Beni couldn’t lift his deeply bowed head. He never dreamed the Demon King would come all the way to this corner of the kitchen. Because he’d never once seen Ruan on this side when living as a rabbit. What would happen to him now?
The Demon King quietly looked down at Beni trembling in terror before speaking.
“Let’s go.”
Wh-where? He wanted to ask, but there was no way Beni could ask first. Beni just kept his mouth firmly shut and followed behind the Demon King. Was he taking him to the basement to quietly dispose of him? Beni thought of the tens of thousands of torture methods the Demon King could use on him, but unexpectedly, the Demon King really headed to the fourth floor.
It was even the central staircase, so there were many passing servants and attendants. They all without exception were busy bowing their heads upon seeing the Demon King. Some even knelt, and the Demon King only glanced at them once without showing any reaction.
Beni, who had only been rolling his eyes behind the Demon King, realized he was really going to the fourth floor and mustered the courage to speak.
“D-Demon King-nim. Are we going to the fourth floor?”
When the Demon King who had been climbing the stairs stopped walking and turned around, their gazes collided head-on. The Demon King’s expressionless face was basically cold and fierce, so Beni instinctively held his breath with a gasp.
“There’s something to clean up on the fourth floor, so I’m going to the fourth floor.”
Seeing him directly this close, though the Demon King had a frightening impression, he somehow also seemed peaceful.
‘Does he… not remember me?’
Beni opened his eyes round and stared up at Ruan. At Beni examining the Demon King’s face for a long while, a nearby passing attendant’s complexion turned deathly pale, but he didn’t dare think to intervene. He could only leave before suffering misfortune himself.
Beni, who was preoccupied trying to interpret the Demon King’s expression, didn’t notice such a reaction from the attendant. When it seemed no matter how he looked, the Demon King didn’t recognize him at all, his tension immediately released.
“I-I’m a servant who entered not long ago, so I’m unskilled at work, but I’ll try my best!”
When he emphasized the word servant, Ruan nodded his head low. At that reaction, Beni’s face brightened. As expected, there was no way the Demon King would remember him whom he’d only seen twice.
“I see, what’s your name?”
“I’m… Beni!”
The Demon King glanced at Beni and started walking again. Because the pace slowed compared to before, Beni naturally came to walk standing beside the Demon King rather than behind him. This was tremendously rude, but there was no one in this castle who would point it out.
“The same name as a rabbit I know.”
The Demon King’s rabbit! When a story he knew came up, Beni shook his head.
“Ah, I’m ‘Beni,’ not ‘Ben’!”
“I never said Ben.”
His yellow pupils trembled finely. W-was the name of the Demon King’s rabbit a fact that just anyone shouldn’t know? Looking back, other servants had also only said ‘the rabbit the Demon King raises.’ As soon as he realized his slip of the tongue, chills ran down his spine.
“Ah, uh, well, s-since it’s a rabbit that the Demon King-nim raises, I wanted to see it once, so I, uh, happened to find out…!”
When he hurriedly made excuses to smooth things over, the Demon King narrowed his eyes thinly and stared at Beni as if suspicious. It was when he was very tense thinking even to himself it seemed like a crude excuse.
“You have a lot of interest in me.”
“…”
Why does it go that way? Beni felt it was somehow strange, but it was also true that he had a lot of interest in the Demon King. He was the existence he was most wary of, and because he didn’t want to encounter him, even when he was a rabbit, he’d first investigated where the places the Demon King didn’t frequently come were.
Beni nodded absently.
“I guess so!”
Then the Demon King stopped walking again. Beni reflexively stiffened wondering if he’d misspoken and looked up at Ruan. The Demon King who had been looking at Beni with unreadable red eyes for a moment suddenly raised his hand high.
That sight momentarily overlapped with the Count, and Beni immediately squeezed his eyes shut and instinctively gripped his clothes tightly with both hands.
