I woke up to the sound of heavy rain pounding against the window. The dull gray light filtering through the creaky, rippling curtains suggested it was still raining.
“Ugh... It’s cold.”
The warm sensation against my skin sent pleasant goosebumps down my spine, so I pulled myself closer to it and closed my eyes again.
Wait a minute. What is this hot body temperature enveloping my entire body?
I opened my eyes with a start, glanced down, then pulled away again in embarrassment. I was now naked in my underwear, completely engulfed in this man's embrace.
Why are we both covered with a blanket? I was clearly the one covering him. And why is this person squeezing one of his legs between mine?
I couldn't even breathe freely, afraid that my breathing and heartbeat would reach him. Noah must still be in a deep sleep. A steady, rhythmic thump echoed above my head.
I shrugged my shoulders as I felt a tickle as a light breath settled on my crown.
As I was carefully pulling away Noah's hands, one by one, from my back, as if he was worried I might fall, he let out a long breath and started to move.
Finally, he asked in a sleepy voice, as if he had just woken up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah.”
The tired sound of stretching was so irritating that I decided I couldn't stand it any longer. I abruptly sat up.
“Are the clothes all dry?”
“I don’t think it’s dried yet. It’s still raining.”
The handsome man who was looking up at me smiled elegantly and seductively. He smiled with his eyes like a flirtatious fox.
“Aren’t you cold?”
He asked, stroking my shoulder, which was shivering from the cold. I tried to avoid his affectionate gaze. The sound of my heart beating wildly, without any sense, made my ears ring.
Why is that guy always so relaxed and composed? Am I the only one who gets excited? I was biting my lip, feeling aggrieved, when Noah wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer.
“Lie back down. Your clothes are far from drying.”
“Why on earth... hasn’t it dried yet?”
I held him tightly, saying nothing, and took in my breathless breaths. My chest was pressed against his, and I felt like I was suffocating from embarrassment and shame.
"Not yet."
I was in a daze, but his short words made me jump.
“The chest?”
At the sudden raised voice, Noah's blue eyes looked down, then flinched and looked back at my face.
“No. I don’t know because I didn’t look at it properly...”
“I spoke out of turn!”
Without realizing it, I spoke informally and covered his plump lips so painfully that it hurt.
“Because you're so small, I feel like you might break.”
He muttered with his mouth shut, correcting my misconception.
“It won’t break.”
"Yes."
I held him in my arms for a long time, what felt like an eternity, until the rain stopped.
The occasional pats on my back and the breath on my ear and neck made me dizzy, but I felt like I held on. The pajamas and shirt I'd hung out were still damp but almost dry, and the cardigan was still damp.
I looked down at my damp clothes with an uncomfortable expression.
“I want to wash up quickly.”
“I guess I’ll have to buy some new clothes on the way.”
Noah, who had a similarly neat disposition to me, had a hardened expression. The romantic situation of entering a remote cabin drenched in rain ultimately resulted in dampness and discomfort.
“There’s a hotel on the way, so go wash up. I’ll buy you some new clothes.”
Even though we became very close and slept naked in each other's arms and naturally visited hotels frequently, there was no significant progress in physical intimacy.
This ascetic man rarely kisses me. How can that be? I nodded, my face slightly gloomy.
After Noah and Diana left, Mastiff sat alone on the bed, drinking brandy and reminiscing.
His turquoise eyes blurred, as if observing the events unfolding before his eyes. He recalled Noah, still a boy, in the vivid afterimages of the past.
The smile the boy had on his face as he looked back at him is still vivid in his mind.
The handsome boy who sat in the front row of the same class at the same school was always clean and neatly dressed, and his hair smelled fresh and soapy.
Judging from the fact that he stared out the window in disinterest during class or didn't attend class much, he didn't seem to be a hard worker, but he always got top grades on his tests.
Mastiff, on the other hand, was a troublemaker, constantly causing violence and behavioral problems. Of course, being of royal blood, he was never suspended or expelled from school.
Mastiff became increasingly interested in observing Noah.
“Hello, Young Master.”
It was the first greeting he ever gave to Noah. The boy looked up at Mastiff with a completely disinterested gaze, then offered a meaningless smile.
“Hello, problem child.”
From then on, Mastiff continued to speak to Noah and even invited him to join his gang, but he paid no attention. He declined invitations to secret indulgences, calling them vulgar and ungentlemanly.
Teenage boys, full of energy, are naturally attracted to forbidden things and are very curious, and they were eager to be invited to the orgy hosted by the Emperor's illegitimate son.
In contrast, Noah didn't smoke cigars, drink, or indulge his sexual desires. His presence even felt somewhat disjointed.
"He might be doing something better without us knowing, right? It's a 50-50 deal. There's nothing to regret."
