The man stared at Hajin for a second, then barked out a short laugh as if he had just heard the dumbest joke known to men.
"Are you insane?" he asked, still keeping his hand tight on Juna's arm. "I am being nice here, so you should play along while I am in a good mood."
His grin stretched wider after that, casual in a way that made Hajin want to break his teeth one by one.
"A beastkin like this is way too good for a nobody dressed like you," the man said, giving Juna's arm a small tug. "You should be thanking me for taking that burden off your hands."
Juna felt her stomach twist hard enough to hurt.
It was not even the words by themselves, because she heard things like that before from humans who looked at beastkin girls and only saw a body they could buy, trade or drag around, but the way he said it so lightly made her skin crawl.
At the edge of Hajin's vision, the stream comments started jumping so fast the panel kept shifting upward.
[ CringeSlayer91:] nah this dude has a foul mouth
[ ShadowMage44:] why is hajin just taking all this disrespect
[ NewViewer_02:] is he a coward after all??
[ LurkerNoMore:] bro your summon is getting disrespected right in front of you
[ CringeSlayer91:] if he folds here thats actually pathetic
He did not see any of it, he was too busy looking at the man's hand on Juna's arm and the smug way his mouth kept moving. But what catching his eyes more was Juna, he could she was holding back her fear and seeing that just sat wrong with him.
'I told him nicely,' he thought, something cold settling into place in his chest. 'So if he wants the ugly version, fine.'
The man kept running his mouth, trying to show he was the dominant one.
"Come on, don't make that face," he said, mistaking Hajin's silence for weakness. "You are standing in a guild hall full of people. What exactly do you think you can do here?"
He gave Juna another pull, not enough to drag her forward but enough to show he could, and Hajin moved before his own thoughts caught up.
His hand shot out, grabbed the man's mouth so hard the rest of the sentence died in his throat, then lifted.
"Mmph-"
The man left the ground in one motion, gasps breaking out around them while his boots kicked uselessly in the air. Hajin stood there with one arm raised, holding him up by the face like he weighed nothing at all.
A ring of light appeared around his wrist right after, thin and bright, completely wrong for anyone in that room.
The guild hall went quiet, even the usual background noise near the front desk seemed to cut out for a second as every set of eyes in the room had locked onto that ring.
'What the hell?' one of the nearby adventurers thought, taking an involuntary step back' 'he has a ring, not a shard?'
The man clawed at Hajin's wrist with both hands, panic already breaking through his earlier smugness, but Hajin did not even blink.
"I warned you," he said, his voice low and flat while he looked straight into the man's bulging eyes. "So why are you acting surprised now?"
The guy tried to force mana through his body on instinct, two shards rising around his arm, but the moment they formed, Hajin slammed him sideways into the nearest pillar, making the wood crack and the Shards broke apart before any skill could come out.
"Ghk-" He coughed under Hajin's hand, body spasming once before going tense again.
Juna stared at the scene with her ears half raised, half flattened, and in that moment, her mind went completely blank because this did not fit the shape of what she expected from him at all.
'He actually did it,' she thought, pulse stumbling inside her chest, 'he stood up for me... a human actually stood up for me?' She was so shocked her mind kept replying that same thought over and over.
One of the man's friends took a step forward after finally shaking off the shock.
"Hey, let him go," he said, though the words came out less confident than he probably wanted. "You can't just-"
Hajin turned his head and looked at him, that was all it took for the man to stop what he wanted to say.
'Tch, those eyes,' the man thought, 'he is assuring me that if I get involved, I will be next. I can't be hasty too since he has an unknown power.' The looked at the ring and decided the risk was just not worth it.
Hajin looked away from him and shifted his grip on the man he was holding, then started walking.
The guy made a panicked sound right away because he had no control over where he was being taken, his boots scraping uselessly against the floor while Hajin dragged him forward with one arm.
Juna stiffened when Hajin stopped right in front of her.
He lowered the man just enough that their faces were almost level, but his hand still stayed clamped over the guy's mouth, making his breathing come out broken and wet through his nose.
"Look at her," he said, his voice still flat. "Go on."
The man tried to turn his face away on instinct, and Hajin immediately tightened his grip until a painful muffled sound came out of him.
"I said look at her."
Juna's eyes widened a little when the man was forced to face her properly.
For a second she did not know where to look, because humans who talked like this usually never got dragged down to her level after. They talked, laughed, bought, touched and moved on, while beastkin girls were the ones told to endure it quietly.
'Why is he making him do this?' she thought, fingers tightening around the blanket. 'Why is he taking this so seriously?'
At the edge of the scene, the comments were still going wild.
[ CringeSlayer91:] Oh damn, he has a big pair after all.
[ ShadowMage44:] That's what I am talking about! Walk em down and show you are the bigger man.
Hajin still did not look at them, pulling his hand off the man's mouth so he can speak.
"Now apologize to Juna," he said, keeping his other hand locked on the man's throat. "And think very carefully before you say the wrong thing."
The guy sucked in a hard breath and immediately glared at Juna, the fear in his face mixing badly with humiliation and anger.
"You crazy little-"
He slammed the back of his head into the pillar behind him, the crack echoing across the guild hall, making more than one person flinch.
"Wrong answer," he said.
The man's body went limp for a second from the hit, then jerked weakly when Hajin dragged him upright again.
Juna stared at them both, and something in her chest twisted in a way she did not know how to name. It was not simple relief and it was not trust, because trust did not come that fast, but watching him keep pressing the issue for her sake made it harder and harder to stay numb.
'He really isn't doing this for show,' she thought, ears twitching once. 'All this is for me? But why, I have done nothing to deserve that kindness from him.'
He brought the man close again until he was facing Juna a second time.
"Try again," he said. "Her name is Juna, apologize for touching her, and mean enough of it that I don't have to keep teaching you."
The man's lips shook once as he finally looked at her properly now, maybe for the first time since grabbing her, and whatever he saw in Hajin's face from the corner of his vision made the last bit of resistance crack.
"S-sorry," he said, voice rough. He swallowed hard, then forced the rest out before fear could choke it off. "Sorry, Juna. I am sorry for touching you."
The room stayed dead silent after that.
Juna did not answer as she did not even know what to say in such a situation. Nobody had ever stopped a human in the middle of a room like this and made him apologize to her.
'What am I even supposed to say to that?' she thought, eyes flicking from the man to Hajin and then back again.
Her lips parted a little.
"I..."
She was about to say something when someone walked in, making several people turn toward the entrance on instinct.
"What's going on here?"