Chapter 5: A Friend Named Leupen

Even at Moma’s repeated introduction, Leupen remained standing tall, not opening his mouth. Perhaps because Moma had shown such a pitiful sight from the very beginning, Leupen didn’t want to be friends.

Along with the hurt, a familiar fear rose on Moma’s face. To Moma, someone not wanting to be his friend also meant the violence that would inevitably follow.

Leupen, spotting in Moma what looked like someone bracing for coming violence, showed his displeasure.

The Moma before him was not particularly young, and bore not a single resemblance to his childhood self. Young Leupen had never bared his bottom outside, nor said such strange things. If anything, he had been so rigid as to be the opposite.

But that day, and now, too.

‘I was wrong. Please open the door.‘

‘I won’t go outside the room again.‘

‘I’ll do better. I won’t spread the curse either. Please…….‘

Moma made him recall a past he’d thought he had already forgotten.

That was why. Why he hadn’t been able to leave the creature in that mire.

“……Leupen.”

At the low sound of Leupen’s voice, Moma, who had been hanging his head, snapped it up.

At the sparkling of Moma’s eyes in an instant, Leupen’s face furrowed minutely. If his musings had lasted even a little longer, he too might have attached some strange description before his own name, just as Moma had done.

Just as he was about to leave, feeling that he shouldn’t remain facing him any longer, Moma, who had somehow grabbed hold of Leupen, hurriedly opened his mouth.

“Where…… where are you going?”

Earlier, he’d lost the chance to become friends because of his dirty appearance, but this time he couldn’t let that happen. Moma’s intuition told him so.

“M-Moma will come too…….”

But even at Moma’s desperate voice, Leupen firmly removed his hand and disappeared into the darkness. Left alone without an answer, Moma shuffled his feet, at a loss.

Should he follow him, or should he look for Eden?

‘He told me his name. Leupen…… Leupen…….‘

Eden was one friend candidate, but Leupen was one too. If so, wouldn’t it be better to follow Leupen, who was right in front of him, rather than Eden, whose whereabouts he didn’t know?

In truth, it wasn’t a situation where he could find Eden even if he wanted to, but Moma’s eyes lit up, thinking it had worked out well. Perhaps the man who had noticed he was lost would show him the way to his room.

His silence might have been bothersome, but perhaps he too couldn’t speak properly out of embarrassment—so Moma nodded and trotted along after him.

Leupen found it no easy task to ignore that pale, bare thing trotting after him with sparkling eyes.

And the fact that he was wrapped only in a blanket, without even underwear, was also grating on his nerves.

Click—.

Leupen, having returned to his bedroom, placed his hand on the doorknob. Looking at Moma, who had come to a stop a short distance away, Leupen hesitated—uncharacteristically for him.

Why does he keep following me? What kind of scheme is this now?

He could say with certainty that no one had ever pursued him so ardently, so Leupen was considerably flustered.

But at Moma, who seemed determined not to disappear until the door opened, standing still and watching him, Leupen eventually slowly put strength into his hand and opened the door. It was an unremarkable action, yet the door felt heavier than ever.

Conversely, Moma’s complexion, trotting after Leupen, was growing endlessly brighter. Moma recognized at once that this was the room he had been staying in. The fact that he had come up the stairs earlier didn’t matter to Moma. The shape of the hallway and the door were familiar, so he was certain it was the same room.

‘He helped me. Leupen is a friend.‘

They hadn’t properly conversed yet, but they had exchanged names, and he’d even kindly found Moma’s room for him. There was no clearer proof of friendship.

At the fact that he finally had a friend, Moma’s eyes welled up with moisture.

“Leupen, kind.”

At that single word from Moma, Leupen’s hand flinched for a moment.

Kind? Was there any word less fitting for him? Having never in his life received such a compliment from anyone, Leupen stared at Moma with a dazed face.

Unaware of this, Moma, determined not to show any more pitiful sights to his first-ever friend, held back his tears of emotion and marched right into the room.

Having ended up opening the door himself, Leupen stood frozen, unable to do anything. His eyes, which had been wandering in the darkness, belatedly widened, but Moma had already trotted into the room.

“Ha…….”

Everything was shattering his expectations, as if to mock them. A dark shadow rose thickly on Leupen’s face as he gripped the doorknob as if to crush it.

