Chapter 78: Thump

The moment her eyes landed on Himanshu sprawled upside down on the sofa in front of her, the tension on her face eased a bit. Her eyes, which had been as alert as a hunter’s until now, went back to normal.

Her body, which was completely straight and stiff earlier, relaxed as her shoulders dropped slightly.

?She had thought Himanshu would still be sitting awake somewhere, sulking in anger. But seeing him sleeping so dead to the world with his face buried in a pillow made that unknown fear inside the demon fade a little.

?She understood this much—that Himanshu’s feelings for her hadn’t gotten so deep yet that he would lose his night’s sleep over it.

But the weird thing was, the demon herself couldn’t figure out whether she should be happy or sad about this.

A weight had lifted off her chest, and she just felt a little lighter right now—which probably meant she really did want Himanshu to stay away from her.

?For a few moments, she just stood there in the dark, staring at Himanshu like that.

?The stuff from the table scattered on the carpet, and Himanshu lying crookedly on the sofa. His good leg and his injured arm were hanging out over the edge of the sofa in the air.

He was sleeping so close to the edge that just looking at him made it seem like the slightest move or turn would send him crashing straight onto the cold floor below.

And if he fell, that knife wound on his hand would get badly hurt all over again.

?Seeing this, the demon first turned her neck to look at the closed door of Mom’s room, and then looked back at Himanshu’s closed eyes.

?When everything around her felt quiet, she took soft, silent steps toward the sofa.

?Bending down slightly on her knees near the sofa, she kept her eyes locked on Himanshu’s closed eyelids. With very gentle hands, she held his dangling leg and slowly lifted it to place it properly on the sofa.

The entire time, her eyes didn’t leave Himanshu’s face even once—she really didn’t want Himanshu to wake up and catch her doing all this.

?After fixing his leg, in the exact same way, she gently held Himanshu’s hanging, injured arm by the wrist and slowly lifted it to rest on the sofa next to his stomach.

?But right as the demon tried to slip her fingers away and pull her hand back...

?In his sleep, Himanshu suddenly moved and pulled his arm back, trapping the demon’s hand right under his.

?Before the demon could pull her hand out, Himanshu took a deep, long breath in his sleep, curled both his legs up toward his stomach, and hugged the pillow even tighter in his arms.

And with that exact move, the demon’s hand got wedged straight between his pillow and his warm chest.

?The demon’s breath caught right in her throat.

?In the deep silence of the room, right under her palm, the demon could now clearly feel the beating of Himanshu’s heart. Thump... thump... thump...

?She could hear every single breath rising from his chest. And the strangest thing of all was that human warmth of Himanshu’s body, which was slowly starting to warm up the demon’s ice-cold hand.

?Suddenly, the demon’s eyebrows pulled together and her pitch-black eyes widened slightly.

?She had touched his chest and body plenty of times before, but it had never caused any stir inside her back then. In her entire eight-thousand-year life, she had never felt this kind of weird fear from a single touch, the way she was feeling right now just from feeling that calm heartbeat.

?Without wasting a single second, she yanked her hand out from under his chest. Stepping back two paces, she immediately used her other hand to tightly hold her now-warm palm and hid it against her chest—as if something had rubbed off on that hand that was going to change her.

?Throwing one nervous glance at the sleeping Himanshu, she quickly turned her steps back toward her room.

?But when the hall stayed just as quiet as before and no sound came from the sofa, her fast steps slowed down again. She stopped and slowly looked back over her shoulder.

?In the cold air of the hall, Himanshu was sleeping curled up into himself like a little kid, clinging to the pillow and the sofa.

?Seeing this, the demon looked toward her room. After hesitating for a few seconds, she quietly walked inside the room and came back out a moment later holding a bedsheet in her hands.

?Coming back to the sofa, she unfolded the sheet without making a sound and gently leaned down to cover Himanshu up to his chest.

?"My boy doesn’t fight anyone without a reason."

?At that calm, steady voice coming from the darkness behind her, both of the demon’s hands froze in mid-air while fixing the sheet. Her entire body went stiff.

?She hadn’t even looked toward Mom’s room this time.

The demon had never, not even in her wildest dreams, expected that this other side of hers—the part she was trying to hide even from herself—would come out in front of someone else this quickly. Her fingers, holding the corner of the bedsheet, stiffened for a second.

?But then her mind quickly weighed the situation. In Mom’s eyes, she was Himanshu’s girlfriend, and as a girlfriend, taking care of someone like this was pretty normal.

She could at least do this much. Still, at any cost, the demon didn’t want Mom to wake up in the morning and tell Himanshu anything about this sheet or tonight.

Nothing that would add more fuel to the feelings already growing for her in Himanshu’s heart.

?She straightened her hunched shoulders back up. Relaxing the muscles in her face and making her expression completely flat and cold like always, she spoke without turning around, "He was too tired, so he fell asleep right here."

?Her voice had that same old steadiness, as if she was just passing on a basic piece of information.

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