Serdin sat in front of his office desk with a bored expression, propping up his chin. Though he knew he was on vacation, Kert had half-dragged him here while clinging to him desperately, begging him to please at least finish his assigned work for Kert’s sake, so he was in a foul mood.
He calmed his displeasure by recalling Formo’s appearance that he’d seen just before leaving the bedroom. Formo had looked at Serdin listlessly with round eyes thick with sleepiness, then carelessly waved one wing. It was clearly a gesture meant to tell him not to disturb his sleep and to get lost, but even that was adorable.
The dainty little bird was, as always, prickly and fierce. Though he occasionally shrank back and flinched at incomprehensible moments, his eyes full of dissatisfaction remained unchanged.
“Kert.”
Serdin stopped carelessly flipping through documents and called out to Kert.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Kert, who had been sorting documents with his nose buried in his desk, slightly raised his head.
“About Pipi.”
Formo’s name naturally came up as the topic of conversation. Though Kert looked at his superior with disapproving eyes for talking about Formo several times a day, he still listened to the story for now.
“…Yes.”
“Is he an adult?”
“That kind of thing, you should ask Sara, his attending physician…”
“No matter how I look at it, he doesn’t seem to be an adult.”
Serdin made a serious face as he brought up something he’d been seriously contemplating for the past few days.
“I think he’s plenty adult enough…”
“Pipi is even smaller than my fist, so there’s no way he’s an adult. Where in the world is there such a tiny and insignificant adult?”
Kert looked incredulously at Serdin, who kept rambling on with what he wanted to say without caring about Kert’s answer at all. Regardless, Serdin’s story continued.
“No matter how much I feed him, he doesn’t gain weight—he’s not sick somewhere, is he?”
“…Yes. Pipi-nim appears to be very healthy with not a single ailment except for his injured wing.”
The Formo that Kert saw was an excessively healthy long-tailed tit. Formo was a very, very healthy and sturdy bird that Serdin had no need to unnecessarily worry about. His superior tended to try to overprotect such a Formo.
While saying he’d stuff him in his mouth at every opportunity, in reality, didn’t he cherish him dearly and treat him carefully as if handling some glass craft?
A sigh escaped through Kert’s teeth. It really was an absurd situation the more he thought about it. Who would have known that his superior, who had been indifferent to everything, would transform like this?
“Kert.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Bring me the documents.”
Serdin, who had been staring blankly at Kert, waggled his index finger. Kert stupidly asked back to his superior, who had been going on about Formo to his heart’s content and then suddenly demanded documents.
“…Pardon?”
“I said bring me the documents.”
It was an unpredictable order, but Kert obediently complied. It absolutely wasn’t because he was scared of Serdin’s eyes, which were strangely sparkling for some reason.
While Serdin was away from his seat, Formo was lying in bed killing time. Whereas last time Serdin had left a pillow, this time he’d left a book made of cloth. Something about reading it if he was bored. No matter how bored he was, he didn’t want to so much as flip through a book that wretched human had brought him.
It felt like if Serdin noticed that he’d read the book, very troublesome and tiresome things would happen.
“…Peep.”
But this time, he was excessively bored and couldn’t help it. Formo decided to compromise with himself while glancing at the book.
Having finished compromising in a positive direction, Formo got up from his spot and scanned the cover as if doing a favor. The title of the book written in the common language used by beastmen was <Baby Sparrow>.
Formo’s eyes, which had been scanning the title, immediately took on a fierce light.
“Peep!”
Formo pecked at the book with an angry face. Just as he thought. There was no way this wretched human would do anything helpful for him. Formo glared at the book, trembling with the surging sense of betrayal and anger.
“Peep, peep!”
Sparrows were one of the enemies of Formo and the long-tailed tits. They were so good at carrying tales here and there that once they’d even blabbed about classified information regarding Arancha Kingdom’s security, causing a major incident.
Was that all? They’d also come all the way near Arancha Kingdom claiming to be scouting, rudely dropped bird droppings everywhere, and leisurely left. As such incidents accumulated, sparrows and long-tailed tits naturally came to hate each other.
No, actually, only the long-tailed tits unilaterally loathed sparrows.
