He slightly stuck out his tongue, carefully prying past his lower lip, and lightly brushed the teeth he immediately felt. When he licked the soft mucous membrane inside the lips, perhaps because it tickled, the spider parted his mouth just a little. Because of that, the honeybee ended up pushing his tongue in deeper than he’d meant to, tangling tongue with tongue, and his body jolted. Even though the owner of the body tried to pull his head back, his body acted on its own, driving his tongue deeper, rubbing insistently against the lining, sucking at flesh and saliva.
“Mm, ngh…!”
It feels good… His thoughts gradually grew hazy, and before he knew it, the honeybee was wholly engrossed in a sticky, thieving kiss with someone who was asleep. The idea that this was clearly something strange no longer crossed his mind. Even the question of why he became so thoughtless, so unbearably overheated every time he touched this spider’s body, no longer existed in his head.
“Are you insane?!”
“Gah…!”
At the words that suddenly cut through the forest’s silence, Blaine jumped as if struck by lightning.
“At this hour, where are we supposed to get a salad drizzled with royal jelly? You might as well tell me to go find strawberries in winter.”
“How’d you know? She says she wants strawberry lattes too.”
“Goddamnit…”
The voices were intentionally lowered, as if wary of their surroundings, but that did nothing to dull how rough and noisy they were. Blaine hastily wiped his damp lips and cautiously crept toward the source of the sound.
“Fuck, just because we keep calling her ‘Your Majesty,’ does she think she’s still the damn ruler?”
“Then what are we supposed to do? She keeps whining that she’s only ever eaten royal jelly her whole life—I feel like my eardrums are going to burst. No, my head’s about to explode. Let’s just half-ass comply, okay.”
The conversation between the two creatures, complaining that they’d like nothing more than to kill her outright but couldn’t, made his heart drop. Blaine strained his ears, then finally resorted to his secret weapon—he popped out his antennae. He felt his hearing and sense of smell sharpen all at once.
“This is a pain in the ass. We only did all this to make life easier, so why does it feel even more annoying now? Are we sure this plan was even legit?”
“Shh, are you nuts? If the General hears you say that, we’re both dead. Get a grip.”
The two men grumbling in rough voices were tall and broad enough that even Blaine, hiding behind a tree at some distance, could easily glimpse them. Both had short, dark-reddish hair and slightly lighter tawny skin, dressed in white tank tops with leather jackets and leather pants.
Heavy brows, protruding brow ridges, brown skin, sharply defined noses—and above all else, chest muscles so swollen they looked ready to tear through their tank tops. There was no room for doubt. Blaine clenched his trembling fists tightly and swallowed hard.
“Anyway, next time let’s use butterflies instead of honeybees. Those guys are way too annoying.”
“Honeybees like to swarm, so it’s easy to wipe them all out at once. Butterflies are all scatterbrained loners. That’s why we went with bees—lazy choice, really.”
“You couldn’t have thought more wrong if you tried.”
Having vented for quite a while with distorted scowls, the wasps finally started moving again, grumbling about where in the hell they were supposed to get royal jelly in the middle of the night.
“I think we picked the wrong base. It’s way too far from the river, hauling water’s a nightmare, and it’s on top of a hill so we have to climb up every damn day. What is this crap?”
“If you’ve got so many complaints, why don’t you bring it up to the General?”
“What, you want me dead that badly?”
Should he follow them? Blaine swallowed again. It felt like he still needed more clues.
But his feet wouldn’t move. Instinctive fear of wasps, reinforced by everything he’d learned, froze his thoughts and locked his body in place. His mind kept urging his body to move, lashing it forward, but Blaine remained wedged behind the tree, his large frame hidden, standing completely still until the wasps vanished from sight.
“…They’re gone.”
By the time Blaine witnessed the blood-red sun rising in the far eastern sky, he was finally released from his frozen state and muttered gloomily. He couldn’t stand how pathetic he felt.
