:

​"Maybe the story would’ve been even better then."

​The demon’s eyes were glued to the screen. Her pupils were shaking badly.

Her breathing got heavy and fast from the anger and the pure humiliation. Himanshu could clearly see her trembling hands gripping the phone.

​She wasn’t ready to accept this. But somehow, she couldn’t reject the truth staring her right in the face either.

​"What kind of trash are they writing!"

​Going crazy with anger, she was about to smash the phone onto the ground with all her strength, but before she could, Himanshu quickly snatched his phone back.

​Left empty-handed, the demon crossed both her arms over her chest. And she started walking fast again, in her same old attitude-filled style.

​But this time... Himanshu could clearly feel that she wasn’t doing this out of pride. She was doing it to suppress that terrifying panic and the fear of breaking down that was rising inside her.

​Walking quietly behind her, Himanshu kept reading more comments from the author. Reading through them, he started to realize that the writer hadn’t given her everything a real character has. Her memories, her emotions, everything was half-baked.

But Himanshu wasn’t even mad at the author for this. Because as a writer himself, he knew that no matter how much knowledge and emotion you give a character, they can never be equal to a real person.

The truth is, a writer just pours fragments of their own identity into their characters. Which was obviously showing in this demon character too.

​°°°°°°

​The moment he reached home, Himanshu tried calling Priya again. But she didn’t pick up. He sent a message too, but got no reply.

​For a few moments, he just sat at his study table, flipping his phone around. When no reply came for a while, he started working on his unfinished novel.

​The demon was still sitting out in the hall, watching TV alone.

Himanshu was a little worried because this was usually her time to sleep. But today, he finally got some peace to work on his novel after so many days. Otherwise, sometimes the demon would ruin his mood, or other times she would just turn off his room’s light in a fit of anger.

​After working continuously late into the night, Himanshu checked his watch. It was 2:30 AM.

He walked out of his room and headed toward the kitchen to refill his empty water bottle.

​The demon was still sitting on the sofa, all curled up with a pillow hugged to her chest. She was watching Disney Channel. There was no sign of sleep in her eyes.

Even after working so hard at the cafe all day and being completely exhausted, she wasn’t sleeping. This question definitely bothered Himanshu a little.

But right now, he cared more about his novel and this rare silence.

​Without saying a word, he took a water bottle from the fridge and went back to his room.

​Sitting at his study table for a few moments, he just tried to understand the demon.

He was a writer, so he could understand people’s feelings a bit better. Especially characters.

He understood perfectly well how it must feel when someone finds out their entire existence is a lie... How hard it must be to pass the nights.

​After working on his novel for some more time, Himanshu got up again to get water and to check on the demon one more time.

​The clock showed 4:30 AM. Staying up this late was a normal thing for Himanshu anyway.

​The TV in the hall was still running just like before.

But he saw that all the sofa pillows were thrown on the floor. Like they were tossed away in pure anger or frustration.

​Himanshu saw the demon sleeping on the sofa, her knees pulled tight to her chest, completely curled up. One of her arms was dangling in the air, still gripping the remote tightly, while the other hand was just resting awkwardly on her body.

​Seeing her sleeping in this state, Himanshu remembered that very first night. She looked so terrifying that night. And today... today she was curled up like an innocent, scared child.

​Turning off the TV, Himanshu picked up a pillow from the floor and quietly knelt down in front of the demon. Gathering all his courage, he tried to gently slide the pillow under her head.

Just like always, his heart started beating fast again. But this time he wasn’t scared... it was just a weird anxiety that she might wake up and catch him doing this.

​With great difficulty, he managed to lift her cold head and place the pillow.

She was way too exhausted, otherwise, with just this much movement, that fierce demon would have woken up instantly.

​Himanshu stared at her peaceful face for a moment.

I.. I promise, I’ll figure a way out.

​°°°°°°°°

​Morning, 8:30 AM.

Mom’s voice reached the demon’s ears.

​"Valoria... Valoria."

​She slowly opened her eyes. The demon had never slept this late since coming to this world.

Mom placed a hand on her forehead very affectionately.

​"Are you okay?"

​Blinking once or twice, she pushed herself up using her hands.

She saw that someone had put a blanket over her body, and there was a pillow comfortably resting behind her head.

​"Yeah... um, I’m fine," the demon said in her heavy voice.

​Mom looked at her with a lot of love for a moment and then stood up.

"Himanshu told me you were sleeping. And when you didn’t wake up, I started getting a little worried about you."

​The demon’s eyes went to Mom.

Mom was fully dressed for the office. It looked like she was just about to leave.

​"You shouldn’t be working so hard this early on. You just joined the cafe."

Saying this, Mom walked toward the main door.

"Food is ready, eat up. See you in the evening."

​A soft "hmm" came from the demon’s throat from behind.

The demon’s gaze shifted to the clock on the wall.

​°°°°°°°°

​Sitting in his school class, Himanshu looked pretty happy today.

Because Priya did exactly what she had said yesterday. Vaibhav was out of the picture.

​Himanshu could clearly see that bitterness and slight jealousy in Vaibhav’s eyes from his seat. But to avoid ruining his ’cool’ image in school, Vaibhav had maintained a fake smile and told Priya before class— "It’s fine, no worries. We’ll stay friends."

And saying that, he had walked out of the class.

​Himanshu was slowly starting to pay attention to his classes too. But still, his eyes mostly stayed glued to Priya.

The surprising thing now was that Priya also turned around to look at him four or five times during class. And that too with some excuse or another... sometimes pretending to drop her book to pick it up, or deliberately dropping her pencil.

​But... Priya was still very hesitant to look at Rahul sitting in the front. And Rahul wasn’t looking her way either, almost as if he didn’t even want to see her.

​And Himanshu was noticing all of this very closely from the back.

But he didn’t care about that at all, because he just didn’t want to lose this new happiness, these glances.

​Even after school ended, the two of them met at that same alley corner. Priya’s behavior was completely normal and sweet, just like before. But now her conversations were getting even closer. Talking about themselves, their favorite things.

She also explained that the reason she didn’t pick up the call last night was that she was dead tired and fell asleep really early. And as they walked together, Himanshu explained even more things related to the demon and that manga book.

​As soon as he reached home, Himanshu went straight to his room with his bag to give her more information about the book.

​But seeing the sight inside his room, his steps stopped right there.

Sitting at the study table... the demon was reading Himanshu’s half-written novel.

​Himanshu paused for a second and then took very slow steps inside.

​There was a weird silence in the room. Because... as the demon turned the pages of the novel, her hands were trembling terribly once again.