Not even knowing that sparrows and long-tailed tits had such a relationship, this wretched human had left behind a book with such a frivolous title as <Baby Sparrow>.
“Peep!”
Formo glared at the cloth book with blazing eyes, then sharply turned his head away. It seemed better to strongly confront Serdin rather than venting his anger on the book.
And so, for the first time since staying at the annex, Formo came to earnestly wait only for Serdin to return. Sitting far away from the book, he pondered deeply and came up with a certain hypothesis.
The horrifying hypothesis that Serdin had actually known about the relationship between long-tailed tits and sparrows and deliberately brought the book <Baby Sparrow>. Once he had that thought, he became even more furious. He needed to get away from this vicious human as quickly as possible, even if just one day sooner.
Formo glared at the door with a face burning with anger. However, no matter how much he glared at the door, there was no way Serdin, who had gone to process documents after a long while, would return quickly.
Since Kert, who had been waiting for just this moment with full determination, had gone with him, he wouldn’t be able to see him until at least evening. Formo got up from his spot and climbed up the stairs placed beside the bed. They were stairs for the bed that Serdin had personally procured for Formo, whose wing was injured.
Since they had quite a soft texture, sometimes when he was too sleepy to have the energy to climb up to the bed, he’d take naps on these stairs. Formo, who had climbed onto the bed, looked around, then stuck his beak under a cushion and moved his head searching for the letter. Formo’s round, plump bottom also wiggled left and right in sync with the movement of his head.
Soon the hidden letter caught on the tip of his small beak. Formo skillfully moved his beak to pull out the letter. Then, holding it in his beak, he climbed onto the bed headboard. Next to the bed headboard was a large window, and if he tried hard enough, it seemed he could push the letter between the window frames.
Formo moved diligently and succeeded in getting near the window. However, if no bird passed by to deliver the letter, pushing it outside the window would be pointless. It would end up being a futile effort. Formo, gripping the letter in his beak with force, examined the view outside the window.
The clear sky visible outside the window was excessively quiet. Only the occasional sound of wind blowing could be heard; there were no sounds of birds chirping. It was a strange scene, as if measures had been taken to prevent any bird from flying around this area. Of course, that couldn’t be the case, but he became anxious for no reason.
Formo rolled his eyes around, then wedged the letter into the gap between the window frames. Perhaps because he’d wedged it in a bit too deep, a lot of the letter stuck out toward the outside. He became anxious at the situation flowing completely differently from what he’d planned.
Formo, who had been staring at the letter with uneasy eyes, soon cried out loudly for help.
“Peeeep! Peep!”
[Is anyone there? Please help me!]
Formo waited silently with his breath held so he could hear well even if an answer came from far away, but there was no result. No one answered him. Perhaps they hadn’t heard his voice. It was when Formo, who had been working his beak, was about to make another sound.
As if the mountain god had sneezed, a fierce wind suddenly blew. Due to that, the letter that had been precariously wedged in the window frame shook, then rode the wind and flew away with a swoosh. The letter that had been Formo’s only hope disappeared all too futilely.
“…”
Formo stared blankly at the letter flying here and there on the wind, then dropped his head with a thud. His chest ached. It was a letter he’d written with such effort. It was a letter he’d hidden with such effort. To lose the letter he’d protected from that wretched human so absurdly like this…
Moisture gradually began to seep into his round eyes. Unable to hide the surging feeling of grievance, Formo sniffled, then shook his head vigorously. For someone born with the fate of a brave guardian, wasn’t crying too often a bit much? Bravery and tears weren’t words that matched at all…
Right. To maintain dignity, he needed to reduce his tears and become a long-tailed tit with an even tougher interior than now. Formo, who had tensed his whole body, took a deep breath and calmed his tumultuous heart. Once his insides had calmed down to some degree, it seemed like his field of vision, which had narrowed while focusing only on swallowing his emotions, opened up again.
Formo, feeling somewhat better, rolled his eyes around to contemplate a decent solution and discovered the cloth book. Then he turned his gaze away, pretending not to see it, but his attention kept being drawn to the cloth book.
Formo stuck out his beak and snorted.
Come to think of it, everything seemed to be because of that book with the sparrow in it. It was clear that he’d messed up his task because that book was here.
Formo’s round eyes gradually began to take on a fierce light.
