At my use of the word bed, Killian’s eyes met mine for a moment, as if he were trying to figure out what else to say, before dropping his gaze again.

Because the last thing I want to do is not make him sleep on a couch that’s shorter than he is.

‘Let’s sleep together.’

When I finished writing and looked up at him, Killian paused, one eyebrow arched in a quick, disapproving glance.

He pushed himself up from his loose lean.

“You can’t say things like that casually.”

His tone was strangely sharp.

No, I was being thoughtful.

“What?”

Moreover, I didn’t say it out of ignorance.

We’re going to lie in bed pretending to sleep together, and when he falls asleep, I’m going to go down to the couch and sleep, and then in the morning, I’m going to go back to bed and pretend to sleep.

I hastily added a few words to his palm.

‘You can stack pillows in the middle!’

Killian soon leaned back deeply in his sofa and stared at me from a distance, probably because I was giving him a headache.

I used the pillow as an excuse and smiled broadly, knowing that if I explained my plan to go to the couch alone at dawn, I’d get a murderous look I couldn’t handle.

He exhaled and inhaled, then picked me up and sat me back down at the table.

“You may be a cat now, but when you sleep, you’re a woman.”

Killian soon leaned back deeply in his chair and stared at me from a distance, probably because I was giving him a headache.

It’s been days since I’ve seen him sleep with those long legs crumpled up in a heap.

“This is not something we should even be talking about.”

“Meow!”

I snapped, grabbing his fingers with both front paws and refusing to let go, and Killian pulled me off of him, one paw at a time, with an impish grin on his face.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I could hear the fatigue in Killian’s voice as he added the last word.

He soon leaned his upper body back against the table and pressed my face in a circular motion with both thumbs.

“From now on, you won’t say things like that to anyone.”

Picking me up, cheeks still pressed in defiance, Killian pulled me firmly in front of him.

“Especially not to a man. Ever.”

* * *

“Let’s sleep in bed together.”

Killian sighed, swiping a hand across his dry face.

“Do you even know what that means?”

He said bitterly, leaning back on the couch.

Killian, who sat staring at the bed in the distance, sighed in disbelief at the absurdity of it all.

The last time Reinette had tried to get him to use the bed because she was going to sleep on the couch, he hadn’t listened, and now she’d turned it into an invitation to join her.

I’m not sure what to make of that.

I couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t wary of me, or if he was too eager to share the bed.

It’s a suggestion that elicits nothing but laughter, but I can’t help but laugh.

Killian quietly closed his eyes as he watched Reinette sleeping peacefully with her face buried in a soft pillow under the softly pleated canopy.

“Vivian…….”

Her name was Vivian, but he’d been calling her Reinette for some reason.

It would be outrageous if she found out.

Leaning back, Killian took a deep breath and tilted his head back.

Reinette met Irina Scott, who gave birth to her.

At the sound of Vivian, her original name, Killian felt a chill beneath his ribs.

It was a strange feeling, one he’d never felt before.

A name he didn’t recognize.

A world he couldn’t fathom.

Just one word of an unfamiliar name made all of that come to mind.

Even after hearing that name, she didn’t seem to remember herself at all.

“Luckily…….”

Killian muttered languidly, suddenly lowering the corner of his mouth that was about to rise.

I can’t believe I’m the only one who thinks this is a good thing.

Killian stood up and checked on Reinette, who had fallen asleep out of habit.

She was there.

In his bed, in his own bed, and now Reinette had become the owner of the scenery.

Killian lay down on the couch and rested his head on the cushions.

Irina Scott had said she was human by day, but at night, when she fell asleep, she became a cat. All beings like her were like that.

Why was she different?

Red eyes stared at the ceiling thoughtfully.

In truth, it didn’t matter to him whether she lived as a cat or a human.

Surely it should matter to him.

“…….”

The moment he saw the name of her mother, Irina Scott, a question swirled in his mind, insistent.

Could Reinette be human during the day, like Irina Scott?

If she could open her eyes and see herself, if she could speak to him with her own voice, how would that feel?

“Why not.”

He’d been stuck with the thought for so long when he didn’t have to.

I should be sleeping.

Killian frowned as he tried to cover his eyes with the back of his arm to break the thought and get some sleep.

Come to think of it, when did I start falling asleep so easily?

I definitely had nightmares every day.

* * *

It had been a week since I met Irina.

Every day, after breakfast, Killian would take me to the study, where Irina would stop by to clean up and spend a few minutes with me before moving on with her schedule.

My time with Irina wasn’t long.

I’m a cat who shouldn’t be seen in the first place, and Irina cannot be revealed as Irina, so she had to keep her routine intact to meet me.

Although Irina couldn’t spend a lot of time with me, I was able to spend some time with her.

