The patron’s face, frozen cold, doesn’t look like his usual self. I know that when he isn’t looking at me, his face is always like this. But today, it looks especially cold. It’s probably because of this face that people don’t approach him, yet he doesn’t seem to have any intention of fixing it. Honestly, for me, it wasn’t such a bad thing. I liked that he smiled gently only at me—and I was more than a little smug about it.
“Lyx…?”
I end up calling him again in a slightly trembling voice. My heart feels like it’s beating faster and faster. If he grabs me and begs me not to go, I don’t know what I’ll do. And if he starts crying… I think my chest would feel so tight I might actually die.
“…When are you leaving?”
After staying silent for a long while, my patron asks slowly. I’d been worried he might cling to me and refuse to let go, but maybe that was just me overthinking things. It’s a relief… but at the same time, I can’t help feeling strangely hurt. You bastard. Even if you can’t cling to me crying, you could at least try.
“L-leaving….”
I stumble over my words for a moment, then blurt it out as a wave of emotion surges up.
“Tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow? Why so suddenly?”
He asks, but still makes no move to stop me.
What the hell…? Does it really not matter to you if I go? I’m so torn up inside about leaving you that my chest feels like it’s going to burst, and you’re saying it doesn’t matter?
Anger suddenly flares up inside me. I shove him away, flop down onto the bed, yank the sheet over my head, and shout,
“Anyway! I’m leaving tomorrow!”
I lie there fuming under the sheet, but that bastard doesn’t react at all. Suddenly, my eyes burn, and I grit my teeth.
Bastard. Bastard. Can’t you at least say don’t go—or ask me to take you with me—or something like that? You bastard. Perverted bastard. It was all just for fun, wasn’t it. Just for fun. For fun, my ass.
“Your Highness.”
Calyx lifts his head at Simon’s voice.
He looks at him, but Simon doesn’t open his mouth easily. He just stands there silently, lips pressed tight.
Silence stretches on.
It’s late. It would be right to give Simon some orders and send him away, especially since Simon came running here on purpose. But Calyx, like Simon standing there with his mouth shut, doesn’t feel like opening his own.
Simon’s gaze flicks briefly behind Calyx, then returns. Calyx turns his head toward the middle of the bed behind him, where the boy is sleeping.
The boy is fast asleep. After turning his back and fuming for a long while, he must’ve fallen asleep at some point. Normally, he couldn’t even sleep without Calyx’s body heat. But tonight, as if determined to sever their bond, he pulled the sheet over himself and tried to sleep alone.
Calyx has been staring at the boy’s small back the entire time. He watched while the boy was fuming, and even after he fell into a deep sleep. As he watched that small back, he clenched and unclenched his fists over and over again.
Once, long ago, he’d picked up a tiny puppy out of simple curiosity and affection.
He’d only wanted to hold its small body and stroke its soft-looking fur a little. But the moment the puppy was in his arms, it panicked and thrashed wildly. He only wanted to hold it for a moment—but as it struggled desperately to escape his grasp, its neck snapped.
Even now, he can’t be sure.
Whether the puppy broke its neck accidentally while thrashing on its own… or whether he himself unconsciously tightened the hand around its neck because he found the struggling little body unpleasant to look at. Even thinking back now, there’s no way to know.
Calyx pulls his gaze away from the boy and looks down at his own hands.
The hands that clench and unclench before his eyes are large and calloused—hands that have held a sword since boyhood. Hands that could snap the neck of a small living creature, whether by accident or intent, far too easily and quickly. The same goes for arms or legs.
These hands vividly remember the sensation of the small puppy whose neck snapped as it struggled to escape his hold. Like a thin twig breaking—it shattered with terrifying ease.
These hands are too rough to handle something small and fragile carelessly. That’s why, when dealing with such lives, he must be cautious—cautious to the extreme. Even if the sight of a living being struggling to escape his arms is unsettling or unpleasant, he must still handle it carefully and gently.
Yes. Carefully and gently. Never letting it get hurt.
Calyx repeats those words to himself several times.
“He says he’s going to find the witch. And the deep part of the Eastern Forest where he came to this place.”
When Calyx finally speaks after a long while, Simon’s expression hardens even further. Ever since the boy’s bombshell declaration, Calyx has been radiating a dangerously sharp aura—almost as if he’s reverted to how he was before meeting the boy.
If, in this state, the boy were to leave….
Looking at Simon’s stiff face, Calyx opens his mouth.
“Go with him. Watch him—and protect him.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Just as Simon wonders whether that means he’s simply letting him go, Calyx speaks again.
“And…”
***
Clop— clop—
The sound of horse hooves is cheerful. Completely at odds with how I feel.
