Chapter 60
As he hesitated, unsure of what this situation was all about,
The Grand Duke transformed into a cat and slowly approached Ruan. Ruan sensed the Grand Duke’s strong will in those weak movements.
“Are you really… going to let me trim them?”
He asked once more just to be sure… but the Grand Duke’s determination was firm.
In the end, Ruan had no choice but to bring out the nail clippers he had prepared just in case.
As Ruan sat down with the clippers, the Grand Duke slowly climbed onto his lap. Ruan cradled the Grand Duke’s limp body in his arms and spoke.
“Are you really… sure about this?”
He kept thinking this couldn’t be right, but… Ruan carefully lifted the Grand Duke’s soft front paw.
Snip. Snip.
Ruan glanced sideways to check on the Grand Duke. The Grand Duke, with an inexplicably tired look in his eyes, averted his gaze from his paw in Ruan’s hand and completely relaxed his body. Ruan slightly adjusted his hold on the slipping Grand Duke and resumed trimming his claws.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
The Grand Duke remained quiet until all the claws on his front paws were trimmed. After confirming this, Ruan carefully reached for the Grand Duke’s hind paws.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
He was trimming as instructed, but… a cat that doesn’t flinch even once while having all its front and hind claws trimmed?
While worried about the completely limp cat, another emotion slowly began to surface.
‘Am I really trimming a cat’s claws this easily?’
It was astonishing.
Usually, trimming a cat’s claws required the readiness to endure injury, the humility to recognize one’s shortcomings and back off at any time, the perceptiveness to accurately gauge the other’s limits, and the reflexes to quickly withdraw when necessary. It was never supposed to be this easy.
Yet here he was, already clearing three paws without any effort.
‘Am I about to trim all 18 claws in one sitting?’
Ruan quickly denied this fleeting, unrealistic thought.
No way. Even in a fantasy world, it couldn’t be that easy.
Pushing too hard with such thoughts would only stress the cat and injure the human.
Ruan humbly picked up the last hind paw.
And then.
Snip. Snip.
‘It can’t be… this easy?’
Snip.
‘Can it?’
Snip.
This… is happening?
Ruan stared at the black sesame mochi-like hind paw in his hand, shocked.
The incredible feat of trimming all of a cat’s claws at once without any incidents had occurred.
‘An angel.’
Is this an angel cat?
The overwhelming feeling from this unexpected amazing experience momentarily overshadowed his worry for the cat.
Feeling incredibly proud of the great cat who allowed all its claws to be trimmed without biting or scratching, Ruan, as he always did with cute, admirable, and lovable balls of fur…
“Such good behavior getting your claws trimmed. Oh, you’re so precious.”
Smooch.
He lifted the cat in his arms and kissed it.
It was a completely thoughtless, natural action.
And Ruan realized what he had done…
When his eyes met the cat staring at him.
* * *
Before the assistant kissed him, the Grand Duke was in a state of great shock.
It was because he had almost hurt his assistant in his desire to keep him close.
Of course, this wasn’t the Grand Duke’s intention. But that made it even more shocking. It meant that he could unconsciously harm his assistant at any time.
The Grand Duke was an overwhelmingly strong creature compared to his assistant. Therefore, if he wanted to, the Grand Duke could forcibly keep his assistant close. Even unconsciously.
But in that process, the weak assistant would inevitably get hurt. Whether physically or emotionally. Perhaps irreversibly so.
As this thought occurred to him, the Grand Duke couldn’t do anything.
The overly distressed Grand Duke didn’t feel like grooming his fur or chasing the light particles flickering before his eyes. Not knowing what to do, all the Grand Duke could do was offer his front paws, which had almost hurt his assistant, to him.
As the blade touched his front paws while he lay limply, lacking even the will to be on guard with wide eyes, another shocking thing happened to the Grand Duke.
The assistant… kissed the Grand Duke.
The Grand Duke looked at his assistant who had just pressed his lips against him.
The act of pressing lips together actually held no meaning for cats.
It wasn’t licking. It wasn’t scent marking. Why on earth were they pressing their lips together?
It was an action whose purpose he couldn’t understand at all.
But the Grand Duke knew that this action held important meaning for humans.
Because his assistant had told him so.
‘It’s a human courtship expression. It’s called a kiss.’
That’s how the assistant had explained that action.
