“A deer?”
The woman muttered with a flustered expression upon seeing a deer that had suddenly appeared between the garden walls.
‘This is so embarrassing…….’
When their eyes met, Abrisius’s entire body flushed hot.
His bottom was stuck in the wall with only his face and torso sticking out—the sight of himself was so humiliating he wanted to die.
If there was a mouse hole anywhere, he wanted to hide in it. No, wait—had he already entered one and ended up like this?
“What a truly beautiful deer. I’ve never seen this species before—did it come from a foreign land?”
The woman quite liked the deer, Abrisius, who was beautiful at first glance. With an intrigued expression, she slowly bent down to observe Abrisius.
Her eyes, which seemed to contain the blue sea, somehow reminded him of Cairens.
‘She’s pretty.’
The moment he thought that, forgetting even the sorrow of being stuck in the wall, a crow poked his soft bottom with its beak as if it had been waiting for this.
“Squee……!”
The attack, which had been in a temporary lull, suddenly came, and at the same time he felt a sharp pain in his bottom, shame welled up from deep in his chest and his grief burst forth.
“Squeeee……eee.”
The tears that had briefly stopped poured out all at once. Tears rolled down from Abrisius’s eyes in drops.
But all he could do was shake his body and bottom.
He couldn’t even put up any real resistance. The woman who had been silently watching his meaningless movements quietly asked.
“Are you stuck in the wall and can’t get out?”
Having said that, she slowly approached his side before Abrisius could say anything. Then, confirming that Abrisius was very tightly wedged between the walls, she gently inserted her hand through the gap in the wall.
“Ugh……!”
It seemed he was stuck too firmly to be pulled out with the woman’s touch.
“Contrary to appearances, you have quite a bit of meat on you.”
The words she muttered without any particular meaning hit the mark. Of course, he had nothing to say in his defense.
“Squee…….”
“Good boy. Just bear with it a little longer.”
Abrisius let out a groan as his bottom, rubbed against the wall, began to hurt.
After gently soothing the young deer in pain, she continued working to pull out Abrisius’s bottom with even more strength.
How much time had passed like that?
He felt his bottom gradually being pushed down, and as the flesh of his tightly wedged bottom came free, the rest of his body was pushed out.
“Squee! Squeeee!”
Having finally escaped from that detestable hole, Abrisius immediately chased away the crows and made joyful crying sounds.
“There, all done.”
After several minutes of struggle, the woman who had rescued his bottom also seemed excited.
Naturally, she lightly stroked Abrisius’s head. Though Abrisius was quite a prickly deer, he made an exception just this once and slightly lowered his body to accept her touch.
“By the way, you’re a child I’ve never seen before. Where did you come from?”
The noble woman asked with a smile. Unable to speak human words in his current state, Abrisius instead cried cutely as he always did with Cairens.
And soon after, an anxious voice calling for Abrisius was heard from beyond the wall.
“Deer, deer, where are you?”
It was Cairens looking for the deer that had disappeared during their game of hide-and-seek. When that voice rang out, the woman’s hand that had been stroking Abrisius stopped abruptly.
A cold stillness began to flow around the woman.
However, Abrisius, who felt pleased at Cairens’s voice, unfortunately couldn’t read the atmosphere at all.
“Squee!”
‘Oh, Cairens!’
With the wall between them, Abrisius cried out “squee” to let him know his location.
“Are you over there?”
At Cairens’s voice coming again, the woman flinched.
“How did you even get in there?”
Still unaware of the situation beyond the wall, Cairens grumbled and complained. Not knowing what the situation was like behind the wall stacked higher than his head, Cairens began climbing up while holding onto the wall surface.
“Just hold on a little longer—!”
The woman had already stiffened like stone and was only staring intently in the direction from which Cairens’s voice was coming.
Abrisius, who had been waiting with relief for Cairens to get closer, only then sensed that the atmosphere behind him was unusual.
‘Something’s strange about this?’
Abrisius, who instinctively detected that something was wrong, turned around. The stiffly rigid woman alternated her gaze between the wall and Abrisius, then their eyes met.
