ORCA 38

‘Huh? No. That can’t be. Ah, are you talking about the stable hands or the gamekeepers? If it’s that, there is a separate management building, yes.’

‘Is that so? Then where does Niah live? Is there a management building in the greenhouse? I never see him….’

His answer was evasive. He just brushed it off, saying that Niah’s room was somewhere else. Pascal seemed to feel awkward about what he had said and quickly changed the subject. I couldn’t press him further, so I just had to nod as if I were convinced.

Fortunately, I was able to satisfy my curiosity before long. It was thanks to another servant who loved to gossip, spilling it all out. That servant laughed as he told me that a small storage room under the stairs on the sixth floor of the central wing was the room assigned to Niah. His expression was bright, as if he were sharing a funny joke.

I had thought I was accustomed to this ecosystem after wandering through various mansions, but here at the Wair family, that knowledge became useless in an instant. This was the first time I had ever seen a group of people act so cruelly toward just one person. It was easy to picture in my mind how Niah, who looked gentle and pure at a glance, lived and how he had managed to endure it all.

However, there wasn’t much I could do for him. It was impossible for a newly hired servant to go against the mansion’s already entrenched ecosystem.

That was why the person Niah needed was the young master. It was even more so if the inference the servants had reached by putting their heads together was true. I had heard that he would be staying for a while, so the conditions were sufficient. I knew that, eventually, he would have to leave, but that was a problem to think about later. The servants’ attitudes had changed in just a single day, so I didn’t have the luxury of overthinking things. If he could protect Niah, even if only while he was staying at the mansion, the situation would improve enough. It didn’t seem like an entirely uncredible hope.

Of course, it was obvious that Niah would only be thinking in the worst-case scenario. Still, it was better to try whatever I could. The problem was that I didn’t know how to boost Niah’s spirits.

In a situation like this, one should be keeping a clear head, but he was just limp and crying—it was a huge problem. He wasn’t the type of person who would just blindly go meet the young master just because I told him to go. It would be a relief if he didn’t collapse before the day was over.

“Niah. Are you okay? Why don’t you tell Pepe and take a break? If it’s hard for you to say it alone, I’ll go with you.”

Niah, who had been blinking his eyes blankly while being held by Harriet, shook his head slowly. Not only would they never allow him to rest, but he didn’t want to be alone right now. It might be better to work his body to the bone. At least then, he wouldn’t be able to think of the young master.

He was afraid of himself, feeling a heart-swelling joy the moment he thought of the young master. That was more agonizing than the heavy workload pouring down on him. He had imagined what it would be like after he left, but this was beyond his expectations. It was already so sad that he hadn’t been able to meet him this morning; he couldn’t even fathom how sad he would be when he actually left. It was a kind of fear he had never felt before.

Niah moved with heavy, listless steps. As he walked around the garden toward the greenhouse, his mind was completely filled with the young master. The more he tried to avoid thinking of the happy memories, the more they inflated, until it felt like his head would burst. No matter how much he pondered, he couldn’t find an answer as to what he had done wrong to deserve this punishment. He didn’t have the slightest clue why he was angry with him.

A deep sense of sorrow welled up. If only he had known this would happen, he would have behaved better—he would have tried not to cry, listened better, not forgotten things so often, and he would have looked at him more and touched him more. The regret that it would have been better to just forget everything had long since vanished.

Niah scrubbed at his raw, swollen eyes. His skin stung at the slightest touch, making him wince involuntarily. But he didn’t care and wiped at them frantically. His lips, which he had been chewing on incessantly, and the soft flesh inside were already ragged and oozing blood. Perhaps because he had been crying, his whole body was engulfed in a burning heat. His mind felt hazy.

Since he had suppressed his sobbing out of habit, his throat felt tight and as if it were cracking. A sound like an old, rusty hinge came from his sunken throat. Even so, the young master’s face kept blooming in one corner of his mind. Without any effort, the memories he had tucked away neatly unfolded in order. It was a strange thing. Maybe others weren’t like that, but he was.

