147. You Damn Bastard

2024.02.24.

It was the afternoon of the next day when Eugene Kimfri returned to the tent, bringing Yu An with him.

“Y-Y-Yu An!”

Noel rushed toward Yu An, who appeared under Eugene Kimfri’s escort.

Yu An’s condition was visibly poor.

Though her black hair had been roughly combed and tied back, it hung loose, covering half of her already delicate face.

Her attire was even worse.

Beneath the cloak Eugene Kimfri had wrapped around her, her clothes—once vibrant in color—remained damp, clinging tightly and uncomfortably to her body.

One peculiar detail was the bulging herb sack slung over Eugene Kimfri’s shoulder, which appeared to have been carried by Yu An.

Upon spotting Noel, Yu An’s expression softened slightly with faint relief.

Noel, greatly relieved, quickly removed his clean outer garment and wrapped it around Yu An’s shoulders.

“A-are you okay?”

Once the search team members waiting nearby dispersed, Noel whispered urgently.

Yu An forced a weak smile with her pale lips and gave a small nod. And then—

“Eugene!”

Tasha shrieked shrilly.

This was because the sword had slipped from Eugene Kimfri’s hand—his eyes sunken, silently watching Noel and Yu An’s reunion—and clattered to the ground, followed immediately by his massive body collapsing heavily onto the dirt with a loud thud!

***

Eugene Kimfri’s condition was far more serious than anticipated.

Tasha glared at the medical staff rummaging through the herb sack Yu An had brought.

Her face, which had barely managed to restrain her anger toward Yu An, was now twisting with growing fury.

“Where is Yu An Pelliese?”

A cold, curt voice, lacking any courtesy, was directed at Noel standing beside her.

From yesterday evening until this morning.

Unlike Noel, who had held firm faith in Yu An’s survival, Eugene Kimfri had concluded that if the exiled prince and his wife had failed to meet, Yu An’s chances of survival could not be guaranteed.

This was a judgment entirely separate from acknowledging the basis of Noel’s belief.

Each time the wind slightly calmed, he had braved the rain to tirelessly search around the village, only to return when the storm intensified again.

Because of this, his already festering wounds had soaked in rain, torn open further, and blood steadily seeped out.

Infected injuries, overexertion.

On top of that, his rain-soaked body had never properly dried, undoubtedly resulting in a severe fever.

Seeing Eugene Kimfri’s flushed face and his inability to open his eyes, Tasha turned toward the presence she sensed behind her.

Yu An stood pale-faced at the doorway, having just returned from washing her body.

Although the medical staff had urged Yu An to clean up due to her poor condition, seeing Eugene unconscious and unresponsive caused Tasha’s suppressed rage to boil over.

Fire flashed in Tasha’s eyes.

She marched straight toward Yu An, who met her gaze, and raised her hand.

Slap—!

Before Noel could reach out to stop her, Yu An’s head snapped sharply to the side.

Clutching her trembling hand into a fist, tears welled up in Tasha’s eyes.

“Do you even know how many people braved this storm to find you? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to cross the sea with an injured man like that?”

Yu An’s wide, dark eyes—dazed all day—finally turned toward Eugene Kimfri, whose massive body lay uncomfortably on a tiny bed, barely clinging to life.

Noel turned deathly pale and stepped in front of Yu An.

“T-t-tasha! Calm down!”

“Let go! Don’t pretend you care about me or my brother!”

Noel tightly embraced the hysterically resisting Tasha, drenched in sweat, and forcibly dragged her outside.

***

The Kimfri family members were remarkably rational people.

It was their family tradition, and most children born into the household naturally shared this disposition.

Within this environment, Tasha was an anomaly.

Since everyone she had seen, heard, and experienced were such composed individuals, Tasha herself leaned toward being more reasonable and rational than most—but there was one area where she became especially emotional: matters concerning her own people.

When Tasha, having shoved Noel aside, tried to return to Eugene Kimfri’s room provided by the village chief, Noel desperately grabbed her again.

Tasha exploded in fury.

“Let go!”

“T-Tasha! Please, trust Yu An!”

“How can you say that so easily? How can I trust someone who doesn’t value a single life, and entrust Eugene to them?”

“If you can’t trust Yu An… then trust me.”

Tasha abruptly stopped her violent resistance and looked up at Noel.

Noel, who had now grown significantly taller, nearly pulled her into a tight embrace, firmly restraining her.

Tasha’s face slowly contorted.

“Trust you?”

“…….”

“Are you serious?”

Tasha asked with a bitter laugh, as if bewildered.

Noel, who should have lowered his head and apologized with a defeated look, instead calmly met Tasha’s gaze.

“What was the price I paid for trusting you?”

Noel flinched, and Tasha pressed on, twisting her mouth.

Her bloodshot eyes now held a different kind of anger.

“Radio silence. Refusing to communicate. Wasn’t that what happened?”

