ORCA 42

“Young master… Are you upset?”

Niah, leaning his body closer to him, tilted his head. It was to get under his firm gaze, which was directed downwards, and examine him closely. Since the kitchen outing a few days ago, Niah had begun to react sensitively to Orca’s mood and facial expressions, and would often look up at him from below. He hated it when the young master was sad, much more than when he was sad himself.

The chilly breeze that had been blowing subsided. Orca, who had been watching the goldfish that had asked if he was upset and then, on the contrary, looked on the verge of tears, bent his back. He continuously stroked his wrist and, with his other arm, pulled Niah towards him. Niah, who was pulled one step forward, naturally offered his neck. A heavy weight settled on the slender line connecting his neck and shoulder, near his collarbone.

“So why did you do this?”

“Uh… I don’t know. It just, felt bad…”

“Why. Did he bully you?”

“No. That’s not it, just. It just felt bad… I wanted to wipe it off… He didn’t bully me. …Really.”

His voice gradually trailed off. The more he continued to answer, the less confident he became.

‘Does Roanna find it funny when I get scolded?’

He sometimes fell asleep wondering about it, but he wasn’t sure if this was bullying. The sound of her giggling was stuck in his chest and wouldn’t come out, but he wasn’t sure if he could say he was bullied because of this. More than anything, he was anxious about what would happen if she found out he had told the young master and came to scold him. Since Roanna was friends with Andrian, they would surely come together. So he had no other choice but to say no.

Niah, trailing off his words meaninglessly, fumbled and gripped one side of Orca’s waist. He focused his senses on his wrist, where warm fingers were coming and going. His churning heart slowly calmed down.

Taking a deep breath and lifting his face, Orca pressed his lips close to Niah’s ear. He followed his head as it turned to the side, as if ticklish, and whispered. A small voice, as if telling a secret, rolled around his ear. A hand that had traveled up his spine wrapped around the nape of his neck.

“Niah. Should I replace all of the mansion servants for you?”

“Pardon? You can’t, do that. It tickles, hehe… It tickles.”

Orca, who held the struggling body tightly, tried to urge him to give the answer he had decided on. A simple calculation of whether he could just get a pardon first and then bury them all without the goldfish knowing, pushed in recklessly. The matter of his parents’ anger became a secondary problem.

Seeing him lie and say he wasn’t bullied when it was obvious he was, made his mind turn stubborn. Last time, when he showed up with a bruise on his side, he had fallen asleep without ever revealing the culprit, and it was the same now. If it had been him, he would have immediately reported it and demanded that they be killed or kicked out, but the goldfish’s mind was sometimes unknowable like this.

“Ask me to do it. Then I’ll do it for you.”

“There are a lot, of servants in the mansion. If you send them all away, then, hehehe, then where will they all go?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter?”

Niah twisted his body, tickled by Orca’s breath near his ear. He giggled and tried to push him away, and also tried to avoid him by stretching his neck out. But due to the lips that persistently followed him, he eventually had to give up on escaping. Leaning against the arm that held him firmly, he went limp. The laughter that incessantly escaped him replaced the answer Orca wanted.

No matter how many times he prompted him, Niah only giggled, so Orca grabbed his head with both hands and bumped his forehead against his.

“I’m really going to do it. You don’t believe me again. When did I lose your trust like this? Or wait, did I never have it in the first place?”

“No, young master. I believe you, young master.”

Orca bumped his forehead a few more times, as if to say, don’t lie.

“Ouch, it’s true. I’ll believe you even if you say carrots grow on trees.”

“…Carrots do grow on trees.”

He, who had been bent over, straightened his back and retorted in a teasing tone. Niah agreed, that’s right, and grinned. Orca, who put his fingers into his messy, curly hair, tousled it wildly and then combed it back. It was a kind of rebuke. Niah, who had scrunched up the bridge of his nose and his eyes at that, stealthily raised his eyelids and carefully began to speak.

“But, young master. You can’t replace the servants…”

“Why.”

The words Niah uttered after hesitating as if he were a little embarrassed made Orca a foolish person.

“I, I don’t remember things well… so I’d have to memorize them all over again…. After you leave, young master, I’ll have to do a lot of other work, and if I don’t know who’s who, I’ll get scolded more often… and then I might get other things confused too, and, uh, oh. Ah, I’m going to burst. I’m really going to burst this time. Young masteeer, just a moment, ah. It hurts.”

At the sound of his pain, the arms that had been holding him tightly were released. Before doing anything to the servants, Orca first buried himself in Niah’s shoulder and wordlessly stroked his thin back. The coarse fabric was roughly rubbed as it brushed against his palm. The goldfish’s hand moved behind his back and imitated him. No sound arose from the smooth fabric. It was just gently rubbed. They were standing face to face, but it felt as if they were in completely different spaces. His chest felt tight.

In the end, everything was for the purpose of satisfying his own greed. It seemed he had grown up to be an incompetent and foolish person, a ‘freak’ as others had whispered when he was young. He was selfish and greedy. He only thought of himself. In contrast to him, the goldfish was busy only looking after his well-being. He was a ‘freak’ in a different sense. That was foolish, and unbearably endearing.

