Chapter 9
“Rusty?”
Ibella called his name, narrowing her eyes slightly. Rusty was not wearing his usual greasy smile or looking at her with a lustful gaze. He was merely rolling his eyes with a wary face, as if there were a trap waiting for him in the room.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes. Do you have something to say to me?”
Feeling a strange sensation at Rusty’s unusual demeanor, Ibella asked. As if he had been waiting, he rolled his wheels and entered the room.
“Rus—”
“Shh.”
Placing a finger on his lips to stop Ibella’s words, he scanned the surroundings again and approached her.
“I have something urgent to say to you.”
“What is it?”
Ibella asked, taking a step back without realizing it. Suspecting people is a bad action, but prejudice instinctively made her feel wary.
She could not trust a man who, whenever he opened his mouth, poured out stories of criminal experiences in words too dirty to listen to with bare ears.
From what she had overheard, he had previously received a sentence for rape and stayed in prison for a long time. Even if he was riding in a wheelchair, the grip strength of his hands would still be the same.
“That man from earlier, who is he?”
“If it’s that man, Tei?”
“Tei?”
Rusty snorted while repeating Tei’s name. Wetting his cracked lips with his tongue, he suddenly grabbed Ibella’s wrist tightly.
“What do you think you are doing.”
“Ibella, listen well. I’m saying this for your sake, so absolutely do not tru—”
Knock, knock, knock.
Before Rusty’s words could finish, someone knocked on the door. Rusty, who stopped mid-speech, and Ibella, who was frowning from being gripped by him, both looked toward the door at the same time.
Leaning against the doorway, which was already open, Tei was looking this way with an indifferent gaze. To be precise, at Rusty’s hand gripping Ibella’s arm.
Because there had been a sharp confrontation between him and Rusty a moment ago, Ibella watched the two men alternately in tension.
The moment she looked past the frozen Rusty at Tei, a chilly goosebump climbed up her spine. Though it was a brief moment, his gaze was sharp enough to rip one’s breath away.
“Is your work all finished, Tei?”
Ibella asked Tei, narrowing her eyes slightly. Since Tasha’s ulterior motive had been visible, she expected him to return late, so it was unexpected.
Ibella felt Rusty’s weakened hand fall away from her wrist. He, who had been pushing forward with an anxious face saying he had something to say, swallowed his dry saliva and backed away from her. It was without even being able to turn his head toward Tei.
“It wasn’t finished, but I felt like I had to come and see.”
She expected him to scowl upon seeing Rusty, but unlike earlier, Tei was smiling. As if he were glad to see a fish caught in a net he had purposely set up.
“I, I will leave now then.”
Without even being able to properly bring out his words, Rusty hurriedly turned around and left the room. Because Tei was in his path, their bodies brushed, but he kept his gaze on the floor and did not look at Tei. The flustered Ibella tried to catch him, but he had already disappeared.
Ibella, who had been blankly staring at the spot where Rusty disappeared, turned her head toward Tei. As if he knew nothing, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled with an innocent face.
“Since I’m already here, I’d like to receive some medical treatment too.”
Tei, who sent Rusty away without any emotion, said as he rested his hips on the corner of the desk.
“What treatment? Where does it hurt?”
“There are many places that hurt. Here, and here, and here too. But the place that bothers me the most lately is my back.”
Tei pointed above his collarbone, his shoulder, his side, and his thigh, and at the end, he reached his hand back and touched his back. Seeing his face reflexively frown, it seemed that his being in pain was not a lie.
“Then, try taking off just your vest.”
Hesitating, Ibella took a step closer to Tei. Although he was an inscrutable man, she thought he wasn’t someone to lie about something like this.
If there was a place hurting enough to hinder his travel, treating it in advance would be good for him too.
At Ibella’s words, Tei took off his vest and pulled his shirt up over his head to take it off. The shape of his body, which had been deeply embedded in her mind, was starkly revealed.
Although she had spoken without any ulterior motive, upon actually seeing the statue-like body, her breathing did disrupt. They had only met twice, but it felt like she ended up seeing this man’s naked body every time.
“Stay still. Because I will look.”
Ibella went behind him and examined his firm back. Inside the shoulder blade, seeing a scar near the teres major muscle, Ibella lost her words for a moment.
The horizontally and irregularly shaped scar was something she knew well from having seen it before. This was a gunshot wound.
Ibella raised her hand and slowly stroked with her fingers from one end of the scar on his back to the other.
The sensation of the scar protruding convexly beneath her fingertips came straight in and drew itself. To see it a bit better, she brought her face close and stroked along the texture of the scar from the opposite side to the other.
Because she was too focused, she did not realize that her touch and breath were stimulating his flesh.
Whew.
.A faint sound of breath leaked from Tei’s mouth. Force entered his jawline near his molars, and a vein below his ear bulged out.
“If you ever get a lover, that person will be truly annoyed.”
Tei let slip inscrutable words, sitting turned away just as he was.
