By Zephyria 
The question was out of the blue, and more than that, utterly absurd. Silver, are your eyes buttonholes? I’ve changed a lot in a year, but my face is still fresh, isn’t it?
Even though his physique had suddenly become very robust after turning twenty, his fellow warriors had said in unison, “Still, your face… looks youthful.” Whenever he made eye contact with the drunk uncles, they would hurriedly fumble through their pockets and hand him money, telling him to “use it as pocket money.” Red Eagle often emphasized, “Your face still looks like a seventeen-year-old boy, Wolf!” Having firmly believed that while his body had grown like a giant, his face had not lost the fresh scent of a teenager, Wolf felt more than just absurdity—he felt offense at Silver’s “thirty years old?” comment. If the other person hadn’t been Silver, he would have held him upside down and shaken him without hesitation.
“You saw wrong. I’m twenty this year.”
“Don’t make me laugh. I’m twenty, and I look way younger than you.”
“I’ll give you that. But I really am twenty. You’re just excessively youthful-looking.”
“Don’t lower your age. You’re thirty, right?”
“No, how… where on my face do I look like a thirty-year-old uncle?”
Finally, a harsh voice burst out.
“I didn’t want to go this far, but I’ve heard—very, very often—that my face is exactly as it was at seventeen. Ah, of course, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as when I was seventeen. The point is, I’ve heard until my ears bled that I look youthful. Even if I’m not like you, I’m also youthful-looking!”
“Really twenty…?”
Silver stared intently at Wolf. Seeing the look of great shock spreading across that face, Wolf became even more bewildered. I really am twenty. Even if seventeen was just the Prince’s exaggeration, my face should easily pass for nineteen.
“Stop prying about my age. Is that the end of your questions?”
“…Well. Not exactly.”
Silver tilted his head.
“First, do you experience the Rut like I do? Is that why you were so strange earlier?”
“Yeah.”
Wolf rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
“Sorry if I startled you. I wasn’t in my right mind because I’ve been suffering from Rut symptoms for a few days. It was also my first time experiencing a Rut.”
“First? But even on the day you had the fever, you smelled of sandalwood.”
“I’m a bit unique. Like other mutants, I was asexual during my teens, but I go through another manifestation process over the course of a year around the age of twenty. That’s the periodic fever. I think that sandalwood scent probably leaked out during the final stages of manifestation. Like a kettle whistling before it boils. And that night, you were emitting pheromones too.”
“I guess my pheromones leaked out on their own.”
Silver replied indifferently and glared at Wolf.
“You cunning bastard, you noticed I was a spruce tree that night and pretended not to know? You had your senior on standby to satisfy your Rut urges, so you called me, right? Because you didn’t want to fuck that toothless one-eyed pirate.”
“It’s a misunderstanding; I was in a coma from the fever then. I just brushed off the iris scent I smelled that night as a dream or a delusion. I only knew for sure that you were a spruce tree last night.”
Wolf shot back without a change in expression. It wasn’t a lie. Though he had deleted some facts and expressed things ambiguously.
“The senior was on standby because you took so long to return. I wanted to appoint you as an officer while reorganizing the pirate crew.”
“Your tongue sure is nimble.”
Silver curled the corners of his mouth into a smile and shrugged.
“Fine, I’ll let it slide since you helped me put out the immediate fire. Anyway, use Rut suppressants like I do. I know someone who makes them.”
“What… suppressants? What are those?”
Wolf instinctively craned his neck. It was as abrupt as if the hull had changed direction on its own before the bow had even turned.
“Exactly what they sound like. Medicine that suppresses the Rut.”
Silver spread his arms wide as if to demonstrate.
“I was perfectly fine until I lost my suppressants. Rut? I’ve never experienced it. Not once. If my bug friend hadn’t been hurt, I would have swallowed a suppressant around this time a week ago. If only those little pills hadn’t spilled out of my pocket and dissolved completely in the damn rain.”
At those words, Wolf remembered. The pouring rain. Silver sitting blankly while holding the mantis fairy in his palm. In front of him, dozens of fish-feed pellets dissolving in the muddy water. Those were Rut suppressants?