“Young master…. I don’t really understand why you’re being like this, young master. Should we go back? Do you want to go and rest? Or did I do something wrong…?”

“No. Go and call Harriet. Do what she showed you earlier.”

Orca, who had slowly moved away, tapped his cheek, which was filled with worry.

“I don’t have to do that…. You’re being strange right now, young master…. Let’s go back, please?”

“I’m not being strange. Go on. She’s hesitating about thirty times whether to knock or not.”

Orca forcibly turned Niah around. Niah, who looked back with every step he took, finally pulled the doorknob after a long while. Harriet was only able to enter the distillery after hesitating about ten more times.

The method for making flower sugar preserves was simple. After gently removing the calyx so as not to damage the flower, you brush it with egg white, sprinkle it evenly with powdered sugar, and let it dry in the shade to finish. If you stored it in the basement food storeroom, it wouldn’t wilt for a while and would also be nice to look at. It was one of the various props that would be used to decorate the food on the day of the party. The method itself was simple and not difficult, but the required number was so large that the work had been going on for several days.

“Harriet. But what is this used for? Do you eat it? Is it a snack? Is it delicious?”

“Hmm? You can just eat it, I guess.”

Harriet laughed, ahaha. Niah, who was sitting in front of her, looked at her with a quizzical expression and grinned along. Wondering if he had asked such a funny question, he turned his head to check. This time, his eyes met Orca’s. He, who had turned his body towards Niah and was propping his chin on his hand, mouthed the word, why.

Niah tilted his head and grinned again. For some reason, it seemed as if the young master was smiling too. His eyes and the corners of his mouth were in their usual places, but it looked just like a smiling face. He wasn’t sure why Harriet and the young master were acting this way, but he became cheerful along with them. When he giggled, Harriet let out a poof, and burst into laughter again.

“It’s made for dessert decoration. We put it on top of tarts, and on top of cakes. Oh, and it looks pretty if you put it in champagne.”

Harriet barely managed to stifle her laughter, stood up from her seat, and gave a proper answer. In the middle of her words, she filled a bowl with sugar and moved a basket of neatly arranged flowers to one side of the distillery.

Niah eagerly chimed in. Even so, his fingers were busily moving in a delicate manner. Spreading the flowers, which were slightly larger than his fingernails, evenly and brushing them with egg white required quite a bit of concentration. If he wasn’t careful, the petals would often fall off or get crushed. He had to touch them gently with his fingertips, with all the strength gone, as if handling a young root. When he applied the sugar, he also sprinkled it on little by little so it wouldn’t become a mess.

Because of this, while Harriet completed three, Niah was barely finishing one. Of course, she hadn’t suggested it to actually make him work, so Harriet was just pleased. Seeing him having fun made her feel that it was a good thing she had lured him. Although his speed was slow, the finished product was more meticulous than hers, so it was also helpful. When Roanna left after throwing a tantrum of sorts, she had been worried about what to do, but thankfully, his mood seemed to have improved quickly.

She could also enjoy the fun of secretly watching the young master. He had been looking at only one place the whole time, so she thought she wouldn’t get caught whether she looked or not, but she observed him as discreetly as possible. The young master handled Niah with a skillful touch. The way he soothed the fidgety servant and made him sit down was different from the rumors she had heard. It was to the point where she thought that all the rumors floating around the mansion might be complete nonsense.

She had worked in the mansions of various families until now, but no master had ever treated a servant in that way. It’s a little funny for her to say this, but there was an invisible line between the nobility and the lower class. The nobility did not try to cross it, and servants like her could never cross it; the line was a product of the class difference.

The power or servility that came from the class difference was bound to be revealed implicitly. However, the boundary between the young master and Niah was blurry. Even Niah, who was always polite and gentle, treated the young master differently from other servants. It was true that she had hoped for and encouraged it, but she felt like she had suddenly become a matchmaker.

When she saw the young master untie the sleeve Niah had casually pushed up and fold it neatly, she even thought about trying to hold him back from returning to the battlefield. Since he wouldn’t listen to her even if she did, she made a plan to subtly mention it to Niah and then gave up. She knew that it wasn’t a simple matter that could be solved by asking.

The problem now was not the young master who would be leaving, but how much longer Niah’s peace could be maintained. The one left behind would be Niah, and the one leaving the mansion would ultimately be the young master. If she were really a matchmaker, she would have built the worst possible bridge. The future was bleak.

Around the time Harriet was so lost in her own thoughts that she had forgotten about the flowers, Niah was tapping the floor with the tips of his toes. As the number of finished sugar preserves increased, a small hum was interspersed from time to time. His hands, which were moving back and forth over the basket of flowers, fluttered in time with it. Orca, who had been watching him and pondering, suddenly stretched out his arm.

“Do this one. It’s cute.”

