Edmond felt quite overwhelmed. The current state of his body surely contributed to that fact, but ultimately it was far more of a mental issue.

  He knew there was likely far more to Tatyana’s day than what she had told him. Not that her reasoning was exactly faulty; far from it, it was impressive enough to somewhat remind him of detective comic books and the like, silly as the thought was. But from the explanation she had given him, obviously truncated judging from the small pauses she took while moving from point to point, the connections between certain facts were relatively weak.

  Either way, regardless of what Tatyana was keeping hidden, she had figured him out. And the realization of possibly doing a poor job in keeping himself a secret behind the mask shook him as much as the girl just being that sharp.

  “So, about your suit…”

  Tatyana reiterated, sounding slightly awkward as she gave Edmond a distraction he was actually quite thankful for.

  “Mask aside, it’s two pieces connected at the waist. Like putting on a shirt and pants.”

  “Uhuh… so, are the mask buckles the same?”

  Edmond’s eyes blinked frantically in response, and Tatyana sighed.

  “Look, didn’t we just establish it doesn’t make a difference? I don’t know about you… Edmond, but I feel kind of weird about still talking to someone behind a mask despite everything that’s happened.”

  Her intensity was less than calming, but he did not disagree with her words. From the perspective of building some sort of trust, his continuous hiding of a known ‘secret’ probably felt insulting, or at least ungrateful despite how much he owed her…

  “I swear, I’m not trying to hurt you. If I was, don’t you think I could’ve done things differently while you were out cold?”

  … or maybe he was just overthinking things. As hilariously awful as her attempts to reassure him were, it seemed she just wanted to confirm he did not consider her an enemy.

  “R-Right, I get it. I j-just need to sit and…” Edmond replied, desperately trying to not laugh.

  “I’ll help you out.”

  Fortunately, she appeared oblivious to that fact, as he had barely started moving when she approached to support his efforts.

  It was all quite clumsy, medical care based on logic and common sense more than any real training. But it was sufficient for the moment, and despite some further setbacks, Edmond was helped to a relatively comfortable and stable sitting position. Leaning back on the sofa bed and feeling his feet on the floor after quite some time, he tried and failed to restrain a sigh.

  “Thank you.” He said genuinely, despite finding it difficult to directly meet Tatyana’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it, I mean it. And… there. Much better.” After a few seconds, he heard one failed click and two successful ones, allowing her to pull his mask away and lay it down on the nearby table. “Next would be the upper body part. We really need to bandage that arm up properly. Can you lift them up?” She asked while continuing with the slightly more troublesome waist buckles.

  Edmond tensed his shoulders in a half attempt, testing things out. The discomfort was there, but certainly could be worse.

  “I think I can. The gel’s numbing might be helping.”

  “Great.”

  Tatyana stood up from her kneeling position while Edmond raised his arms. Frankly, the embarrassment of having his suit removed like a child being undressed by his parents was far more annoying than his current pain.

  The damaged gear was dropped on the floor without concern, and Tatyana immediately attended to his arm. Without the suit to mask it, the injury looked even worse than it did before, so much so that Edmond preferred to look away. Tatyana did show some shock at first sight, but it failed to slow her down in any way as she proceeded to unroll and cut some bandages, efficiently wrapping up the wound even if not in a pretty way.

  “Do you treat injuries often?” Edmond asked from curiosity, slightly regretting how much it sounded like empty small talk.

  “Not really, but I’ve had enough experience.” Tatyana, however, seemed to care little… “Why? Am I not doing a good job?”

  … about that specific concern, as a very defensive and even accusative-sounding question came right after.

  Oops.

  “You’re doing great. That’s why I asked.” Edmond replied honestly. There was no need for bandages to look good, they just needed to dress the wounds well.

  “… Cool.”

  The small smile she showed at such approval may have made his heart beat just a tad faster, but certainly not as much as when she knelt once more, and began to pull up the hem of his slightly ripped gym shirt.

  Words failed Edmond for over a solid second as he felt cool, soft fingertips prod upward across his abdomen.

  “What are you doing!?”

  “Checking for any other wounds… that might need dressing.”

  The sudden warmth on Edmond’s face made its redness beyond obvious to him, but that fell out of any focus as he noticed Tatyana’s voice going rapidly lower. He looked down at her, unconcerned whether she saw him blushing, and noticed her eyes were now somber and uneasy.

  Her thoughts were quite obvious, considering the focus of her gaze and the general area she was touching.

