“The Young Master will be coming to the dining room soon. Hurry and bring this to him.”
The manservant who handed Ivan the plate gave him a warm smile, patted him on the shoulder, and walked out of the kitchen. It seemed as though he intended to guide Ivan along the way. Ivan followed cautiously, a quiet question stirring in his mind. But that lasted only a moment — his thoughts were quickly swept away by something else entirely.
Ivan rarely had occasion to meet the Duke’s eldest son. Part of it was that the Duke consumed most of his time, but part of it was also that the eldest son deliberately avoided crossing paths with Ivan, never coming anywhere near him.
They had never exchanged a single word, and the number of times they had even passed each other could be counted on one hand. So Ivan had decided to use this opportunity to make an impression. While the Duke was away, he wanted to engrave himself into the eldest son’s mind by any means necessary. To make himself linger in his thoughts, no matter what.
But how exactly was he supposed to do that? Delivering food would be over in an instant, and capturing the Young Master’s attention in that brief window seemed next to impossible.
Maybe I could trip and fall on the way.
Ivan’s head was crowded with thoughts during that short walk. He was just about to make a decision when he heard the manservant’s voice.
“He hasn’t arrived yet. Go ahead and leave it at the empty spot.”
“Oh — yes.”
The manservant stood right beside Ivan and kindly pointed out exactly where the dish should be placed. He kept smiling the entire time. What could possibly be so pleasant about this? Ivan felt vaguely irritated for reasons he couldn’t quite name. He was slightly displeased, but for now what mattered was getting the Young Master to notice him. He was debating whether to deliberately knock over a water glass while setting down the food — when something happened in the most unexpected place.
Ivan walked toward the dining table. But he hadn’t taken more than a few steps when something caught his foot. His body pitched forward, and because both hands were occupied with the plate, he had no way to catch himself — and he went crashing hard to the floor.
“Ah——!”
Crash——!
The plate hit the floor and shattered loudly. The pristine floor was reduced to a mess in an instant.
Ah. So that was the plan.
Ivan finally understood the manservant’s sudden shift in attitude. He let out a hollow laugh inside as he reached up to cradle his aching wrist. Ivan had planned to trip and fall himself — but only once the Young Master was standing right in front of him. The Young Master hadn’t arrived yet, however, and now he’d gone and fallen for absolutely nothing. Ivan turned to glare at the manservant who had tripped him. And then — what a stroke of luck.
“What is this commotion?”
“Apologies, Young Master. It appears the boy made a mistake.”
The Head Butler’s voice came first, followed by the eldest son’s — familiar in some ways, yet still strange to Ivan’s ears. Ivan drew his shoulders up sharply. It was a low, commanding voice. In an instant, Ivan schooled his face into an expression of frightened panic and looked up. There, walking toward the dining table, was the eldest son.
“Ah……”
“……”
Their eyes met. They hadn’t been this close many times before, and seeing him again after so long, Ivan felt a small tremor ripple through him. His own judgment hadn’t been wrong after all. This man was undoubtedly the one who could fill the Duke’s absence. The moment that guess hardened into certainty, Ivan hastily dropped his gaze again and began picking up the shards of the broken plate from the floor with his bare hands.
His slender frame trembled, overcome with fear before the imposing eldest son of the Duke’s household. He had even made the blunder of breaking a plate right in front of him — who wouldn’t be frightened? The eldest son simply watched Ivan from above as he dangerously gathered the pieces with his bare hands.
His gaze carried something like contempt — the look of someone staring down at something utterly worthless. Ivan couldn’t see it. But conscious of the eldest son’s piercing stare fixed on him, Ivan felt a restless itch stir beneath his skin. He tried to steady his trembling hands, but as he picked up the glass shards with bare fingers, he inevitably cut himself, and blood began to well up.
“Ngh——!”
A sharp sting pricked the tip of his finger. Tears gathered in Ivan’s eyes again. This time they didn’t just gather — a single drop fell silently to the floor. The others in the room didn’t see it, but he did, clearly. What more could a manservant do — cut and bleeding, trembling with fear, now crying? The eldest son let out a quiet breath and spoke in a flat, low voice.
“Clean it up.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“I — I’m so sorry……”
Ivan could almost hear the muffled laughter of the other servants at the edges of his awareness. But it was the contemptuous gaze of the eldest son bearing down on him that made Ivan tremble far more. Two maids swooped in to clear away the fallen shards and spilled food. They pushed Ivan aside, and Ivan tumbled backward, landing hard on his backside — painting a picture of someone utterly hopeless at his job.
“Tch.”
