Puti gazed proudly at Rosetta, who was casually organizing documents. He hadn’t been such a careless person before, but surprisingly these days, Rosetta actually went along with Puti’s ridiculous suggestions.
‘He must be in a good mood.’
Rosetta not only possessed tremendous military prowess, but he was also smart.
Therefore, if he put his mind to it, processing documents didn’t take him very long at all. Puti devoted himself wholeheartedly to attending to Rosetta, making efforts to help him concentrate on his work.
Since they didn’t know when that man would appear again, they had to process the work as quickly as possible. And when Rosetta finished signing the last of the documents that urgently needed to be completed right away, he suddenly lifted his head and looked at the mirror.
‘He’s here.’
Puti tactfully gathered up the last document and left the room. Fortunately, the documents that needed to be processed today were finished, so it would be good to let Rosetta have some alone time.
‘Watching that spectacle just gives me a headache.’
Puti headed straight to Rosetta’s office. The people who hadn’t been able to leave work and were waiting for Puti discovered him entering the office and asked with faces black as death.
“How much?”
Puti showed them a proud smile.
“He’s finished everything that needed to be done today.”
Then Rosetta’s aides clapped their hands and praised Puti.
“Well done, Puti!”
Puti answered modestly.
“Not at all. It’s my job.”
One of the aides grabbed Puti’s hand.
“Please take good care of things next time too.”
“Yes.”
Puti greeted the busy staff and left the office. Behind him, he could hear the aides who were checking the documents Rosetta had approved letting out exclamations of admiration.
“Wait, he caught this problem here!”
“As expected, our Majesty is amazing.”
The corners of Puti’s mouth shot up to the sky. Puti puffed out his chest and walked confidently toward Rosetta’s room.
He had become a bit strange, but Rosetta was still the best.
***
After the annoying Puti disappeared, Rosetta remained alone and once again became absorbed in the man in the mirror.
“Ah.”
The man who had returned home was looking down at the box in his hands with a slightly flushed face. Seeing that flushed face reminded him of the last time he’d watched him adorably rolling around on the bed.
After saying something, he had suddenly turned all the exposed parts of his body red and rolled around the bed this way and that.
“He was cute.”
He was so cute that Rosetta’s body had also heated up red. With excitement and thrill.
Rosetta anticipated.
“Will he show me something different again today?”
After staring at the box in his hands for a while, the man took the box and headed to the place where he always ate.
He was always worried because the man didn’t seem to eat properly, but it seemed the thing inside that strange box was food.
“Is he eating something proper today?”
Judging by the appearance of the box alone, there was a strong possibility it was something shabby.
“Could it be that he doesn’t have money to buy food?”
Pity welled up. And at the same time, he wanted to meet the man even more quickly.
‘If only I could meet you, I would offer you all the delicacies from across the empire and the continent.’
What were delicacies? He could simply give him everything Rosetta had.
His vision blurred with pity. Rosetta shed tears as he watched the man.
And just when Rosetta’s tears reached their peak, suddenly the man in the mirror started crying. Rosetta’s body stiffened at the sight of the man shedding tears over something so sorrowful.
What could have happened?
‘Why? Who made you cry?’
Was it that thing that made him cry every night? Or was it something else that made him cry?
The man only ever cried when he was sleeping. But tears flowing while awake?
The power of dawn bubbled up and began to randomly devour and corrode the objects around Rosetta, but Rosetta didn’t notice it at all.
But his anger was brief—the man was crying so sorrowfully that Rosetta soon became sad again.
‘How can I make it so you won’t cry?’
There was nothing he could do.
While Rosetta panicked and fidgeted anxiously, the man quickly stopped crying, washed his face, and returned to the front of the box. Rosetta couldn’t understand why the man was hesitating so much over whatever was in that box.
A moment later, the box opened and a cake emerged from inside.
“A cake?”
There were occasionally foods the man ate that Rosetta didn’t know, but this was one Rosetta did know.
“Why did he cry looking at that?”
While Rosetta pondered, the man stuck something into the cake.
“What’s that now?”
He could tell the thing he lit was a candle. Then what was that big thing next to it?
“Letters?”
