Look at those dull, almost vacant eyes. Not a shred of awareness about how his actions might be perceived. Of course—that was only natural. I’d wager his head was crammed full of nothing but worries for that little girl.
Both fins tightened and shrank back, but Sefiut forced the sensation away. There was still something he had to do.
—Ahem. In any case, though it’s late, I should introduce myself. I’m Sefiut Laufe, sixth Head of House Laufe.
At last—the introduction that had been put off.
A ripple flickered through Justyn’s crimson eyes. That short, simple declaration carried with it far more meaning than expected.
Sefiut carried on as though he had anticipated Justyn’s lukewarm reaction.
—Yes. You’re right. The vile curse running through your blood, coiled even now inside your body—that was my doing.
And as if that weren’t enough, he confirmed it himself, speaking in an utterly casual voice.
—So tell me. Knowing this, do you still want to keep me at the side of that child you treasure so much?
The words hovered in a strange space—too heavy to be just a test, yet too light to be weighed down with sincerity.
One wore a mask. The other, the guise of a puppet. And like that, they stared each other down.
Time stretched endlessly, silence thickening until the very air seemed to press down on them.
At last, beneath his mask, Justyn’s lips began to part.
***
From the black abyss where his mind had been submerged, Ries’s consciousness slowly began to surface. Along with it, his senses trickled back one by one.
He felt something at his fingertips. A faint sound of water echoed in his ears.
…The sea.
Even through the haze, Ries was certain—he was sinking deep into the ocean.
His mouth opened, driven by the primal urge to breathe, and tiny air bubbles fizzed up between his lips…
And then—everything cut off at once.
The sound of waves stopped. Warmth crept back into his frozen fingertips. The heavy weight binding his limbs began to melt away.
And when his stubborn eyelids finally lightened, Ries managed to open his eyes.
A white blur cleared, gradually sharpening into focus.
…A bedroom?
The scene was familiar. Even with his mind still foggy, his gaze swept the room instinctively.
It was the same sight he faced every morning. Ordinary, yet something felt strangely off, a faint dissonance tugging at him.
But he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
“Are you awake?”
The presence was too strong to ignore. Someone had approached, hovering close.
Then came a rush of questions, rapid and insistent—Was he all right? Did anything hurt? Was it hard to move?
He couldn’t answer a single one. But he understood enough. Every word, every look overflowed with concern and affection, almost too much to bear. His chest prickled with an odd warmth.
“…Justyn?”
He managed to stammer out the name, but the sound faltered at the end.
And then clarity hit him.
Wait… I spoke?
Not a cat’s meow, but a human voice. The realization struck like lightning.
He bolted upright and stared at himself. Finally, he understood the source of the dissonance. His vision was higher. His skin smooth. Five slender fingers stretched out before him.
A human body. And clothed, no less.
His head, still sluggish from sleep, scrambled uselessly through the confusion. He could only gape at his own body—until a sudden apology snapped him back.
“…I’m sorry.”
Justyn stood there, visibly stiff, awkwardness etched into every line of his posture.
“I—I thought you’d catch a chill if you weren’t dressed. So I had no choice but to…”
He looked torn between guilt and embarrassment, as though he didn’t know where to put himself.
So Justyn dressed me…?
The thought skimmed absurdly across Ries’s mind. No—wait. That wasn’t the point. What mattered was—Justyn wasn’t even surprised.
With wide, disbelieving eyes, Ries asked,
“You… knew?”
“…Yes.”
“Wh—when?”
“……”
No reply. But Ries knew instinctively.
From the very beginning…?
It must’ve been then—back when he’d transformed into a human to face Sefiut, only to run into Justyn. He thought he’d narrowly escaped being discovered, but he had been caught all along.
Memories replayed in an agonizing rush. If Justyn weren’t standing right here, Ries would have been thrashing under the blankets. Instead, he clenched his fists.
He had gone to such lengths to pretend he was only a cat. Well—he was a cat, but still. If he’d known, he never would’ve sprawled out with his belly exposed.
This was the price of running from thoughts whenever his head hurt. Now embarrassment and mortification surged together, tinged with a flicker of resentment.
