“You what?!”

 

Sien rushed over, pushing the doctor out of the way to give alternating glares between Ritt’s face and his shoulder.

 

“You knew you had a bullet in your arm this whole time, but you still kept telling me you’d be okay?!”

 

Ritt gave a small weary smile in apology and closed his eyes.

 

“I… truly thought I’d… be okay.”

 

“You’re an idiot, then!”

 

“Yes, I… I’m an idiot. I’m sorry, for… worrying you, Sien.”

 

“You-!”

 

Sien gritted his teeth and slightly looked down, refusing to look back at Ritt’s weakly smiling face. His hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly at his sides, uncomfortably. He hated to admit it, but Ritt was completely right; Sien was very worried when the servants had told him that Ritt had collapsed. He even blamed himself for some reason, scolding himself for not paying attention to Ritt for so long, all due to his silly confused emotions, even though he knew that Ritt was weak. It had taken several hours for the doctor to arrive, and that entire time Sien’s eyes were glued onto Ritt’s face. Ritt was usually stoic, and even when he was passed out from illness, it was the same.

 

The thought that he might never see Ritt’s face smile at him again hurt his heart.

 

“What… What do we need to do to fix you?”

 

“Just… take the bullet out… I’ll be fine… after that.”

 

The doctor, who’d been silently watching their exchange from the side while still holding his wrists, gently cleared his throat and decided it was time to interject.

 

“Yes, naturally we’ll remove the bullet and then begin detoxing him-”

 

“No.”

 

Although Ritt’s voice was still quiet and rough, the force behind that single word was more than enough to stop the doctor in his tracks.

 

“Don’t do anything other than taking out the bullet. Please, Sien. Don’t let him do anything else to me.”

 

Ritt’s eyes, now wide open and looking directly into Sien’s, were intense. Sien had never seen Ritt give such a forceful look before, even when he had a blade against his neck, or when he’d seen someone get their head cut off right in front of him. In fact, it was quite rare for anyone to ever show such an expression to Sien without the intent to attack him. The fact that such a forceful gaze was coming from Ritt at his absolute weakest was also surprising. Sien figured that Ritt must have been a knight or something similar from the very first moment that he saw him, but this kind of gaze couldn’t come from just any ordinary knight.

 

“...Yes, I promise you.”

 

“But Sir, he really might die if we don’t treat his blood!”

 

“I won’t die. I will promise to you… with everything I have, Sien… I won’t die…”

 

“...Good.”

 

Although it was plain to see the struggle on his face through his eyebrows alone, Sien still donned his usual cheeky and childish smile as he spoke.

 

“When you wake up I’ll make sure they make a bunch of that awful meat dish you like so much!”

 

Sien’s heart tingled as he watched the calm smile that he’d come to like so much slowly bloom on Ritt’s tired face.

 

“Thank you… Sien.”