It seemed to be letters from that world that Rosetta didn’t know. Rosetta carefully memorized those letters.
When he directly met the man, he intended to ask him why he had cried so sorrowfully today and what these letters meant.
If he cried again when asked that, then Rosetta would just comfort him.
‘I’ll lick away the tears flowing down his face and kiss his entire face.’
Then perhaps he would look at him with that pretty flushed face again. Or maybe he would smile brightly.
Rosetta smiled contentedly, ignoring the phenomena naturally occurring in his body.
Meanwhile, something strange appeared in the man’s hands. Rosetta erased his other thoughts and focused on the man again. The man placed the object in his hands on his head.
“A hat? It’s cute, but does he wear things like that?”
At the end of the hat made of what seemed to be paper with a flashy pattern, there was something round and sparkly attached.
The man was pretty no matter what he did, so even wearing that ridiculous hat, he was still pretty. In fact, his attention seemed to be drawn more to those cheeks that had flushed as much as they could flush, but anyway, he was very pretty.
As Rosetta watched him without even blinking so as not to miss a single moment of the man, the man let out a deep sigh and then began doing something with the small object he always carried around.
‘What is it?’
After muttering something like someone in shock, he struck a pose toward the small object again as if he had no choice.
The man, who fidgeted several times as if somewhat embarrassed, soon took off the hat again.
The man’s image appeared in the small object.
“A picture?”
It was truly a fascinating device. Every time the man moved his hands, the man’s image from moments ago was captured in the small object. To think so many pictures could be contained like that!
Rosetta, who had been looking at the device with greedy eyes, spent a happy time watching the man, who seemed to be in a good mood again.
A moment later, Puti returned to the room and was startled, nagging and being annoying as he pointed to the mess around him, but Rosetta lightly ignored such Puti.
***
As soon as Seoho woke up, he stared at the ceiling, then turned his head to look at the wall. His eyes gradually gained more vitality, and the blue color became more vivid.
Such transparent and refreshing-looking eyes. He’d felt it last time too, but this foreign ghost apparently had very pretty eyes.
Seoho smiled slightly and greeted the eyes.
“Hello.”
Then he got up from his spot and headed to the kitchen. He was going to eat breakfast appropriately and go outside. As he opened the refrigerator, wondering what there was to eat, he saw a large cake box. Seoho took out the box with a troubled expression.
The last slice of cake remaining.
Cake from the morning. It seemed a bit much, but there wasn’t anything particularly appealing.
Seoho neatly disposed of the remaining cake along with white milk he took from the refrigerator. As he ate the last bite, he recalled the photo he’d sent to Oh Yuri.
‘Embarrassing.’
A week ago, after crying a little, he’d made a fuss trying to get rid of the redness around his eyes. Then he stuck a candle in the cake, lit it, and hesitantly put on a cone-shaped hat.
Several awkwardly taken photos as he worried about how to take a decent picture. After selecting the most passable one and sending the photo to Oh Yuri, it was close to midnight.
‘What a bother.’
Fortunately, after receiving the photo, Oh Yuri didn’t make a fuss and tease him about it.
Whether it was because of exam period, or because she didn’t think it was particularly worth teasing him about, he didn’t know, but thanks to that, his embarrassment had subsided considerably.
‘Still, I’ll never wear it again.’
Seoho glared at the cone-shaped hat sitting in one corner of the dining table, then checked the time and hurried to prepare.
Today he was going to visit his parents’ columbarium.
Strangely enough, both his parents had the same birthday. He remembered hearing that they became interested in each other after learning they had the same birthday, and before they knew it, they were dating.
His parents, who had been so close, even died together. It had been a bit difficult for Seoho, but it probably wasn’t a bad thing for his parents.
‘It would have been less scary.’
Seoho shrugged his shoulders, then put on appropriately neat clothing and warmed up the seaweed soup he’d made in advance.
The seaweed soup he’d somehow managed to make the day before by searching the internet tasted better than expected.
Seoho put the seaweed soup in a thermos, gathered his wallet, and left the house. If he was going to buy a cake and catch the bus on time, he was pressed for time. The columbarium was quite a distance from home, so Seoho hurried his steps.
