By Zephyria 
Can he not smell the blood? I doubt he’d stay still if he knew. I rubbed the blood on my index finger with my thumb to erase the trace, then sat down on the chair.
Aska looked at the book in my hand and asked, “Did you read the book?”
“As soon as you left, the gnats kept buzzing as if telling me to read it.”
Why can’t he suddenly smell the blood? Come to think of it, I couldn’t even remember when he last drank my blood. It hasn’t been since we returned from the Ruins, has it?
Even when we slept together, he didn’t bite hard enough to draw blood.
“Buzzing? You can hear them?”
Aska’s eyes widened in surprise. At that moment, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the smell or taste of my blood had changed. Something had changed in my body, too.
But even so, he should be able to smell unfamiliar blood. Since he didn’t mention it, could it be that Aska had changed, not me?
“Can’t you hear them?”
As I asked, lost in thought, Aska sat next to me and handed me a steaming cup. It was a pale green tea, but it smelled strongly of grass.
“I can hear them too.”
Do I really have to drink this? I don’t like tea much, and the unpleasant smell made me even less inclined to drink it. But I couldn’t throw away something Aska had made for me. I steeled myself and took a sip of the tea.
It was so bitter that the taste, which I wouldn’t normally notice, hit my brain intensely. Startled, I asked with a flustered expression, “Did you perhaps confuse it with a poisonous herb? It’s too bitter.”
“It’s a little bitter, but not that much. Don’t say weird things and just think of it as medicine. Would I give you poison?”
Aska frowned as if he was dumbfounded.
“No, in the first place, I don’t even have muscle pain…”
I tried to drink it calmly, but it was so bad that I ended up grumbling like a child complaining about food.
“It’s too hot, so I’ll drink it when it cools down a bit.”
Sipping it little by little was more painful, so I thought it would be better to drink it all at once when it cooled down later.
Anyway, I could have asked Aska why he couldn’t smell the blood, but strangely, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was clear that Aska was hiding something from me, but I was reluctant to pry.
Aska didn’t seem to know exactly about the changes in my body either. But he seemed to have a rough idea of why this was happening.
“Have you seen this before?”
“My grandmother gave it to me, so I’ve read it all.”
At those words, I asked back in surprise, “Your grandmother gave you this?”
“She said she brought it from the royal palace before she passed away and gave it to me.”
Something felt strange. I stared blankly at the smooth cover of the book with a sullen expression.
I wondered why the word “rag” felt so out of place, but I had heard it in a scene I saw in a dream. In a dream where the sky was dyed crimson and strangely shaped beings, neither human nor Magical creatures, were gathered in a circle.
‘Henceforth, anyone who attempts to undermine his mission, whatever it may be, shall become rags and wander endlessly around the perimeter of the boundary.’
Come to think of it, there was also a being in that place that looked similar to a gnat. Only the face was different, but the characteristics were exactly the same.
As I was thinking about that while turning the pages, Aska took out another book from somewhere.
“She gave me that and this.”
I received the small book that Aska handed me. I thought it was strange that there was no title, but this was not a book but a journal. In other words, an old diary that Aska’s mother had been writing since she was young.
“Is it okay for me to see this?”
“What does it matter? I’ve seen it too.”
You’re his son…
I felt guilty for peeking into someone else’s diary, so I didn’t read it too closely and just skimmed through it. There were no difficult sentences like in
The diary ended with the content that she was so happy to be pregnant with a child presumed to be Aska.
I carefully returned the diary to Aska.
“Have you ever seen your mother?”
Aska shook his head at my question.
“I’ve never seen her. I’ve never heard any stories about her either. My grandmother didn’t say anything special until she passed away.”
Still, it was fortunate that she left behind some belongings.
It wasn’t very noticeable, but he didn’t seem to be in a good mood. I quietly chose what to say to Aska. Comforting others was always too difficult.
“She may not have left much behind due to difficult circumstances, but she must have loved you a lot.”
“Suddenly?”
Aska asked back with a bewildered expression, as if he thought my words were out of the blue. I nodded and said seriously. Even if I had to comfort him suddenly, I didn’t lie.