Courtship. A request to become mates. An action humans do to express that, he had said.
So just now, his assistant had…
‘Asked me to become his mate.’
Mate.
The Grand Duke mulled over the word he had just thought of.
This was a word the Grand Duke had never considered before. The Grand Duke had never paid attention to the matter of finding a mate.
He had been busy enough just maintaining and protecting his territory, with no capacity to extend his thoughts to such things…
And above all.
He had never experienced being courted before.
Male cats are basically creatures that go into heat in response to courtship from others. But the individuals around the Grand Duke saw him as an object of fear, not of courtship.
With no one courting him, there was no reason to respond to such advances.
Ruan Daen, who became his assistant this spring, was the first to approach the Grand Duke without fear, and while he was special and unique to the Grand Duke…
The concept of a mate still didn’t exist in the Grand Duke’s mind, and since the assistant had never shown any intention of courtship towards the Grand Duke, the Grand Duke never associated him with the idea of a mate.
The Grand Duke had only thought of him as a member of his group or part of his territory, clearly differentiated from other beings.
And now, receiving courtship for the first time in his life from this assistant.
‘I see.’
The Grand Duke felt like he had gained an insight.
‘I just need to become his mate.’
Not forcibly preventing him from leaving… but making him not want to leave in the first place.
It was a solution he hadn’t thought of earlier because, just as he had never been interested in understanding someone’s feelings, he had never been interested in keeping someone close.
As this solution appeared, shattering all the problems that had been troubling him until now, the Grand Duke’s clever mind, which had been at a loss, began to work quickly.
The Grand Duke was a lord who took care of the humans in his territory. Because of this, even without being interested, he had come to know a few things about human habits…
The Grand Duke dug up one human habit from his mind that he had never paid much attention to before.
‘Humans live their entire lives as one group with their mate once they become mates.’
Of course, there were a few exceptions to this habit. But those were only in cases special enough to reach the Grand Duke’s ears.
The humans living in the Grand Duke’s territory generally lived their whole lives with their mates according to this habit. Since the assistant was a human who had lived in his territory all his life, he would probably be the same.
So if he responded to the assistant’s request to become mates now, and if he became a satisfactory mate…
‘It means he will live by my side for his entire life.’
Without the Grand Duke needing to force him or hurt him.
The Grand Duke’s tail, which had been limply drooping with worry and concern, swished gently.
Thinking about it, the benefits of becoming mates weren’t just that.
As far as the Grand Duke knew, humans had a rule that mated humans couldn’t desire individuals other than their mate.
In other words, if the assistant became the Grand Duke’s mate, no other individual could become the assistant’s mate except the Grand Duke.
The Grand Duke would continue to be at the center of the assistant’s territory and daily life, and the right to sleep with him would also be given only to the Grand Duke.
Even if there were countless individuals in the assistant’s cognitive domain, his attention would always flow towards the Grand Duke like an object sliding down a slope.
He hadn’t thought of it before because it was a rule he had never been interested in… but now that he thought about it, wasn’t this everything the Grand Duke had been wanting?
The Grand Duke’s ears perked up.
For the first time in his life, the Grand Duke thought that he liked a human rule.
‘Mates are really great.’
Despite all the heartache he had gone through. To think such a good solution existed.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed there was nothing better than becoming mates with his assistant.
It was frustrating that he only realized this now.
The Grand Duke decided to accept the assistant’s courtship.
Strength returned to the Grand Duke’s body, which had been limply draped over the assistant’s arm. The Grand Duke stood up majestically, putting weight on his hind legs, and looked down at his assistant with his front paws on the assistant’s shoulders.
“Your Grace?”
The assistant was looking at the Grand Duke with a dumbfounded expression, seemingly surprised by the sudden movement.
It was the face he always saw, but…
‘My mate.’
Thinking of this guy as his mate gave him an unbearably satisfying feeling for some reason.
So the Grand Duke lowered his head and…
Performed an action that held no meaning for him but would be seen as courtship by his mate.
* * *
‘What’s going on?’
Ruan was bewildered.
The cat, which had been unusually listless, suddenly became proud and energetic, then abruptly pressed its muzzle against him.
Was it trying to give a nose kiss but missed its aim?
Seeing it followed by intense head-butting, maybe it was just part of the head-butting?
