Plin Ch 3.4

Plin ended up closing his booth the earliest among the busy booths. While he was busy packing up, putting the boxes together with tape and gathering the leftover packaging to throw away, a few people came in a hurry and asked if there were any Fox Love Drinks left. Plin looked at Hugo, the owner of all the remaining goods, with his eyes, and gave them the drinks.

Lastly, he packed up the orange tent and tied it tightly, and they had to move the banner and the remaining items. Since the festival lasted for three days, the vendors who had set up booths were assigned temporary storage warehouses.

Plin struggled to load the cart with boxes and equipment. Hugo didn’t want to get his clothes dirty, so he didn’t really want to do this kind of manual labor himself. However, he couldn’t just stand by and watch Plin struggle, and he wanted to enjoy the festival sooner rather than later, so he had no choice but to help carry the heavy oil heater.

“Did you do all this by yourself earlier?”

“Ah… Yes.”

Plin rubbed his nose and answered. He didn’t know that a neat, country-boy look could also be pulled off. He wondered if Plin was in good health. He seemed frail, but he seemed to have a lot of stamina.

It was a relief that the fox would live a long life and be able to act as his painkiller for a long time.

“I’ll send people tomorrow. You don’t have to come early, they’ll prepare everything for the sale.”

“I’m fine, really.”

The fox smiled. Two pointed canines were neatly revealed.

“The company is providing basic support for official peddlers.”

“Did we have such a policy?”

Hugo cleared his throat, pretending not to hear, and said, “Ah, my oil is smeared.” He then took out a tissue and wiped his hands, casually changing the subject.

“Did many people from the company come today?”

“I don’t think I saw anyone.”

“Really? That’s not very loyal of them.”

“They probably don’t even know I’m selling here.”

“…Oh. So you didn’t tell them to come?”

Hugo’s voice suddenly became noticeably more cheerful. He had been standing still, but now he started walking, pulling the cart.

“You come here every day to deliver our drinks, why would they need to come? It’s not like there’s anything new, it’s just the Love Drink and energy candy.”

He couldn’t help but smile as he spoke. His dimple, etched only on one side, deepened.

“By the way, did you not get my text?”

He had sent it as soon as he woke up, but there was still no reply.

“Which one…?”

“About the festival.”

He was deliberately pretending not to know, the sly fox.

“Ah, that one…”

Plin was flustered and stammered.

“I was going to reply, but then I thought you might not like it if I did…”

“Why wouldn’t I like it?”

“Because it seemed like you were saying ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that’…”

He was talking nonsense. When had he ever said anything like that?

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that, um, it’s a misunderstanding, and I was going to explain…”

Plin was lost for words and just kept touching his earlobe. Hugo smirked.

“You don’t have to explain. I’m not an idiot. I know you didn’t mean it that way.”

“……”

“But don’t do it again. I don’t like it when you ignore me.”

Hugo added playfully. It was true, he didn’t like it. It made him feel inexplicably anxious.

“…Okay.”

“What did Ethan say?”

“That, um, he’ll help me find Andrea.”

“And?”

“He told me to do something for him in return.”

Plin answered honestly. He felt like he had to tell Hugo the truth.

“What is it?”

“He wants me to put a, um, a listening device in your office.”

Hugo stopped walking and looked at Plin intently. The fox avoided his gaze, his ears drooping.

“And you agreed?”

“I… I didn’t know what to do. I want to find Andrea, but I don’t want to do anything bad to you…”

“So you were going to do it anyway?”

“No! I mean, I don’t know. I was just so confused…”

Plin’s voice was small and trembling. Hugo sighed.

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. You want to find your brother, that’s understandable. And it’s not like you actually did it.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of Ethan. You just focus on selling your drinks and finding Andrea, okay?”

He reached out and gently stroked Plin’s hair. The fox looked up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes.

“Thank you, Executive Director.”

“Hugo. Call me Hugo.”

“Hu…Hugo.”

Plin smiled, a small, shy smile. Hugo’s heart did a strange flip. He leaned down and kissed Plin softly on the forehead.

“Let’s go. We need to store your things.”

They continued walking, the awkwardness between them replaced by a fragile, budding warmth.

The temporary storage warehouse for the vendors was quite far. It was an unavoidable situation because it was a booth with a low rent. Their shoes became heavy as the wet snow stuck to them. They had to kick the ground from time to time to shake off the clods of snow that clung to the soles of their shoes.

As they walked along the bright festival path on a winter night, mixed in with the crowd, they shared hot chocolate, thick with melted chocolate, and hot, simmering wine with a strong cinnamon flavor. Since Hugo was pulling the cart, Plin held the drinks.

Hugo had imagined it a few days ago, and as he thought, they indirectly kissed a few times.