Niah looked down at the orange linaria that had been placed on the plate in front of him. After a moment, his gaze returned to Orca. It was the first time the young master had said something was cute first. Whenever he asked, he would only say, yes, or, it is, but to have him pick this out and say it was cute made him feel elated. Niah, who nodded his head as if chewing on the thought, dipped his brush in the egg white. He carefully applied it to every corner of the small, plump linaria.

“Linaria is cute, isn’t it? That’s right, it’s cute. It’s even cuter when they’re together. It looks like a goldfish. This one is orange, so it’s even more, …uh… umm….”

Trying to answer Orca’s single remark with a thirty-word chatter was no different from usual. But the chatter, not even half-finished, was cut off in the middle. He had been about to explain at length what was cute and pretty about the linaria, but he suddenly clammed up. His lost eyes flickered back and forth between the orange linaria and Orca. After doing that a few times, a red heat spread across Niah’s cheeks as he came to some conclusion on his own. He tried to hide it by ducking his head low, but it was no use as his ears had also turned red.

Orca, who had been trying to pretend he didn’t notice, couldn’t hold back and fiddled with his earlobe. He wanted to not tease him, but it was hard.

“What are you thinking?”

Niah, who turned even redder at his touch, huddled as close to the table as possible. Trying not to show his embarrassment, he jabbed his brush into the egg white vigorously.

“I-It’s nothing…? I really wasn’t thinking anything…”

“You’re red.”

“No, I’m not. I’m not red. It’s because it’s hot. I’m not red at all.”

The disjointed excuses continued. Orca bit his tongue to stop himself from wanting to keep adding something. Fortunately, the rambling explanation didn’t seem to have an end, even when he remained silent. The line of the goldfish’s shoulders rose and fell. His ragged breathing was labored. The sounds that completely filled his ears were pleasant to listen to.

Harriet began to seriously consider whether she should leave the room to fulfill her belatedly realized duty as a matchmaker. She had no idea why the bridge she had laid incorrectly looked like a sturdily built one.

The flower sugar preserves crumbled with a crunch, crunch when bitten. The crispy flower petals were sweet and fragrant. Thanks to Harriet, who had scooped up a handful of the ones she had made in advance and given them to him, Niah would look for the plate of preserves every time he finished a task. Each time he would go to get just one, but he would eat two and regret it. Even when he returned from playing in the library or by the lake, he would rationalize it as ‘work’ and gobble it up.

As a result, a dozen or so disappeared each day. The heaping plate revealed its bottom in just three days. Although Orca would put delicious and expensive snacks in his mouth from time to time, this was what Niah cherished the most these days. Just looking at it, made from the flowers he had cared for, made him feel good. He also liked the way the sweet flower scent burst out with a pop when he bit into it.

Still, he didn’t hesitate to offer it to Orca every time. Orca would pick up anything that looked like a lump of sugar and put it in Niah’s mouth instead of his own. The first few times, it was literally an offer, but after that, it was no different from him pestering to be fed. As proof of that, after the crunch, crunch sound, a hehe laugh could be heard. He had been walking around with the scent of grass and flowers all over him, and now even his tongue was a flower bed.

The goldfish would eat one more before putting the plate down and would always regret having eaten it for no reason. He would smack his lips for a long time, chop chop, as if to savor the last taste. His lips would part and close briefly, and he would also suck on the sugar crumbs left on his fingertips, tsok tsok. After seeing that and sticking his finger in, making him cough for a long time, he never did it again. He would just think things like, if I pull out his tongue, I won’t be able to put it back in. He would imagine his roundly parted lips and then shake his head. He found himself so ridiculous that he would just stare blankly at the goldfish sucking on his fingers by himself.

I’m going crazy, for real.

There was no other expression to describe it other than these words. He had clearly gone crazy somewhere. Orca needlessly tousled the back of Niah’s head, who was standing in front of him, in a haphazard manner. The curly hair, tangled in an instant, puffed up. Niah, who had been in serious contemplation with a plate in his hand, was suddenly attacked and whipped his head up. A gasp of pain escaped his lips.

“What.”

Niah, who grinned at Orca’s brazen attitude, shook his head. The plate was placed on the vanity in the dressing room. It was a place he had chosen following Harriet’s advice to keep it out of the sun while eating. The almost empty plate rattled lightly. The weight made the effort of moving it around and contemplating seem futile. If he was going to eat it all in just four days, he could have just left it anywhere.

“Young master.”

The call was affectionate. Niah held a jasmine in one hand and an acacia in the other. Then he offered the jasmine, which he liked a little more, to Orca. His fingers, which he had squeezed slightly so as not to break it, stopped in front of Orca’s lips.

“Have this. There are only two left now. Since it’s the last, let’s have one each.”

He had expected it, but the object of his contemplation was too trivial. The decision to share it amicably was just like the goldfish. He wondered if he could have just gone and gotten more if he was sad to see them go, or if that option had not existed at all, or if it had existed but he had chosen not to take it. He didn’t bother to ask. He liked the decision the goldfish had made. To see him cherishing it as if it were a great jewel and then, with only two left, suggesting that he have one and I have one, was like a child’s confession.