 

~~~

 

Sien had watched closely during the entire operation, with his hand on his blade, ready to attack the doctor if it seemed like he was going to do more than what was ordered. He watched Ritt’s arm be sliced open and he saw the pus-covered, rusty looking bit of metal that constituted a bullet be pulled out. Sien had seen Ritt’s blood at least twice before, but both of those times had been only in small amounts. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the way Ritt’s blood had been poisoned by the bullet, but now that he was seeing a much larger amount of it flowing out of the man’s shoulder, it seemed to be quite a bit thicker and perhaps blacker than he’d previously thought it to be.

 

It was no longer possible for him to doubt the doctor’s words that Ritt’s blood was horribly tainted.

 

Sien allowed the doctor to stitch up Ritt’s shoulder, but wouldn’t let him do a single thing past that. The doctor was obviously infuriated, and for a moment it looked like he was going to do what needed to be done anyways, but Sien’s blade being pointed at him quickly made him stop in his tracks.

 

“...Please, My Lord Duke, you don’t understand. I’ve seen similar cases to this before, during my time in the frontline medical unit. Some of the surrounding nations use iron bullets or shrapnel just like this one, and almost no one ever lives from the resulting disease. If I could at least just check him over a bit more, or maybe try a few things, then perhaps he could li-”

 

Sien’s sword came sweeping closer, stopping to gently tap at the doctor’s shoulder.

 

“I understand that your heart’s in the right place, but you already heard me promise him. I can’t let you break that promise for me.”

 

“But Sir, he’ll really die if this continues on! In fact, the fact that he isn’t already dead with that level of taint in his blood…”

 

The doctor slowly turned his suddenly sweating body, his hands clasped tightly together for dear life. Sien had to admire how dutiful the doctor was towards his craft, even in the face of certain death. But for some reason, the doctor’s already tense and lightly trembling body only seemed to get even worse when he looked back at Ritt.

 

“M-my Lord… L-look!”

 

Sien followed the doctor’s shaky finger, looking over towards the just recently operated shoulder. The scarring from the cut had already faded away, and the stitches had partially dissolved, with the bits of string that stuck out of his skin having already fallen out onto the bed sheets. And what’s more, Ritt’s face, which had looked a bit pale and colorless before the operation, was already slowly returning back to its usual sunkissed hue.

 

The doctor rushed over, completely unafraid, and studied Ritt’s shoulder closely, poking and prodding at it as he looked it over from all different angles.

 

“This is truly amazing! The rate at which this man heals, and yet not a single spell seems to have been cast! His pulse seems to be returning to normal, as has his breathing, his pupils are all correct, and he-”

 

The doctor sneakily took a small syringe out of his pocket and took another blood sample, holding the two samples up next to each other for comparison. However, contrary to his expectations, the newly taken blood wasn’t much cleaner than the previous, tetanus infected sample.

 

“...How is he getting better when his blood is still this irrevocably tainted? No no, this… This doesn’t make any sense! This man should be dead! If this is how his blood is even after getting so much better, then…”

 

The doctor turned his wide, terrified eyes towards Sien slowly, his hands holding the blood vials shaking uncontrollably.

 

“Then this man must truly be a monster in disguise! We have to kill it! Kill this monster before it wakes up again! Please, My Lord-”

 

Before he even saw it coming, the doctor had been run through by Sien, directly through the man’s heart. As the doctor let out his last pitiful sounds and slumped to the floor with a look of disbelief on his face, Sien just stood over him, letting the blood drip slowly off his blade while he stared down at the blood vials that were still clenched in the man’s hands.

 

A monster? He’d heard that name plenty enough times before. He was sick of hearing about 'monsters' and 'tainted blood'.

 

He had to admit it was true, though. The doctor had been correct that the blood looked clearly wrong. Even Sien had been said to have tainted blood many times, even though his blood was exactly the same shade of red as anyone else’s. Far from being red, though, Ritt’s blood was like nothing natural that he’d ever seen before. When he compared the blood in the vials to the flowing blood of the doctor next to it, it really did look quite monstrous. It would seem that this obedient dog he picked up was much more odd than had first met the eye.

 

Well, Sien didn’t dislike it, of course.

Keeping an interesting human around might have been difficult, but keeping an obedient monster should be much more manageable!

 

He kicked the still bleeding corpse of the doctor out of the way and sat down on the stool that the doctor had been sitting on throughout the surgery, leaning over to rest his head on his arms on top of the bedding as he looked over at Ritt’s now peaceful face. Getting rid of that doctor was definitely the right choice. If Sien was going to keep Ritt, that meant that this man belonged to him now, and no one else needed to know his monster’s secrets.

 

The idea that he was the only one who would know Ritt’s secret tickled at Sien’s heart.

 

“C’mon, Ritt, wake up soon. Wake up and prove that stupid doctor wrong. It’ll be boring again if you don’t wake up…”

 

Sien would wait here for his monster to wake up for as long as it takes. And when Ritt woke up, he was sure that he’d get to see another one of those soft smiles that he liked so much again.