The alley to get to the dormitory, passing through the gaps between people. Having returned to Jack in the public restroom halfway, I hummed a tune as I moved my steps. But then, I discovered something unexpected.
In that place where people rarely came, an unexpected unwelcome guest stood like a jangseung. That unwelcome guest’s identity was Carl, whose face was contorted, unable to hide his unpleasant mood.
Perhaps sensing my presence, Carl turned to look at me so fast there was a sound of his head turning. His eyes were gleaming like a beast’s.
“You… You…!”
Without waiting for my answer, he strode forward. At that imposing appearance, I tried to step back, but Belly, who had been obediently clinging to my nape, returned to his original form and stood guarding in front of me.
Since Carl already knew his identity, there was nothing to hide, so that action was confident.
“Move aside.”
Carl snapped at Belly with bloodshot eyes turned bright red. But Belly didn’t even answer those words and just blocked him, looking down at him.
Although Carl had shown me his inferiority complex, he had avoided direct friction as much as possible. The last time he had shown anger was three years ago, on that day.
16 years old. Carl had accumulated brilliant achievements and built up solid trust around him. But his gaze was always anxiously directed at Rose. However, that gaze never turned to Carl. Even though he was so outstanding that it seemed worth giving at least a glance, Rose was cold. It might have been because of what happened when he was 10.
The more he was rejected like this, the more Carl’s eyes became distorted and darkly clouded. Still, Carl’s gaze was directed at Rose. He seemed to think that someday that gaze would turn to him.
He even acted particularly kind to me when Rose was around, as if wanting to assert that he was different from the past. But seeing him come out aggressively like this, it seemed he was about to reveal his true colors again.
“Belly, step aside for a moment.”
“But Master…”
Unlike not even giving Carl a stiff answer, Belly spoke worriedly as if wagging his tail. When I patted Belly’s waist, he stepped aside as if he had no choice.
Watching our appearance, Carl let out a hollow laugh and glared at me more intensely. That gaze was so seething that it felt like my face would be pierced through. Carl had grown tall and was now taller than me, so unlike the past, I even felt danger.
“While keeping something like this by your side, what was that earlier?”
Carl’s tone of speech was aggressive while discarding courtesy. I decided to listen quietly without refuting what Carl was saying.
“You usually keep that beast so affectionately by your side, but what was that today?”
“……”
“Except for that guy, you don’t have the ability to succeed in missions, so you’ll use everything you can use, is that it? I didn’t know you could think that far.”
Listening quietly, it was quite a spectacle. I couldn’t understand the cause of his anger at all. The cause of the inferiority complex he felt toward me was Rose. But the anger he was now bursting out at me seemed unrelated to Rose.
With nothing but vulgar curses missing from the blatant criticism, Belly’s mood became increasingly murderous. It was a reaction as if he himself had been insulted. But Carl poured abuse only on me without even caring about him.
“And what’s with that disguise technique? If you couldn’t even do proper disguise techniques normally, were you hiding your skills? Am I funny to you?!”
“Carl.”
At my answer, Carl shut his mouth, making it futile that he had been yelling just moments ago. I couldn’t hide my puzzlement and asked him.
“What does that have to do with you?”
“What?”
“Whether I’m close with Belly, however I approach mission targets, whether I hide my abilities—what does that have to do with you?”
“That’s…”
Carl, who had been pouring indiscriminate criticism on me, became speechless. The anger that had filled his face disappeared and was full of confusion. Even he seemed not to understand why he was like this. It was impossible to have a conversation with someone who didn’t even properly know their own state.
“Then I’ll be going now. I’m a bit tired.”
“……”
“See you later.”
I held Belly’s hand and left that spot. Though all I had done today was a date with Din, extreme fatigue ran through my entire body.
“……”
I felt a piercing gaze from behind my back. It was a gaze with a strange heat. The gaze resembling anger was vivid even without looking back, so I gripped Belly’s cold hand tighter. Belly tightly held my hand as if to soothe me and went ahead.
* * *
“Haa, haa… Telliano, I’m a bit late today, right? I’m sorry.”
Because he had run hurriedly, Jay’s skin flushed red.
