“I can’t believe something like this exists in the world.”
Rou trembled at the rich flavor bursting in his mouth. His hair stood on end, and his hands and feet shook. At the diverse flavor incomparable to naturally existing sweetness, Rou was speechless for a while and sat still with his mouth open. His tongue tingled and he kept salivating.
Rou took out the desserts from the basket and laid them out one by one on the soft clover like a tablecloth. Then, while tasting one of each type of dessert, he picked up a red cherry and held it out to Brukisel. The flesh caught between his thumb and index finger was pointing toward Brukisel’s mouth, as if urging him to eat it quickly.
“Brukisel, try this! Have you ever eaten something like this?”
“…”
It wasn’t the first time he’d been fed by him. There was even a past where he’d eaten food that seemed like leftovers. But being hand-fed—wasn’t that too intimate? It seemed like something only lovers who had confirmed their feelings for each other would do.
Of course, he knew the High Priest had admired him for a long time, but nothing about their relationship had been properly defined yet. Because Brukisel had dismissed the High Priest’s confession as just pleasant words.
While Brukisel hesitated, Rou made an ‘oops’ face.
“Ah. I guess Brukisel has eaten things like this until he’s sick of them?”
His attitude said he didn’t have to eat it if he didn’t want to. At the words that seemed about to take it away, Brukisel grabbed Rou’s wrist. He bit the flesh between Rou’s fingers with his lips. The excessively sweet taste filled his mouth, and Brukisel quickly rinsed his mouth with tea.
‘Like a little baby bird.’
He didn’t know he would eat from his mouth. His wariness toward him must have lessened considerably.
Then Rou casually licked the cherry juice from his fingertips. Seeing the red tongue smoothly lick up the equally red fruit juice, Brukisel made every effort not to show his surprise and gulped down the still-warm tea. How could seductive behavior come so naturally? His face felt hot and it was hard to watch.
As if he’d gotten a taste for hand-feeding him, Rou kept bringing various things to his mouth, telling him to try them. Brukisel made a troubled expression but accepted the sweet things one by one.
That only lasted a moment—Brukisel, who was weak to sweet things, quickly reached his limit and declared surrender.
“That’s enough. Now.”
Brukisel saying that seemed truly fed up, so Rou naturally wondered why he hadn’t said so earlier.
“Ah, you can’t eat anymore? You should have said so earlier.”
The words ‘How could I refuse when you’re looking at me with such expectant eyes’ rose to the tip of his tongue, but he stopped, thinking it would only be his loss to say it. He settled into a seat at the tea table and flipped through documents.
Rou was puzzled by his sudden departure but soon organized his thoughts, thinking it must be urgent documents.
For Rou, the floor covered with soft clover was better than the tea table. The tea was slightly bitter, settling his sweet mouth after eating desserts. Having eaten plenty of desserts, Rou wore a satisfied expression as he moistened his throat with a sip of tea.
Even while diligently eating desserts, he experimented with poison combinations. Occasionally, when the flower or leaf he wanted was in a corner of the greenhouse, Rou would leave his spot and return to beneath the tea table pillar. Because of this, when Brukisel occasionally looked down, sometimes lemon-colored hair would be fluttering, and sometimes it wouldn’t.
As the poison gradually spread through his body, the death sounds that grated on Brukisel’s nerves slowly faded away. Instead, the rustling sound of parchment rubbing against each other, the sound of Rou pushing through grass in the distance, and the sound of soft humming filled that space.
‘It’s quiet.’
Brukisel thought the day in this greenhouse was as quiet as when he collapsed after drinking poison. To think such an effect from just poison tea. He looked forward to what the effect would be if Rou made poison that could actually kill him.
Perhaps because there was nothing grating on him, the greenhouse was filled with a pleasant silence.
A little later, Rou held out a small pill, saying he’d made it by combining poisons. Rou’s eyes were filled with a mischievousness slightly different from usual, but Brukisel, who happened to be reading a document marked as important, didn’t have the capacity to notice it.
“Ugh, what is this!”
What Rou had offered was well-made marzipan. The problem was that he’d accepted it without suspicion because the round brown lump looked at a glance no different from medicinal herbs mixed and rolled together. His face scrunched involuntarily at the unfiltered intense sweetness.
Watching this, Rou burst into clear laughter.
“You should have some wariness. What will you do if you just accept everything you’re given?”
