Page 37 of A Soul to Touch

“Two people came back to the village, Mayumi,” Yoshida stated, his own brows furrowing in disbelief in her direction. “One said they were with you when they saw a Demon in the forest, and the other was so beat up he could barely see! He said you heard something.”

“The least you could have done was come back and tell us if you were alive or not,” Henry added in, scratching at the nape of his neck. “Do you know how worried we were?!”

A sense of ease washed over Mayumi.I thought Faunus may have killed those men.Maybe he’d let them go because she had. She’d disengaged her bow, after all, and woken the other one and told him to go home.

He may have also been too worried about leaving her alone in the forest to exact revenge against them. It’d been growing late, the night falling and bringing potential Demons.

However... it didn’t escape her notice that they said onlytworeturned. He must have plucked the sword holder from the fight and killed him. She tried not to be angry over it since it was too late, but she’d have to inform him of her new ‘no killing humans’ policy.

“No?” she answered, raising a hand to shrug. “And if you were so worried about me, why did you come today and not yesterday?”

“We had to wait for the shift roster,” Yoshida grumbled, turning his gaze to the side. “We can’t just abandon our duties just because we were worried about you, even if we wanted to.”

Mayumi sighed. “Fair enough.”

She couldn’t stop her gaze from trailing across all three of them – specifically their bags.Emptybags.

“Are you going to let us in?” Klaus asked while stepping forward. “Or are you just going to let us freeze our dicks off? Do you know how cold it is in this armour?”

Mayumi stood her ground and refolded her arms.

“No. I don’t particularly want to let three robbers into my home.”

“Excuse me?” Klaus cried. “What kind of response is–”

“You had two reasons for coming here,” she stated casually, before unfurling an arm just enough to point at them. “I’m sure you were truly concerned for my wellbeing.”

Mayumi knew these men. Had known them for years. They were truly good people, and if it wasn’t for the Duskwalker currently hiding within her home, she would have welcomed them inside and offered them tea to warm up before sending them home.

They were no danger.

“However,” she continued, tapping her index finger in the air in the direction of each of their bags. “If I were not here, presumed dead, you three had every intention of robbing my home of anything of value.”

Klaus’ lips tightened as his brows narrowed, whereas Yoshida and Henry averted their eyes in shame.

“We would never hurt you, Yumi,” Henry grumbled before he bravely brought his gaze to her. “But–”

Mayumi chuckled lightly.

“Don’t worry. I know, and I get it.” She forced a smile upon her face. “It’s trying times, right? Everyone is struggling, and when there is free money here, it’s hard not to want it. Honestly, if Iweredead, it’d be you three I’d want to rob my home.”

Henry winced.

“You could have pretended not to know,” Yoshida said with a slight sneer. “Do you understand how humiliating this is?”

“We don’t want you to think we don’t care for you,” Henry continued, his eyes beseeching and showing the depth of his kindness. He even stepped forward. “Our first hope was that you were here.”

She had no doubt that Yoshida felt the same way, but he hated being caught doing something he thought was wrong. This had probably been a difficult decision to make, and he’d probably been pushed into it by Klaus and Henry.

Yoshida had some up-tight issue with being honourable. Henry was in a difficult situation Mayumi was well-aware of. Klaus, on the other hand, was the kind of man you wanted on your side, because he had no qualms about screwing anyone over if it benefitted him – unless it was his friends.

“I’m sure it was,” she admitted. “But did any of you consider that I could have been alive and just not... home? I often go into the forest to chop down firewood or hunt or collect roots for food. What if I had been gone and returned to my home to find it’d been ransacked?”

“We would have given it all back,” Klaus argued.

“Would it have been too late by that point?” she asked as she brought her eyes to his blue ones. “I would have returned home late and wouldn’t have been able to travel with night falling. You lot would have sold everything of value and most likely been drinking your sorrows away in Marianna’s Tavern, thinking I was dead.”

“We’re sorry, Yumi,” Henry said with sincerity.

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