"Yeah, if I had to add more, it would have been even worse. He's probably just acting like a gentleman. I heard he was flirting with the young wife of Lieutenant Rudiger, who died in the war last year."
It was a baseless rumor from a classmate. It was also a wish that the high-ranking nobleman, a successful young master, would be no different from them.
Mastiff looked at Noah and felt that he was a well-educated, handsome young man, yet somehow, like himself, he was also vulgar and crooked.
The first time he spoke to Mastiff was when he was closely observing a dead tabby cat lying on the street.
“Mastiff, why are you looking at that? It’s full of maggots.”
“I was curious. What is death?”
"You're curious about death? I think I can tell you."
“How could you tell that? You’re not even a god.”
“Just try dying.”
It was a strange remark. Mastiff looked up at Noah with a bewildered expression.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Is dying easy?”
“Perhaps. Tens of thousands of people could die with just one gesture from the Emperor.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s different from dying meaninglessly.”
From a distance, a young girl, who appeared to be about six or seven years old, ran towards the corpse of the spotted cat and began to cry. In her small hand, she held a can of food, perhaps intended to feed the cat.
“Is that the cat you were raising?”
Noah asked. The girl, dressed in a well-tailored dress and with neatly braided blond hair, shook her head and wiped away the tears that kept flowing.
“It’s a stray cat. I haven’t seen it lately, so I’ve been looking for it...”
"How kind. I'll have a servant bury it for you. What do you think?"
“Thank you, brother.”
Seeing the servant pick up the cat, the child cried bitterly and called its name. Noah turned to Mastiff and smiled brightly.
It's unclear whether the servant buried the cat or threw it in the crematorium. Noah didn't bother to clean up after himself. It wasn't an ordinary act of kindness; it was simply an attempt to show something about death.
Mastiff remembers that he became somewhat closer to Noah after that day.
Looking a little closer, he seemed like a visionary who had reached a level that even adults could not reach, and he was gentlemanly to everyone, yet cynical at the same time.
Noah rescued Mastiff from the constant abuse he suffered from the Emperor's cruel and notorious government and Mastiff's mother, Margarita.
Margarita considered her son, unpopular with the emperor and prone to mischief, useless. Whenever she drank, she would beat him, burn him with a lit cigarette, or strangle him. She would curse and curse Mastiff, telling him to die instead.
Mastiff didn't know what to do, but Noah knew exactly what to do.
Noah possessed a knack for reading and cleverly exploiting the desires and needs of others. He exploited the desires of Margarita, the Emperor's mistress, who was much older than him. In fact, it was she who first approached Noah, harboring a misguided desire.
Noah, who had captivated Margarita with his beauty and unique charm, secretly went to her room in the middle of the night, poisoned her with alcohol, and then pretended to commit suicide by poisoning her. He committed this act at the age of sixteen.
“I thought you were going to die. You promised to die by my hand, didn’t you?”
Noah went straight to Mastiff's room, shook the vial of arsenic, and smiled beautifully. Mastiff simply stared blankly at the boy, who seemed beyond this world.
Long, smooth fingers touched Mastiff's loose collar. Noah, who had neatly fastened the loose button, spoke in an infinitely gentle and affectionate voice.
"Mastiff. No one's going to hit you, stab you, or strangle you anymore, right? Not in the future."
“How do you know that?”
"I'll make it so. You do as I say from now on. Then, one day, I'll kill you with my own hands. So you'll know the answer you've been seeking."
"Why?"
Mastiff asked.
"You're useless to anyone now. There's no point in dying like this."
This was Noah's answer.
Even now, as an adult, he still gets goosebumps from the memory of the boy with silver hair, wearing a neat and tidy school uniform, smiling innocently yet coolly.
He still doesn't know why the promise to kill him felt so like salvation.
After his mother's death, Mastiff lost interest in his previous debauchery and abandoned it altogether. The illegitimate son, whom everyone predicted would become the empire's prodigal son, surprisingly lived a faithful life.
It was around this time that Mastiff began to take an interest in something else. It all started when he killed a woman who lied about having his child. He was trying to be impeccable, trying to be useful, but it was also because, for the first time, he felt alive.
Emperor Meyer praised Noah for transforming Mastiff to his liking and began to take notice of the extraordinary boy, and became close to him. Afterwards, the Emperor's madness and seizures worsened, and people attributed the death of his beloved mistress to this.
The boy who trained Mastiff to be a loyal watchdog abandoned everything he had as an adult and left his homeland for the sake of others, leaving his tamed dog behind.
"I went to the battlefield as you commanded, and achieved great feats. I became the Emperor's loyal dog and barely returned from the occupied territories. Why did you...?"
