(POV Mei Mei)
Strange. I was certain I had never met this boy before. I rarely forgot faces—especially not the face of a child.
"So," I said, opening the conversation in a casual tone. I kept my voice light, almost cheerful, as if I were just a girl who had happened to pass by and gotten lost. "Have you seen a strange creature shaped like a dog around here?"
"…No." The boy waited too long before answering. A pause lasting only a fraction of a second, yet unmistakably clear. His breath hitched briefly. A poor lie. Fascinating.
"Are you sure?" I asked again. My gaze didn't waver, and the faint smile on my lips remained. Behind that relaxed demeanor, however, my senses stayed sharp, ready to react to even the slightest movement.
"Yes," the boy replied, looking at me with a curiosity that felt unusual for someone his age.
I studied him more closely, allowing the silence to hang between us for a moment.
My gaze slowly traveled downward—from the boy's pale face, a pallor that wasn't merely the result of lack of sleep but a dull, ashen tone born of prolonged exhaustion—to his body, which looked far too light for a child his age, as if his bones had been carrying a weight that had long exceeded what was reasonable.
His clothes were dirty, smeared with damp soil clinging to the folds of the fabric, mixed with traces of crushed dry leaves that left behind stubborn greenish-brown stains.
The fibers of his clothing were wrinkled, dull, and visibly worn, as though they hadn't been properly tended to in a long time—or perhaps had never truly been given the chance to be cared for since the last time they were worn.
The boy was exhausted. His shoulders sagged slightly, as if bearing an invisible burden. His breathing was quiet, but not entirely steady—there were brief pauses between each inhale and exhale that lingered just a bit too long.
And… there was a wound on his right hand. It stretched along his skin, dark red in places, with edges too clean to be dismissed as a simple scratch, as though something had deliberately pulled at his flesh rather than grazing it by accident.
"In that case," I said with a thin smile—one that resembled professional habit more than genuine friendliness, "why are you alone in the forest? And why do you look so tired? That wound… it looks like claw marks."
I deliberately slowed my voice on the last sentence. My eyes remained locked on his hand, watching how his fingers tensed for a brief moment—so fleeting it was almost imperceptible—before relaxing again, as if he had caught his own reaction and forced it back down.
"Got scraped by a tree branch," the boy replied calmly.
The answer came too quickly. Too flat. I nearly let out a quiet snort. This boy wasn't going to confess. Even his lie felt rehearsed—concise, stripped of excess emotion, free of hesitation, as though he knew exactly what needed to be hidden and how to conceal it.
"Ahem. Let me take a look at your wound," I said, stepping closer. I took a single step toward him, my boots crunching softly against the dry leaves, a small sound that felt far too loud in the stillness of the forest. "If you leave it untreated, it could be dangerous."
Without waiting for permission, I loosened my long tie and used it as a temporary bandage. The fabric felt smooth between my fingers—an expensive tie, no doubt, and clearly not meant for something like this—but I'd improvised in similar ways far too often for my hands to hesitate now.
With practiced movements, I wrapped the cloth around the wound on his right hand, applying just enough pressure to stop the bleeding, making sure the binding wasn't too tight and wouldn't restrict circulation.
The boy didn't pull his hand away. He didn't flinch. He didn't even let out a breath. His eyes simply followed my movements calmly—far too calmly for a child who should have been feeling pain.
"Thank you," the boy said, giving a polite nod. His head dipped slightly, the movement measured and controlled.
I raised an eyebrow just a little. This boy… wasn't panicking. He wasn't afraid. He didn't bombard me with questions, either. Most boys would cry, or at the very least ask who I was and what I was doing.
But this boy simply stood there, his gaze fixed on the crude bandage as if this were an ordinary occurrence, as if pain were something already familiar to him.
"My name is Mei Mei," I finally said, breaking the silence. "And you are?"
The boy flinched—just slightly. Very slightly. But I saw it. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before returning to calm—too fast, too controlled to be dismissed as a normal reflex.
So he knew me. And yet I was certain I had never met this child before. Had he heard of me from one of my clients? Or from the underworld gossip that loved to exaggerate my name, twisting it into whispered stories far more terrifying than reality?
"You can call me Kenji," the boy replied calmly, his tone neither rising nor falling, like the surface of still water that refused to ripple.
"Kenji, huh," I murmured. I nodded slowly, filing the name away in my mind. "Then, Kenji… did you really not see that dog-shaped creature?"
I deliberately emphasized the word creature, letting its weight fall slowly between us. My eyes swept across the forest, which now felt quieter than before, as if the trees and bushes themselves were holding their breath.
"No." Kenji continued to lie. My patience began to wear thin. His tone did not change in the slightest—firm and unshakable, like stone that refused to crack no matter how much pressure was applied.
"Listen," I said, my voice growing more serious. My smile slowly faded, the corners of my lips falling back into a straight line, replaced by a warning that could not be misunderstood. The air around us seemed to tense along with it. "That thing wasn't a dog. It was a Cursed Spirit. And creatures like that are extremely dangerous."
"What is a Cursed Spirit?" Kenji asked. His voice remained flat, devoid of fear or unease, like someone asking about the weather or for directions.
I let out a short breath. Not out of exhaustion, but to restrain the urge to end this conversation in a far rougher and quicker way.
Before deciding to explain things properly, I looked at Kenji once more, studying a face far too calm for a child. I tried to read something behind that composure—a tiny crack, a lie, a hint of confusion. There was nothing.
"A Cursed Spirit is a being formed from negative human emotions," I finally said, choosing my words carefully.
"Anger, envy, resentment, fear. When those feelings pile up and have no outlet, they give birth to something disgusting." I paused, letting the explanation hang in the air. "That creature was a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit. It's already weakened after being injured by me, so… did you see it?"
"What does Grade 3 mean? How many Grades are there? And you were the one who injured it?" Kenji asked again.
The questions came in succession—too neat, too structured. I stared at Kenji for a long time—too long for an ordinary conversation.
There was something in the way he asked; not the innocent curiosity of a child, but the manner of someone gathering information, arranging it piece by piece inside his head.
Then I decided to toy with him. Not out of boredom, but because I was genuinely irritated by this troublesome boy now.
My lips curved into a thin smile, one that held no warmth at all. "… Why should I explain any of that to you?"
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