Suguru swears he isn’t soft. He couldn’t be soft, he shouldn’t be—he isn’t. Not for anyone, and certainly not for the likes of you. You’re just another non-sorcerer, another monkey worshipping his every move in the hopes of keeping your life for just a little longer. He despises your kind, truly.

You’d become helpful to his cult over time, however. You had knowledge of mundane things like laws and bills, and so he naturally kept you a little closer to him. Subconsciously, perhaps, he’d been keeping you a little too close. As he looks down at your drowsy, sleepy form in his bed, your cheeks flushed red with your fever, he feels a clenching in his chest that he does not like.

Why the hell is he looking after you like this? You’ve fallen ill, so what? Everyone does. But oh, you just look so pitiful. So weak. He just had to put you to rest in his bed, take your temperature and gently brush your pretty hair out of your face as you lay down. He should be spitting at you, for god’s sakes, calling you a worthless monkey—and yet, for now, he’s put aside his hatred. For you, at least.

“How are you feeling, hm? Any better?” He asks you gently, brushing his knuckles over your cheek as you lay curled up beneath his bedsheets. He’s on the edge of the bed, though the thought of being under the covers with you is rather appealing to him. “How’s that fever coming along?”