“Why—why didn’t you say anything?”
The broken words tumbled out, barely a sentence, but Justyn understood. He always did.
“I thought you didn’t want to reveal it. And I wanted to wait until you trusted me enough to tell me yourself. …Did I make things harder for you?”
“No, it’s not that I didn’t trust you, master, it’s just that I—”
…was afraid you’d grow distant.
The words stuck in his throat.
And he didn’t even notice how Justyn’s ears and cheeks burned red at being called “master.” Ries, meanwhile, wanted to claw at his own hair.
Every moment of humiliating affection—rolling on his back, acting cute, clinging to Justyn even after becoming human—flashed before him in painful clarity.
Too many shameful memories. Far too many. He scrubbed at his face furiously, despair crashing down.
And yet, strangely, beneath it all was relief.
Thank goodness.
Whatever he looked like, Justyn hadn’t changed. The road had been long and twisted, but in the end, Justyn had accepted him as he was.
With that, Ries’s thoughts began to settle. Memories of what happened before he lost consciousness surfaced one after another.
“……”
“…Ries?”
Averitt’s sudden intrusion, Edler taking possession of his body, Sefiut’s reckless move and Ries’s attempt to stop him, and Justyn’s unexpected arrival to break the seal.
Ah.
And with that came the truths he hadn’t wanted to face. Ries’s unsteady gaze blurred further.
Then… he saw everything I did… naked?
And on top of that, Justyn had even dressed him. Ha. Ha ha ha… A hollow laugh slipped out. He wanted to sink into the earth.
Unable to endure it, he curled up and buried his face. Only a muffled plea slipped free.
“…Please… just leave me alone for a while…”
“No.”
A plea he’d never once made as a cat, dismissed in an instant. Ries peeked out from under the blanket.
“I know you must be angry with me for deceiving you. But I don’t know when your body might falter again, so I want to stay and watch over you.”
“……”
The words struck Ries silent. It didn’t sound like an excuse—it sounded like an apology.
He stared in disbelief. Justyn wasn’t joking.
Anyone else would say it was Ries who had deceived, not him.
“I’m not mad. I just… wish you’d told me sooner, that’s all.”
The words came out blunt, but the meaning carried through. Justyn visibly relaxed.
And then, quietly,
“Even after I showed you something cruel?”
“What? When?”
“When I cut off the Count’s arm. Right in front of you.”
“Oh. Right.”
Now that he thought about it, that had happened. The moment had been so frantic the memory was a blur.
But even recalling it, he felt no resentment. The Count had deserved it anyway. And Ries had already proven his resilience—he had walked through the blood-soaked battlefield before coming to the duchy, and recovered quickly enough.
So no, it hadn’t scarred him. What struck him instead was Justyn’s manner—like a guilty dog afraid of its master’s anger.
Yet Ries was supposed to be the pet.
He shook his head firmly.
“What does it matter? You helped me.”
“But that was still me trying to protect you. You could’ve escaped once you transformed, but you didn’t.”
“Well… I couldn’t exactly run naked through the mansion, could I…”
“Yes. That was very wise. If you had, I might have been… a little upset.”
Ries blinked. Wait. How had the conversation ended up here?
But Justyn pressed on, taking a steadying breath.
“Ries. Just like always, you’re still kind. The moment you saw a chance, you didn’t turn away. You didn’t abandon the man who haunted my nightmares. …Thank you. I keep ending up indebted to you.”
He looked both deeply happy and faintly bitter as he spoke.
At some point, he had taken Ries’s hand. Though he was the one who reached out, his touch was softer than a feather, careful and reverent.
All of Ries’s shame and self-loathing melted away.
Nightmares. That was the word Justyn had used.
Turning it over, Ries suddenly spoke, his shift of topic abrupt.
“Before I met you, I lived in Marquess Marilon’s mansion. …Honestly, I don’t remember much before that.”
It was a story from months ago, buried in memory. Something Justyn had half-guessed, but never truly known.
i love love LOVE how devoted and special they are to each other
never jumping to conclusions, or scorning the other based on appearances