The kid stood still and stared at Nick for several long and tense monts with his bow drawn.
"W-what do you know?!" He eventually cried out, but he didn't let the arrow fly. Instead, he lowered his bow and turned around, sprinting back into the forest's darkness.
Nick let out a deep sigh of relief and slumped down on the porch stairs with the tentacle next to him.
While he knew he hadn't been about to die since the tentacle was there to save him, it had still been a precarious situation. He had also saved the reckless kid from getting killed by the tentacle.
Nick felt a little odd.
But when he looked at the tentacle, he gradually found himself calming down.
"Hey," he started saying. It was pretty clear by now that the tentacle didn't hold any ill intent toward him. If anything, it wanted to take care of him or sothing along those lines, and Nick didn't think it was because it wanted to fatten him up before eating him.
Whatever the tentacle monster was, Nick had no reason to think it wanted him anything bad.
The tentacle looked at him curiously, eager ot hear what he wanted to say.
"First of all, thank you."
The tentacle just wagged its tip like it was waving off Nick's gratitude. It was too much for sothing so small.
"Secondly...Just to make sure I didn't misunderstand. You said you were my wife, right?" He asked with a serious tone.
The tentacle nodded just as seriously.
"I..." He stopped to clear his throat. He was nervous, but he needed to deal with this at once.
"I don't rember agreeing to that," he said bluntly. But he continued before the tentacle could do sothing about him.
"So, I hope you can tell the details about how this situation ca to be. I know you can't talk, but there will co a ti when we will be able to communicate properly, right? The other option would be for you to string sentences together by pointing at words in the magazines or sothing." Nick nervously waited for the tentacle's reaction, whether good or bad. But it just gave a couple of slow nods after a while.
It didn't reach for the magazines, so Nick took it as the tentacle confirming that it would be able to talk soday.
"I feel like I should also make it clear that I'm a human, and you are...I don't know what you are, but I've been thinking of you as a tentacle monster. That might have been a little insensitive of . I apologize. Setting aside how you ca to think that we're married, I'm a little worried about whether I would be able to reciprocate those feelings. Ahem."
Nick cleared his throat again.
"There's also another matter between married couples that I would have been worried about, but we don't need to discuss that.
"I just wanted to say that I want to wait with marriage until we can communicate properly, alright?"
The tentacle looked a little downcast, but it nodded nonetheless.
"I'm sorry," he said. It was clear that the tentacle had been excited when he asked it what it was and it could answer that they were married. It was for both of their sakes, mostly his, but he had needed to be clear about what he thought about the situation.
The tentacle slowly wagged from side to side, with the tip hanging at a 90-degree angle. It was like it was saying that it wasn't his fault.
"What I just said doesn't an I don't want to get to know you better, though."
The tentacle hopefully looked up at him and waited for him to continue.
"Let's watch your favorite film," He said simply, standing up.
He wasn't bored and restless anymore after having dealt with a would-be child assassin. And maybe being bored and restless wasn't so bad. It was definitely better than almost being killed, at least.
"And maybe you can tell what your favorite food is before that. There's no reason to stick to sausages and noodles, after all."
***
"Lora, is he still not eating...?" Kavam asked worriedly when he entered their cave and saw a pile of at cubes on Kai's plate on their stone table. It was a recurring issue lately. Over the past few days, they had only managed to stuff half a portion into their son's mouth.
He was a young boy. He needed a lot of food to grow into a big and strong man, even more so since he was born in bear shape instead of human. He grew quicker than if he had been born a human.
Lora sighed deeply and leaned against Kavam with her entire body. Kavam naturally rested his arms around her waist and his head over her shoulder.
"I don't know what's going on with him. He used to eat so well before..." Lora trailed off. Kavam caught on to what she was about to say.
"Do you think it has anything to do with the Outsider?" He asked.
"I hate to say it, but it has to."
"He did say sothing about Kai taking his food, after all."
"He did say that, didn't he. Do you think it was poisoned or sothing?" Lora asked worriedly.
Kavam turned to the tiny blue bear cub curled up in the corner of sha since he refused to stop trying to escape. Kai was anything but poisoned. He was the sa stubborn kid as always. He just didn't want to eat.
"I heard once that so of the other tribes consider human food quite delicious..." He said after a while.
"Are you saying my cooking isn't good enough?" Lora shot Kavam a sharp look.
Kavam gulped but didn't back down.
"Is it right to call it cooking when you hunted a deer and then just cut it up before giving it to Kai?"
Lora narrowed her eyes.
"...If you think you can do better, you're welco to try."
"That wasn't—I didn't an it like that. I was just thinking that maybe Kai liked what he took from the Outsider so much that he doesn't want what we can give him anymore."
"I don't like the sound of that. I was hoping we wouldn't have to get involved with the Outsider anymore. That thing...It made my bones weak. I also refuse to believe we're raising a spoiled brat who can only eat human food."
"I agree. I don't really want to go there, either. But for the sake of our child..."
Lora sighed.
"Alright."
While Lora and Kavam were not in the greatest mood after coming to that decision, Kai could barely hide his excitent. It took a lot of self-control not to jump up and rush out of the cave toward the center of the forest.
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