“Why?”
Ibella asked without thought, still focused on the scar.
She did not even perceive the fact that his answer did not come immediately and a silence descended.
She was merely pressing his wound with her fingers, calculating how large the wound was and how deeply the bullet had been embedded if it was this much.
“Bel.”
Suddenly, Tei, who had been lounging on the desk, stood up from his seat. He reached out his hand toward her, who was looking up without knowing the reason. As Ibella flinched and tried to avoid him, he softly gripped her waist and whispered.
“I’m not trying to do something bad, so just stay still for a moment.”
“……”
At the coaxing voice, Ibella stopped her resistance without realizing it.
Even though Tei had a mischievous side, he did not commit wicked actions in front of her. If he had harbored a bad intention, he would have done something and more when she dozed off for a moment at the cabin that day.
Because it seemed he was trying to let her know something, she opened her green eyes wide and awaited his next words.
The back of Tei’s hand touched Ibella’s cheek. His eyes, which had been serene, were looking down at her while containing a dark and humid energy.
As if the quality of the air had changed, she suddenly found it burdensome to breathe. Like a fallen leaf stripped of water, her lips dried up on their own.
The back of Tei’s hand brushed her soft cheek and came down to stroke her jawline. The hand that stopped below her lips gave a *tap* to Ibella’s lower lip, pulling it, and then gripped her chin.
Startled, Ibella’s eyes widened to their limit. She ought to push him away while demanding what on earth he was doing right now, but it wasn’t easy. It felt as if the atmosphere he created had wound around her tightly like a spiderweb.
Over her small chin, Tei’s thumb rubbed left and right. This time, as if holding her neck with his palm, he went down along her tender neckline.
As if a silk cloth were brushing past her flesh, the place his hand touched was itchy. It felt as if something like bubbles was rising in lumps from somewhere in her body.
Because she could not look at him at all, she lowered her gaze, and his naked upper body and two points came vividly into her eyes.
Ibella tightly closed her eyes. She wondered if it would be a bit better if she did, but rather, the stimulation doubled and spread in all directions.
He, who was stroking her collarbone with delicate hand movements, stopped his movement right above her cleavage. And bending his body, he poured a phew of hot breath near her ear.
“Gasp.”
Ibella stopped her breath without realizing it. Her body stiffened rigidly on its own, and her mouth closed. Amidst her mind becoming hazy, a sluggish voice drifted into her ear.
“That it would be this kind of feeling.”
“……?”
“Every time you touch men’s bodies, those fellows will get this kind of feeling.”
“W-What……”
“So I’m saying your lover will go crazy from annoyance.”
Every action Tei just committed was the answer to the words he brought out a moment ago. He, who explained it even while bringing up an example, fell away from her like a cut semicircle. In an instant, the trembling that hovered over her body and the unknown thrill both disappeared in a flash.
Ibella knew she had been swept away by the atmosphere he created. Absurdly, she hadn’t even thought to restrain him when he touched her body. It was dumbfounding. At the same time, anger toward Tei surged up.
“I am not touching men’s bodies, I am treating them. If it were a lover who accepts an act with good intentions so vulgarly, I wouldn’t even make one in the first place.”
“Will it really be so?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean that the world doesn’t realize itself according to one’s own wishes.”
Letting slip a strange smile, he put on the shirt he had taken off to the side.
“Why were you shot?”
Although the awkwardness from a moment ago remained, Ibella ended up asking the point she was more curious about. Tei’s hand movement putting his arm into the sleeve stopped for a brief moment, but he soon answered while fastening his buttons with a composed face.
“Previously, there was an accident at a hunting ground. I was driving a fox from a different direction with a friend, but that friend shot, thinking that I, who was beneath the bushes, was the fox.”
“Ah……. I see.”
“It’s fine. Although it throbs from time to time.”
“That seems like an aftereffect, so since you are here, how about going after seeing the Doctor?”
“We’ll see.”
Tei, who answered half-heartedly, showed a brief smile and then left the room.
Ibella, who was looking at his departing back, leaned her waist against the desk and fell into thought. It was a fully understandable excuse, but somewhere it felt uneasy. As she came to know him bit by bit, for some reason, it felt more like he was disappearing into the fog.
When looking at it only on the surface, he looked as if he would have grown up preciously in a wealthy family, but the thought arose that it might not be so. He was always leisurely but did not allow an opening to approach, and while acting slyly, he knew how to step back at the right time and fluster the opponent. He was bright but artificial. Looking at the scars located not only on his back but in various places on his body, it seemed the life he lived was not ordinary.
What kind of person is he? This man.
****
Tei, who came out of the treatment room, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and began to walk. Going in reverse through the hallway he had passed, he walked toward Rusty, who had hidden himself in a quiet corner. Before the startled Rusty could turn his head at the sound of footsteps, he tightly grabbed the wheelchair.
“Ugh!”
“You were here, Rusty.”
Tei’s brown eyes gripped his target.