Moma, having entered the room, brightened at the familiar sight. He hadn’t found Eden, but he’d met his new friend Leupen first, so that was enough. Not a bad outcome.

‘If I wait, Eden will come.‘

By tomorrow, he might have as many as two friends.

But what Moma overlooked was that having a bed and a large window didn’t make every space the same.

Knowing nothing, Moma dragged the blanket along and stepped into Leupen’s room. Smiling, he carefully laid himself on the bed that seemed even softer than before, then turned his head at the sound of the door clicking shut.

For some reason, Leupen hadn’t left and was inside the room.

“Huh……?”

Before Moma could say anything, Leupen’s chilling voice rang out clearly.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Moma didn’t properly understand his question, but recalling that friends have conversations, he puffed up his shoulders with excitement.

“Moma sleeps here. It’s soft, this.”

For some reason, Moma’s expression looked quite proud. He hadn’t managed a proper conversation with Eden earlier, but this time he felt he could do quite well.

‘Leupen. Doesn’t know this. Have to help my friend.‘

Thinking Leupen didn’t know how amazing this square thing was, Moma patted the bed and said,

“Here. Good. Good if Leupen lies down.”

Friends were said to share good things. He couldn’t keep the good thing to himself alone.

“…….”

As Moma’s words continued, Leupen’s gaze grew colder and colder. The visible change in his expression wasn’t large, but if Eden or anyone who knew Leupen well had seen it, they would have recoiled and backed away in terror.

But fortunately or unfortunately, Moma didn’t know Leupen. They had only just exchanged names.

“Here…… comfortable…….”

Only at Leupen’s silent, answerless standing did Moma’s small sense of tact return to its role. Moma’s voice, which had been lively, now dwindled to a whisper.

Watching Moma, who was glancing around anxiously and looking glum, Leupen felt a sudden wave of fatigue and, as if resigned, walked toward the bed.

Bringing Moma along, telling him his name, and lying down beside someone—all were whims the original Leupen would never have indulged in.

“……A whim.”

At Leupen’s muttered words, Moma’s ears perked up, but Leupen had already clamped his mouth shut as if he’d never spoken.

Moma’s green eyes, looking at Leupen lying beside him, sparkled in the moonlight, swollen with excitement.

It was a first. Sleeping alongside another, and conversing. Though calling it a conversation was a stretch, given how mismatched their exchanges had been—but to Moma, it had been an unbelievably momentous day.

‘Friends, a good thing.‘

Spending the night together was quite high on his list of things to do once he made a friend, and he hadn’t known it would happen so quickly.

In the Demon Realm, you couldn’t spend the night together unless it was a relationship built on trust. Yet he had accomplished this difficult thing. Moma’s heart was so aflutter that he could hardly close his eyes.

Even with two of them lying there, the bed was large enough that there was space between Leupen and Moma wide enough to roll around in. But Moma stayed perfectly still, pressed right up against Leupen, who lay with his eyes neatly closed, and kept glancing at him. He wanted to talk a little more, but he didn’t want to disturb the sleep of the tired-looking Leupen.

“……Good, good night.”

With the night greeting he’d failed to deliver properly earlier, Moma, wearing a bright smile, closed his eyes.

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In the dim light of dawn, Leupen’s quietly closed eyes opened.

He’d had a childhood nightmare for the first time in a long while. The cause was surely the incomprehensible life form sleeping as if dead beside him.

Leupen quietly looked down at Moma, who had fallen into a deep sleep.

“Did he cast some kind of spell?”

Just when he’d thought Moma was afraid of him like everyone else, he suddenly chased after him, barged into his room, and claimed his bed. Moma was doing things Leupen had never even imagined.

And to such a Moma, Leupen was indulging in whims uncharacteristic of himself.

The day he’d met Moma, the mission given to him had been to kill every retainer of the count’s household.

Perhaps saving him had been the mistake from the start.

On a night when dim moonlight illuminated the room, Leupen, having opened his eyes, examined the small man beside him intently.

He lightly brushed aside the green forelock glinting in the moonlight. Even at his touch, Moma only slept deeply.

He hesitated for a moment, but the curly hair wrapped itself around his fingers as if it had a will of its own. Finding the sensation quite pleasant, Leupen fiddled with the forelock a few more times, then stopped, startled by his own unconscious action. And with calm eyes, looking at Moma, he thought:

That at some point, he too had once wished for someone to stroke his hair like this.

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