I Raised A Black Dragon

“…must you grab me like this?” Noah asked.

“I tried to grab you, and you were faster than I thought so I had no choice.”

“It's unbelievable that someone who walks as twice as I do say that.” Noah patted the back of her head and took off the cap as she spoke sulkily. It was a red baseball cap. “Where did this come from?”

“I was walking and saw it,” replied Kyle.

“Where did you get the money?”

“Muell exchanged my pounds for this place’s currency. But it’s too big. Turn around.”

When Noah turned around to face him Kyle adjusted the plastic prong-in-a-hole of the cap. This time it was on correctly. Though he’d made it smaller, it had a wide brim, so it covered half of her face.

Noah tilted back the cap that kept falling and looked at him.

“Why did you put this cap on me?”

“You look like you need it.”

“Do I?”

Kyle nodded without replying and kissed her. When there were lots of eyes around, he kept contact to a minimum. It was a peck that she had already gotten used to, so she naturally blinked slowly, but then her eyes caught his eyes right above her nose.

“How was it, Noah, your half-day spent alone?”

“Just…”

Just so-so. Just the same boring place with nothing different even though I left and came back. That was the answer she was about to give him.

“Just…”

At that moment, the inside of her eyelashes heated up and her vision became blurred. She, too, was shocked, urgently pulling down the brim of her cap again. Almost at the same time, something hot that was just running down her throat began to overflow like a wave bursting over an embankment.

It wasn't until the damp thing dripped and fell that she knew what it was that kept her feeling sick. It must have been a cry that she had unknowingly swallowed.

She had thought that it was nothing, but it must not have been this time either. Her eyes and cheeks were messy with tears.

As if to say “I knew you would,” there was a hand wiping away her soaked cheeks. Whenever she cried, that hand comforted her. Noah grabbed it as she barely found her voice.

“You shouldn’t get the wrong impression. I’m not crying because I’m sad or hurt…”

“I’m not,” whispered Kyle.

She burst out crying at his quiet voice.

With the help of a fairy, Noah summoned a small magic orb above Hee-yeon’s head. It was powerful psychological magic, one that brainwashed her so that she would not forget Noah until she died. She could feel the blessing of oblivion that she had taken away permeating her sister again.

She summoned two more invisible magic rings around Hee-yeon’s wrists. Those were for her parents. The brainwashing that had been weighing excessively on the family had been erased, so over time, Noah’s existence would naturally become blurred to them.

When she muttered that fact discretely, she heard a familiar question.

“Still though, are you okay? Not your family, but you.”

She wiped her wet eyes as she nodded. That she was okay was a sincere answer. Because now there was no reason to leave her place here like that. Because she had a better place to rest and lovely people by her side.

That’s why this world, too, would be forgotten in her memory at some point. And she, too, would slowly be forgotten by the people here.

The lingering feelings would be cast away like that.

“…Muell.”

His voice mixed with unshakable tears and tremors.

“Muell, where are you? Come here.”

The right side of the air vibrated as if it’d been waiting. Noah felt a faint wave of a spell along with a tiny hand grabbing her leg. Lowering her tear-filled eyes, his curly black hair stood out.

Soon afterward, his gentle, round eyes looked up at her and blinked. Perhaps he was watching her sob, he, unsurprised, reached both arms out to her.

However, he lowered them again and muttered sulkily, “Oh. You said I am heavy…”

Instead, he hugged her leg tightly again. He seemed to be trying to hug, not be hugged.

In the end, Noah plopped down on the ground and hugged him tightly.

“This is embarrassing, so I’ll say it one more time. You must listen.”

“Yesss!”

“Thank you so much for coming to me. I tried to send you away, like, five times, but you persistently came back, so thank you. And thanks for bringing Kyle, too.”

Muell calmly listened to her rambling murmur.

“Be with me from now on.”

At the end of the brief silence, Noah could feel his tiny hands hugging her back. The warmth from him patting her back—like he’d learned it from Kyle—brought tears to her eyes.

“I will only stand by you, Noah. Because Noah is the best in the world!”

His lovely voice whispered in. It was not until she realized that the person standing next to her gave her stability in a different sense from Kyle that the light shone down on the place where she stood.

It was a welcome sunset that marked the end of a point in time.