TSROTRATBP Chapter 16

The more I turned over the events of the past month, the more questions poured out. Had Ahin noticed my pheromone, the same way Lady Valens had?

And why hadn't he pressed me, when I was suspicious by anyone's standards? Surely he didn't truly think of me as just a pet. Questions like these, disorganized and endless, churned through my mind.

Aren't you curious what I really am?

Within my hazy consciousness, Ahin felt like he was growing further away by the moment. Opening and closing my heavy eyelids, I found myself, without meaning to, stretching a paw out toward his face.

And then, instead of the usual pure-white tuft of fur, five slender fingers came into view.

Fingers…?

It was the human shape I'd sometimes imagined. I'd been chanting humanization, humanization so relentlessly that I'd finally started seeing illusions of it. The absurdity of it nearly startled a bitter laugh out of me.

What was more, it wasn't only the fingers—the arm, stretched out long, meant my palm came to rest against Ahin's cheek. An almost unbearably vivid warmth passed into it where it touched.

…Warm.

Even knowing it wasn't real, I didn't want to pull my hand back. Tick, tick—time itself seemed to be crawling. I kept staring blankly at the hand, whoever's it was, and then my consciousness simply flickered out.

It had already been a month since Vivi Raebien, that thorn in everyone's side, had vanished without a trace. Eivern, Vivi's mother, sipping her tea, let her gaze drift toward the window.

'Why.'

No matter how she turned it over, the silence from the servants who'd carted Vivi off that day still nagged at her, uneasy and unresolved. At first she'd simply assumed the black panthers of the forest had hunted them down, but the two beastmen had spent years honing their skills. They should have been able to handle one or two black panthers.

And yet it seemed equally strange to think they'd defied their orders and fled. Loyal retainers who'd served at the Raebien estate for more than ten years—what would they possibly gain running off over some measly baby rabbit? Having been declared cursed, she'd be too ambiguous a case to keep even as a pet, let alone as food.

Her second son, Kyri Raebien, catching the drift of his mother's lingering thoughts, turned to look out the window as well. He still had the somewhat unformed face of someone who'd only just passed his coming-of-age ceremony at fifteen.

"Had no business crossing the border to begin with—wandered in too deep and got themself hunted, probably. Just drop it, Mother."

"Isn't that forest close to House Grace's territory? If beastmen belonging to that house happened to—"

"Found her, you mean? Then that's all the more reason to be grateful. They'd have handled it for us, out of the goodness of their hearts."

Happens out in the open all the time, that sort of thing. Kyri murmured it as though it were nothing worth remarking on, and took a sip of his tea.

And it was true enough—the sovereign house of black panther territory, House Grace, was famous for showing no mercy whatsoever. If the servants had crossed the border carelessly and been discovered by them, it wouldn't have been strange at all for the servants, let alone Vivi Raebien, to lose their lives in a single stroke.

Even while agreeing with this, Eivern couldn't quite shake a strange unease. Reading her mother's expression, Kyri set his teacup down with a deliberate click.

"If it still bothers you that much, send a few more people out to look into it. If the black panthers tore them apart, surely there'd be corpses or bones left behind, at least."

"…Yes. That wouldn't be a bad idea."

Eivern reached out at once and rang the bell to summon a servant. Jingle-jingle—the clear sound of the bell felt needlessly ominous, somehow, on that noon.

A dream, or reality?

An illusion, or something real?

It had felt far too vivid to dismiss as a dream, yet accepting it as reality seemed like too much of a stretch. Half senseless, I rolled—this way, then that way—over and over across the cushion.

No matter how I turned it over, the warmth and texture from last night's small hours had been unbearably clear. At least in that moment, Ahin hadn't even felt all that large to me.

Just in case.

I got up, dashed across the room, and stopped in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom. The polished glass reflected a fist-sized white baby rabbit. Still a herbivore small enough to sit easily in someone's palm.

…Right. This is me.

Honestly. I braced both front paws on the glass and let out a hollow sigh. Not so much as a hint of human fingers—just the same old familiar tuft of white fur.

This shape wasn't going anywhere in the course of a single day. Whatever I'd seen in the small hours—five fingers—had to have been an illusion, nothing more. And besides, no one had ever heard of a case of someone achieving humanization and then reverting back.

"Vivi?"

By now I'd grown used enough to being called "hey" or "rabbit" that the sound of my actual name felt oddly hard to adjust to. Lifting my head, I found Ahin's frowning face reflected in the mirror, meeting my eyes. Unlike me, who'd writhed through the night in pain, he'd apparently slept without incident—his face, in his gray formal uniform, looked even more radiant than usual.

"What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

What's gotten into me. As if a black panther could ever understand this kind of trouble.

I gazed up at him for a moment longer, then let out another mournful breath. At that, the attendant fastening Ahin's cravat gave a small flinch and glanced down at me.

"Why do you think it's doing that?"

Ahin asked quietly, looking between me and the attendant.

"S-Sorry?"

"That rabbit. It's sighing."

How would I know that, said the expression that briefly surfaced on the attendant's face before vanishing just as quickly. A veteran employee's response, through and through.

"Perhaps…"

Glancing at me, still sitting slumped before the mirror, he ventured his answer cautiously.