  “… Look, it’s all good. It’s well treated, not just by me but also by a friend who knows plenty about this stuff too. So don’t worry about it.”

  “It’s not ‘good’ at all. It’s my fault you got so deep into this mess.”

  Even as she lifted his shirt further, brushing the sparse and shallow wounds she found with medical gel, her mood remained dark after seeing the deeper, older sutured gash.

  … This is nonsense.

  “You saved my life, you know?”

  Tatyana’s hand stopped, her heavy look faltering after hearing Edmond’s words.

  The time it took for her to resume her treatment was enough to get her barely, yet noticeably flustered. But no matter how badly she wanted to hide it, their positions ensured Edmond could see the growing, satisfied grin on her face.

  “… I guess I did…” She replied with a rather unique voice, oozing with a shy sort of pride.

  One which Edmond felt so incredibly lucky to hear.

  He chuckled slightly, owing to the somewhat lightened mood, but found himself stopping abruptly as he heard the apartment’s door open. The dry steps of thick-heeled boots accompanied the sound, promptly kicked off as the new arrival heel-kicked the door shut.

  “Is it so difficult to text me an answer?”

  Her voice and appearance were familiar enough, but the elf Kloel now showed a cold, irritated attitude miles apart from what Edmond had seen when she dined at Concert.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  Tatyana, however, responded in the same dispassionate way she likely would have if her friend was in a better mood.

  “You messaged me first, it’s fair of me to expect a reply. Again, why treat him here and not just take him to the hospital?”

  “Those shitheads found him before I did. They might have insiders with the police, and if that’s the case, links to local hospitals are very likely. They’d not only track him there, but also find the guy behind the mask.”

  Somehow, Edmond had not gotten around to that topic yet. While prioritizing other questions was not the worst excuse in the world, he did feel like a careless idiot for not even wondering why Tatyana chose to treat him herself.

  As for the explanation itself, he did not find any real issues with it. Even without considering the Violet Thorn, he did not want anyone, even if they were nurses or doctors, to ask questions about how he received such injuries. As far as he was concerned, Tatyana had done him yet another favor.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  But when it came to Kloel…

  “I see. So, you didn’t do them in?”

  … she seemed wholly unsatisfied, giving a response that forced Tatyana into several seconds of silence. Differently from the previous time, her lips went tight and her eyes lost their focus, narrowing under an intense frown.

  Her frustration was so obvious that it may have exceeded Edmond’s resurfaced fear of the four Unmasked, whom he now knew to still be out there and aiming for his neck.

  “They were tougher than I expected, but they didn’t get away lightly.”

  “That’s your takeaway from all this!? These people have their faces plastered everywhere and the police still can’t bring them in, but you think you can just waltz in and… no, no way…”

  Having come closer to reprimand her friend further, Kloel’s lilac eyes finally glanced over to Edmond and went wide open.

  It took her this long to notice!?

  On one hand, her single-minded concern for Tatyana was remarkable, admirable even. But on the other hand, Edmond could not help but feel a little… insulted, however briefly.

  At least she appeared to be quite regretful over the whole matter, her lips parting and closing wordlessly as he himself struggled over what ‘greeting’ to go for, considering the situation and his current state.

  Quite a difficult task, so it was not surprising that Tatyana spoke up before either of them.

  “Well then. Kloel, meet Edmond, the man behind the costume.”

  So quick and casual was she to reveal the most delicate fact, that Edmond almost went for a habitual ‘nice to meet you’ and handshake.

  Instead, he considered just shaking Tatyana. The whole of her.

  I guess she trusts her a lot, but I never said I was good with someone else knowing!

  He looked anxiously from Kloel to Tatyana, then back to Kloel. The elf, after getting over her initial surprise, seemed to understand his plight as she glared at her friend in a nearly fed-up manner.

  “Did you not even tell him I was coming here?”

  “It kind of… slipped my mind. I’m sorry, okay? Really sorry.” Her earlier calm reaction seemingly a fa?ade, Tatyana hesitated just a tad before apologizing, to Edmond as much as to Kloel judging from her eyes darting between the two.

  Edmond sighed, his eyes drooping in slight resignation. Thinking a bit more thoroughly on the matter, his identity was probably obvious if these two had talked about him at all. And if they had not, was there any other way to explain whatever was going on here? Probably not.

  Feeling a little calmer, he replied with a somewhat small voice.

  “It’s okay. If you trust her for real, I… I don’t mind Kloel knowing.”

