ORCA 97

“Niah! Who hit you? How much have you been crying, huh? Who bullied you!”

As soon as he saw him, Harriet rushed over and grabbed his face. She turned his head this way and that, examining him thoroughly, and then let out a sharp shout. Unlike her usual self, her high-pitched voice startled him, but he was soon reassured by the look of deep concern on her face. He quickly realized that she wasn’t angry, but worried. Still, he couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. Even when she asked who had bullied him, he only shook his head. Since he truly hadn’t been bullied, there was nothing he could do.

He tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding, but Harriet didn’t believe him. Moreover, when she grabbed his arm and asked him to tell the truth, he shrieked in pain, which only fueled her suspicions. She kept hounding him, grumbling the entire time he ate.

Because of their little commotion, the other servants kept glancing over. He even made eye contact with Pepe, who was sitting diagonally across the table. Pepe was standing his knife up and tapping it against his plate. He could feel the gaze on him until he left the dining room. Even though no one was doing anything to him, he felt like he was being bullied. The one who had bullied him wasn’t his master, but Pepe. It was the servants who stared at him while whispering in voices he couldn’t quite hear.

His breath hitched, and his chest felt tight. This felt even more uncomfortable and frightening than being scolded harshly or being reprimanded all day. Every look directed at him felt like someone beating his entire body.

In particular, the malice Pepe held for him grew deeper with each passing day. He had always disliked him, but it seemed to have gotten worse lately. Since he didn’t know the reason, he couldn’t alleviate his fear. More than that, there was no real reason for him to be hated. If there was a reason, it was that he had been born as a goldfish. He was a stupid goldfish, so he was always hated. That reason was enough.

However, the sad feeling he had been clutching to his chest every day had diminished a lot now. Every time his master stroked his hair, every time he called his name, every time he told him that everything was fine, it scattered, little by little, little by little. That was why he kept developing unreasonable greed.

I want to see him.

Even as Niah thought that, he couldn’t go straight to Orca. He had been told to stop by his master’s room before starting his daily routine, but he couldn’t find the courage to go up. Even though he had spent the night with him and had even been seen off by him in the morning, he still felt this way. With a heavy sigh, Niah slipped into an empty corridor and sat on the windowsill. It was the long, quiet hallway where he had walked with Harriet when she had given him advice last time.

The sunlight warmed his back. As he pushed slightly on the tightly closed window, a gentle breeze flowed in through the narrow gap. He narrowed his eyes, which were too swollen to open properly, and enjoyed the wind. He killed time in an uncharacteristic display of laziness, watching the wildflowers visible through the window. His legs, dangling in the air, swayed limply like the stems of the wildflowers outside. The heart that had been confused by Pepe and the other servants gradually softened.

‘Tell your master everything. Okay? You hear me? Make sure you tell him!’

After killing time for a while, he remembered the last thing Harriet had advised him before she left. Niah, smiling quietly at the secretive, whispered request, fiddled with his lips. The chapped skin stung. He was the one who had bitten them until they bled, but his master was the one who had made them this way. If he told his master about this, he couldn’t judge who would be punished and who would be the one receiving the punishment. Since he was the one who had clung to him because he liked it, he was basically an accomplice too.

The problem was that once his mind cleared and his reason returned, he felt incredibly embarrassed by what he had done yesterday. He couldn’t find the courage to look his master in the eye. When he woke up in the morning, he had still been too dazed to feel ashamed, and he had been swept away by his master’s touch again. But now that his head was clear, the fact was extremely awkward. A sensation he didn’t want to forget, yet wanted to forget, swirled within him.

Moreover, it wasn’t just about what happened on the sofa yesterday; after that, and after that, he had continued to do things that couldn’t be put into words. These were things he could never tell Harriet about “truthfully.” This was why he was being deceitful for the first time since becoming a servant in the mansion. He needed mental preparation. If he just went in blindly like this, he might die from being roasted alive with shame.

After falling asleep as if he had fainted yesterday afternoon, Niah had only opened his eyes in the evening, only to be lifted into the air immediately. Before he could even finish assessing the situation, he was hoisted up and nearly fainted again. It was because Orca, who had silently guarded his side until his goldfish woke up, had suddenly lifted him without any warning. He looked down at the weak-hearted goldfish who fainted over something as trivial as this and patted him gently for a long time.

To him, Niah looked like someone who was just about to breathe his last. It was Niah who had to reassure Orca as he patted his chest with a serious face. However, his voice, saying “I’m okay,” was low and muffled, which only brought about the opposite effect. Orca looked at Niah with the eyes of someone seeing a terminal patient and wrapped him in a blanket, carrying him to the sofa. On the table next to the sofa were dishes with steam rising from them.

‘Eat.’

‘I can do it myself….’

‘It’s hot. Eat slowly.’

Orca, holding his endlessly frail-looking goldfish in his arms, pulled his arm out and placed the plate on his hands. He fed him half a spoonful of clam chowder at a time. He lightly ignored Niah’s protests that he could do it himself and pushed the spoon forward. Niah obediently accepted the warm food, as if his master had known exactly when he would wake up.

Once he polished off the savory chowder, an omelet with finely chopped bacon and cheese, beef stew, and soft bread followed one after another into his mouth. Dessert was fudge cookies baked into bite-sized pieces and lukewarm milk.

Their late dinner didn’t end until a full hour had passed. This was because every time Niah chewed and gulped down his food, Orca couldn’t help but lower his head and kiss him repeatedly. His master’s kisses, which knew no bounds, landed on his plump eyelids, his rounded cheeks, the tip of his nose, his ears, and finally his lips. Niah laughed with a ticklish “hehe” sound, even through the meal that was constantly interrupted.

‘Wash up and go back to sleep.’

‘Yes.’

Orca soothed Niah, who was already starting to feel sleepy, and took him to the bathroom. He sat him down on the sofa next to the bathtub and started running the water. Niah, still wrapped in the blanket, didn’t have a single thought in his head. He was full, sleepy, and in a good mood. Perhaps because it was stuffy, he felt completely languid, as if intoxicated, and just sniffed at the fragrant bath salt. Sometimes he would call out, “Master, Master,” and laugh pointlessly. In truth, he couldn’t distinguish between reality and a dream.

Orca stroked his goldfish’s dandelion-seed-like hair as he dangled his legs and laughed, and pressed kisses all over the face looking up at him. When he heard the small, giggling sounds, he couldn’t help but bend his back again.

‘Stand up. Can you stand?’

‘Yes.’

He treated Niah with such care, as if he were a newborn foal. He personally undressed him, put him in the bathtub, and even scrubbed him with a bath brush. For a while, his palms, filled with suppressed private intentions, teased the smooth skin. He slipped his hands into the water and kneaded the soft, tender flesh.

Niah entrusted his body to him obediently, leaning against his master who was sitting outside the tub, just breathing shallowly. Submerged in the warm water, sleepiness washed over him, and he couldn’t keep his mind clear.

Orca didn’t care that his clothes were getting soaked and focused only on his hands. The act, which he couldn’t tell if it was washing or fondling, went on for quite a while. Still, he had enough conscience left not to forget to check the bruises and bite marks he had left on Niah’s forearms. They weren’t severe, so they would likely heal in a few days. He caught himself thinking that he hoped the bite marks wouldn’t disappear, then cursed himself for being a madman.

After cursing himself three or four times, he finally admitted his own shamelessness and spread the legs of Niah, who was sitting with his knees drawn together. Because of Orca, who threw away the conscience he had held just a moment ago without a second thought, Niah had to ejaculate two more times in the bathtub.