The sound of the eldest son clicking his tongue reached Ivan’s ears. Ivan stiffened and turned his head to look at him again. Their eyes met for a second time. The eldest son was staring at Ivan with a slight furrow in his brow.
His gaze still held contempt — the undisguised look of someone peering down at something beneath notice. Another tear slid down Ivan’s face. His fingertip, beaded with droplets of blood, touched the floor. Ivan scrambled hurriedly to his feet, bowed to the eldest son with a murmured apology, and fled the dining room as if running for his life.
“Worthless wretch.”
He caught the eldest son’s muttered words just before he made it out. Ivan burned them into his memory, deliberately letting out a small sniffle as he slipped away. Out of the dining room, he ran down the corridor and straight to his own room. He stepped inside, pressed his back against the closed door, and clutched at his clothes.
Ivan’s face was flushed. Whether it was from humiliation or something else entirely — something that had ignited and spread through him — he couldn’t tell at all. Perhaps because of the tears still caught in his lashes, his eyes shone with a bright, glittering light.
“Haa…… What do I do.”
Seeing him up close, he had a far deeper air about him than Ivan had expected. His sturdy build, and the glimpse Ivan had caught between his legs — it had looked similar to the Duke’s cock. What do I do — I already want him inside me.
Ivan slid down the wall with his ears burning red and buried his face in his hands. Between his own legs, his cock was straining, swelling up visibly — his body making no secret of how aroused he had become. Ivan had gotten hard from the eldest son’s gaze looking down at him.
Ivan pressed down the restless heat churning inside him and slowly lowered his hands. They slipped naturally inside his trousers. His stiff cock was wrapped in his small hand, while his other hand slid beneath his shirt to grope at his chest. Ivan stroked his cock and lightly pinched and twisted his nipple, unable to hold back his excitement as he began touching himself.
“Hng…… haa. Y — Young Master…… Young Master……”
Ivan closed his eyes and tilted his head back, calling his name in a tiny voice as his toes curled and his hips arched. The hand stroking and working his cock began to move faster. Just pinching his swollen nipples wasn’t enough anymore. He was filled with longing for someone to lick and bite them, to torment them roughly.
Touching his cock made his hole ache with want as well. After being used thoroughly all the night before, the entrance hadn’t tightened back up and was still loose and open. The hand on his cock drifted lower and found the hole, and fingers slick with pre-cum slipped lightly inside, stirring through the soft inner walls.
“Nngh——! Hh! Young Maste-er…… Yo — Young Master…… hng.”
The image of his cock — one Ivan had never even seen — floated through his mind. Ivan couldn’t be satisfied with his own small fingers. He needed a cock. Not a toy carved into the shape of one, but a real, living, large and crude cock of a man. Ivan’s flushed eyelids fluttered and trembled as he opened his eyes.
The Duke had about a week left before he returned. In the meantime, how was he supposed to get the eldest son’s cock inside him? Ivan’s mind, tangled up in pleasure, grew complicated all over again. The cut on his finger — which had begun to close while he was touching his nipple — started bleeding again. The sharp sting made Ivan flinch. He pulled his hand out and looked at it, eyes dropping to the small bead of blood welling up.
How was he supposed to get a cock without letting anyone discover his true nature? Ivan ran his tongue over the cut on his finger, then bit it lightly. No suitable plan came to mind.
Truthfully, right now, indulging in pleasure came before making any plans. In the end, Ivan cleared his mind. He didn’t stop the fingers pressing into his walls, and moans spilled from his lips once more. Ivan’s small voice calling for the eldest son echoed softly through the room.
In the now-settled quiet, Leonard ate with the composed, refined posture befitting the eldest son of a Duke’s household. His expression was as blank as ever — and if anything, that very quality gave him a certain air. The servants standing nearby, men and women alike, were privately undone by him, stealing helpless glances in his direction. They gazed at him endlessly for even the faintest chance of catching his eye, spinning quiet fantasies among themselves. But Leonard himself, the subject of it all, was utterly indifferent. He seemed lost in thought — his knife stilling mid-cut for a brief moment.
Leonard couldn’t get Ivan out of his head. The sight of him earlier — crumpled on the floor, trembling — had been so terribly slight. It was obvious from the start that someone had deliberately tripped him.
Even without having seen it happen, the atmosphere made it easy enough to read, and Leonard had intended to let it pass without a second thought. Ivan — he was his father’s male prostitute, and he was hardly well-regarded among the other servants.
Leonard himself held Ivan in low esteem. He had no idea what had so thoroughly captivated his father, but the sight of him freely offering up his backside and putting on that fragile, weepy act was something Leonard found deeply distasteful. So when the incident in the dining room happened, he had fully meant to walk right past and ignore it. But he hadn’t been able to.