Rou said that with a face full of laughter. Brukisel was dumbfounded.
Rou truly treated him without any reserve, as if dealing with a friend (though from Rou’s perspective, a grandchild). He felt not the slightest wariness in either words or actions. Yet, that familiar attitude was more curious than unpleasant or offensive. Ordinary humans weren’t like this.
‘Rather than being like that… this is normal.’
Brukisel’s gaze fell on the parchment placed in the center of the table. The document dealt with riots that were intensifying in the south recently. The riots occurred at slightly different locations and times, but the words their leaders shouted were the same.
A monster is controlling the country!
He thought it wasn’t wrong. From the humans’ perspective, one with the power of the Shadow was no different from a monster. Humans who had passed through the hands of the Goddess of the Earth had an instinctive aversion to Brukisel, and especially since there were many believers of Goddess Kaine in the south, it was natural that many were incited by such riots.
But why was this one, even though he was the High Priest of the Kaine Religion, like this?
‘You’re kind and gentle.’
The words Rou had said in the past brushed past his ear. He suddenly became curious whether he truly thought that way.
“Aren’t you bothered?”
“Hm? By what?”
Rou, who had been touching scopolia leaves, wondered if perhaps Brukisel was worried about him. To worry about him who was under the Goddess’s blessing. Brukisel was truly a kind child.
“About what I’ve done. Didn’t you run away like that that day because you felt repulsed?”
“Ah…”
Rou immediately caught on to what Brukisel was talking about. The day he’d first felt gloomy emotions in front of Brukisel. The very day when, feeling like he would transform into a bumblebee, he had no choice but to disappear from before him like running away.
“It wasn’t because of what you said.”
To be precise, that was the direct cause, but if he hadn’t felt like he would turn into a bumblebee, he would have continued to stay by his side.
And that day was also when he’d seen the future related to Brukisel.
“It seems seeing the future through the Goddess’s power is more taxing. That day… it was hard to stand properly, so I returned so hastily.”
No matter how indifferent Brukisel was to everything, he would be surprised if a human suddenly turned into a slightly large bumblebee flying through the air. Rou raised his voice as if emphasizing repeatedly.
“Anyway, it wasn’t because of you. There was another reason!”
“Then, you weren’t bothered even after hearing that story?”
It seemed like Rou wouldn’t even be able to easily kill a fly. It was hard to believe such a person would be unbothered after hearing about killing people. Brukisel hoped Rou wasn’t lying. Even if he didn’t know about others, he thought he wanted Rou, at least, to always be honest in front of him.
“You said you liked that I was a kind and gentle person.”
“Yes. I like you.”
“…”
Brukisel’s ears turned red. It felt like the back of his neck was ticklish, as if he’d swallowed a feather. Brukisel cleared his throat, trying to shake off that sensation, and continued speaking.
“Can someone who killed blood relatives and seized the throne be kind and gentle? Is an emperor who orders punishment for those who oppose him kind?”
Brukisel’s voice rose as if testing him. Brukisel felt pathetic for asking such things. What did he want by asking this?
Rou briefly wondered if the marzipan he’d fed him earlier had accidentally gotten mixed with grass that had stimulant properties.
“Brukisel.”
“Answer!”
Brukisel was glaring at Rou from the tea table. Rou got up from his seat and sat across from him so they could face each other.
“Brukisel, you know. When the honey pot is too abundant, when there are too many workers, sometimes a new Queen Bee is born inside the hive. To prevent them from becoming too lazy, drunk on abundance, and to create a new kingdom.”
“…What are you suddenly talking about?”
Brukisel was displeased that Rou was suddenly showing off his knowledge. More than that, he wanted him to resolve his anxiety right now. Whether he could dare say he liked him even like this—he wanted to hear an answer to that. However, Rou continued speaking calmly.
“Then, sadly, inside the honey pot, they have no choice but to kill the newly born Queen Bee. Even though they were all family. Because…”
Rou’s complexion darkened a little. He seemed to be recalling a painful past event.
“Because if they don’t, a bigger war will break out and more bees will die. To prevent them from killing each other, the Queen Bee must be killed while still a baby.”
“…”
“It’s meaningless for me to pass judgment on what you’ve done. You were just trying your best, weren’t you?”
So that more lives wouldn’t be sacrificed. To protect the lives of more people.
So, I don’t dislike you for such things. Rou added.