“She was probably scared to have you at a young age and the situation wasn’t very good, but there’s nothing like that in the diary. You can tell just by the fact that your grandmother, who was your nanny, stayed with you and waited for you until she passed away.”
“Is that so?”
Aska tilted his head to the side.
“Originally, my mother left a will saying that I should never go to the royal palace. But because there was so little money and it was cold, my grandmother thought that if I went to the royal palace, I wouldn’t starve, so she sent me, and she apologized for doing that.”
If his grandmother hadn’t made that choice at that time and had continued to live with Aska according to the will, we would not have met. But considering the humiliation Aska suffered in the royal palace, it’s strange to say it was fortunate.
Ah, thinking about it makes me angry again.
As I was seething inside, Aska handed me the teacup with a much better expression than before.
“It’s cooled down, so drink it.”
“…”
Cold water was poured on my raging heart. I had forgotten.
“You didn’t put anything in here, did you? Why are you trying so hard to feed it to me?”
Aska smiled as I narrowed my eyes and asked suspiciously.
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t work on you anyway, would it?”
“Almost.”
I gave up, held my breath, and poured all the lukewarm tea into my mouth. Even though I swallowed it without breathing, the terrible bitterness made me shiver.
The taste was so shocking that my tongue was numb. Aska was flustered when I spaced out.
“Is it really that weird? It’s not that bad, is it?”
That’s because everything tastes good to you… I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest, and I looked at Aska with moist eyes.
“It’s edible. But I should just not walk in the future. Then I won’t have to prevent muscle pain from happening.”
Aska reached out and rubbed my eyes with a bewildered expression.
“Okay, don’t drink it next time. I just wanted to make you drink it too because it was the last thing I drank with my grandmother.”
I thought it was a little strange that he suddenly mentioned muscle pain. The taste was terrible, but the reason was so cute that it was soon neutralized.
I grabbed Aska’s hand, which was rubbing my eyes, and smiled lewdly.
“Do you want to tell me all sorts of things like that?”
I’ve felt that a lot lately. Aska was telling me everything he had experienced while we were apart, as if he were writing a diary. Aska rolled his eyes, perhaps embarrassed that I had hit the nail on the head, and mumbled vaguely, looking away from me.
“Let’s go to the sea later, too.”
“Why the sea?”
“I’ll show you something amazing.”
“Did you find something amazing too?”
I was so in love that I was about to react below, but I desperately held back. It wasn’t like I could fool around with Aska in this place, even for me, who had a history of committing incest.
After stroking his hair and kneading his soft cheeks, we slowly went outside.
“I forgot to buy flowers.”
“Grandmother doesn’t like flowers much.”
“Let’s be sure to buy them next time we come.”
Behind the cabin was a tombstone made of rough stone. Aska said he made it, so perhaps that’s why nothing, not even a name, was written on it.
Did he just carve a stone and set it up? No, it didn’t even look like he had carved it. It was a ridiculous shape that looked like he had broken a rock and picked out a long fragment and stuck it in the ground.
I decided to call someone later to set up a proper tombstone and pretended not to notice for now.
“But what do you have to do when you come to a grave?”
Then Aska asked a difficult question to answer. I had never mourned anyone before, so it was an area I didn’t know about. Should I make up some words? I decided to just be honest.
“I don’t know either.”
“Everyone seems to cry, though.”
I couldn’t hug Aska and shed tears here. I shook my head, recalling the event held on the anniversary of the first Emperor in Actan.
And I spoke as if his grandmother was sitting in front of the tombstone.
“I will take good care of Aska.”
“Am I a child? Why take care of me?”
Aska grumbled in a small voice as if whispering. It wasn’t like his grandmother was really in front of us, but we both reduced the volume of our voices without either of us saying anything first.
“I’m just saying.”
“I can take care of you too. I have money.”
“Why are you suddenly talking about money?”
“I can buy you everything you need too.”
Did someone say something about money? I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I looked at Aska with a puzzled expression and turned my head back to the front.
“Anyway, I will live happily with Aska.”
“I’ll live happily too.”
Then Aska suddenly clapped his hands. I followed suit and clapped a few times, then burst out laughing.
“Is this the right thing to do?”
“I don’t know.”
We looked at each other and laughed, clapping together for a long time.