"What must I do to become the person you need?" Mastiff muttered sadly, rubbing his eyes.
“Ugh... It’s cold.”
The warm sensation against my skin sent pleasant goosebumps down my spine, so I pulled myself closer to it and closed my eyes again.
Wait a minute. What is this hot body temperature enveloping my entire body?
I opened my eyes with a start, glanced down, then pulled away again in embarrassment. I was now naked in my underwear, completely engulfed in this man's embrace.
Why are we both covered with a blanket? I was clearly the one covering him. And why is this person squeezing one of his legs between mine?
I couldn't even breathe freely, afraid that my breathing and heartbeat would reach him. Noah must still be in a deep sleep. A steady, rhythmic thump echoed above my head.
I shrugged my shoulders as I felt a tickle as a light breath settled on my crown.
As I was carefully pulling away Noah's hands, one by one, from my back, as if he was worried I might fall, he let out a long breath and started to move.
Finally, he asked in a sleepy voice, as if he had just woken up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah.”
The tired sound of stretching was so irritating that I decided I couldn't stand it any longer. I abruptly sat up.
“Are the clothes all dry?”
“I don’t think it’s dried yet. It’s still raining.”
The handsome man who was looking up at me smiled elegantly and seductively. He smiled with his eyes like a flirtatious fox.
“Aren’t you cold?”
He asked, stroking my shoulder, which was shivering from the cold. I tried to avoid his affectionate gaze. The sound of my heart beating wildly, without any sense, made my ears ring.
Why is that guy always so relaxed and composed? Am I the only one who gets excited? I was biting my lip, feeling aggrieved, when Noah wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer.
“Lie back down. Your clothes are far from drying.”
“Why on earth... hasn’t it dried yet?”
I held him tightly, saying nothing, and took in my breathless breaths. My chest was pressed against his, and I felt like I was suffocating from embarrassment and shame.
"Not yet."
I was in a daze, but his short words made me jump.
“The chest?”
At the sudden raised voice, Noah's blue eyes looked down, then flinched and looked back at my face.
“No. I don’t know because I didn’t look at it properly...”
“I spoke out of turn!”
Without realizing it, I spoke informally and covered his plump lips so painfully that it hurt.
“Because you're so small, I feel like you might break.”
He muttered with his mouth shut, correcting my misconception.
“It won’t break.”
"Yes."
I held him in my arms for a long time, what felt like an eternity, until the rain stopped.
The occasional pats on my back and the breath on my ear and neck made me dizzy, but I felt like I held on. The pajamas and shirt I'd hung out were still damp but almost dry, and the cardigan was still damp.
I looked down at my damp clothes with an uncomfortable expression.
“I want to wash up quickly.”
“I guess I’ll have to buy some new clothes on the way.”
Noah, who had a similarly neat disposition to me, had a hardened expression. The romantic situation of entering a remote cabin drenched in rain ultimately resulted in dampness and discomfort.
“There’s a hotel on the way, so go wash up. I’ll buy you some new clothes.”
Even though we became very close and slept naked in each other's arms and naturally visited hotels frequently, there was no significant progress in physical intimacy.
This ascetic man rarely kisses me. How can that be? I nodded, my face slightly gloomy.
***
After Noah and Diana left, Mastiff sat alone on the bed, drinking brandy and reminiscing.
His turquoise eyes blurred, as if observing the events unfolding before his eyes. He recalled Noah, still a boy, in the vivid afterimages of the past.
The smile the boy had on his face as he looked back at him is still vivid in his mind.
The handsome boy who sat in the front row of the same class at the same school was always clean and neatly dressed, and his hair smelled fresh and soapy.
Judging from the fact that he stared out the window in disinterest during class or didn't attend class much, he didn't seem to be a hard worker, but he always got top grades on his tests.
Mastiff, on the other hand, was a troublemaker, constantly causing violence and behavioral problems. Of course, being of royal blood, he was never suspended or expelled from school.
Mastiff became increasingly interested in observing Noah.
“Hello, Young Master.”
It was the first greeting he ever gave to Noah. The boy looked up at Mastiff with a completely disinterested gaze, then offered a meaningless smile.
“Hello, problem child.”
From then on, Mastiff continued to speak to Noah and even invited him to join his gang, but he paid no attention. He declined invitations to secret indulgences, calling them vulgar and ungentlemanly.
Teenage boys, full of energy, are naturally attracted to forbidden things and are very curious, and they were eager to be invited to the orgy hosted by the Emperor's illegitimate son.
In contrast, Noah didn't smoke cigars, drink, or indulge his sexual desires. His presence even felt somewhat disjointed.
"He might be doing something better without us knowing, right? It's a 50-50 deal. There's nothing to regret."