The Count would whip even more harshly if Beni tried to cover himself with something to avoid getting hit even a little. So Beni reflexively developed a habit of tightly gripping his clothes instead to resist reaching out his arms to protect his body.
However, the Demon King’s hand carefully settled on top of Beni’s crown. At the contact without any impact, Beni who had shrunk to the point of strength entering even his lips looked up with surprised eyes. Wh-what?
“There’s no one here who’ll hit you, Beni.”
It was a somehow affectionately ringing voice. Ruan’s large hand lightly patted Beni’s small head. As careful as the touch when the Demon King had mistaken him for his rabbit last time and caressed him.
“So don’t be scared and walk around confidently.”
The Demon King’s lips curved up softly as he said that. At the smile that wasn’t frightening at all, Beni was engulfed in a sensation like his heart dropping with a thud. At the unfamiliar feeling he was experiencing for the first time, Beni couldn’t say anything and just blinked his eyes.
Ruan patted Beni’s head a few more times before dropping his hand. When that gesture disappeared, Beni felt regretful for some reason and needlessly stared only at his hand. The palm much larger than himself looked rough with many calluses rather than soft. Nevertheless, the sensation that had touched his head was endlessly gentle.
〈There’s no one here who’ll hit you, Beni. So don’t be scared and walk around confidently.〉
The Demon King’s voice buzzed around his ears. Somehow it seemed his heartbeat had quickened. He thought that the Demon King might perhaps not be such a frightening person.
* * *
The place Ruan took Beni was the Demon King’s lounge on the fourth floor. On the way, Beni saw the spot on one side of the corridor where he’d confronted the snake and trembled without Ruan knowing. The memories of that day still didn’t properly surface.
Beni suddenly almost asked in front of the bedroom if he’d seen a yellow brooch, but barely held onto his reason. The fourth floor—he’d only seen a few select attendants and knights coming and going, it wasn’t a floor just anyone could come up to. But if he, who’d entered not long ago, asked about the brooch, Ruan would definitely be suspicious.
Now that he’d realized the Demon King didn’t remember him, perhaps because his tension had released, words kept trying to burst out thoughtlessly.
‘Let me come to my senses properly.’
While Beni was resolving himself, the lounge door opened and Beni inwardly admired the very spacious area. The Demon King’s spaces are big everywhere—Beni couldn’t keep his head still looking this way and that, not knowing Ruan was secretly watching. The main palace was the largest, and since the Demon King alone used an entire floor, in a way it was natural that all spaces were large.
Beni, who had seen the entire inside of the lounge while following Ruan, tilted his head. The Demon King had definitely said there was something ‘to clean up.’ However, the lounge right now was so neatly organized that it sparkled without even a speck of dust.
What on earth needed to be cleaned up?
A thought flashed through bewildered Beni’s mind.
‘Don’t tell me, me…?’
〈There’s something to clean up (a lowly beastkin half-breed is coming up) on the fourth floor, so I’m going to the fourth floor.〉
His negatively flowing thoughts naturally distorted what Ruan had said. His hair stood on end for a moment, but unlike before, Beni quickly came to his senses. The Demon King had just patted his head in the corridor and even encouraged him. Moreover, if he’d intended to dispose of him, he would’ve done it in a place where it didn’t matter if it got dirty, not a clean place like this.
As he comforted his heart like that, Ruan stopped walking. Then he pointed to the table ahead and said.
“Clean that up, Beni.”
Beni, whose view ahead was blocked by the Demon King’s back, leaned his body to the side to confirm the object’s identity and ended up greatly surprised. On the table the Demon King pointed to for cleaning were all sorts of unfamiliar fruits and desserts he was seeing for the first time, even chocolate cake. Even appearing very pristine as if untouched.
“Th-that? But you haven’t taken even one bite?”
When Beni looked up at Ruan in confusion at the food too precious to throw away, he said with a smile.
“Ah, I left out these words.”
“…”
“Clean it up with your mouth.”
“…Pardon?”
What does that mean?
