By Zephyria ========
“You can’t wear the mask. Show me your face.”
“I don’t want to. It’s covered in scars.”
“Show me anyway. So I can hate it. No, so I can love it. I don’t know. Just show me.”
“Move.”
“Look at me. Don’t avoid me.”
“I don’t know. I said I don’t know.”
“Say more. I don’t care if you curse at me.”
“Fuck.”
“Ha… keep going. Scream if you have to. No, please scream for me.”
Their words were missing each other. Silver no longer knew what he was saying. The man seemed to be the same.
Suddenly, a desire so intense it was nauseating surged within him. He wanted the man to come closer. He wanted those hands to keep touching his chin. To go further, deeper.
He was crazy. Truly insane. And this guy, too.
Yes. This guy was crazy as well.
It felt strange to attribute this solely to alcohol or drugs. The man before him—his manner of speaking, his gestures, his gaze—was entirely different from the talkative giant Silver had known. He looked extremely violent, as if the soul of a beast had hijacked his body. The moment that thought occurred to him, Silver realized something. He didn’t actually know much about this man.
His name? Almost certainly a fake. His personality? It could be a disguise. Or perhaps he had only revealed a portion of it—only the parts he judged were safe to show others. But the parts he hadn’t revealed… what were they…?
The thought he tried to grasp melted away like salt in water. Once again, all his senses focused on the scent of sandalwood. It was thicker and sweeter than long-simmered wine. The more he inhaled the fragrance, the more his heart fluttered, and for some reason, his body began to burn. His lower abdomen, in particular, felt hot. His gaze drifted toward the man’s crotch again. Even aphrodisiacs probably wouldn’t make a body burn this much… Wait, aphrodisiacs…
Something surfaced from the bottom of his melting consciousness.
〔You can think of it as becoming like someone who has taken an aphrodisiac.〕
〔It goes beyond just wanting to have sex; your head becomes filled with nothing but thoughts of the other person’s genitals. Your expressions and behavior become strange, too.〕
Silver hugged himself tightly with both arms. His vision wavered.
Then this was…
He had never experienced this while using hallucination herbs or drugs. Not once. His mind had grown cloudy, his vision had twisted, and the world had seemed ridiculous many times, but the depths of his body had never burned on its own. But now it was different. An absurdly intense urge, a physical reaction, was crashing over him in waves.
Was this… a symptom of the Rut?
Then the iris scent the man kept mentioning…
Silver stared blankly at the man. The man met his gaze and inhaled. He breathed in so deeply that his pectoral muscles rose sharply, held it for a short moment, and then exhaled slowly. He was clearly savoring a scent.
Silver swallowed hard. He wanted to think logically, but his mind was so clouded it felt as if he were wandering through a maze. Pheromones. What had Starry eyes said? Powerful aphrodisiac effect. But the spruce tree himself couldn’t smell his own pheromones… and others couldn’t smell them either. Unless they were an exception.
An exception.
What if the iris scent is the pheromone I’m emitting?
And what if this man is that exception who can smell pheromones?
What if the culprit who hijacked this man’s body and transformed him into a ferocious beast is my pheromone?
His head rang like a bell. He couldn’t connect any more thoughts.
One thing became clear. The disaster he had pushed away, believing it was completely unrelated to him, had finally arrived. The answer to this urgent problem came without the need for long deliberation. It was essentially like patching a collapsed bridge with a few planks, but there was no other exit here. He had intended to lose his virginity anyway, right?
One night is nothing. He’ll just take off the mask as the guy wants…
At that moment, Silver’s mouth went bone-dry. Unlike before, Starry eyes was perfectly fine today. If he took off the mask and the man saw his scarred face, then what?
The man might lose interest and turn his back. Silver might be the only one driven mad by lust, drooling, and eventually rushing out of this room to satisfy his urges with those filthy pirates. Like a dog that mates with its own mother if it can’t find a partner, he’d just grab anyone and roll around.
No.
He hated that. He hated the idea.
Silver’s gaze lost its direction. He suddenly spotted a white bird perched on a stand over the man’s shoulder. It was staring at him intently without moving a muscle. It was a bird, not a dog or a cat, yet strangely, he could see its expression. It looked like a human who was frozen in sheer horror. To make matters worse, it had one leg awkwardly lifted.
It was then.
“Aaaah—!”
The bird let out a scream.
“I can’t watch this anymore! I’m leaving—!”
Silver questioned his own sanity. The bird is talking?! Moreover, that voice—it’s the voice of a cute human child!