I’m riding a horse right now, cradled in my patron’s arms. He told me to stay safely tucked against his stomach, but I refused. We’re about to part ways, and I wanted to see his face just a little longer.
“Do you really have to go today?”
That’s what the bastard asked when we woke up this morning.
Today.
Last night, it was still “tomorrow,” but now it’s become today.
To be honest, I wanted to say no. I’d only just managed to tell him last night that I wanted to go see the witch. I blurted out that I’d leave tomorrow because I got upset that he didn’t even try to stop me….
Thinking of my grandpa, who must be worrying, makes even a single day feel too long. But the thought that I might never see my patron again makes my chest feel so tight it’s suffocating.
No. I just wanted to say, “I’ll stay one more day.”
If he’d told me, even just once, to stay one more day, I was ready to do it. But just like last night, my patron didn’t say a word. Not only did he not stop me—he even shoved me off under the guise of consideration, telling me to take Simon with me.
Even so… what are we, then?
Haven’t we done more than just kissing—been in that kind of relationship? I clearly remember him boasting while drunk that he’d give me the whole world while rubbing his mouth against mine. And now he won’t even say don’t go, or take me with you, or stay with me just a little longer. He doesn’t have to cling to me sobbing—if he’d just made a pitiful face and asked me to stay a bit longer, I could’ve stayed.
…Bastard.
If we part like this, we might really never see each other again.
He likes stroking my fur, likes playing tail-chasing and feather games with me. He said he likes me an awful lot. He likes rubbing mouths with me and groping my ass, too.
I lift my head and look up at the bastard.
He just stares straight ahead with a blank expression, guiding the horse.
Hey. Are you really not going to stop me? Not going to tell me not to go, not to ask me to stay by your side? Even if you did say that, I’d still have to go back to where my grandpa is… but you’re really just going to let me go like this?
Seeing those golden eyes that won’t look at me, tears suddenly well up. I rub at my eyes with my front paw, licking away the moisture.
Bastard.
We didn’t even get to say goodbye properly, and all he did this morning was ask that one question, then act considerate—telling me to take Simon, saying he’d escort me beyond the capital. What kind of send-off is that, huh? Bastard. When I brought it up yesterday, I never imagined we’d part this suddenly….
My chest feels so tight I can barely breathe.
When I think that I won’t get to sleep on his chest anymore, or eat meals together with him, tears keep surging up. I force myself to hold them back. He’s even seeing me off cheerfully without shedding a single tear—if I’m the only one crying, it’s just pathetic. I’ve got my pride as a man.
I lower my head, pressing the tears back, when suddenly the horse stops.
My body is lifted up, and golden eyes appear right in front of me. As his face draws closer, I close my eyes. Something soft presses against my forehead and stays there for a long while before finally pulling away. When I open my eyes again, I see golden eyes curved in a faint smile.
“Be careful.”
…Bastard. That’s all you have to say?
When I glare at him in silence, his face comes close again. And then—
“I’ll keep waiting. K.”
He whispers softly.
A surge of emotion hits me, and I can’t stop myself from letting out a whimpering sound.
My patron gives my head a few gentle strokes, then hands me over to Simon standing beside him. As I’m transferred into Simon’s hands, I quickly grab my patron’s hand as it pulls away.
“K.”
My patron calls, looking down at the hand my claws are digging into. I stare at him desperately, claws sunk deep.
Nyaaah—
Lyx. I…
Nyaaah—
I’ll go to my grandpa, and if I can come back, I’ll definitely come back.
Nyaang—
If I can come back, I really will.
Nyaaah—
So don’t cry just because I’m gone, okay?
Did that bastard even understand what I was saying? He strokes my head again.
I finally retract the claws dug into his hand.
Simon sets me down inside a basket secured to the front of the saddle. Stepping onto the cushion Julia had carefully padded inside, I look up at my patron. He’s standing there quietly, looking at me. I stare back at his golden eyes in a daze.
When Simon urges the horse forward, the clopping sound grows louder and my patron begins to recede into the distance. I rest my front paws on the edge of the basket and keep looking back until he disappears from sight. But that bastard—he just keeps standing there, watching. He doesn’t chase after me.
Bastard. Bastard.
I guess all that talk about liking me was bullshit. If he really liked me, how could he just let me go like this? Bastard.
Even after he completely disappears from view, I keep staring in that direction for a long while before curling up inside the basket. Maybe worried about dust getting in, Simon drapes a cloth over the basket. Curled up in that tiny space, alone except for the sound and vibration of the horse’s gallop, I finally let the tears I’d been holding back spill out.
Calyx. You bastard. If you cheat on me while I’m gone, you’re dead. Bastard.
Tears drip down, soaking the cushion, but there’s no hand stroking my back. Thinking about that only makes me sadder, and I end up crying openly, tears streaming down my face.
