By Zephyria =======
Stuffy Field Mouse continued to gaze at Silver while kneading the dough. He was blinking. He looked like someone unable to tear his eyes away, curious about something glimpsed through a window that had opened and closed for a brief moment.
“Were you originally from the warrior class too? From a fallen tribe, like me?”
“I don’t feel like answering.”
Silver drew a line.
“My throat hurts. Just keep kneading your dough.”
Stuffy Field Mouse’s expression stiffened. His lips twitched a few times before clamping shut. It seemed as though he had forcibly swallowed words that had gathered on the tip of his tongue. He soon turned around abruptly and roughly yanked open the iron door of the oven. Dry heat spread through the room.
Stuffy Field Mouse placed the lumps of dough onto the stone shelves inside the oven one by one. A dull thud echoed every time a piece of dough hit the shelf. The sound of the oven door slamming shut and the sound of a knife banging against the cutting board followed. A fierce, sharp irritation bled through the noise.
To throw a tantrum like that just because he was refused an answer. He’s a guy who hasn’t experienced being ignored enough. Though, looking at his appearance and skill, that was only natural.
Silver rested his chin on his hand and looked down at the floor. Rainwater that had dripped from his robe had pooled in a crescent shape beneath the chair. A belated question occurred to him.
Why am I acting like this?
He had followed Stuffy Field Mouse out. He had even spilled personal history that he usually kept hidden, like a miser guarding his coins.
There were several answers. He was curious if the noisy, chatterbox giant had kicked the bucket. He figured it wouldn’t matter if he revealed the origin of his lineage and name. All of those were true. The problem was that one more fundamental answer remained, like a dagger hidden in his robe.
It’s because of what happened that night.
Silver swallowed hard. The scent of sandalwood clung stubbornly to his memory. It felt as if the terrible heat of the man’s body, which had crushed the sound of the rain, was still pressing down on his flank.
If it were a dying person, he should have felt pity. Or he should have found it bothersome, like a burden forced upon him. However, at that moment, Silver had felt—quite absurdly—a thirst, if only for a second. The heat radiating from the man had awakened something deep inside him that he had never felt before. He wanted to know what else lay inside that boundary he had already crossed. He wanted to keep going further.
He had wanted that. From a dying man.
He had never experienced such a feeling before. That thing people usually called desire. He hadn’t even harbored a vague curiosity. Not once, toward the women strolling through the bathhouse, nor the men staggering half-naked in the back alleys and taverns. Not toward anyone.
To Silver, desire was a legend. Or the melody of a bard’s song, the ramblings of a drunkard. Yet, on a night of torrential rain, his own body had suddenly rebelled with a single, brief kiss from a man driven by fever.
But why a man? Was I the type to be attracted to men?
Silver wrinkled the bridge of his nose. Stoll People didn’t particularly care which gender they did that with. The problem was the specificity. Of all people, why was he attracted to a guy who looked like the Attendant? Why!
Could it be because he looks like the Attendant…?
But the Attendant is the bastard who killed my biological father…
…
After spinning his thoughts around, Silver crafted the best possible logic. The order was wrong. Long before he met Wolf, he had already unconsciously set a man who looked like Wolf as his ideal type! Someone with amber eyes, blonde hair with a hint of silver, a firm bridge of the nose, strong brow bones, and a face that suited a bright smile!
In other words, the reason Silver reacted to Stuffy Field Mouse was that he resembled his ideal type. It wasn’t because he resembled Wolf! Phew, sorted!
Fuck. I’ve lived as a virgin for too long.
Because he was a Stoll Person, he had uselessly guarded his purity, and that’s how this mess happened. If you don’t pull the cork for too long, the taste of the wine goes strange. If he had just done it with anyone in his early teens like other Stoll youths, he wouldn’t be flustered like this.
The moment he returns to the mainland, he’ll grab anyone and graduate from his virginity. Dammit, what does purity even matter? He’ll throw it away like spitting out phlegm!
