Chapter 15
Why… was he naked?
Come to think of it, how did the Grand Duke suddenly come to Ruan’s house?
After a brief moment of confusion, Ruan desperately tried to engage his brain. His squeezed-out brain produced a somewhat plausible answer.
‘Right. The Grand Duke was a cat.’
That’s right. The shock of waking up naked in bed together was so great that he had momentarily forgotten that his direct superior was essentially a cat.
Naked or not, he was just a cat anyway.
Ruan carefully covered all the images of the Grand Duke in his mind that had caused such a commotion in the morning with cat images.
A cat nursing a sick human with its soft jelly paws. A cat wriggling to feed medicine to a sick human. A cat falling asleep beside a sick human…
In some sense it became safer, but his heart started to ache with adorableness, gratitude, and something indescribable.
‘My goodness. How could a cat…’
But a cat that wasn’t originally our house cat suddenly being in our house means…
‘Did he choose me?’
There’s a term called ‘gan-taek’ (selection).
This word, which originally meant the selection of royal spouses in the Joseon Dynasty royal court, is now widely used to describe the situation of being chosen as a caretaker by a stray cat.
When a cat chooses you, there’s nothing a human can do. Since the cat has decided you should take care of it, you have no choice but to respectfully bring it to your home and serve it.
The Grand Duke cat must have come to see his aide, who served him wholeheartedly, as his caretaker, just like other cats. That’s why he barged into his chosen caretaker’s house in the middle of the night.
And then, seeing sick Ruan, he even nursed him.
As for being naked… maybe he happened to be naked when he decided to go to his caretaker.
That was the best answer Ruan could come up with in this absurd situation of ‘waking up naked in bed alone with my male superior’.
There couldn’t possibly be any other explanation.
Ruan nodded vigorously to himself. Yes, there couldn’t be any other explanation.
By the way…
‘I knew he was cat-like, but I didn’t expect him to become this cat-like.’
The Grand Duke cat was cat-like, but he had no problem performing his duties as Grand Duke, making important decisions, and slashing monsters. As the aide who was always with the Grand Duke during work hours, Ruan could vouch for that.
But aside from those things, how could he become so cat-like?
‘I know the full situation, but to others…’
Suddenly, a frightening thought occurred to Ruan.
‘If he was naked when he came and when he left… does that mean he was naked when he came here too?’
The distance from the Grand Duke’s castle to Ruan’s house was a little more than a 20-minute walk at Ruan’s pace.
‘To travel that distance naked, round trip…’
Ruan immediately started preparing for work.
This wasn’t because of the office worker mindset that even if you wake up as a cockroach in the morning, you first worry about the commuter train time, and that going to work is the most important thing regardless of whether your naked cat superior is roaming the streets.
‘Rumors. I need to check the rumors.’
Although the direction was a bit different, Ruan, true to being a Reinke resident with eyes wide open for gossip, quickly prepared for work and rushed out of the house.
After carefully observing the atmosphere on his way to work, fortunately, it seemed that no one had seen the naked Grand Duke on the street, especially in front of the house of his aide, the protagonist of the scandal. If even one person had witnessed such a scene, this rumor-crazed neighborhood wouldn’t be this quiet.
The expressions of the people he encountered were no different from the day before, just showing pity for ‘the Grand Duke’s poor lover intimidated by the scary Grand Duke’. There was no sign that they had witnessed any particular situation or heard rumors about it.
‘It’s extremely fortunate for now, but…’
Ruan knew.
Cats are beings that, if they try something and like it, will ruthlessly incorporate it into their routine without considering human situations or circumstances. Once something happens with a cat, it can happen again and again.
If the Grand Duke cat liked coming to Ruan without clothes and sleeping there, it could happen again tonight.
If that’s the case… can we be sure that no one will see the naked Grand Duke, and the naked Grand Duke entering and leaving Ruan’s house, next time? The Grand Duke isn’t just an ordinary cat. Could a naked human nearly 2m tall with a body like a weapon really go unnoticed?
