The Sinner Hunting System

The bathroom door swung open slowly.

Thin wisps of steam drifted out into the room, and Elena walked through them whistling quietly to herself, the specific clean satisfaction of a hot shower after an hour of being rained on settling over her like a reward for good behavior.

Then she saw that the naked man on her couch was awake.

Raphael was half-sitting up, comforter draped across his lap, one knee bent, hand resting on it, head turned toward her.

Rain droplets still clung to his face, tracking slowly down the lines of his jaw and neck, pooling in the hollow of his collarbone.

"Do I have something strange on my face?"

His voice carried the roughness of someone freshly awake, and underneath it a quality that was almost lazy, almost indifferent, magnetic, and entirely too self-assured.

"N-no. Nothing. Nothing at all."

Elena couldn’t look away. She was a girl who had only left the shelter of her family home a few months ago to go out and explore the world on her own terms, and the world was apparently offering quite the welcome.

Raphael shifted slightly under the scrutiny, uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t quite name, and cleared his throat.

That was a mistake.

The movement sent a small trail of water tracking downward, following the line between his chest and stomach, and Elena felt something warm rush to her nose with the particular urgency of an incoming nosebleed.

The heat hit her face all at once. The steam from the bathroom was still curling around her. She looked exactly like an anime character who had walked into a situation they were not prepared for.

"W-wait — hold on, let me find you something to wear!"

Elena retreated into the bedroom at speed, pulled open the wardrobe, and dug around until she found an oversized hoodie from a popular style a few months back, big on her, which meant it would fit him, and a pair of loose grey sweatpants, simple cut, neutral enough to count as unisex.

She came back to the living room and threw them at him from the maximum distance the room allowed.

The energy was exactly that of someone tossing food into an animal enclosure at a zoo: compelled to do it, slightly alarmed about doing it, unable to fully stop themselves.

Raphael caught the clothes. They smelled faintly of women’s perfume. His expression went flat.

"Isn’t this a little forward? We’re strangers. You’re making me uncomfortable."

Elena stomped her foot.

"You are sitting there with your entire upper body exposed and you’re talking to me about uncomfortable?! Oh my god, just put it on, stop arguing!"

Raphael looked at her. He could feel it, very faintly, a bond connection, so thin compared to the one with Evelyn that it barely registered. Thinner than a fishing line.

’A witch? He looked at her. She doesn’t seem like one at all’, he thought, because she looked entirely, thoroughly, unmistakably like an ordinary person.

He looked down at himself. He genuinely didn’t understand the reaction, gyms were full of people with considerably more muscle mass than he had. By most standards he was actually on the lean side.

He put the clothes on anyway.

Elena spun immediately to face the wall, ears going red.

"You could have said something before you just, you have absolutely no sense of shame, do you?!"

Raphael finished dressing, fixed his hair, and responded with the tone of someone explaining something self-evident.

"First priority is survival. Second is comfort. Dignity and social consideration are further down the hierarchy."

*Are you feral?* Elena thought, jaw twitching, and turned back around.

A silence settled over the room. Then Raphael broke it.

"Where am I?"

Elena blinked and, given his clearly unusual circumstances, opted to give the full address.

"21st District, Zexi City. Oulin Guesthouse, 21 Camps Street."

He looked like he wanted to ask more, so she launched into the whole story of how she’d found him, the alley, the rain, the dragging him home, edited for certain details that weren’t easy to say out loud. She pulled a stool over and sat down across from him while she talked.

Raphael listened through to the end, then frowned slightly.

"Why did you help me? We’re strangers. And you’re a girl living alone, bringing an adult man you don’t know back to your place is dangerous. You understand that, right?"

Elena sat up straight, expression somewhere between righteous and matter-of-fact.

"Because my phone was dead and I couldn’t call anyone, and you were naked and alone in the rain, and hypothermia can kill you, that’s why! It can come on really fast!"

There was one thing she didn’t say: the strange sensation she’d felt when she touched him, that odd warm pull.

With her extensive romance novel reading experience as reference material, she had naturally categorized this as love at first sight.

Raphael considered all the possible explanations he’d run through before she spoke, ritual material, sacrificial offering, experimental subject.

None of them had included straightforward human decency as an option. It reminded him, quietly, of Evelyn.

"Thank you." He said it with genuine sincerity.

His actual constitution meant a night in the rain wouldn’t have done him real harm, but the intention behind it was real, and that was worth something.

Elena waved it off, then couldn’t quite suppress a small self-satisfied grin.

"As for the safety concern, no need to worry about that. Look." She pointed at his wrist. "I still have you cuffed."

Raphael looked at the novelty handcuffs. He was fairly confident he could pull free with about thirty percent of his available force.

The metal was not designed to contain anyone who actually wanted to leave.

But she seemed to find the security meaningful, so he leaned back against the couch cushions and put on an expression of mild helplessness.

"Right, right. Completely cuffed. Can’t do a thing. Oh well."

Elena, who appeared to have limited experience with sarcasm delivered at this particular frequency, accepted this with a satisfied nod.

She’s genuinely innocent, Raphael thought. Good thing I don’t have any intentions toward her either.

Then Elena leaned forward, visibly curious.

"Actually, what did happen to you? You had no clothes on, your left hand was missing, and you were just lying in an alley in the rain. What on earth..."

Raphael hesitated briefly. He didn’t quite have the heart to lie to her outright, so he settled on a partial truth.

"Lost a bet. Missed the twenty percent chance. The hand was self-inflicted. After that, people came after me, I didn’t get away in time, took a beating, blacked out, and woke up in that alley."

Elena listened with eyes growing progressively wider, mouth drifting open, clearly constructing an elaborate mental drama from the raw material he was providing.

"So you... gambled away all your money, the debt collectors caught up with you?"

Raphael paused.

"...What?"