“Were they made by a witch or a wizard? Look, I think differently. Your Rut might actually have been your first time. Even if they work, you could suffer dangerous side effects later.”
“Not some witch or wizard scrap. A recognized doctor from Atania. They say he’s researched mutants for decades. I’ve heard that many mutants have been secretly using suppressants made by that Grandma for a long time.”
“An Atania doctor…”
Wolf swallowed hard. He felt as if he had been hit in the back of the head without realizing it. No, he had been stupid from the start. Hadn’t he known long ago that there were many Atania scholars devoted to mutant research? Despite that, he hadn’t even considered that one of them might have developed a pharmacological defense for mutants.
“If it’s a recognized doctor from Atania, I can trust that. Where is he?”
“Morgan. If we go fast, we’ll arrive within two weeks.”
Silver grinned.
“Now, you understand, right? You’re setting sail tomorrow. I’ll guide you to that Grandma, so let’s go together.”
“Fuck. That’s great.”
It was as if a fair wind had suddenly hit the sails that had been struggling against headwinds for ten straight days. Wolf’s heart beat with excitement.
He was luckier than he thought. Now there was no reason to fear ending his life on a time limit. The long speech he had prepared was now scrapped. He had avoided the miserable situation of uttering horribly disgusting and pathetic lines like, ‘I can’t solve my Rut without you. If it’s okay, I want us to continue having sexual relations. I’ll provide the contraceptives.’
Wolf finally smiled with a light heart.
“Alright, let’s leave tomorrow. You’re surprisingly thorough. I didn’t know you’d gotten prescriptions for both Rut suppressants and contraceptives from an Atania doctor.”
“The contraceptives…”
Silver hesitated, his voice trailing off. Wolf paused.
“What, did you buy the contraceptives separately? Where? From whom?”
A bad feeling washed over him. Contraceptives and abortifacients were commonly circulated everywhere under the name of folk remedies. Most were ineffective, and some were lethal poisons.
“You did get those from a witch or a wizard, right? You shouldn’t blindly trust folk contraceptives. I have a reliable recipe for an abortifacient. When it gets light, let’s go up the mountain and gather the necessary herbs.”
“It’ll probably taste like dog shit.”
“I don’t know since I’ve never tried it. But we can’t avoid this. You know, your body…”
“What about my body?”
At Silver’s question, Wolf’s lips stiffened. The hot water his legs were dipped in suddenly felt ice-cold. He felt as if the blood flowing through his veins had frozen in an instant.
No way.
“…You don’t know that far? Was contraception just for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy?”
“Is there another use for contraception? Anyway, what about my body? What is it?”
Silver’s voice lowered. His eyes were sharp, as if he had read something from the atmosphere.
Wolf looked down and steadied his breathing. He thought things were going too well, and eventually, he hit a reef. He was faced with a situation where he finally had to utter the lines he had been most reluctant to say. Damn it. Damn it!
In the silence, white steam drifted between the two. Silver just stared at Wolf without even blinking. He had sensed something. Wolf urged himself internally. Don’t avoid it. Do it.
It was something that had to be done.
“Silver, listen calmly.”
Wolf barely managed to force the words out of his mouth.
“The body of a spruce tree cannot undergo natural childbirth. There is no way to give birth other than cutting open the belly to take the baby out.”
The expression vanished from Silver’s face. He looked like a book whose letters had suddenly all flown away.
“If the doctor’s hand doesn’t shake, if you’re very lucky, the baby lives. But not the mother.”
Having said only this, Wolf fell silent. Silver remained quiet. He didn’t move an inch, as if he couldn’t even breathe. Only the sound of waves and wind drifting from afar floated between the two.
Eventually, Wolf poured wine into a glass and downed it in one gulp. He couldn’t taste it. He set the glass down roughly, stepped into the tub, and approached Silver. He reached out a hand into the water and grabbed Silver.
Silver’s hand was much smaller than Wolf’s. It was like a pebble.