Plin Ch 2.12

“If you don’t want to spit in my mouth, you can give me your s*men. Like that night.”

At the languid suggestion, Plin looked up forlornly.

“…Do you like that kind of thing?”

“What?”

“Getting aroused when you’re insulted, liking it when someone c*ms on your face… things like that.”

He lowered his eyebrows and focused his brown eyes. The face that revealed clear emotions was laughable. Hugo, who had been smirking, erased all traces of a smile.

“I feel like you just insulted me.”

“…I was just looking at you curiously. I understand.”

“I don’t have that kind of taste, and I asked you to spit in my mouth in the first place, not on my face.”

“Uh…”

The fox, who said he understood, made a disgusted face. Hugo crossed his arms and looked at the fox, smiling crookedly. It was unexpected that he was acting so chastely, even though it wasn’t a difficult request. What was more unexpected was that he didn’t feel bad even though he was being impudently sassed. Normally, with his personality, he would have forced open his mouth and scraped out the saliva inside, but now he just wanted to wait like a good dog.

Seeing him so full of himself, fortunately, it didn’t seem like the fox had heard that his bodily fluids were a painkiller. But later, if the fox found out everything, what if he dared to use the supply of bodily fluids as bait to try to control him? Hugo imagined the worst-case scenario.

‘Hand over all your shares, and make me the majority shareholder.’

He could see the fox in a silver suit, his lips shiny, saying that. If that happened, well, he could just lock him up and suck him dry. What if he locked him up now?

He scanned the fox from top to bottom. He was skinny, and his cheeks and lips were chapped from the cold wind, but his hair and tail were bushy and shiny, and above all, he was healthy and in a good mood, delivering every day.

What if only the bodily fluids from a healthy and happy fox had painkilling effects? Imprisonment would be the worst choice. He had to keep all possibilities open, so it wasn’t an absurd fantasy.

The worst of the worst would be if the fox said that a confined life was worse than death and killed himself without permission.

Well, aesthetically speaking, it would be a hundred times prettier now than if it were tied up and unable to see the sunlight and withered.

While Hugo was contemplating whether to imprison the fox or not, Plin felt a tingling sensation in the back of his neck and babbled, “The weather is very nice today. It’s sunny, and there’s sun, and there are clouds.”

Hugo thought that the fox, unable to stand even a moment’s silence, wanted to keep talking to him, which was fine by him.

This fluffy white furball has big dreams.

Suddenly, clear thunder rumbled in the sky. The lights in the hospital room went out, but since it was daytime, the brightness only slightly decreased, and it was still bright.

“Oh my.”

The fox’s eyes widened, and he hunched his shoulders. His hair also stood on end, making him look like a chestnut.

“When I’m with the Executive Director, there’s a lot of thunder.”

“It’s because I have bad luck.”

He answered casually and placed his hand on his head. Hugo then sat down on the bed with a thud.

“Ah, I’m dizzy…”

“Are you okay?”

“No, augh…”

Hugo put his hand on his forehead and sighed. The lines of his neck, as he tilted his head back and leaned on the headboard, were long. The Adam’s apple, made up of narrow planes as if roughly carved with a wooden knife, was prominent. His breathing, which passed through his nasal cavity, was shallow, swoosh, swoosh. His chest rose and fell, and the shadows around his curves swayed.

“Executive Director, are you very unwell? Should I call the doctor?”

He didn’t answer right away. Plin was at a loss, wringing his tail from side to side, and then, without even hearing an answer, he tried to run out.

“Huu…, wait.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go…”

“But—”

“Doctors are useless, just, ugh. I…”

“Please don’t talk…”

He held his head with both hands. A blue vein stood out on his temple. He looked like he was in pain, with every breath he took, as if he were forcing back a scream. Plin couldn’t go anywhere and just opened and closed his mouth before approaching him.

Even if it was someone he didn’t know well, he wanted to help, but since even the doctor said it was no use, he felt helpless not knowing what to do to make him feel even a little better.

“Shall I, hold your hand?”

Plin asked, offering his rough hand. He pulled his hand in a sudden, strong grip. Pulled by the instantaneous force, Plin stumbled and sat down on the edge of his bed.

The large hand covering Plin’s was hot. As if enduring the pain, he would squeeze the hand he was holding, and when Plin made a pained sound, he would release it, only to apply pressure again. Plin’s always cold hands also became lukewarm. He was surprised by the sensation of the transferred body heat, but he couldn’t pull his hand away.