The greenhouse, with its glass walls on all sides, maintained a lukewarm temperature all year round. In the summer or winter, there were inevitably slight changes, but as long as he planted and tended to the flowers suited for the season, they grew beautifully. The garden was the same. Every season, different flowers would be in full bloom.

In winter, the landscape became a bit desolate, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to do. He mowed the grass short to prevent pests, trimmed the small branches of the shrubs, and set the roots of tree saplings that would grow large in the future. He also planted flowers that formed buds in the cold, like tulips, hyacinths, and dahlias, looking forward to them blooming in the coming spring.

After making compost by rotting leaves and straw and finding a day when the ground wasn’t frozen to spread it around the trees, the weather would soon turn warm.

Niah enjoyed the moments he spent caring for the flowers, trees, and crops. Even if he couldn’t say he was better than others, it was the only work he was good at. He liked that there were set things to do every season, every day, whenever the weather changed, or whenever the sun set and the moon rose. It gave him pleasure to do these tasks without forgetting.

“Ugh, hng…. Sob. Ugh….”

So, this was the first time an exception had occurred in the only work he liked. Niah sat in a corner in front of an empty flowerbed in the greenhouse and pulled his knees to his chest. The flowerbed, which he had already tilled and tidied, had neat furrows carved into it. He couldn’t see well because his vision was blurry, but it was work he had done himself, so he was sure of it.

The damp scent of soil faintly permeated his blocked nose. The new sprouts placed to the side looked up at Niah. They were the signals of a new spring, sprouted from the flower seeds he had carefully chosen and sown while agonizing over what to plant this year.

His curled-up body let out a thin, trembling cry. Even though he tried to hold it back, it didn’t go as he wanted. His hands and feet were in conflict. His hands wanted to pick up the tray placed to the side, but his feet wanted to run out of the greenhouse in a single bound. It was different from yesterday, when he had been counting down the seconds until he could go meet the young master.

The sorrow surged up relentlessly, never tiring. He didn’t know how to calm it. Until now, he had just forgotten all the painful and difficult memories. Even when they didn’t fade easily, he had forced them down and tried to forget. If he did that, he eventually really would forget, and before long, new bad things would be layered on top.

Niah’s life was a succession of moments where others toyed with him at will, and nights spent struggling to forget those moments. Deep scars remained over the wounds he had buried in oblivion. Those scars drove Niah into a corner where there was no place to run.

No one had taught him anything other than that. He had never been taught that there could be happy or joyful things. The only person who had taught him that was the young master. Thinking of the young master was both joyful and agonizing. He could neither forget nor hold on. Tears just kept welling up.

He wanted to be praised by the young master. He wanted to be hugged and to be stroked. When the hand that had brushed his forehead rubbed his cheek, scanned his chin, and then gripped the back of his neck, his heart would flutter. He liked the touch of those thick, long fingers that gently caressed his hair and the scent of the forest that grew stronger the closer he got.

He wanted to hear the voice calling his name. The inexplicable tenderness he felt in those eyes that occasionally checked his wrists was overwhelming. Sometimes, he was so shy that his tongue would tie itself in knots. His whole body would squirm. The answer to come in when he knocked on the door, the door that opened before he even knocked, the gentle permission that cleared the way for him to step inside—he missed it all, and not even a full day had passed.

“H-hng…. What do I do now. What do I do…. I miss you….”

Niah’s true feelings finally spilled from his lips. It was a miserable, tiny wish that wouldn’t have been heard if one weren’t standing right next to him. It soon faded and pooled beneath his tongue. His limbs, abandoned to this unfamiliar sensation, curled in as far as they could go. It was a strange emotion that he felt shouldn’t be revealed to anyone. Tears flowed down his cheeks, soaking his blood-stained lips and tender skin.

“Ah!”