Chapter 76: It was my mistake... for thinking of you as my own."

The second her cold fingers touched the bare skin of his back, Himanshu’s whole body jolted. A sharp shiver ran down his spine, and his breath got stuck right in his throat.

?Because of this sudden jerk from Himanshu’s body, the demon’s hand stopped right there for a moment too. Her fingers hovered in the air, just a few inches away from his back. For two whole seconds, neither of them moved in the room. And then, when Himanshu slowly let out the breath he was holding, the demon started applying the ointment again.

?The long, cold fingers of her hand started moving slowly in all directions across Himanshu’s back, going from right under his shoulders to both sides of his spine.

The coolness of the ointment mixed with the pressure of the demon’s fingers was giving a weird sense of relief to his burning skin. But every now and then, whenever her fingers brushed over a deep blue bruise or swelling, Himanshu’s body would instantly tense up from the pain.

A muffled hiss would slip out of his mouth, and the grip of his hands resting on his knees would get even tighter.

?And the strange thing was, the moment Himanshu flinched in pain, the demon’s hand would move even more gently over that spot, light as a feather. Without even asking, she could tell where it hurt the most.

?In the silence of that small room, it felt like an unspoken bond had formed between the two of them. A kind of connection that didn’t need any words anymore.

?Himanshu had his eyes closed. He had rested his forehead against his bent knees. With his eyes shut, he was just feeling that coolness of the demon’s hands, and that unspoken closeness rising inside his chest, when suddenly...

?The demon’s shaky words slipped out into the silence of the room.

?At first, Himanshu couldn’t even believe his ears that this was actually the demon’s voice. His closed eyes snapped open on their own. The demon always spoke in a flat, cold, and steady voice, or she just didn’t speak at all. But the voice that just hit his ears had a weird hesitation in it.

?"Gaurav Senior called. He was saying the cafe will stay closed tomorrow."

?The demon’s fingers were still moving slowly across his back, but their pace had slowed down a bit compared to before.

?"Oh..." A very soft, almost whisper-like sound came out of Himanshu’s mouth after a few moments.

?His eyebrows pulled together slightly. He couldn’t understand why the demon’s words were stumbling so much just to tell him something this small. And then... slowly, Himanshu’s brain started catching the deeper meaning behind those broken words.

?The cafe will be closed tomorrow. Meaning the demon wouldn’t have to go to work tomorrow evening. She wouldn’t be in any danger from those goons.

?’Now I can go with Priya... Is that why her words are stumbling?’

?The moment this thought hit him, Himanshu’s heart skipped a beat. Without turning his neck, staring straight at the wall in front of him, he asked,

"Did you find out why?"

?There was a short pause from behind.

"I don’t know... I didn’t ask him."

?"Oh, alright." Another faint voice slipped out of Himanshu’s mouth.

?He lightly twisted the fabric of his pants at the knee with his fingers. He himself couldn’t figure out whether he should be happy or sad about this. The truth was, he wanted to go watch the movie with Priya. Going out with a girl like Priya was a massive deal for him. But... the demon’s broken, hesitant words like this were bothering him deep down. A strange heaviness had settled in his chest.

?But why, though? She was the one who had said so coldly in the taxi— ’You shouldn’t ruin your relationship like this for a comic book character.’

?Back then, her words were completely flat. There wasn’t even a single crease on her face. So then now... what had happened now?

?Himanshu was still lost in his own confusion, thinking about all this, when without saying a word, the demon grabbed his t-shirt from behind and pulled it back down. The fabric stuck to his cold, ointment-covered back.

?Click.

?The demon closed the cap of the tube and set it aside. And then, without saying a single word, she got up and walked toward her bed.

?Himanshu snapped his neck around and just kept staring at her retreating back. Seeing the demon suddenly walk away so quietly sparked a weird annoyance inside him. Tilting his face slightly, he said,

?"I’m not gonna say thanks for this."

?Hearing this, the demon’s moving steps stopped right there for a second. She didn’t look back; her back just stayed straight.

?"Hmm..." Only a very low sound came out of her mouth.

?There was no anger in that voice, no sarcasm. Just a strange emptiness, as if she had already accepted the fact that she would never get to hear the word ’thanks’ from Himanshu’s mouth.

?The demon started walking again.

?Watching her leave in silence like this made all the frustration Himanshu had been holding in since the cafe suddenly burst out. Himanshu’s voice echoed in the room again.

