Hugging pillows is no substitute for hugging a person. Castorice understood this, but she could never compare it to hugging a person; she had only experienced it once in her life, and it had not ended well. After that, she never experienced a real hug again. People in her arms immediately became cold as corpses, and she never experienced any of the "warm loving embraces" described in books. Once, in desperation, she even tried to hug a tree, but it rotted completely in 10 seconds.

And then you appeared. Of course, you died from her touch, which was not surprising, but unlike other people, you came back to life, and when Castorice saw this for the first time, she decided that she was going crazy from despair. After several experiments, finding out that you die but not to death, she seemed to break free from her chains. First, since you were colleagues, she had the right to be there, and second, hugs. She could ask for hugs. And although she was ashamed to approach you with words about how she urgently needed physical contact, otherwise she would go crazy with despair and start gnawing on trees like a beaver, in the end, both you and she came to terms with it.

What was scarier than the hug was how you went limp the moment your soul left your body. Hugging you after she got permission, Castorice trembled when you went limp and almost fell on her. For those five seconds, she fell back into panic. Are you dead? Will you open your eyes? Will everything be okay? What if she took another innocent soul who trusted her? Was she doomed to never feel human again?

And then you opened your eyes. She exhaled, pretending she wasn't ready to dive into the sea of souls. Hugging you tighter, the girl finally allowed herself to relax and pretend that she was just as human as all the people around her.