“……L-liar!”
Formo, who had been standing there dazed for a moment, belatedly came to his senses and shouted. Even if words like valiant and dignified were added, he couldn’t let this one slide pleasantly. It was because he strongly felt that Serdin was trying to tease him. Formo glared at Serdin with fierce eyes.
“It’s true, Pipi. Have you ever seen me lie?”
“Shameless jaguar……!”
While Serdin had never outright lied to Formo, there had been several times when he brazenly made up plausible stories to gloss over situations. What does he take my memory for? While he might be able to gloss over things with Kert, it’s different with me.
“You’re a liar.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever lied to Pipi though.”
“Do you really think that?”
Formo asked with an incredulous face. Seeing that shameless behavior, one big lie that Serdin had told him came to mind. Serdin’s lie that he had forgotten about. Formo clenched his fists as if even imagining it made his teeth grind and said.
“You lied about my wings. You said it would take fifty years, no, over a hundred years for my wings to fully heal.”
“Ah, that.”
The corners of Serdin’s mouth rose crookedly.
“That was a lie for Pipi’s sake though.”
“Wh-what?”
“If I hadn’t threatened you that much, Pipi would have tried to use your wings to fly away somehow.”
“That’s……”
“Even though I said that much, you used your wings several times.”
“Th-that was……”
Formo’s voice gradually diminished. It was the truth, so he couldn’t refute it. Formo, who had been trembling his lips, let out a small sigh. In the end, Formo trudged into the bedroom without even recovering his initial investment. Serdin followed behind him with a face full of laughter.
“Has the misunderstanding cleared up a bit now?”
“……D-don’t follow me.”
“I’m just going to ‘our’ bedroom though.”
Formo, who had no way to counter Serdin’s brazen words, just chose to keep his mouth shut.
“Oh, Pipi.”
“……”
“There will be a banquet starting tomorrow evening.”
“So?”
Formo, who was sitting in front of the table, tilted his head and asked back.
“I’m telling you because you need to attend too, Pipi.”
“……Wh-why me?”
Why would he have to attend an event between Tersium and Chaimb? In a place teeming not only with feline predators but also canine predators! At words that were no different from driving him into a death trap, Formo’s eyes widened.
“Well. To make your face known and to eat delicious food?”
“Delicious food is good, but…… who am I to make my face known?”
“Because Pipi is the real power holder of Sotes Palace.”
Serdin said while shrugging his shoulders. At that shameless attitude, Formo gasped. When the owner of Sotes Palace was right in front of him, saying he was the real power holder of Sotes Palace? There’s a limit to teasing. Formo pouted his lips.
Shaking his head, Formo sat down in front of the table. He brought the paper and pen placed on one side in front of him. Then he dipped the pen into the inkwell, pulled it out, and began writing on the paper.
“Pipi, what are you trying to write?”
When Serdin approached with interest, Formo’s body flinched as if caught doing something.
“……Just.”
“Just what?”
“I’m trying to write a letter to my family.”
“A letter?”
“Because I need to let them know I’m doing well……”
Formo answered muttering and tried his best to write as neatly as possible. However, because he put in too much force, the pen nib broke.
“……”
Formo, who was tightly gripping the pen with the broken nib, gauged Serdin’s reaction.
“It’s okay, Pipi. It’s because you applied too much force.”
Formo, who had thought Serdin would naturally tease him, looked at him with slightly surprised eyes at the unexpected reaction. Serdin went to the drawing room outside the bedroom and brought out a pen. Then he pulled out the chair next to Formo and sat down.
“Pipi, when writing long texts, it’s better to hold the pen like this. Holding it this way requires less force too.”
Formo blinked at Serdin’s kind advice and then nodded. It seemed better to listen to Serdin, who wrote very fluently. Formo, who received and held the new pen Serdin handed him, took a short deep breath.
Formo dipped the pen in the inkwell, pulled it out, and brought it back over the paper. He tried to write slowly without applying too much force, but the pen didn’t move as he had thought.
It was a sensation closer to scratching rather than writing on paper. Previously, Serdin seemed to move the pen smoothly…… Formo glanced at Serdin for no reason and then moved his hand again. Because the pen nib stayed in one place for a long time, the black ink soaked and dirtied the paper in various places, but it didn’t seem to be so bad that one couldn’t understand what it said. Formo decided to focus on delivery.