  Satisfied with his initial words, Edmond quickly came to regret how the last part had come out. However, after some initial surprise, both Tatyana and Kloel showed no negative reaction to it, instead ranging from relaxed to somewhat pleased in their expressions.

  “Thank you.” The former said as she seemingly finished with his front, then began to treat his back.

  “You sure it’s all good?”

  His reply serving to reassure him as much as it did them, Edmond had little trouble answering Kloel.

  “Even leaving what I said aside, it’s not like I have a better choice. The secret’s out to you two, and I can’t really change that. I’d rather just work around this rather than stress everyone out.”

  “… I understand. I know it’s just words, but I’m not looking to cause you trouble at all.”

  The modesty in her assertion may have not been ideal, but it was surely better than some hollow vow. What made Edmond tense up was not her words, but rather the discomfort that she still failed to hide.

  Precisely the type of thing he wanted to prevent, but for now it seemed like it was here to stay.

  “I think I’m done here. Next up would be your legs.”

  Tatyana happened to bring up a perfectly timed distraction, but his burning cheeks made it rather unclear if that was a preferable topic.

  “E-Err… I’ve had the gel on me for quite a while, so I think I can take care of that myself if you just leave the medical kit here…” Edmond said, his words gradually devolving into a mutter as he tried his desperate best to not sound rattled.

  Tatyana’s response was an inquisitive frown, her gaze full of doubt that troubled him to no end.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Let him try. If you need anything just tell us, okay?”

  Surprisingly, it was Kloel who came to his ‘rescue’ this time. Though seeing that knowing grin on her face, her reasons to spare him such embarrassment were likely not too noble.

  “Yeah… I will.”

  He would take what he could get, however.

  “… Alright then. If the sofa bed is good enough too, I’ll just go get you a pillow and some blankets.”

  Tatyana’s second statement caught Edmond completely off-guard.

  So it’s just decided I’m spending the night here?

  “… The sofa bed is okay…”

  Sure, it was the most logical solution, what with his current state making a trip back to his apartment a veritable ordeal and his reluctance to confront Claude in such a state.

  So why was it that it all still felt terribly nerve-wracking?

  “Perfect. Then I’ll just—”

  “I’ll take care of that.” Kloel cut in. “For you, it’s about time we treat your injuries.”

  Edmond’s nervousness, along with his embarrassment and any other thoughts beyond what had just been said, vanished by the next second.

  “They’re not that serious.”

  “You think they’re not serious, just how you thought those Thorns wouldn’t be an issue. There could be delayed effects, poison or some other nasty shit for all we know, so just suck it up and let yourself be checked.”

  It was hard to recall any other time he had felt like such an enormous fool, considering everything he had let slide. Of all the questions he asked, as well as those he did not ask but still thought about, why did he not even wonder about the battle she had braved for his sake?

  “Fine. I’ll just go wait on your bed, then. My room’s still a nasty mess.”

  “That it is. Whatever, just go.”

  Tatyana stood up, almost exuding annoyance as she walked past the sofa bed and into the corridor on the other end alongside Kloel, entering the room next to the one Edmond had seen her exit earlier.

  All the while that happened, he kept his eyes on them without the slightest regard for how it might look. She had likely changed her shirt before he woke up, but now seeing a small portion at the base of her nape, alongside single-minded focus that allowed him to notice the unique tells in her step…

  She… She’s…

  … her back’s mangled flesh burned itself into his consciousness.

  His gaze lingered for several seconds even after the door closed, moving away only when Kloel came back out with the promised set of blankets and pillow. He listened to her words and spoke back competently in the moment, but that was it.

  He leaned back awkwardly on the sofa bed when she left, eyes looking at the foreign ceiling without the slightest focus, and his mind even more lost.

  If… If I let that sort of thing happen, if it happens because of me… then why? Why do I do this? What’s the point of me even trying to help people?

  For the first time, Edmond felt grateful for the pain and numbness overwhelming his body. If not for that, instead of simply taking off his suit’s lower portion to check for and treat any wounds on his legs…

  Miss Lunaris…

  … he may have just shouted in his bottomless frustration instead.

  “What’s the plan now?” Kloel asked, clad in a thin-strapped camisole and shorts of a matching dark color.

  Luminous glyph on her left hand and medical gel on the right, she had little need for most other tools, considering they were static in shape unlike a malleable spell.

