Plin Ch 4.11

When Plin woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. He flinched at the weight on his stomach. For some reason, Hugo was asleep with his face buried in Plin’s belly.

The memories of last night were hazy. It seemed the act had continued for a while even after he’d practically passed out from multiple orgasms. Even after that, Hugo had continued, as if determined to soak Plin’s body in his scent.

He vaguely remembered something happening to his inner thighs and armpits. His whole body had been covered in sticky fluids…

Judging by the fresh feeling of his skin and the scent of bath products, Hugo must have washed him while he was asleep.

He looked around. Just as he’d been washed, he hoped the room would be somewhat tidy. However, ignoring Plin’s hopes, the traces of their messy activities remained.

The vanity and floor where they had their passionate encounter were stained with dried white marks, things were scattered around, and…

One of the drawers from the vanity’s three-tiered chest was half-hanging off its rails, its broken wooden edges exposed unsightly. He couldn’t remember clearly, but it seemed he’d been made to sit on that drawer while… Plin squeezed his eyes shut.

He wanted to clean it up somehow. Plin glared slightly at Hugo, who was sleeping on his stomach, and carefully moved his head.

“Agh!”

As soon as he sat up and put his feet on the floor, a sharp pain shot through him. Hugo, who had been dozing, woke up groggily.

“Darling… sleep more, why are you up so early?”

“…I’m going to clean that up.”

Plin pointed at the chest of drawers.

“Mmm, I’ll take care of it.”

Hugo fixed his hair. He smoothed down his sideburns and smiled prettily, his eyes crinkling.

Hugo intended to preserve the damaged drawer and vanity as they were and add them to his collection (which included a Fox Love Juice flyer, a lint ball from Plin’s coat, and dead tail fur collected while brushing).

“Look outside the window. It’s snowing.”

He changed the subject to the weather. Large, fluffy snowflakes were falling outside. They were unusually large, beautiful snowflakes, as if they would make a soft poof sound as they landed on the blanket of snow.

“Do you like snowy days? It’s kind of romantic—”

“No…”

Plin mumbled weakly. Snow was only pretty while it was falling; after that, it was just a nuisance. For Plin, who delivered on foot, snowy days meant wet shoes and pant cuffs, slipping and breaking bottles of drinks, and being yelled at by customers for late deliveries.

It was one of those days when the reality of others finding it beautiful made him feel painfully lonely.

“Ah, right. Me neither, really.”

Hugo pursed his lips. The large, fluffy snowflakes abruptly stopped falling.

Plin felt the heaviness of his eyelids, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in a long time. As an adult, he could count on one hand the number of times he’d cried. Perhaps he had cried so much immediately after Andrea ran away that his tear ducts had dried up.

He hadn’t slept much lately, so his eyes were never puffy. But yesterday, he had slept a lot and cried a lot, so they were swollen. Plin sat at the dining table with dull eyes.

“Kng…”

Even though he had been carried by Hugo and hadn’t moved much, his overworked muscles were screaming in protest.

“This is all I have for food.”

Hugo said, placing a glass of milk on the table. On the plate he set down next was a slice of bread soaked in béchamel sauce, topped with melted Emmental cheese, five strips of bacon, and two pieces of broccoli.

It was a bit heavy for breakfast. He had no appetite, and he rarely ate breakfast anyway. Plin stared at the plate, feeling awkward.

“I don’t really feel like eating…”

“Eat what you can, and leave the rest.”

Hugo had already started eating. In front of him was a large plate with the same dish as Plin’s, but ten times the amount.

“You’re… going to eat all of that? Well, you are a dragon…”

Plin asked and then answered his own question. He watched Hugo eat for a moment. He cut the food neatly, put it in his mouth, swallowed without a trace of chewing, and then started cutting again. It was as if his mouth was a bottomless pit, constantly taking in food.

Yet, he would occasionally glance at Plin and self-consciously adjust his open bathrobe or wink. Plin watched him as if observing a performance, and his appetite returned slightly, so he started picking at his food.

Even with the heating on, the centuries-old castle still held a chill in the air. The soft, greasy, warm food in the slightly cool atmosphere was unexpectedly delicious.

Plin suddenly spoke while eating.

“My younger sibling used to eat a lot, too.”

“Is that so?”

Hugo was annoyed that it was another story about Andrea, but expressing his annoyance to his lover was something only a relationship idiot would do, so he held back and responded.

“He used to eat everything I brought him. Even the cheap stuff.”

Plin smiled wistfully, reminiscing.

