“Huh? Yeah? Friends?”
Beni stiffened at the word friends. It was something said without much thought, but Beni made such a fuss that Ren frowned.
“What.”
Beni, whose cheeks had puffed up red, nodded as if embarrassed.
“We are friends…”
Beni naturally thought of Ren as a friend too, but there was no guarantee that Ren thought the same of him. Beni was more accustomed to not having expectations, so when Ren called him a friend first, his heart swelled with emotion.
Seeing Beni pleased, his lips twitching, Ren also felt unnecessarily embarrassed and lightly smacked his forearm.
“Just hurry up and put on your clothes.”
Beni held out the mana stone in his hand again, but Ren showed him his gloves.
“I’m fine with these. You keep it. The Demon King gave it to you to use.”
He’d obviously be in trouble if he got caught by the Demon King. And he didn’t want to carry around something the Demon King gave him in the first place. However, Ren didn’t bother revealing such inner thoughts. Beni had no choice but to back down at Ren’s firm attitude.
* * *
The two didn’t have many conversations while taking a walk, but somehow, just having Ren there made Beni feel more clear-headed than before. That didn’t mean he’d accepted his speculation, though.
He had no idea where the misunderstanding started from, and though he felt like he should consult Ruan about this too, he had no clue what to say.
“Oh right, hey. If that bastard Pepe comes onto you, don’t even talk to him.”
“Pepe?”
Since it was rare for Pepe’s name to come out of Ren’s mouth, Beni stared as if puzzled.
“Yeah, a few days ago he suddenly came and kept prying about where you went—it totally looked like he’s fucking interested in you.”
“Interested? What kind of interest?”
The Pepe he’d happened to run into would always ask about Ren or just pass by without even greeting. From some point on, it even seemed like he was glaring at him… To think that Pepe was showing interest in him was hard to imagine. Rather, he seemed to have more interest in Ren…?
Seeing Beni’s expression that he didn’t understand at all, Ren sighed as if he’d expected this.
“What kind of interest—favorable interest.”
Favorable…? Beni had to ponder whether he was misunderstanding the meaning of favorable. No matter how much Beni recalled, only Pepe’s glaring face came to mind. That was definitely not the gaze of someone with favorable feelings.
“Does it mean Pepe… wants to become close with me?”
“Would it be such pure favorable feelings? It’s dirty interest, meaning he wants to do weird things with you.”
“…Weird things?”
“You little… you keep asking even though you know, right?”
Ren’s face reddened, but Beni really seemed purely clueless. Eventually, Ren looked around unnecessarily and muttered quietly.
“Like kissing… touching… ah, you know! Anyway, he wants to do that kind of thing. That bastard Pepe, with you.”
“Ah…”
Beni finally understood what kind of words Ren was saying, but the more he understood, the more he couldn’t comprehend. So Pepe lusted after him.
“…Could Ren be mistaken? Pepe seems like he doesn’t even want to talk to me. Probably…”
“You wouldn’t know since you’re fucking clueless. Anyway, that bastard Pepe hangs around kids with dirty reputations too. So absolutely don’t even talk to him, and ignore him if he says weird things.”
Though he didn’t understand, Beni was indeed clueless as Ren said, and since he was speaking with such conviction, it felt awkward to argue further that it wasn’t so. In the first place, Beni had never once thought about Pepe.
“Oh, so I told that bastard that we sleep in the same bed.”
Ren spat out the words and watched Beni’s reaction. Looking back, it seemed a bit excessive, but it wasn’t a complete lie either… Bad rumors about Beni had already been circulating from the moment he continued staying with him. But it was common for low-quality rumors to circulate among servants. Plus, no matter how clueless, seeing him firmly believe that Pepe had no interest in him, it seemed what he said had an effect.
Come to think of it, it was better for rumors to circulate—if he got tangled up with such bastards for no reason, servant life would become difficult. Ren suddenly wondered if the Demon King’s words to take good care of him meant to keep watching over Beni since he’d continue keeping him as a servant.
While Ren was alone speculating about the Demon King’s intentions and watching Beni’s reaction, the person in question was having thoughts like this:
‘Saying we slept in the same bed makes us look really close.’