“It will subside in a little while. Let’s just stay like this for a bit.”

The large man clutched Plin’s hand as if it were a treasure. His hunched body looked like a wild beast hiding in its den, anticipating being hunted. He was trembling in pain. Plin wiped the tears that welled up in his eyes and stroked his forehead. As he gently stroked the furrowed brow, the tension that gripped his handsome face gradually began to ease.

Occasionally, the sound of birdsong could be heard, and white snow piled up softly. After some time had passed, his breathing became comfortable.

“Were you surprised?”

“No.”

“I’ve been like this often since I was a child.”

“Ah… I didn’t know, you don’t seem like it at all. Are you very unwell?”

His voice was as calm as the subsided pain. When Plin looked at Hugo, he deliberately avoided his gaze. It was an attitude of keeping a distance, but the story he told in the most private of spaces, a bed, was just as intimate.

“It’s a sickness with only pain. Funny, isn’t it.”

His pupils shook uneasily. He looked up at the sky outside through the large window, over four meters wide. The window frames and white cumulus clouds were reflected in his emerald eyes.

“When I was about thirteen or so… the days ahead seemed bleak. Living like this for the rest of my life was scary. I wanted to kill this body.”

Plin’s mouth slightly opened, and he let out a sigh of pity.

“Then I would die.”

Hugo said the obvious and cast his eyes down as if acting pitiful.

“Is there no cure for this illness?”

At Plin’s question, Hugo let out a small laugh.

“It’s a genetic disease of dragons. Some people are lucky enough not to develop it, but I wasn’t so lucky, and I suffer from a fever without warning. There aren’t enough cases, so modern medicine can’t cure it. Painkillers don’t work either.”

“I see…”

He wanted to offer words of comfort that would resonate, but he didn’t know what to say, having never experienced it himself. He wondered why he had asked him to come for a visit. Why was he showing his biggest weakness to a mere peddler?

Although he was still unfamiliar, he felt like he knew him a little better now. He also found out his species, which he had been curious about all this time. He was a dragon. He had heard that there was a dragon species, but it was the first time he had actually seen one. Now, he felt sorry for that carefree curiosity.

“When I was young, I would have a dream when I was half-awake. I was tied to a stake, and the executioner poured oil at my feet and threw a torch. Even though I knew it was a dream, I screamed at him, reciting my sins, begging him to save me.”

Plin just looked down at his lap. It was a cruel dream and a cruel illness.

He continued to whisper.

“The pain of being burned was so vivid. When I thrashed around, a cold towel would be placed on my forehead, and I would hear my mother quietly reading a fairy tale.”

Hugo, who had been looking outside, suddenly looked at Plin. As their gazes met, his feverish eyes smiled affectionately. Plin had never imagined that a man could make such an expression.

“In the fairy tale, a white fox saved a dragon in crisis. In my dream, as I listened to that story, a white fox appeared from somewhere. It carried a water jar as big as its own body and poured water on the stake over and over again. It was useless, but it kept going.”

Plin bit his lip. He had a feeling he knew what he was trying to share with him, and why he had called him today.

“Long after the pain subsided, all that remained with me was that white fox. The brave voice that comforted me, the drooping white tail because the fire wouldn’t go out no matter how much water it poured. The fact that someone had felt pity for me was etched in my childhood memory… I wanted to see a real white fox once.”

When they first met, Hugo had asked how he knew his preferences and why he was hanging around.

“But when I woke up from the dream, the white fox was gone. The doctors, and even my parents, said that I was sick because I was a monster.”

Among the harsh words of the people around him, did the young boy grasp at the white fox like a lifeline? But he wouldn’t have been able to find a white fox. White foxes were so rare that maybe only one would be born in a generation. But he himself was not the being he had been searching for for so long.

“How can you say that? Being sick is not a fault.”

Plin pouted.

“You were the first real white fox.”

“…..”

There was no answer. Hugo broke the strange silence.

“Why. Was it too sad of a story…?”

“I’m not the white fox you’re looking for… I’m sorry.”

“You are a white fox.”

Hugo playfully ruffled Plin’s hair. His silver hair fluttered. He leaned his heavy head on Plin’s shoulder. The man hid his face, leaning like that, and smiled without anyone noticing.

He tilted his head to the side. Plin’s ear almost touched his lips. The tips of his round ears were slightly transparent, revealing the red veins. Hugo whispered, refraining from biting them as he wanted to.

To the painkiller that had come to save him.