NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Touchy
A day later, Ritt opened his eyes feeling much better than he had in quite a while. He sat up, yawned, and stretched with no difficulties, feeling in perfect health. Sien, who’d been laying on the bed at his side, immediately awoke when he felt the bed moving, and gasped and sprung up as if overjoyed.
“Ritt! You finally woke up! It was so boring waiting for you here!”
Ritt flinched slightly, not having expected Sien to be there, but he soon smiled gently in response to Sien’s excited, childlike expression.
“I’m sorry to have made you wait, Sien.”
The look on his face didn’t change, but for a moment Sien got very quiet and fidgetted. Ritt, feeling that their greetings were finished, decided it was time to get out of bed so that he could do some better stretches. However, when he swung his legs down, it was impossible for him not to notice the dead body on the floor. The stench had also filled the room, and was actually already very apparent, but Ritt had grown so used to the smell of decaying bodies that he hadn’t quite noticed it at first.
Before he could say anything, Sien peered over his shoulder and spoke first.
“Oh yeah, the doctor. He started sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, so I had to put him down.”
It took Ritt a while of staring and blinking, but he eventually recalled the doctor who’d examined him, and also the promise he’d made with Sien, muddled though his memories of that time were.
“Ah yes… Thank you for keeping your promise to me, Sien.”
Sien beamed a proud smile at him in response, looking absolutely adorable. Ritt couldn’t fight his impulse to reach out and pet the cute younger man’s head, as he would a child. However, before his hand could fully reach Sien’s head, Sien’s eyes grew wide and he abruptly leaned back. His face was absolutely painted in confusion and surprise.
This move made Ritt’s heart feel stuffy.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Perhaps Sien had only stayed because he was a good person who made a promise to a possible friend. But Ritt shouldn’t let himself be fooled by all of the adorable smiles that Sien was showing; Hadn’t Sien always smiled, even when finding a trespasser within his lands or killing a nosey maid? If Sien had been here the whole time, then there was no way that he hadn’t noticed the oddity of Ritt’s body. In fact, at another look, Ritt could see two small vials of blood that had been rolling around on the floor. His blood. It looked so black and cursed, and there was no way that Sien hadn’t seen them. And even if he hadn’t noticed them, and the doctor had tried to keep them hidden, the abnormally rapid speed of his healing would have easily given him away. No matter how kind Sien had been to him, it was unreasonable to expect any more from him now that Sien had seen a glimpse of what he was.
Ritt’s hand slowly lowered, and his voice was almost a mumble as he turned away.
“Thank you, again… If you can point me towards a nice town or village, then I’ll make sure not to cause any more trouble for you.”
His words made Sien snap out of the awkward, surprised position he’d pulled himself back to. He blinked confusedly a few times at Ritt’s back before springing forward on all fours like a cat onto the bed so that he could peer around Ritt’s large body and look at his face.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“I… I’m saying that I’ll leave, as I should, as soon as possible, so-”
“Huhhh? But you can’t leave, silly!”
Ritt raised his lowered head and looked wide eyed towards Sien. The cat-like smile on Sien’s face should have been cute and youthful too, just like usual, but for some reason it gave off a sort of twisted and spooky air.
“You already came into my forest and ate my food! You belong to me now, so you can’t leave!”
Ritt was completely stunned, not knowing how to reply to Sien’s proclamation. As Sien giggled in a manic way at the stumped face Ritt was making, Ritt couldn’t help but let out dumb noises.
“Wh-... Huh, what? O-oh?”
“Hee… Is it really so confusing? But you know…”
In an oddly sensual way, Sien finished slinking back to the edge of the bed where he'd originally came from, placing one foot on the ground while he placed his other folded leg dominantly on top of of Ritt’s opposite one. His hand fisted the stunned and confused Ritt’s shirt, pulling on it threateningly as he looked down into Ritt’s eyes with a sinister smile.