?"Wait."

?The demon’s feet stopped again. Still sitting on the bed, Himanshu clenched his fists. There was a heaviness in his voice now.

?"Tell... tell me why you tolerated such a huge insult? And please don’t say that you were trying to control your anger, or that you don’t know where to show anger."

?Complete silence spread across the room.

?And right then, Himanshu felt the demon’s behavior suddenly shifting.

?The demon was still standing with her back to him, but her shoulders were slowly stiffening up. Both her hands, which had been hanging loosely until now, were slowly clenching into fists—so tightly that the bones in her fingers were close to cracking.

?Himanshu’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He couldn’t understand what on earth he had just said to make her change her behavior like this.

?The demon slowly turned around.

?The second her face came into view, Himanshu’s breath caught. That shyness from after the bath, that softness while applying the ointment—everything had vanished. Her deep red eyes locked straight onto Himanshu. Right now, a terrifying anger was burning in those eyes.

?"Are you a complete idiot?! Do you really not get why I stayed quiet even after being insulted that badly?!"

?The demon’s voice was so loud and sharp that Himanshu froze in his spot. Not out of fear... but because of hearing an answer like this from the demon’s mouth. His lips parted slightly. He hadn’t expected in his wildest dreams that the conversation would turn around like this.

?"If I had done something crazy back there, do you even know how bad things would have gotten?!" The demon was breathing heavily. "It would have affected our job too. Who knows, they could have fired both of us!"

?In anger, the demon took another step forward.

?"Forget the job! If Mom had found out, what would you have done? What would you tell her about why we lost the job? And if things had escalated, if the police got involved, what would you do then? What would you tell the police about me?!"

?The demon took one more step forward. Now she was standing right next to the bed, glaring down at Himanshu. Her voice was shaking.

?"That she’s a comic book character who walked out of a book?!

I tried so hard to keep things under control!

And what did you do?

Instead of handling the situation, you started fighting those goons!

What was the need to play the hero?

If... if that knife had hit somewhere else instead of your hand..."

?The demon’s words got stuck right in her throat.

?Her whole body was trembling, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but she couldn’t finish those words.

For a second, her eyes dropped to the blood-stained bandage wrapped around Himanshu’s hand, and she pressed her lips tightly together.

?A suffocating silence fell over the entire room. For a moment, the demon just kept glaring at him with those same sharp, burning eyes.

?Sitting on the bed, Himanshu just stared at her. He didn’t know why, but right now, every single word the demon said was just making him angry. Even though his brain knew he agreed with those points—maybe everything the demon said was practically completely right.

The police, Mom, the job... everything could have been ruined. But still... why was his heart tearing apart from the inside? Why did this sensible logic of hers feel like poison to him?

?The demon’s anger cooled down a bit. She opened her lips to say something and took a step forward, as if she wanted to fix things, but she didn’t say a word and sharply turned her face, spinning around.

?Her turning away like that broke the last thread of Himanshu’s patience.

?Right then, another heavy, roaring voice echoed in the room.

?"Then what was I supposed to do?! Just sit there and take that bastard’s filthy words about you?!

Do you even know what he said?!"

?The veins in Himanshu’s neck were bulging.

?Hearing this, the demon spun around at lightning speed. And completely drowning out Himanshu’s voice, she screamed at the top of her lungs:

?"Whatever he said! You don’t need to do anything for me!"

?Those words bounced off the walls of the room and echoed loudly.

?After this... all the remaining words in Himanshu’s mouth froze right where they were.

?His wide-open eyes slowly went dead calm. All the anger on his face, all the restlessness, suddenly turned into a deep, cold darkness.

?He took his eyes off the demon’s face. One of his hands grabbed the bedsheet in his fist so tightly that deep wrinkles formed in the cloth. Grinding his teeth, his jaw set hard, he looked toward the door and suddenly stood up from the bed.

?Not caring about the pain shooting through his back, he started walking toward the door with heavy steps. Placing his hand on the door handle, he paused for a second, and without looking back, spoke in a very low, broken, and cold voice,

?"It was my mistake... for thinking of you as my own."

?Saying this, he pulled the door open, walked out, and slammed the door shut with all his might.

?BANG!

?The whole room shook from the terrible sound of the door slamming shut, leaving behind nothing but a deep, biting silence.