My master was a unique existence. He always walked around smiling cheerfully, but somehow his attitude when dealing with other people was perfunctory. It wasn’t that he didn’t focus on the other party. Rather, he would observe persistently to an obsessive degree.
However, that behavior didn’t extend to becoming deeply close.
My master was obsessed with the information others possessed, and once he found out what he wanted, he cleanly discarded his interest in the other party. It might be excellent as the behavior of an information guild member, but leaving that position aside, it couldn’t be called desirable. Because he couldn’t form deep relationships with others.
For humans, a social species, that was a major flaw. But for me, I didn’t dislike his behavior. Because no one would be able to enter his boundaries.
Even Rose, who was somewhat close to him, remained only in a superficial relationship with my master. I was the same, but I had no worries. Because I was confident I would someday occupy the seat beside him.
Though my body hadn’t fully grown yet, after going through growing pains two or three more times, I would grow enough to look attractive to others. Until then, his peculiar behavior must not change.
What I couldn’t obtain, no one else could obtain either.
The affection I couldn’t obtain, no one else must obtain.
It was enough if the only thing my master had to take responsibility for was me alone.
As I approached him, I could see his face depressed to a vivid degree. A raw face I had never seen even once since meeting him. A loneliness that seemed to have been torn from the deep blue close to the black of the deep sea wafted from him.
He certainly wasn’t like this before I left… What on earth happened? At Jack’s emotional change that had altered so drastically it was surprising, I unknowingly brought out a title I didn’t speak in front of others.
“Master…?”
At my voice, the gazes of those in the room focused on me, but now wasn’t the time to care about that. Normally he would have been averse to using the title ‘Master’ in front of others, but now he had no reaction at all and just knitted mechanically.
“You usually stick together so closely… Master?”
I heard the trash’s voice that sounded somehow sarcastic. The red-haired man, Carl. However, his voice just passed by my ears.
There were too many others in this space right now. I picked up and held my master. Like a lifeless doll, he gave no reaction and hung limply in my arms. Satisfaction at completely possessing him and displeasure at his appearance of having no reason mixed murkily and surged up.
“Ah, um…”
The skinny woman reached out her arm toward my master, but I had no intention of handing him over. I left the room while holding him more thoroughly.
I wished not even a strand of his hair would be visible outside my embrace, but it was impossible because I hadn’t grown enough yet. My fingertips tingled with desire for growth.
The place my urgent feet headed was the room where we resided. The gazes of people passing by stuck densely to us. But since stabilizing my master came first for me, I moved quickly like the wind without paying attention.
Arriving at the room, I laid my master down on the bed. With his limbs hanging limply as if his whole body had no strength, he made the viewer’s heart ache.
“Master… What happened so suddenly?”
“…”
I spoke carefully but he was immovable. He just blinked slowly. He looked like a very aged beast.
An old, weary appearance where even blinking an eye seemed difficult. At that lifeless appearance, I approached close enough for our noses to nearly touch and met his gaze. Though he was clearly here, somehow I felt a sense of floating from him. As if he weren’t here.
His two pupils weren’t looking at reality right now. I carefully grasped both his cheeks. When my cool hands touched him, my master flinched in surprise. At the same time, light returned to his eyes.
Knowing that bare-handed contact helped, I slowly moved the hands caressing his cheeks to another place. From his cheeks full of freckles to his deer-like long nape.
He had freckles not only on his face but all over his body, so they were dotted on the back of his neck too. Looking at that made my mouth water. An insatiable hunger unknowingly boiled up. It resembled appetite, but was fundamentally a different emotion.
“…Why.”
My master muttered in a small voice that was nearly extinguished. It was such a small voice I could miss it if careless, but since I had focused all my nerves on him, it came through more clearly than anything.
I picked him up in my arms again and hugged him tightly. I wanted to convey more of my cool body temperature to him, and it was to better hear that small voice that was inaudible.
“Belly is… Belly is so worried about Master.”
I tried speaking gently in a soft voice, but my master said nothing. That small mouth that always chattered about novel contents and such was pressed shut. I anxiously asked him more diligently.
“What on earth happened? Did someone bully you? This Belly will go right now and kill them, so please tell me…”
Though my age was only 10, I grew faster than humans. Moreover, since humans were weak, I could easily handle them with my abilities.
It was possible to handle them by secretly approaching in beast form and biting with venomous fangs, and since I could use concealment techniques in human form too, I could also secretly approach and kill them. Young humans were no problem for me.
My master let out an empty laugh at my words and asked.
“…Why?”
“Why, you ask? This Belly can do anything for Master.”
As soon as I answered, my master suddenly twisted his body and pushed my chest hard. Though I say hard, since all his strength had left his body, I wasn’t pushed back even an inch.
However, recognizing his intent, I let myself be pushed away. Though it was regrettable that my master’s body temperature, higher than mine, was moving away, my master’s will was more important than my desire.
“What are you?”
But my master sharpened his tongue directed at me for the first time, and I fell helplessly into pain.
“What are you, just a character in a novel!”
…What is my master saying right now?
He hid his face full of despair in both hands. Was the reason both hands were trembling because of fear, or something else? I couldn’t know. I couldn’t understand my master’s emotions right now, when I could always grasp them as if holding them in one hand.
“Character… Character…”
As I muttered, my master’s body trembled. Like a child being pointed out for something they did wrong in front of them.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand at all what he was saying. The character he was talking about must surely mean characters in novels. But what on earth does that have to do with me? I’m clearly a living being.
“Master, why am I a character?”
“…”
“Belly is stupid so I don’t understand well. Please explain, Master.”
When I held my master’s hand, I felt a fine trembling. When I lowered his hand that offered no resistance, the two pupils that were revealed were murkily mixed with fear and despair.
I let go of his hand to reassure him and spoke while placing my face on his knee and looking up at him as if acting cute.
“Master, Belly exists here for Master.”
“…”
“No matter what the reason, I won’t betray you.”
“…”
“So please tell me. What is troubling Master?”
But he just looked down with an indiscernible gaze, his mouth pressed shut. That gaze strangely avoided me.
I was always in the closest place to my master. Not just that my living radius was close to his. In his human relationships, I was positioned in the closest place, someone who could be called a close relative.
Though I had occupied this position with a leash forcibly given to him, if not for that, I couldn’t have been in this place. Because my master always put up solid walls against others. There were no exceptions. That target included me as well.
And now I had a premonition that I could find out the reason that wall existed. If I could only know the reason, I could cross the wall he erected and occupy the seat beside him more quickly.
“…”
But his two pupils were full of distrust toward me. I could feel he didn’t believe even a single grain of what I said. For me, who could even offer my life to my master, it was an unjust matter. I also felt some frustration at how the time we had spent together until now seemed meaningless.
“Did you forget? Master saved Belly’s life.”
“…Yeah.”
“So Belly belongs to Master.”
His eyes still fluctuated with distrust and suspicion, but at the same time were colored with soft longing. He was clearly recalling somewhere in the past. I didn’t miss the gap in his emotions and spoke while desperately grasping his waist.
“So please trust Belly. Belly can bear the weight of any secret.”
Did my desperate words get through to him? His two pupils shook mercilessly and his lips that had been firmly pressed moved slightly. I waited obediently for his words.
He suffered in anguish for a long while. Loneliness. Sadness. Distrust. All those emotions stirred, then resignation and loneliness pushed them aside and took their place. Only then did he open his mouth.
“You’re… different from me.”
“…In what way?”
“You’re just a character in a novel. I, I’m different from you.”