  Tanya’s ponytail was now tied on her right side, slung past her shoulder and hanging in front of her chest. Her wounds were extensive, and while she had visibly applied some medical gel on herself to manage the worst of them, the collage of red and pink was still very visible.

  Three uneven gashes reached from Tanya’s nape to the small of her back, crossed horizontally by two thicker ones toward the left. The heavy bruising seemed pretty tame in comparison, but Kloel was well aware that if not for the bleeding from the lacerations, a lot of the wet crimson would have been black and purple instead.

  Even now, just looking at the whole picture was crushing her heart with an unbearable weight, made even worse as Tanya uncharacteristically failed to restrain yet another painful grunt.

  Nonetheless, she was doing very well at letting Kloel do her job without issues, keeping her body perfectly still until the end of the treatment. Whenever that might be.

  “Edmond and I aren’t the only ones who got messed up. I wouldn’t say I crippled any of the Thorns, but I did my best to let them have it before I ran off with him. Can’t give you a precise time, but it’ll take them several days; not just to heal, but also to plan around me as a new threat.” She replied quickly, seemingly using the conversation to endure the discomfort a little easier.

  Kloel knew from experience to take Tanya’s estimates with caution, but she could not deny feeling somewhat relieved after hearing that.

  “Should be enough time for you to heal up as well.”

  “And Edmond too, with some luck. Until then, neither he nor I should be targeted. At least not to the extent of that death trap. Still, we should be careful.”

  Kloel’s lilac eyes narrowed, her long, pointed ears waving up and down once, slowly.

  “So, you’ll keep in contact with him?”

  “Of course. Do you have a problem with that?” Tanya inquired with barely masked aggression, making Kloel wonder again if she actually thought it would ever work against her.

  Only feeling annoyed as a result, she shook her head, barely in the peripheral vision of her friend’s turned head.

  “Why would I be? It’s one thing to be against you getting into unnecessary trouble, but now you’re involved, and things will splash back at you either way. Besides…”

  “Hmm~?”

  Tanya inquired wordlessly, with a voice that made her satisfaction and interest extremely apparent. It was immature, mischievous, and maybe even a bit rude… but also kind of adorable.

  Kloel sighed, letting a grin smoothly appear on her face as she continued.

  “Now I know who the guy in this huge mess is. Adding you to the mix, there’s no way I can oppose this and live with myself. Aaand done.”

  Tanya swayed slightly under her touch, her sharp eyes softening before she faced forward again, standing up from the bed and picking up the loose t-shirt she had brought to sleep in. She did wince and shut her eyes briefly, but there were no other issues as she slipped it on, then spoke.

  “Klo, I don’t regret today overall. Put me in this situation a hundred times over, and I will help Edmond out in each and every one. But… I… for treating you like I did, dismissing you like nothing, and in general just being a major bitch… I’m sorry. That I do regret.”

  Kloel suddenly stopped what she was doing, her lips closed without any effort, but still unable to open. Lilac eyes forced to blink consciously, she found it so difficult to contain her laughter.

  It was quite rare, but there were still times in which it was Tanya who left her speechless. Awkward, snappy, arrogant, senseless and extremely self-conscious. Even such a frustrating best friend could get her a little sentimental from time to time.

  “How come you’re not asking me for an apology instead? That guy’s not just a waiter who’s always been friendly to us, but also someone doing his best to help complete strangers. And yet when it came to me, I left him to the absolute worst… I think, for once, I can probably learn something from you. But don’t get used to it.”

  Her regret was genuine and had made it difficult to even look at Edmond in the eyes earlier. But as if wanting Kloel to add ‘tactless’ to the list of her friend’s defining traits, Tanya showed her much worse, if existent at all, skill at restraining her own cackling.

  “You sure it’s something so noble that’s making you feel bad, and not just the incidental eye-candy back there~?”

  The elf could not help herself anymore, promptly joining in with a smaller, but very free chuckle.

  “Hey, I won’t lie about the enticing things I saw, but you’re the one who brought it up. How’s that for a change~?”

  Tanya crossed her arms at her joke being turned right against her, glancing at the side with a slightly guilty grin as she walked back to the bed.

  “Whatever. There’s still a while to go before my back will let me sleep, so was it ‘trash’ or ‘gold’ for this week?”

  Kloel narrowed her eyes and let the most insufferable, teasing smirk rest on her face for way too long. But she decided to be nice this time, stopping at that only as she slid her fingers across her tablet, choosing the next ‘trash’ movie on their watch list for the month.