"Perhaps it's… hungry?"

"Hungry?"

"You look, ah, rather gaunt."

Gaunt where, exactly. I shot him a look of pure displeasure and gave his shoe a small kick with my front paw. You. Your eyesight is badly off.

"She already had breakfast, though."

Ahin, echoing the question, looked down at me as well. Dodging his intent look—you definitely didn't have breakfast, did you—I shook my head firmly.

Breakfast, my foot.

That wasn't the sort of small thing troubling her. This Lady Vivi's troubles were hardly the sort of subject panthers who'd long since completed their own humanization could hope to guess at.

"Makes sense, that idea about being hungry."

"Sir?"

"Getting ready to be eaten. Fattening herself up."

"I-Is that… is that so…?"

"Vivi's thorough about her preparations."

Why does it always land there, his interpretation. Just then, catching sight of Ahin's mouth in the mirror, my legs went weak. Come to think of it, it wouldn't be long now before he came by for breakfast.

"Going where."

The instant I went bone-white and bolted, he'd already caught me by the scruff of the neck. Lifted into the air in a single motion, before I could even think to resist, he buried his nose against my throat.

"That lion smell,"

After a brief pause of breathing, he pulled back and gave a faint, thin smile. It was, from the outside, a genuinely lovely smile—but to me, it was nothing short of chilling.

"Completely gone."

The joy in his crimson eyes was matched by a voice carrying not the slightest variation in pitch. Just how much did he hate that lion scent? By this point I was almost curious what it actually smelled like.

Burying his nose against my throat once more to confirm the scent, he gave my chin a light double tap.

"Vivi, if you come back smelling like that one more time, then—"

Th-Then…?

I couldn't bring myself to ask, and could only meet his eyes with trembling ones instead. Ahin, gazing off into empty air as if weighing my sentence, set me back down on the ground.

Then, what? Go on, finish it. My eyes damn near quaked waiting for it, but he only trailed off, checked his pocket watch, and turned toward the door.

"I'm running late. Let's go."

"Yes, sir."

The attendant, answering at once, fell into step behind Ahin.

Was he just going to leave it there? Watching his retreating back in dismay, I hurriedly thumped the carpet.

Then, what? What comes after that?

Damn beastman—if you're gonna say something, finish saying it before you walk off! While I kept rolling around in frustration, my eyes met the attendant's just as he was about to step out of the bedroom. And then—

Miss Rabbit!

Mouthing the words at me, he abruptly curled his left hand and made a fighting gesture of encouragement. He even mouthed 'Fight on!' while thumping his own stomach.

Left alone in the empty room, I fell into deep thought. Was this a wish for my survival, or encouragement toward the process of being fattened up for eating? The meaning was ambiguous enough to leave me feeling rather complicated.

Lady Valens had said that with her schedule so packed, tea time wasn't possible again today. The estate's been oddly noisy and chaotic these past few days—was that the reason?

But while passing through the hallway with Meimi, I happened to run into her, and my face lit up at the unexpected sight. It had been exactly three days.

Lady Valens.

"My, this is the first time you've greeted me so warmly."

As her hand stroked gently beneath my chin, the events of the small hours drifted back to mind.

If Lady Valens, who'd noticed my pheromone right away, might be someone I could ask for advice. Unlike me, who'd only ever picked up scraps of knowledge from servants' gossip or books around the estate, her own knowledge would run far deeper.

Hopeful, I had Meimi set me down on the floor and sank into thought for a moment.

Last night, ever since Ahin bit my neck, my stomach had turned queasy and my head had ached. And then, in the small hours, I'd seen something like an illusion. How was I supposed to explain any of this?

In writing…

Impossible. Writing out the single character for my name alone had left me exhausted, let alone attempting to explain all this in the middle of a hallway, taking up her time. Steeling myself, I edged closer to the hem of her red dress.

"What is it, little one?"

The moment I made a move, both Lady Valens's and Meimi's attention fixed sharply on me. Noticing their eyes, I rose up slightly, opened my mouth, and made a show of biting at my own paw.

Ahin bit my neck, like this,

Could a gesture this simple possibly get through to her…? I glanced up uncertainly, and Lady Valens gave a small tilt of her chin, urging me to go on.

Encouraged, the next part came easier. I flipped myself over and rubbed at my chest and stomach.

And ever since, my stomach's felt all stuck and wrong, like bad food sitting in it.

Watching this process closely, something flickered briefly across Lady Valens's crimson eyes.

Did it get through? I looked up at her hopefully, and she nodded back with an expression full of confidence.

Then, rubbing thumb and forefinger together with a sharp snap, Lady Valens issued her instructions.

"Sounds like she didn't get enough at lunch. Meimi, tell the head chef to give her the hay we brought in from the eastern territory."

Meimi's usually blank expression went even flatter for a moment. It was as though she felt genuinely sorry for having failed to notice my intentions, even though she'd been right there beside me. Bowing deeply, she answered in a solemn voice.

"Yes, Matriarch."

That's not it at all. Frustrated, I sprang upright, and Lady Valens's mouth curved into a warm smile. The same charming smile as always.

"There, there. Seems like that satisfied you."

She'd apparently decided that my sudden straightening-up was a sign of delight.