“Of course I have to check the condition of your wound first, Pipi.”
Despite his tension, Serdin’s answer was harmless. No, it wasn’t just harmless, it was even careful and affectionate. He felt a little sorry for doubting his intentions, but this was all Serdin’s own doing. Since before, Serdin had shown himself as a shameless and utterly wicked, truly comprehensively wretched jaguar who demanded things like kisses under the pretext of taking walks.
So, he thought that this time too he must have brought up the topic with similar intentions. Of course, that expectation was completely off the mark……
“……Wound? You checked it at dawn yesterday. You applied fresh medicine too.”
“I have to check it in the morning too, Pipi. And I need to check if there are wounds anywhere else.”
“That’s……”
Formo stared at Serdin, who was speaking as if it were obvious, with a dumbfounded face, then expressed his intention by pulling his chin. It meant he was giving permission, albeit passively.
* * *
Formo finished not only a hearty breakfast with Serdin but also a thorough bath and left Sotes Palace. Today, Formo was dressed more lightly than when he usually went out. For some reason, it was an outfit Serdin had proposed first. Thanks to that, he was able to go out wearing only a blouse like Serdin.
Even so, it was a more formal form than Serdin’s outfit, but still, he felt endlessly good thinking how much better this was.
“Pipi, are you that happy?”
Formo nodded his head and explained how good he felt.
“I like it because the clothes are light and not uncomfortable. I feel like I could fly around wearing these clothes.”
The sound of Serdin holding back laughter could be heard faintly from behind, but Formo chose to ignore it. Formo, who was walking ahead at a bit of a distance from Serdin, looked up at the sky. Several white clouds were floating about in the blue and clear sky.
Seeing the clouds flowing freely, he felt like he wanted to fly around the sky to his heart’s content. For such a thing to be possible here, there would need to be no predators though. Still, he was satisfying his flying desires to some extent by transforming into animal form secretly from Serdin and flying freely around inside the glass greenhouse.
Formo, who had been moving his steps leisurely while looking up at the sky, suddenly stopped right in his tracks. Looking at the vast sky reminded him of something he had forgotten.
“What’s wrong, Pipi?”
“Hey, what happened to my letter?”
Formo turned his body to face Serdin.
Serdin, who had been sauntering along behind Formo, also stopped in front of him and met his eyes. His round and gentle eyes were waiting for Serdin’s answer. Serdin looked at his own face reflected in the dark blue-tinged eyes, then replied quietly.
“I delivered it well.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I told you I don’t lie to Pipi.”
“……Then why hasn’t a reply come?”
Formo asked back in a quite serious tone.
“Well. Maybe they’re taking time because they’re thinking about what to reply?”
“Is that so……”
Since Formo had never exchanged letters with his family before, this time he had no choice but to rely on Serdin. But Serdin’s answer without conviction, like ‘well’, made him anxious for no reason. Even though Serdin said he had delivered it well, he was a jaguar who even deceived about the price of his beastman transformation, so there was a need to doubt the truthfulness of his words to some extent.
This was something that couldn’t be helped even if Serdin felt wronged. It was because of the wariness he should naturally have as a long-tailed tit of Arancha.
“I’ll give it to you right away when a reply comes, Pipi. Don’t worry too much, Pipi.”
Serdin answered as if to reassure him. The raccoon beastman who kept wandering around near Arancha was bothersome, but for now, there was nothing he could do about it. To do that, he would need to be tied to Formo with an official title as a relationship…… It was still too early. It wouldn’t be too late to talk about engagement-related matters after talking a bit more with Formo and sharing hearts a bit more.
If he pushed recklessly out of impatience, the timid Formo might fly away to Arancha leaving him behind like last time.
“You have to give it to me right away. Got it?”
“Yeah, Pipi.”
After that too, Formo repeatedly confirmed the letter matter with Serdin. It would be annoying, but Serdin was pleased with the fact that Formo was walking close to his side and continuously asking questions, so he went through the trouble of deliberately answering ambiguously.
“It’s really certain, right?”
“Probably.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
At the continued ambiguous answers, Formo’s eyes narrowed. He was dying of worry, but Serdin kept giving ambiguous answers, which irritated him.