"Yeah, if I had to add more, it would have been even worse. He's probably just acting like a gentleman. I heard he was flirting with the young wife of Lieutenant Rudiger, who died in the war last year."
It was a baseless rumor from a classmate. It was also a wish that the high-ranking nobleman, a successful young master, would be no different from them.
Mastiff looked at Noah and felt that he was a well-educated, handsome young man, yet somehow, like himself, he was also vulgar and crooked.
The first time he spoke to Mastiff was when he was closely observing a dead tabby cat lying on the street.
“Mastiff, why are you looking at that? It’s full of maggots.”
“I was curious. What is death?”
"You're curious about death? I think I can tell you."
“How could you tell that? You’re not even a god.”
“Just try dying.”
It was a strange remark. Mastiff looked up at Noah with a bewildered expression.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Is dying easy?”
“Perhaps. Tens of thousands of people could die with just one gesture from the Emperor.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s different from dying meaninglessly.”
From a distance, a young girl, who appeared to be about six or seven years old, ran towards the corpse of the spotted cat and began to cry. In her small hand, she held a can of food, perhaps intended to feed the cat.
“Is that the cat you were raising?”
Noah asked. The girl, dressed in a well-tailored dress and with neatly braided blond hair, shook her head and wiped away the tears that kept flowing.
“It’s a stray cat. I haven’t seen it lately, so I’ve been looking for it...”
"How kind. I'll have a servant bury it for you. What do you think?"
“Thank you, brother.”
Seeing the servant pick up the cat, the child cried bitterly and called its name. Noah turned to Mastiff and smiled brightly.
It's unclear whether the servant buried the cat or threw it in the crematorium. Noah didn't bother to clean up after himself. It wasn't an ordinary act of kindness; it was simply an attempt to show something about death.
Mastiff remembers that he became somewhat closer to Noah after that day.
Looking a little closer, he seemed like a visionary who had reached a level that even adults could not reach, and he was gentlemanly to everyone, yet cynical at the same time.
Noah rescued Mastiff from the constant abuse he suffered from the Emperor's cruel and notorious government and Mastiff's mother, Margarita.
Margarita considered her son, unpopular with the emperor and prone to mischief, useless. Whenever she drank, she would beat him, burn him with a lit cigarette, or strangle him. She would curse and curse Mastiff, telling him to die instead.
Mastiff didn't know what to do, but Noah knew exactly what to do.
Noah possessed a knack for reading and cleverly exploiting the desires and needs of others. He exploited the desires of Margarita, the Emperor's mistress, who was much older than him. In fact, it was she who first approached Noah, harboring a misguided desire.
Noah, who had captivated Margarita with his beauty and unique charm, secretly went to her room in the middle of the night, poisoned her with alcohol, and then pretended to commit suicide by poisoning her. He committed this act at the age of sixteen.
“I thought you were going to die. You promised to die by my hand, didn’t you?”
Noah went straight to Mastiff's room, shook the vial of arsenic, and smiled beautifully. Mastiff simply stared blankly at the boy, who seemed beyond this world.
Long, smooth fingers touched Mastiff's loose collar. Noah, who had neatly fastened the loose button, spoke in an infinitely gentle and affectionate voice.
"Mastiff. No one's going to hit you, stab you, or strangle you anymore, right? Not in the future."
“How do you know that?”
"I'll make it so. You do as I say from now on. Then, one day, I'll kill you with my own hands. So you'll know the answer you've been seeking."
"Why?"
Mastiff asked.
"You're useless to anyone now. There's no point in dying like this."
This was Noah's answer.
Even now, as an adult, he still gets goosebumps from the memory of the boy with silver hair, wearing a neat and tidy school uniform, smiling innocently yet coolly.
He still doesn't know why the promise to kill him felt so like salvation.
After his mother's death, Mastiff lost interest in his previous debauchery and abandoned it altogether. The illegitimate son, whom everyone predicted would become the empire's prodigal son, surprisingly lived a faithful life.
It was around this time that Mastiff began to take an interest in something else. It all started when he killed a woman who lied about having his child. He was trying to be impeccable, trying to be useful, but it was also because, for the first time, he felt alive.
Emperor Meyer praised Noah for transforming Mastiff to his liking and began to take notice of the extraordinary boy, and became close to him. Afterwards, the Emperor's madness and seizures worsened, and people attributed the death of his beloved mistress to this.
The boy who trained Mastiff to be a loyal watchdog abandoned everything he had as an adult and left his homeland for the sake of others, leaving his tamed dog behind.
"I went to the battlefield as you commanded, and achieved great feats. I became the Emperor's loyal dog and barely returned from the occupied territories. Why did you...?"
"What must I do to become the person you need?" Mastiff muttered sadly, rubbing his eyes.
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