My dreary eyes woke up as I felt the world around me shaking.

Hurriedly, I woke up and looked at what was happening, all to find a boy trying to wake me up.

A slight smile hung on his face as he gave me a look. Probably because he figured that I was awake, his smile vanished as he spoke. “Zack, wake up. Time to get some food. It’s evening already! C’mon, hurry up!”

This voice… Still in the middle of waking up, I realized that this voice sounded familiar. I have heard it before. But where? I can’t remember. Wait… he’s probably that boy who was shouting when I fell down. Thinking back, I figured him to be the same boy who came in, or maybe was already in the room when I woke up earlier and went to call Mr. William, and later on the old doctor.

Unknowing of his identity, I looked at him warily as I asked while trying to get up in a seating posture, “Who might you be?”

A little heavy on the breathing than before, I was unable to sit upright. Noticing my plight, the boy came forward to help me out, and I was soon propped up in a sitting posture. Wiping my unusually watery eye, I took a careful look at him.

The boy gazed at me with an azure pair of eyes. That clear pair of azure eyes radiated a certain sense of dignity and charisma, subconsciously making me want to look up to him. Yet, an occasional crafty gleam would pass through them, which would be rather hard to notice if I were not paying him enough attention.

His unkempt chestnut hair hung down his head, giving him a rather lax yet suave look, which didn’t fit in with his weird sense of dignity. After scrutinizing him for a while, I noticed he bore a striking resemblance to Mr. William. But unlike Mr. William, his complexion was healthy, his cheeks normal and not sunk in.

Instead, he seemed to writhe with energy. Although he looked just a tad shorter than an average boy of 10 aevis old, the visible muscles below the half-curled sleeves looked well-defined. Looking at him, he was sure to be a good-looker in the future.

Looking down at my body, I thought, Yeah, there’s definitely no comparison. I probably look like a skeleton or something. Hmm, My brow rose as I clenched my fist. My hand didn’t hurt as much as before and my hand doesn’t seem to feel sticky or itchy when I got up. So it didn’t bleed like earlier either. It seems it has gotten better. That medicine must be quite effective.

While still looking at him, I began moving my arm. Although the pain wasn’t that apparent anymore, the weakness I felt was still there.

His gaze fell down on the floor as he looked down at the floor, sighing dejectedly. After taking in a breath, he said, “I see… dad was right, you don’t remember anything now.”

So, did he know me? And if he did, I can ask him to tell me about it. But what if he refuses? Hmm… ugh, I’ll cross the bridge when it comes. My brows knitted together as I tried to find out the meaning behind why he was telling me that. But for some reason, I wasn’t able to focus too well on that. As if his sorrow was also affecting me, making me want to say something.

Stay calm and play safe. Ask when the time is right. Control yourself, me. Don’t play to your urges. I bit my tongue and looked at him, caution hidden deep within my eyes.

Giving into the urge, I spoke with a smile, “Then, you can always try telling me. Maybe I’ll remember something.”

Curse my lack of control. Chuckling wryly within, I waited for the boy to reply, attempting my best to hold back a wry expression from leaking onto my face.

Looking around while scratching his cheek, he spoke, “Ehh… Nice try I guess. Dad told me that it can be harmful. So he told me not to do so. I mean, look at your condition, you definitely don’t want to be worse off than this, right?”

Dad, huh? He seemed to mention something about him before. So is he…

“By dad, you mean Mr. William, right?” I asked while matching the resemblance between the shaggy man I saw earlier and the young, energetic boy before me.

Sighing a little, he nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that almost dead person is my old-man. What about it?”

But the difference in age…

After cocking his head to the side a little while rubbing his temples, he gave me a distressed look. Sighing, he began explaining, “Yeah, yeah, I know what you might be thinking about. My old-man looks far older than me and this age-gap is nothing to scoff about either. It’s a pretty visible one. Recently, people do be asking me that. You see, my mom is relatively younger so that’s why there is this apparent age-gap, I’d say. Sigh… bad for her she got stuck with a geezer.”

What? Silence drowned the room as I looked at him blankly, saying nothing in response. I was totally rendered speechless by his reply. That was so… casual sounding. Is it his habit? A second nature perhaps…

Even then, my vigilance towards him hadn’t lessened.

After a while, he sighed and said, “I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Samuel, son of the half-dead man you previously met, William. I used to be…” he stopped before taking in a deep breath and shaking his head a little. “So as I was saying, I’m Samuel. Your best friend, though you probably don’t remember that by looks of it. Our parents used to be friends, and… we grew up together.”