“You can’t lie like a few days ago. Got it?”
“When did I lie?”
Serdin asked Formo, who was giving him a firm warning, with puzzlement. Then Formo stopped with an absurd expression.
“Are you really asking because you don’t know?”
“I told you I don’t lie to Pipi.”
“Do you think I’m a stupid idiot?”
“Where did you learn that phrase again, Pipi.”
Serdin only focused on the phrase ‘stupid idiot’ that Formo had uttered, and Formo looked at Serdin, who was fixated on that phrase, with displeasure.
“That’s not important. Anyway, you have to keep your promise.”
“Pipi, what do you mean I lied?”
“You lied last time when you talked about the price. Are you really asking because you don’t know?”
“The price?”
Serdin asked back, moving his eyebrows. He had absolutely never said anything false about the price. The price story he had brought up to Formo was naturally true and factual as well. However, he didn’t know that Formo thought that story was false, so the shock was considerable.
This was a separate issue from the suspicious Formo not completely trusting him.
“Pipi, everything about the price is true. I’ve never lied.”
At Serdin’s seriously spoken words, Formo’s pupils shook left and right. He had thought it must surely be false since he had added nonsensical talk like saying he only needed him, but apparently that wasn’t the case. That meant Serdin felt bored with everything.
‘……Then what about me?’
Serdin had definitely said he felt bored with everything. He had added the strange words that he was fine now and that he was fine as long as he was by his side, but he had definitely mentioned the word ‘boredom’. Whether he was fine because he was by his side or not wasn’t important.
What was important to Formo now was the fact that someday Serdin might feel bored with him, which gave him a strange feeling. They weren’t even in some deep relationship, yet imagining Serdin treating him like he would treat anyone else made him feel a bit unpleasant.
He had only found being given special treatment by him annoying and tiring, but when he imagined a hypothetical future where Serdin would lose interest in him and not even give him a glance, his body trembled. This was something he had never once imagined or thought about. Could it be because he had become accustomed to Serdin, who acted almost like a doting fool? His chest felt stuffy.
His chest was already full just from digesting the emotions that had suddenly rushed in at dawn, and thinking about such things made his head complicated.
“Pipi?”
Formo, who had been lost in thought, raised his head at Serdin’s call and looked at him. His eyes, which showed an incomparably warm light only to him, were sparkling as they received the sunlight.
“Are you feeling unwell somewhere? Is your injured calf uncomfortable?”
His face asking worriedly was particularly noticeable. And the light those features would have when they became expressionless was also vivid in his mind. Formo moved his lips. The words stuck in his throat didn’t easily jump out of his mouth.
“Pipi?”
Formo rolled his eyes while looking at Serdin reaching out his hand toward his face. Soon Serdin’s large and warm hand passed over Formo’s forehead and cheeks in turn. It was a careful and cautious touch as if checking for a fever.
“……You know.”
His hesitating lips opened.
“If the price story is true……”
Serdin calmly waited for Formo to continue his words haltingly.
“What about me?”
“Hm?”
“Do you feel that way toward me too?”
Having finished his question, Formo deeply lowered his head.
At the unexpected question, Serdin’s eyebrows rose obliquely. After a moment of silence, Serdin’s lips parted slightly. A small interjection, ah, burst out from Serdin’s lips as he realized something.
“Pipi.”
Serdin looked at the top of Formo’s head as he couldn’t even respond to his call and just kept his head lowered, then reached out his hand. When he grasped Formo’s cheeks with both hands and carefully lifted them, he could see eyes tangled with complicated emotions.
“Are you perhaps worried?”
“……Yeah.”
He didn’t want to admit it, but he was worried. That all of these situations and environments he had gradually become accustomed to might crumble or change even a little due to Serdin’s whim. And that he might feel strange emotions like before due to Serdin’s indifference.
That Serdin’s gaze, which looked after him as carefully and tenderly as his family despite being talkative, mischievous, and even a predator, might no longer reach him.
Situations that made him feel suffocated just by supposing them made Formo anxious and worried. He had thought countless times that he should stop getting used to Serdin, that he should distance himself from him, but in the end, it seemed he had become accustomed to everything that the existence called Serdin gave him.
Gradually, without even knowing it himself.