When they passed the igloo zone, they reached the snowman competition area. The entries were lined up in a row. There was a giant snow dinosaur, a cute, fat snowman, and a snow angel with wings. Of course, there were also many unimpressive entries. There were also things like snow caterpillars that looked like they were made by young children.

In front of the entries, there was a board with the name of the entrant and the title of the work, so that people could vote voluntarily.

“Oh, look at this.”

Plin, his eyes caught by one of the snowmen, spoke with a slightly slurred pronunciation. It was because he had been buying and sipping the simmering wine whenever he saw a stall selling it, using the excuse that it was cold. His cheeks, his nose, and even the area around his eyes were red.

“Let’s just go.”

Hugo answered without even turning around.

“But did you make this, Executive Director? It says ‘H. Idrohann’ here.”

“You have good eyes.”

“Wow. It’s an ugly rabbit.”

Two hours ago, Hugo had made an entry himself while trying to compose his feelings, and Plin was now openly pointing at it.

It was, indeed, something with large ears that was ugly. It had a round face with long ears attached to it.

In fact, it didn’t objectively look like a rabbit. It had a thick, long tail attached to its behind.

“It’s not a rabbit.”

“But the ears are so biiig.”

“What are you talking about? It’s obviously a fox.”

“Wow… What kind of fox has ears like that?”

When he said it was a fox, Plin tilted his head and bent down to examine it.

The work he called a fox had a wicked expression. The branches he had broken off to decorate it had upturned eyes, and the mouth he had scratched with his finger was also jagged.

Plin, imitating the expression that resembled (`^´), said, “It doesn’t look like a fox no matter how you look at it.”

“Ah, just stop looking at it.”

Hugo put down the cart handle and grabbed Plin’s shoulder. Just then, Plin, who had been tipsy, stumbled.

“Wait a minute.”

He stubbornly refused and crouched down. Plin took a voting sticker and placed it on the board with the entry by H. Idrohann, titled: “Fox… You.” Along with Hugo’s own previous vote, there were two round stickers now placed side by side.

Whether it was because he was in a good mood or because he was drunk, Plin’s tail was sweeping the snowy ground vigorously.

“Isn’t your tail cold? It’s covered in snow.”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean yes? Stop it and hurry up.”

“But, Executive Director. I have something I’m curious about.”

Plin turned around and said. As he stood up, he stumbled greatly, and Hugo caught him. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not, but the fox was being quite affectionate today.

“What is it?”

“How old are you?”

As he shouted loudly, white vapor came out of his mouth. Plin was unsteady on his feet, looking up at him.

“Twenty-three. I haven’t had my birthday yet.”

“Ooh… You’re the same age as my brother. And Andrea was also tall, and handsome, and had blue eyes and black hair.”

“And he was an orphan. You found him on the street.”

“Yes…”

Plin pursed his lips. His gaze, looking at something beyond, was distantly far away.

“I get that you miss your brother, but it’s rude to think of someone else while looking at me.”

“I wasn’t doing that.”

“Don’t lie, if you want to keep that pretty face—”

“I wasn’t! My brother was kind, you see?”

“Kind, so he ran away from home, huh? And didn’t even show up when his brother was spending all his money looking for him.”

Hugo criticized the person he didn’t even know. But he had also heard about it. The reason why finding Andrea Fallfox was difficult was because the chronological data was not secured. In particular, the records from the orphanage, which would have been the most basic, were found to have requested to have their information deleted, and this request was denied. After that, there was a fire in the archives of unknown origin, and the handwritten data was damaged.

Even though there was no physical evidence that Andrea had tampered with the records, there was circumstantial evidence. There would have been no need to erase his own records, and Hugo guessed that he had done so because he knew that Plin Fallfox was looking for him and he didn’t like it.

“……”

“Anyway, I’m looking for your brother.”

“Huh? Fireworks…”

It was real. Whoosh, a firework streaked through the air and soon, bang! It exploded in the shape of a snowflake. People cheered, and children squealed.

Some couples kissed. There’s something about lights that moves people’s hearts. Especially fireworks in the darkness, they catch the eye. It makes you feel like you’re carefully taking out something you’ve been hiding and longing for a long time and staring at it, making your heart flutter.

“I have a queshhun.”

The drunk fox had many questions.

“What now.”

“You asked me to have a… contract relationshhhip. What’s the real reason?”

“…What do you mean, the real reason?”

“I mean… why me? Were you trying to rebel against your parents? Like, look! I’m dating someone who’s not good enough… Someone poor. A fox. And a guy.”

The fox’s body swayed from side to side. Hugo held Plin still so that he wouldn’t sway any further. He was working hard in the below-zero weather, just because it was a special occasion, and just holding that body made him feel the cold seep in.

“Such a petty thing isn’t rebellion. What are you talking about? What do you want to hear?”

“Just. Honesty.”

“Honesty… Okay.”

“Yes. I’m ready.”