Ruan was skeptical about that possibility.
* * *
Ruan didn’t know when the Grand Duke cat who had chosen him might break into his house naked again. And Ruan couldn’t let the Grand Duke, who had become a cat because of him, wander the streets naked looking for him.
There was only one solution.
“Your Grace. If you would allow it, I would like to stay at the Grand Duke’s castle for a while, focusing on assisting you. What do you think?”
The chosen Ruan could live with the Grand Duke cat.
‘Usually, selection means the cat moves into the human’s house, but…’
This cat had his own house, and a house so big that adding one person wouldn’t even be noticeable, so the human could move into the cat’s house.
Ruan looked at the Grand Duke, whose face was as strict, dignified, and serious as always. Soon, the Grand Duke’s tightly closed lips opened.
“If that’s what you want, do so.”
After giving permission in a gruff voice, the Grand Duke didn’t mention it again, but Ruan keenly noticed.
‘He’s in a good mood.’
His narrowly opened eyes that looked satisfied, and the way he rubbed his forehead against Ruan’s arm or shoulder whenever he approached, showed it.
Even his footsteps were light and graceful when he was ‘chasing light fragments’, his routine around the time when sunlight entering through the window touched the decorations.
The Grand Duke, who had not hidden his good mood all day, called the head butler to his office shortly after lunch.
“The aide wants to stay in my castle. Give him a room near mine.”
The head butler seemed slightly surprised by the Grand Duke’s sudden words, but like a professional, he quickly composed himself and replied,
“Yes, Your Grace. I’ll have it prepared before the end of the work day.”
As Ruan was thinking, ‘Today, right away? The work is faster than I expected…’, the Grand Duke spoke again.
“No, do it now. The aide will leave work now.”
‘Now?’
It was not long after lunch. There were still five or six hours left until the usual end of the workday.
Ruan looked at the Grand Duke at this unexpected statement, and the Grand Duke also turned his gaze to Ruan. Ruan tried to convey ‘How can it be now?’ with his eyes to the Grand Duke cat who still seemed to be in a good mood.
The Grand Duke, seeming to have received the signal, half-closed his eyes and then opened them again, turning his gaze to the head butler. Then, with a very serious and dignified face, he said,
“He hasn’t been feeling well since yesterday, so give him medicine and pay attention to the room temperature as he’s sensitive to cold.”
With a voice that somehow even sounded a bit proud.
It seemed that some kind of error had occurred during the message transmission, though Ruan wasn’t sure what.
‘Well, what did I expect from a cat?’
This was Ruan’s fault for expecting something he shouldn’t from a cat.
Although the situation flowing differently from his thoughts due to communication failure was a bit strange… Ruan bit his lip as he realized that the Grand Duke’s actions were intended to care for and consider Ruan’s health.
Although Ruan’s condition had improved enough to come to work thanks to the Grand Duke’s care the night before, he still couldn’t say he was in good shape. He had been thinking he would be exhausted by the end of the workday…
For a cat to not only nurse him all night but also continue to care for him the next day.
Ruan’s expression helplessly softened, with the transparency of the cat image overlaying the Grand Duke about 30% lower than usual due to the ‘image of a cat nursing a sick human’ he had recalled in the morning.
As Ruan was looking at the Grand Duke cat with intense emotion and gratitude, he suddenly caught sight of the head butler watching them. Seeing that all-too-familiar gaze as if witnessing something shocking, Ruan thought,
‘There will be more rumors.’
What kind of rumors would spread this time…
But whatever those rumors might be, they would surely be better than rumors of the Northern Grand Duke roaming the streets naked, so Ruan wasn’t worried at all.
He felt a bit sad that he seemed to have developed an immunity to rumors in a strange direction, but…
What could he do? It was all because the cat was thinking of him.
Cats were great and lovable, and all human affairs lost meaning before them. That was true even if that cat was the Northern Grand Duke.
* * *
The Grand Duke was in a good mood.