“...After all, what am I? I may only be half, but my blood is still Fae, isn’t it? I’m sure every child has been told stories about us stealing those who wander into our forests for too long. Of course, maybe it’s only the interesting ones, but well…”
As Sien’s eyes observingly traced over Ritt’s befuddled face that had been flapping like a fish, his smile slightly faded, and his expression took on a much more serious light. For the first time, Ritt was unable to see Sien as being anything childlike.
“You… You’re very interesting. So then why would you want to leave? Haven’t I been kind to you? Didn’t you say you wanted to be with me? What made you change your mind? Do you not like me anymore?”
As the look on Sien’s face grew more and more intense, Ritt could only dumbly shake his head and mutter, unable to look away.
“N-no, I… I like you. I like you, I promise!”
Sien’s gaze stayed seriously on him for a few seconds more, but soon it changed into a big, gleaming smile, one that radiated happiness and cheer.
“Great! Then let’s go get some food! I’m staaaarving!”
Sien got off of Ritt and started walking towards the door. However, Sien’s hand that was fisting Ritt’s shirt was never removed, so the larger Ritt was awkwardly dragged along after him.
~~~
From that day forward, Sien’s actions around Ritt slightly changed. To say it plainly, Sien became much more touchy with Ritt. He would pull Ritt along by grabbing and fisting his shirt, almost like leading around a dog, and would often place himself too close to Ritt, whether they were standing or sitting down, causing their skin to touch. There were even times where Sien would handfeed things to Ritt, and would smile triumphantly every time Ritt obediently accepted the food.
Of course, none of this escaped the watchful eyes of the servants.
Ritt had been confused by Sien’s sudden change in behavior. In fact, he’d been completely confused since Sien had practically climbed on top of him 4 days ago. However, so far he’d just shut himself up, unable to ask what was going on. His mind tried to rationalize things by saying that this must be what ‘close’ people do, having never truly seen what that looked like, but having heard vaguely similar things. Still, after 4 straight days of silence, he felt that perhaps it would be alright now if he broached his questions subtly.
“Hmm, Sien... Is it alright if we keep letting the maid see all this? It seems like they’ve started paying more attention to us.”
Sien paused, midway through scooping up a bit of dip onto a slice of bread, and tilted his head slightly. Those were the most words he’d heard Ritt speak in quite a while, so it really stood out to him.
“Mmm nah, we don’t have to really care about those things. They can’t be trusted and they’ll report whatever they like about us, but in the end they don’t really matter much. Besides, who’s gonna care?”
But Sien was wrong.
Someone did care.
In the morning, 2 days later, a letter had arrived.
“Ahhh shit. Of course he’s showing up!”
Sien leaned against Ritt as they sat next to each other on the sofa in Ritt’s room. His hands holding the letter were held up high in the air in a childish way, and Ritt could vaguely see the content written on it.
“...The Duke is coming to visit? But I thought you were the Duke.”
“Mmm, no, it’s the other one. Cirita has two Dukes, you know.”
Ritt, who’d barely even learned that the country they were currently in was named 'Cirita' in the first place, just blinked his eyes and nodded along.
“And… Why is he coming again?”
Sien sighed, lowering the letter with a pouty look on his face.
“I guess some of those useless spies out there must have said something to him… He always did care way too much about me.”
“So you two know each other, then.”
For a moment Sien’s face scrunched up, and then he burst out laughing, leaning against Ritt even more.
“Hah, of course we know each other! We’re both high nobles, there’s no way we couldn’t have met before!”
Sien rubbed at his eyes as if he’d started crying and let a few more giggles out when Ritt slightly bowed his head and looked away embarrassed, but after a while he calmed down, and his face slowly fell into a frown.
“Actually, Duke Freylan is my mother’s youngest brother.”
“Ah… So he’s family, then.”
“Mmm, yeah, I guess he is.”
Sien’s face shifted into a wry smile, although he turned his face away so that Ritt wouldn’t be able to see.
“...Really doesn’t feel like it, though.”