Guilt and self-reproach slowly reared their heads, then began poking him in the chest with their sharp tips, and Blaine made a miserable face. As if his self-preservation instincts had kicked in, relentless rationalizations started popping up like popcorn. Right—what could a honeybee possibly do on his own? Even in a group, honeybees couldn’t beat a wasp gang. Trying to do something alone would’ve just been reckless. Charging in wouldn’t have been courage, just stupidity. He would’ve died for nothing.
Besides, I don’t even have a stinger anymore.
Yeah. I don’t even have a stinger now.
The dim dawn sky had turned a vivid blue. The chirring of insects could be heard from the grass. Dragging his feet back to the campsite, Blaine plopped himself down beside the spider, who was still traveling through dreamland without a hint of awareness. Letting out a huge sigh, he drew the spider’s head over to rest on his thigh and gently patted it.
“Mmm… Bee-Bee?”
After rubbing his cheek against Blaine’s thigh for quite a while, the spider slowly opened his eyes. How could someone look so fluffy and lovely even right after waking up? To think a creature like this existed in the world.
“Why do you look so gloomy?”
Smiling languidly as he stretched out an arm, he slowly blinked his still-sleepy eyes and cupped Blaine’s cheek with his palm. Blaine hadn’t said anything—he hadn’t even made any particular expression. How had he known?
“It’s nothing. Really.”
Normally, Blaine would’ve deliberately put on an overly energetic voice to change the subject—talking about starting the day strong, or how nice the weather was—but for some reason, he didn’t even have the strength for that. After staring at him for a moment, the spider sat up.
“Bee-Bee, your face is covered in dark clouds.”
“No way. You’re imagining things. The sun’s shining.”
“This dark? It’s not an eclipse.”
Chiding him gently, the spider lifted the honeybee with ease, settled him onto his lap, pulled him into a tight hug, and patted his backside. Putting aside the fact that he must be heavy—hugging a fully grown adult man like a baby was embarrassing. Yet instead of pushing him away, Blaine wrapped his arms around the spider’s neck and buried his face against his shoulder.
“Want me to make you feel better?”
“Nnh, no. Don’t. You’re just going to do something weird again, aren’t you?”
Our honeybee’s really gotten sharper, huh. His innocence used to be so charming. Savoring this languid, pleasurable mood for the first time in a while, Hurel tightened his arms around him.
“…I just felt like I’m such a small, insignificant existence.”
“Mmm, Bee-Bee, I don’t really know how to comfort you, but Bee-Bee is absolutely not small. Your height, your chest, and also…”
“That’s not what I meant…!”
When Blaine pinched his mochi-soft cheek, the spider whimpered and pouted. You’re cute, so I’ll let it slide. With a sigh, Blaine released his fingers. The spider, whose pale cheek had turned faintly red, leaned in and softly bumped their lips together.
“It’s not that. I just feel so worthless. Like there’s nothing I can do. No ability, no strength.”
He’d never once regretted being born a honeybee. Blaine was proud of being a honeybee. But he’d never realized that being born one could feel like such a limitation. Unable to survive once separated from the swarm, and without the power to save the swarm when it was in danger.
“I believed I was living diligently each day as a member of society, but it turns out I’m a creature that’s not helpful at all.”
As he spoke, it started to sound absurd even to himself, and Blaine let out a weak laugh. He was pathetic. Surely Hurel must be disappointed in him. Strangely enough, Blaine didn’t want to show this ugly side of himself to Hurel. He barely managed to suppress the rush of shame flushing his face and cleared his throat.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all pathetic like this. There’s no such thing as a useless creature in this world.”
Guess things have just been tough lately. Forget it. With a powerless smile, Blaine stroked the spider’s snowy white hair. It was bad enough that he couldn’t even stand watching himself dig into his own hole, and now he was dragging someone else into it too, spilling out long, gloomy complaints. What a mess.
“Come on, let’s not do this. Let’s just eat break—”
“There are plenty of useless creatures in the world.”
…Huh?