Din’s gaze secretly scanned his skin. In his eyes that became more affectionate with each passing day, yearning rippled hotly. I waited for that gaze toward Jay to ripen until just before rotting.
“For Doe-ssi, I could wait an hour or ten hours.”
“Still. Haa… We exceeded the time for the ticket we promised.”
Din’s secret gaze gradually changed to become more blatant. The appearance of panting heavily, flushed from running hurriedly, seemed quite enticing.
Though it was good that the intended performance worked, when I became that target, my feelings were strange. Jay wasn’t me, but at the same time, it was me who was moving that Jay. Every time I recalled that, a strange sense of disconnect shook my head, so I deliberately set aside that thought.
“Doe-ssi, it’s okay. We can go somewhere else.”
“That’s why…”
Leaning my slender body toward Din, I looked up at him with big black eyes like a deer’s. And I whispered softly. At the shortened distance, I could clearly hear the sound of Din gulping down saliva.
“I want to go to Telliano’s house.”
Din’s face flushed. He had always sent lecherous gazes to Jay. However, he must have been pretending to be gentle, afraid that if he came on to his ideal type he had barely met, Jay would run away.
Just as there’s a time for everything, there was bound to be a time for the story to progress. The time had come to harvest this ripened emotion.
Din grabbed Jay’s wrist forcefully, making his affectionate treatment until now futile, and hurried toward his house. If someone saw, it would look like he was being dragged.
“J-just a little slower…”
Even speaking in a weak voice like a fragile herbivore, far from calming Din down, only incited him. At the quickened pace, I inwardly smiled with pleasure.
Finally. I would finally be able to know Din’s detailed backstory. Thinking that, the corners of my mouth tried to rise, so it was quite hard to hold back.
I had been to the inside of Din’s house with Belly before. Even if he had turned us away at his door, entering that house wasn’t difficult. If there were magical defenses, Belly could disable them, and infiltration wasn’t difficult either with Belly. So entering for preliminary investigation was natural for me.
However, a character’s exact backstory couldn’t all be grasped just by looking at the interior space. So it was natural that my excitement intensified.
The inside of Din’s house was very messy, perhaps because it also served as a workshop. Bundles of paper with what seemed to be tattoo designs were scattered everywhere, and dust bunnies rolled around. It was puzzling how he could perform procedures in such an unsanitary space.
The treatment room was in the basement. That place where humid air flowed was different from the first floor. Unlike the chaotic first floor, the basement was clean. It seemed that no matter how much of a mess someone lived in, they couldn’t leave the place where they performed actual procedures dirty.
What stood out in the chillingly cold space were the instruments he used.
As this was a world where magic was widespread, instruments using mana were easy to find. However, if it was a tool used for tattooing procedures, that was unusual. Moreover, it was even stranger if it wasn’t using mana in a battery-type electrical form, but rather drawing out and using the user’s mana.
If he himself were a mage, it would be fine, but if he were an ordinary person, it would be no different from depleting life force while performing procedures. But even if he were a mage, it wouldn’t be not strange. Because mages don’t live by merely performing tattoo procedures.
Even in a world where magic was common, mages were rare ability users. Most mages belonged to the state, and a minority of unaffiliated mages lived earning big money in the underworld.
In other words, unless one was quite an eccentric, living this kind of life was strange. Well, there was also the possibility that Din was that kind of eccentric.
Din rushed into the house. When both people entered the house, Din closed the door. Not a single point of light came inside, as if sinking into the deep ocean floor. A fishy smell faintly brushed past the tip of my nose.
He was breathing heavily like an excited bull, but the place he was leading to wasn’t the bedroom. The hasty steps were heading to the basement. Since his eyes were seething with desire, I thought he would do something right away. Since I had prepared my mind to some extent, I felt rather more comfortable.
“Telliano-ssi? Din? Where is this?”
The place we arrived at was his basement workshop that I had visited before. A stronger fishy smell than when I first entered brushed past the tip of my nose. I asked in a trembling voice as if anxious.
Din hadn’t looked back even once while coming here. He acted hastily as if wanting to butcher his caught prey right away. In his steps, impatience coexisted with joy and excitement.