On the first day, I was awkward and didn’t know how to deal with her, but Irina casually told me things, assuming I had amnesia.

‘Oh, right. Do songs you used to listen to when you were younger jog your memory?’

She combed my fur and sang me a song that she often sang to me when I was young.

‘Over the white hills, past the red waterfall, the cute little one falls asleep. Hold on to her wiggly tail, when we reach the yellow-yellow lake…….’

Her singing was terrible, but it was strangely relaxing, and I found myself giggling as I listened.

‘……And the little one falls asleep, and the crying one falls asleep, as the gentle blue wind rustles the shiny leaves.’

Irina’s voice is quite strong, she showed passion in singing the song to the end for me, and thanks to that, I experienced the feeling of my tense, stiff body melting away.

Of course, most of the time I was more listening to Irina than talking to her, but I’d never met anyone who cared so much about me, and it was fun just listening to her ramblings.

So this is what mother and daughter are like.

I leaned my face against Irina’s hand and thought.

I’ve never had a mother like this in my life, someone who makes me feel so warm and secure.

“You know.”

Irina stroked my hair and spoke softly.

“I still sometimes wonder if this is a dream. I wanted to see you again, but I never thought we’d meet here…….”

Irina said she lost me in the vast palace gardens and searched high and low, but couldn’t find me.

Every night she would wake up in a cold sweat of frustration, unable to admit that she had lost me, so she would wander the palace, reaching under desks and beds, but I would never appear.

She endured each day with the determination to find me, but she found it difficult to even breathe properly as hope slipped away like ungraspable grains of sand and encroached on all kinds of cruel imaginations.

As I watched Irina’s eyes fill with tears as she recalled what had happened, I took her hand in mine and held it silently.

I may not be your daughter, but the Vivian you believe to be your daughter is here, and she is safe.

Again and again, I wanted to say it out loud to Irina, to someone who could understand my cries, but my mouth would clamp shut.

And when I tried to write, my feet wouldn’t listen.

I buried my face in Irina’s hands, hoping she would be relieved, realizing once again that there were words I couldn’t say on my own terms.

“Vivian.”

Irina said to me after a quick glance at the firmly closed door of the study.

“You need to listen to what I have to say.”

After finally holding back her tears, she stared at me with a nervous look on her face.

“Next year…… mommy won’t be able to protect you anymore, just as I can’t now.”

I held her in a violet-like embrace.

“I know you can get along just fine on your own, that’s what we were born to do.”

Irina, who would be gone when I came of age, asked me softly for the future.

“In order for you to be able to protect yourself, you must return to your old self. You must become human when you are awake.”

She stroked my hair and spoke calmly.

“What I want to know is, I’ve been watching you for the past week.”

I looked at her questioningly, wondering what she meant by that.

Did it have something to do with what she said she needed to check?

I’d been asking her since the first day I saw her every day what she needed to check, but she’d only smirked and remained silent.

“It seems to me that His Highness the Crown Prince cares about you, is that how you feel?”

I nodded frozenly, waiting for her to explain.

I didn’t entirely agree that Killian cared for me, but it was clear that he felt some sort of responsibility to me, so she wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I see, I’m glad to hear that.”

Irina sighed in relief and took a deep breath with a sad look on her face.

“I said there was something I needed to check, right?”

As expected, when she brought up a topic that had not been answered for a week, my heart began to pound violently.

“What we need to check is in the Imperial family’s library.”

The Imperial Library?

She was referring to the library Killian and I had visited the other day.

“They say no one but royalty can enter the Imperial Library, but the Crown Prince can, and he has the power to do so.”

What she watched for a week was not me, but Killian, who was with me.

She had judged his trustworthiness by the way he treated me.

“They said the truth about our race lies there.”

“!”

My heart sank at Irina’s words and I stared up at her, frozen.

“All of us, myself included, have tried to get jobs in various parts of this empire to gain access to the library, but we’ve had to leave for fear of being excluded or found out. I was lucky enough to catch the attention of the imperial family, but since I turn into a cat when I sleep at night, it was even more difficult to maintain a close enough relationship with them to be recognized by them and allow me to enter the library.”

Irina was waiting to see if my relationship with Killian was something she could use as leverage to gain access to the imperial library.

At that moment, Irina grabbed my hand.

“Vivian. Your Highness is a person you can trust. Is he?”

I didn’t know what to say in this situation.

Confused, I turned to face her, unable to answer.

“There’s only one reason I’m recklessly checking in with you.”

She bit her dry lips, her face somehow desperate.

“For one you can’t trust. It’s because I can’t reveal this strange phenomenon I’ve seen.”

‘A strange phenomenon?’

When I asked in a crying voice, Irina spoke to me with determination in her eyes.

“After you died. We’re here, back in the past.”