Belatedly, Ren realized Beni hadn’t understood his words at all and explained, but Beni still didn’t care.
“If Ren said that much, there must be a good reason for it, so I’m really okay, Ren.”
Honestly, he thought even Beni might get angry this time. At Beni who really seemed unbothered, Ren felt strange and his words came out bluntly.
“Good for you to know!”
As they were walking, a murmuring sound could faintly be heard from far away. The two stopped on their way and looked toward the source.
“What are they doing?”
“Don’t know? Haven’t heard anything?”
“Should we go see?”
“…Do as you like.”
Ren seemed like he really didn’t want to go. Beni also had no intention of pestering him to go when Ren didn’t want to, so normally he would have said it was okay not to go, but this time was a little different.
“Ren, if you really don’t want to go, I’ll just quickly go and come back alone!”
Because his burrow was in the direction of the murmuring. It was more likely just a coincidence, and his burrow was much deeper inside the flower bed, so it might not matter at all, but it wouldn’t be bad to go check once.
When Beni turned his steps, Ren followed along.
“Who said I’m not going? Let’s go together.”
At the blunt tone, Beni smiled slightly. But the closer they got to the source of the noise, the stranger Beni’s expression became. The moment he felt a strong sense of dissonance, his eyes met James’s, who was on the outskirts of the crowd.
James looked surprised to see Beni but soon calmly approached. In his arms was an armful of herbs.
“Beni! You knew about it too.”
Not knowing what he was talking about, Ren and Beni glanced at each other, but James pressed herbs into Beni’s hands. Then, as he tried to hand some to Ren standing beside him, he caught sight of a lizard-like tail swaying below his legs and hesitated. Ren’s eyes became instantly fierce.
“…Who’s this guy?”
“It’s Ren, my roommate. A good friend!”
“Ah… roommate.”
James’s gaze toward Ren was peculiar, but he didn’t show any other emotion beyond that. James also handed herbs to Ren. When Ren didn’t accept them warily, Beni hurriedly received them instead. Only then did Ren accept them, but he didn’t drop his hostility toward James.
“You guys go put them down quickly too.”
Whether Ren did or not, James wrapped his arm around Beni’s back and pushed through the crowd.
“Please excuse us for a moment.”
Waving his hand, the three arrived at the innermost part of the fairly large crowd. Beni’s pupils greatly dilated seeing what was inside. James, who hadn’t seen his face, said,
“You can put the herbs over there.”
“…What is that?”
The scene unfolding before Beni’s eyes was truly bizarre.
“Huh? Didn’t you come knowing?”
A rabbit drawing erected at his burrow and herb stems piled high in front of it. Beni turned his head with trembling eyes.
“It’s a prayer ritual hoping the rabbit will come back. That burrow is where the rabbit stayed.”
“…His Majesty the Demon King’s rabbit?”
“That’s right. Some guys say it probably died, but that’s all nonsense. That rabbit was so clever.”
“So that rabbit…”
“Hey Beni, stop asking. Put this down first.”
Ren waved the herbs at Beni, who seemed to be in shock. Beni also knew this reaction of his would seem strange to others, so he quietly placed the herbs in front of his burrow. Beni looked closely at the rabbit drawing before standing up.
Then he whispered with a tearful face.
“Ren, we’re in big trouble.”
So you’ve finally noticed. Ren snorted as if he already knew what Beni was going to say and jerked his chin. His eyes, which had become arrogant, seemed to say “See?”
“I think everyone’s misunderstanding that I’m His Majesty the Demon King’s rabbit!”
Beni hoped his speculation was wrong. But now he could clearly understand what the identity of all that dissonance had been. The Demon King’s rabbit had happened to disappear, and in the meantime, he’d been hiding and living as a rabbit, causing everyone to naturally misunderstand him as the Demon King’s rabbit.
“What? No, ha, seriously.”
Ren, completely deflated, was about to tell the truth, unable to bear it anymore, when Beni suddenly approached James quickly.
“What’s wrong?”
“…About His Majesty the Demon King’s rabbit. Did it pull weeds to eat at the farm, steal food from the Cerberus pen, run into attendants and pretend not to know, and camouflage on top of mops?”
At the sudden question, James was bewildered.