Hugo wondered if Plin had even had a childhood outside of raising Andrea, reflecting on Plin’s empty formative years where he had to be an adult from such a young age.

“I used to wonder… how a little snake could eat so much… but seeing him grow taller made me proud.”

“If he ate that much, he should have thrown up. f*cking bastard. Just sitting around and eating.”

Hugo, letting his guard down, spoke without filtering his thoughts, and Plin stared at him sternly with his puffy eyes.

“Don’t insult my sibling.”

Plin’s sharp rebuke silenced him, but now that he thought about it, Andrea really was a f*cking bastard.

He was honestly jealous that the shameless pig, who only took without giving, had received such devoted love from Plin. It was also frustrating to see Plin wasting his precious affection on such a creature and still searching for him so desperately.

“Andrea probably eats as much as the Executive Director now.”

“…You must have had a hard time raising him when you were so young yourself.”

He suppressed his true feelings and managed to offer words of comfort.

That scheming bastard, that piece of trash. There wasn’t much of an age difference between them, yet he’d grown up leeching off the little fox. He was probably living like a parasite, mooching off someone, right now.

Hugo put on a fake smile. The muscles in his cheeks lifted, but his eyes held a murderous glint.

“Whenever I eat something delicious, I always think of Andrea.”

“I see.”

Hugo put all his effort into feigning empathy. Plin put down his knife and looked at Hugo.

“But… I’m not going to think about Andrea too much anymore.”

“Huh…?”

“I have a confession to make, Executive Director…”

Plin’s lips trembled.

His shoulders shook pathetically. Hugo felt a mix of wanting to hold him close and not wanting to hear what he was about to say.

“I… did something bad to you, Executive Director…”

Suddenly blurting out such a bombshell, Plin started talking about when he had received Ethan’s contact. How and why he had accepted his proposal, and what he had done.

Hugo already knew the gist of it. The only things he didn’t know were that Ethan had offered Andrea as compensation to Plin and that Andrea was already under Ethan’s influence.

He’d assumed Andrea would be the condition, but since even his own intelligence network hadn’t been able to locate him yet, he’d dismissed the idea that Ethan could have found Andrea first. Now that he knew what the price was, he felt a sense of relief.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…”

The fox apologized, bowing his head. The bright midday sun glinted off his white hair.

Hugo glanced out the window. The snow that had been falling since early morning had accumulated. With no cars or people passing by, the pristine white snow reflected the light.

In stark contrast to the beautiful scenery, his previously buoyant mood deflated like a punctured balloon, plummeting to the ground. Pierced by the sharp truth, all his bravado had drained away, leaving him feeling pathetic.

The Plin that Hugo had observed so far was a conscientious person. The time he had to spend deceiving him must have been agonizing, like a thorn in his throat. He wondered if this confession had brought him some relief.

A silence stretched between them, as if time had stopped.

“I’m sorry for telling you so suddenly. But I didn’t want to deceive you anymore, Executive Director…”

That’s what he’d been wondering. Why suddenly, why now?

Hugo scrutinized the fox.

Apart from the silver fur, his features were innocent and unassuming. Yet, there was something captivating about his sly eyes and small, pert nose. Plin’s eyes were red-rimmed, as he desperately tried to suppress the tears that threatened to spill over.

The sight of him biting his lip until it turned white, nervously gauging Hugo’s reaction, was heartbreaking.

“…I see.”

Hugo managed to squeeze out a response. His voice was rough, like a rusty iron gate.

It wasn’t a story he couldn’t understand.

If Ethan already had Andrea’s life in his hands, Plin would have had no choice but to comply with the deal. This was a fox who poured every penny he earned into searching for Andrea. A pauper who couldn’t even take care of himself had incurred a massive debt. That blind devotion spoke volumes about his love for Andrea.

“I was also instructed to steal a USB drive, but I didn’t even try. I just said I couldn’t steal it. Besides the recorder you found, I didn’t do anything else… I never met him separately. We only exchanged texts.”

Plin, rather cleverly, added excuses to avoid further misunderstandings, even exaggerating his own ineptitude.

If true, Plin hadn’t actually done anything significantly harmful to Hugo. The recorder had been discovered before it was even planted, and he claimed to have failed at everything else. The “bad thing” Plin referred to was simply staying by Hugo’s side with ulterior motives, following Ethan’s orders.

Hugo could understand the circumstances that forced Plin to accept the deal, and he understood that Plin had failed miserably at his spy duties despite agreeing to them. That’s probably why Ethan tried to kidnap Plin. To eliminate a useless pawn.

But why now?