“Pipi, are you going to send this paper to Arancha?”
When Serdin, who had been looking down at the paper full of messy writing, asked that, Formo’s shoulders hunched inward. He wondered if his writing was so terrible that Serdin reacted that way.
“Mm-hm……”
Formo put down the pen and responded with an uncertain voice. He had been thinking of sending it to his family as is, but he also thought it wouldn’t be bad to practice writing a bit more and then rewrite it before sending. Looking at Serdin’s current reaction, it seemed better to choose the latter though.
“Pipi.”
“Yeah.”
“I think it would be better to frame this letter and keep it, what do you think?”
“……What?”
“It’s the first letter Pipi wrote, so wouldn’t it be better to frame it and keep it rather than sending it straight to Arancha?”
This was another unexpected reaction. Formo’s eyes widened. Not telling him to rewrite it because the writing was terrible, but asking how about framing and keeping it because it’s the first letter he wrote. It was absurd.
Formo looked at Serdin, who was raising the corners of his mouth while looking at him, with a stunned face and then sighed. How does he always show reactions he can’t imagine? No matter how much he thought about it, it seemed like he would never be able to adapt for his entire life. ……Well, not that it felt bad though.
The next day, just like yesterday, Formo headed to the grand bath led by Serdin’s hand. There, he ended up seeing Serdin’s thing again that he never wanted to see.
“Y-you! Why do you keep showing that……”
“What’s wrong, Pipi?”
Serdin asked back innocently and went behind Formo to wash his hair.
Formo wanted to question what his intention was in constantly showing him such things, but for that, his touch was too delicate, affectionate, and felt comfortable. So, without any chance to resist, he had no choice but to get used to that touch and half-close his eyes.
Sitting in the warm water and receiving Serdin’s gentle touch, his head felt drowsy.
“Pipi, you can’t sleep.”
“……I’m not sleeping.”
Though drowsiness was gradually coming on, he was trying his best to endure it. And after seeing Serdin’s thing, he had also become wide awake. It was when Formo, who had finished bathing with Serdin’s help like that, was drying himself with a large cloth.
“Pipi.”
Serdin, who had approached his side at some point, tapped Formo’s shoulder.
“Huh, ahhh!”
Formo, who had been blankly drying his body, was startled by the sudden touch and turned around.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Why, why do you keep startling me!”
Formo stared at Serdin with a pale face and then asked.
“Why did you call me?”
“Ah. I wanted to ask for help drying my back.”
“Back?”
“Yeah. I can’t reach my back.”
Serdin said so and showed his back to Formo. His large, broad back came into Formo’s view. It was also the first time seeing Serdin’s bare back this close, so he was a bit flustered, but Formo decided to grant his request.
Strangely, even though Serdin sunbathed frequently, his skin was white. It was the moment when Formo’s hand, which had been drying him while admiring such aspects, went down to Serdin’s waist.
“Pipi, are you going to dry my butt too?”
“Wh-what?”
“I appreciate it, but you don’t have to dry that far.”
“I-I was planning not to anyway! There’s no way I’d dry your butt.”
Formo, who snapped back with a trembling voice, spun his body around. Really absurd. He truly didn’t have even the slightest intention of drying his butt. Even if Serdin asked for such a favor, he had absolutely no intention of granting it. If someone passing by had heard, they might have thought he was a perverted beastman who personally dried his butt.
‘Really, this wretched jaguar always only says weird things.’
Formo shook his head out of habit and hurriedly put on his underwear. Certainly, his dressing speed was faster than before. Perhaps thanks to his determination to quickly change before the wretched jaguar could see, his speed of putting on clothes improved day by day.
When Formo, who had put on his underwear, even put on a robe and tried to leave the grand bath first, Serdin, who had been shaking water from his hair, stopped him.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to leave me behind and go first? If you’re not careful, you might get lost, Pipi.”
“What…… That will absolutely never happen, so you don’t have to worry.”
It was when Formo answered as if sighing and was about to walk again.
“Right. Then, Pipi.”
Serdin called Formo again.
“Haven’t you considered the opposite, that I might get lost?”
Formo’s mouth gaped. He wondered what kind of absurd nonsense this was.