After some time had passed, the savory and warm scent of bread wafted through the air. The sound of bread crusts crackling came from inside the oven. The sweet smell of milk and spices also rose.
Stuffy Field Mouse snapped his fingers in front of Silver’s face.
“Eat.”
Silver looked up. Two pieces of bread steaming on a wooden cutting board. Beside them, a bowl of milk porridge smelling of honey.
Silver looked away. Instead of Stuffy Field Mouse, he stared intently at the wall blackened by the oven smoke.
“I’m good. You eat it.”
A brief silence followed those words.
“Why, you—.”
Stuffy Field Mouse started to speak harshly but stopped. The voice he used when he spoke again after a pause was, instead, calm and low.
“You eat it. I made it for you.”
It was a tone anyone raised in a harsh world had encountered countless times. Black Weasel used to speak in that voice when he was barely suppressing the urge to throw something.
“You made it. So you should eat it.”
Silver moved his lips while still staring at the wall.
“If you made it for me, you wasted your time. You served only the things I hate.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“The bread, the milk, the honey—all of it?”
“Yeah. I hate them.”
“Did I misunderstand something?”
Silver paused and finally looked at Stuffy Field Mouse. Clear anger was etched in the man’s eyes. The red light of the oven behind him blurred the contours of his solid physique.
“Misunderstand? What?”
At Silver’s question, Stuffy Field Mouse closed his eyes. He slowly inhaled, held it, and exhaled. Thick veins throbbed in his forearm.
“I…”
Stuffy Field Mouse opened his mouth. He sounded as if he were forcing out words he didn’t even want to put on the tip of his tongue.
“I thought we had become a bit closer. You and I.”
At those words, Silver realized that even in moments of extreme panic, the blood in one’s body could flow backward.
The man continued before Silver could find an answer.
“I nursed you all night. And you came looking for me through the rain. I thought that meant something.”
It was a relief he was wearing a human-skin mask. If it had been his bare face, his bright red complexion would have been discovered instantly.
Stuffy Field Mouse’s words meant nothing more than becoming a bit closer as comrades. It was, so to speak, like a carelessly thrown pebble. The only problem was that a passing ladybug had been hit by the pebble and crushed. It hit home with the irrefutable precision of a perfect strike that took out prisoners, exposing the truth Silver had been desperately ignoring. He felt as if his own desire had been exposed by the other man’s mouth.
Furthermore, the party in question was glaring at him from up close. Golden hair shimmering with moisture, white flour smeared here and there on his upper body. That half-naked, solid physique was enough to remind Silver of the heat that had lingered on his lips that night.
Silver was overcome with fear. The heat spreading from his face was already reaching his nape. He will see. He will notice.
I don’t want to be caught!
“Yeah. You misunderstood.”
Silver stood up abruptly. The chair legs screeched against the floor.
“Now that I’ve confirmed you aren’t dead, I’m leaving.”
The stairs leading to the exit were slippery with rainwater. Silver climbed two steps at a time. He didn’t look back until he stepped outside.
The alley was filled with torrential rain and fog. Silver walked ploddingly, hurriedly searching through his mind. He needed other thoughts to drive away the longing, the amber eyes, and the brief kiss.
The replacement Silver pulled from the drawer of his mind was a certain man. His mother’s last lover.
Regulating his breath, he aimed his thoughts toward the replacement. His thoughts, which had been swaying like the fingertips of a drunkard, finally hit the target after about twenty more steps.
He had been a wealthy merchant who traveled between Atania and Stohl. A wounded widower who had no children, and he was kind to Silver. He was sincere toward Silver’s mother. He had wanted to marry her and build a happy home. If things had worked out then, Silver’s life would have bent toward a completely different trajectory. The stepson of a wealthy merchant. His mother would have given birth to two or three younger siblings for Silver.
However, one night, the merchant was murdered by a giant draped in wolf skin. Along with Silver’s mother, who shared the same bed.
99 – Hell’s Execution Order