The bird shot up from the perch like a projectile, circled the room halfway, and made a sharp turn toward the half-open door. In an instant, the white bird vanished into the dark corridor. The sound of fluttering wings faded away.
A second commotion broke out. The pouch on his belt suddenly began to bulge and move. Silver reflexively looked down.
“Starry eyes?”
Unconsciously, his hand went to the button of the belt pouch. Before he could even undo the button halfway, Starry eyes burst out from under the pouch cover. The bonnet on its triangular head was crooked, and its apron fluttered like a torn sail.
“Star—!”
Before Silver could grab it, Starry eyes floated up into the air and flew out the door. It was so fast that Silver’s outstretched hand grasped only transparent air.
“Starry eyes…”
Silver lowered his hand and murmured vacantly. The man looked toward the darkness outside the door and then shifted his gaze back to Silver.
“Your bug friend is as fast as my friend, huh? I’ve never seen a praying mantis like that.”
“…He’s not an ordinary mantis.”
“My friend isn’t an ordinary bird either. He can speak human languages. Have you heard of a parrot?”
“A parrot?”
“Do you know about the Lowgreen Race of Atania?”
“I’ve seen them once.”
It was a person with captivating brown skin and curly hair. He had seen one at a port in Atania during a brief visit with Black Weasel.
“The homeland of all parrots traded as pets in Atania is Lowgreen. I heard Lowgreen is covered in tropical rainforests.”
Silver remained silent. He didn’t raise his hand to stop the man. Even though the man’s hand had, at some point, pushed back the robe’s hood and was untying the knot of Silver’s mask string.
The illusion Starry eyes had cast over Silver’s face was originally a type of camouflage to disguise himself, similar to protective coloration. However, this illusion vanishes completely if Starry eyes is injured or moves too far away from Silver.
He felt the movement of the man’s fingers untying the knot. Silver barely suppressed his breath, which was growing ragged of its own accord.
“Parrots are as common as sparrows in Lowgreen, but in other regions, they sell for more than peacocks. Have you seen a peacock? They’re more famous than parrots, so you must have heard the name.”
The string came loose.
The man slid his fingers under the mask pressed against Silver’s face. The mask pulled away.
For a while, the man said nothing. That silence touched Silver’s face first.
“Beautiful.”
The man took a step back, his eyes never leaving Silver’s face.
“This is it. This is it.”
The man admired him openly.
“To think you hid something this beautiful from me. Fuck.”
Silver pressed his back tightly against the wall. His bare face felt as if it were on fire. Not because of the heat, but because of the man’s gaze.
Amber eyes scanned Silver’s face. Slowly and thoroughly, as if reading a long-awaited letter. It was merely a gaze, yet he felt a sensation more vivid than the touch of the human-skin mask that had been pressed against his skin. An unbearable urge to cover his face with both hands surged within him, but his arms hung limp, motionless.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like how?”
The man asked back immediately.
“How can I not look at a face like this?”
The man took half a step closer. His collarbone was almost touching Silver’s chin. Silver’s body grew even hotter.
“You know. You know what’s happening to you and me right now.”
The man’s voice was rough.
“Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“You’re not in your right mind.”
“That’s true.”
The man added without hesitation.
“Even so, the fact that you smell like irises doesn’t change. Just as you smell the sandalwood.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t? Then do you not know this either? I want to hold you.”
The man drove straight in. Silver was speechless.
“I want to hold you.”
The man repeated the same words.
“Don’t you want me too? Is it just me?”
“You’re on drugs…”
“I didn’t take any drugs.”
“Even if you say that…”
Silver tried to sneer. He wanted to snap back, asking if he really expected him to believe that. But the moment he opened his mouth, entirely different words formed on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t a denial or a mockery, but something he hadn’t expected himself…
“If you come closer…”
He tried to stop, but it was too late. His mouth moved on its own.
“I won’t stop you.”
Only after uttering the words of permission did Silver understand the warning his biological father had once given him.
‘Words are like blood flowing from a wound. You can never put them back in. No matter how much you regret it.’
The man’s eyes widened slightly.
A beat later, the man’s bare feet stepped forward. The distance that had separated Silver and him until now vanished in an instant. Body pressed against body. Silver felt breathless under the strong pressure.
Finally, the man’s fingers touched Silver’s chin. The moment the rough calluses on his fingertips touched his skin, a sharp shock spread through his entire body. The man’s other hand braced against the wall beside Silver’s head.
As the shadow fell over him, Silver closed his eyes.
110 – Hell’s Execution Order