At the same time, Cairens leaped over the wall and landed on the ground, coming face to face with the woman’s cold eyes.
“Ah.”
Cairens’s face, which never lost its composure, turned deathly pale.
Over his blanched face passed complex emotions that couldn’t be expressed in words—a mixture of bewilderment and fear.
“…….”
As the woman’s expression toward him gradually sharpened, Cairens, as if coming to his senses, quickly bowed his head. Somehow, his expression also looked a bit lonely.
The gentleness the woman had shown just moments ago when helping Abrisius stuck in the wall couldn’t be found anywhere.
‘What, what’s with this atmosphere?’
Sensing the air that had turned cold, Abrisius looked between the two of them.
He didn’t know what had happened between them, but Abrisius, caught in the middle, just felt awkward.
‘Why is Cairens acting like someone who’s committed a crime?’
A cold wind blew between the two.
After an awkward silence, it was Cairens who broke the stillness first.
“It’s been a long time.”
“…….”
It was an ordinary and safe greeting, but as soon as he opened his mouth, the surrounding air became even heavier.
The woman didn’t respond to Cairens’s greeting, and soon a bit of tension entered her tightly closed lips.
“I hope you’ve been we——”
“Leave. The very fact that you dare to greet me makes me sick.”
“…….”
With that fierce momentum, she pressured Cairens who had spoken to her.
But contrary to her thorny words and actions, her eyes held a faint affection toward Cairens.
At least that’s how it looked to Abrisius.
‘What exactly is their relationship?’
While speculating about their relationship, Abrisius tilted his head.
Her appearance—with a resolute expression but unable to take her eyes off him—was similar to the expression of Seianes from the distant future that he had glimpsed a few days ago through Amina’s power.
An expression mixing hatred and affection. In short, a state of holding love-hate.
“As I’ve told you, I don’t believe in gods.”
Even though gods were walking around freely and exerting enormous influence on the world, she was denying the existence of gods.
“And yet you’re greeting me. Isn’t that ridiculous? I’m denying your very existence.”
In other words, she was openly denying Cairens, who as the son of a god wielded even greater influence than a king. Considering the influence gods had on this world, her liver must be terribly swollen.
Cairens wasn’t the type to just quietly listen to such words. At least the Cairens that Abrisius knew wasn’t.
“…….”
But Cairens was just silently listening. The resolute attitude he had shown to Ricarkos last time was nowhere to be found—he was just silently bowing his head without saying anything.
Even though the woman before him was denying his existence and essentially insulting his parents.
“……I’m sorry.”
Instead, he was apologizing to her and politely bowing his head.
‘What kind of situation is this?’
Dumbfounded, Abrisius’s mouth gaped wide open.
Both Cairens and the woman before him—neither of them was normal. Did Cairens have some weakness she was holding over him? And this woman who was spouting abuse in front of a child younger than herself wasn’t in her right mind either.
Unable to understand either of them, Abrisius stood frozen between them, just flapping his mouth open and shut, when at that moment……
From Cairens’s mouth, which had been constantly watching the woman’s mood, flowed out a voice as small as an ant’s.
“Mother.”
Cairens’s distant gaze reached her.
On the other hand, the woman only gazed at Cairens with a displeased look.
And Abrisius, who was watching this scene from the middle, couldn’t help but be flustered.
‘Mother……? Then that woman is Cairens’s mother?’
Surprised by this unexpected fact, he looked back and forth between the two people’s appearances.
Come to think of it, when he made eye contact with her earlier, he had thought that Cairens’s blue eyes and the woman’s blue eyes were similar.
Looking at them like this, they weren’t just similar—they were exactly the same, as if the same eyes had been placed in both of them.
‘……But why does she dislike Cairens?’
In any case, the two looked so alike that he could believe they were mother and son. But there were still questions.
Even though he was her son, she denied and avoided Cairens’s existence. She was very far from being a typical mother. Moreover, Cairens was also very far from being a typical son.
‘Why are they like this? Wouldn’t a normal mother love her son? Of course, not all mothers do that…… But still, a child born from a relationship with a god…….’
Could it have been an unwanted relationship?