Unable to respond, the tender look in his eyes tightened around Tasha’s throat.

Unable to bear Noel, who always stayed silent at the most crucial moments, Tasha shoved him away.

“I-I’m sorry…….”

The man pushed back helplessly lowered his head.

“B-because I liked you…….”

Tasha, turning away with fierce determination and taking one step forward, froze completely.

She turned back toward Noel, as if she had misheard.

The tall man kept his head down, and from beneath his scattered golden hair, thicker tears than hers fell.

“B-because I liked you……. I didn’t want it to be found out. I didn’t want to be seen like this…….”

His face, once soft with baby fat, now lean, firm, and distinctly masculine, was drenched as he looked up at Tasha.

Tasha stood frozen, staring blankly at Noel, who continued pouring out words as if seeing a ghost.

Her dry lips parted several times before releasing a voice thick with emotion.

“Tasha, I like you.”

Wide, disbelieving amber eyes met rain-soaked violet ones head-on.

“Not as a friend. As a woman.”

This sentence was filled with Noel’s immense effort—striving to eliminate even the slightest tremor or hesitation.

The process, easily imaginable without words, was evident in the trembling of Noel’s clenched fists as he awaited her judgment.

Finally, hot tears burst from Tasha’s eyes, which had stubbornly refused to cry.

Staggering as if about to collapse, she covered her cheeks with both hands and collapsed into Noel’s arms as he quickly stepped forward to support her.

“Why… why now—!”

She had just experienced a disaster unlike anything before, compounded by fury and worry over Yu An’s disappearance.

And her nerves, already weakened by anxiety over Eugene’s condition, could endure no more.

Tasha buried her face in Noel’s chest, her tears flowing uncontrollably.

“I-I’m sorry, Tasha.”

“You damn bastard. You miserable dog. You absolute worst bastard in the world…….”

“I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry for everything…….”

Unintelligible curses, whether aimed at Noel or Eugene, erupted from within Noel’s embrace, then subsided, only to erupt again.

Noel quietly held the trembling, sobbing Tasha in his arms.

***

Yu An stood motionless, not even thinking to tend to her stinging cheek, until Tasha’s cries faded into the distance.

“Sir! Are you conscious?!”

“Lord Kimfri!”

Just then, Eugene Kimfri stirred slightly, and the medical staff scrambled into action.

Briefly checking on Eugene as if to dispel the tense atmosphere, they hurried past Yu An, saying they’d prepare medicine and left the room.

Yu An straightened her disheveled hair and approached Eugene.

Beneath the shadow cast by Yu An.

His heavily closed eyelids struggled to lift.

Eugene Kimfri’s amber eyes strained to focus, finally settling on Yu An.

Despite his clearly incapacitated state, he immediately staggered upright, leaning his back against the head of the bed upon seeing her.

As Yu An quietly reached toward his bandages, now stained with blood, he seized her hand with his large, calloused one.

It was startlingly hot.

In that instant, Yu An’s pupils widened.

With her free hand, she tugged at Eugene’s arm.

The firm arm yielded far too easily.

A section of his slightly scorched arm was darkly bruised, appearing bluish, as if deeply injured.

“Were you bitten by a snake?”

“It’s nothing.”

His voice was so hoarse it was hard to believe it belonged to him.

Yu An scanned his body with her eyes—most of his upper body wrapped in bandages, his shirt removed.

She spotted the tightly bound, hastily wrapped bandage over his muscular forearm.

Yu An’s expression grew increasingly grim.

“You knew you’d been bitten and still kept moving?”

“I have some resistance to poisons. I’m not weak enough to die from snake venom.”

Even in his delirium, Eugene replied calmly, pausing briefly to catch his ragged breath.

Just as he was about to lie back down and wait for medicine, he suddenly opened his wide eyes in shock—sensing something in the silence.

This was because Yu An, frowning deeply, had pressed her lips against the inner flesh of his arm where the snake had bitten.

“What in the—!”

“Stay still if you don’t want to die.”

Her muffled voice and breath scattered over his exposed arm.

Before he could tense up, a damp sensation began sucking at the inner flesh of his arm.

Below the head bowed toward him.

The hollowed cheeks. The lowered long lashes.

The parted, pinkish, slightly smudged lips—left Eugene’s vision, already hazy from fever, utterly disoriented.

His amber eyes, clouded with heat, rippled like violent waves.

Yu An sucked fiercely on the wound, and for a moment, Eugene stared blankly at her face as if his soul had been drained—then abruptly snapped back to his senses and tried to resist.

But his resistance didn’t last.

Yu An tightly gripped his arm with both hands, preventing escape, and sucked the poison out even more forcefully.

Overwhelmed by sensations so raw they made him forget he was the patient, Eugene could not move, turning his head sharply away.

His face burned crimson, his large hand covering it—seemingly tormented more by the sensation of Yu An’s lips against his skin than by any wound.