“Ironic,” mutters Seokga, wondering if he should remove the foot from Hwanin’s mouth.

“It’s only for Restorations,” she says with a sigh, and hands the bottle to Seokga. “Not that it’s not rewarding, but, well, you can’t save anyone if they’re already dead. Even these flowers won’t change that. Restorations are really only cosmetic at this point. You have to hold him,” Kisa says abruptly as Seokga stares in thinly veiled confusion at the bottle. “To feed him.” She raises her brows impatiently. “Seokga, really.”

—acts like—Hwanin—has rabies—or something—

“I’d rather not,” says Seokga, and is immediately bombarded with more impatient thoughts from Kisa, the red thread quivering between them. “Fine,” he groans, and with complete indignity, props Hwanin on his lap and administers the drink to him as Kisa watches. Hwanin sucks greedily and drools all over him. Disgusting. “Ew. Please take him back?”

“No.” She looks distinctly amused.

Seokga assumes an expression of supreme distaste as Hwanin’s drool taints his black cashmere sweater. Kisa sits back on her heels and looks as if she’s watching a very entertaining show.

“You and him,” she suddenly says as Hwanin makes disgusting little slurping noises. “I take it you weren’t close.”

Seokga sighs, staring down at the chubby blob in his arms. “We were, and then we weren’t. And then we were…getting there. Until he went and got his heart ripped out of his chest.”

“Yes,” says Kisa, looking slightly queasy. “That was unfortunate.” She hesitates. “I don’t want to, well, exhaust you more than you already have been…”

He raises his eyes to hers and thinks that he would gladly be exhausted for her. Hells, he went to Antarctica for her and poked around the penguins and fat, snarling seals. Kisa blushes, and he knows the red thread carried that particular thought of his down to her.

“I just,” she says, and then frowns. “You went to Antarctica?”

“Yes,” he grumbles. “It was cold.” Too cold, even for him. “There were penguins.” Would you name them, if you saw them? he wants to ask, but refrains, and waves a languid hand. “Continue.”

Kisa blinks, and then clears her throat. “I just want to revisit what I said about most leadership assassinations being political in nature.”

Seokga fixes her with an exasperated look as Hwanin continues to drool all over him. “I know my reputation precedes me,” he drawls, ignoring the small stinging in his chest, “but I promise you, if I wanted to kill him, I would arrange it so I didn’t get stuck with babysitting duty. This is the very last thing I ever dreamed of doing.”

“No…” She looks entirely unimpressed and even slightly annoyed. “I wasn’t going to point a finger at you. I was just going to ask if there was any controversial legislation Hwanin had passed recently. That could give us some sort of starting point.”