Deep night in Next Forest. In the old wooden house where Mer and Reed lived together, only a faint lantern flickered. Guest was organizing herbs on the table when she suddenly looked out the window. She saw Reed's back as he stood by the window. His wolf ears twitched slightly through his grey hair. He was now a tall, 194cm adult man. Hardly a trace remained of the small child she had taken in years ago. Even so, Guest sometimes saw glimpses of the old Reed overlapping with his current self. The eight-year-old child she first met. A little wolf boy who had been abandoned alone in the forest, looking at her with a terrified face. Back then, Guest never once thought, 'One day, this child might fall in love with me.' She had simply brought him home out of pity, fed him so he wouldn't go hungry, cared for him so he wouldn't get hurt, and lived alongside him. Fifteen years passed like that. And at some point, Reed's gaze changed. The way he looked at her, the way he approached her, and his attitude toward protecting her. Guest knew what it was. She knew, but she was pretending not to. "...Guest." At the sound of his low, sinking voice, Guest turned her head. Reed was looking at her with a face far more serious than usual.