Chapter 8
Chapter 8
YUKI and Est finished cooking a delicious breakfast and carried the meal to the dining table in the living area. The sun sat high in the sky, bathing the house in warm sunlight.
“…Rifae hasn’t woken up yet, huh?” Yuki remarked.
“Rifae isn’t a morning person. Anyway, can you fill this bucket with water from the well I showed you earlier?” Est asked, disappearing down the hallway.
Yuki did as he asked and came back from the well with a bucket of water, but Est and Rifae weren’t around. She had nothing to do, so she dug through the wood cabinets and pulled out three glasses. Once she had them, she organized the dishes on the table. She really had nothing left to do after that.
Aren’t they being a little too trusting of me?
She hadn’t told them anything about herself. Rifaenotis likely guessed she was connected to Luca and Vivi, but Est didn’t know that.
Aren’t I pretty fishy being acquainted with Luca and Vivi? One is a prince imprisoned for suspected treason and the other is the so-called Legendary Witch. Just hearing that sounds amazing… Imprisoned…
Yuki’s heart dropped.
He’s not being tortured, right? I mean, he may be twisted, but he’s still a prince. I want to believe he isn’t being treated cruelly at least. If not, I don’t think my heart can endure. Honestly, enjoying a good breakfast bathed in the warm sunlight surrounded by good people is a waste of time. I need to hurry to Adolunde.
I’m sure this must be the way the people in this world live when they’re not at war.
“C’mon, she’s your guest, right? What’re you doin’ making her wait?” Est’s voice echoed down the hall. Yuki opened her eyes. She glanced at the door at the end of the hall—her jaw dropped.
“…Is Rifae okay?”
Rifae laid collapsed on Est’s back, his arms dangling limply over Est’s shoulders. Est clasped Rifae’s hands to his chest and dragged him. Being twice Est’s size, Rifae’s wooden leg thumped precariously against the floorboards.
“This always happens.”
Yuki quickly stood and pulled out a chair for Rifae.
“Thanks.” Est nimbly walked around the chair and flopped Rifae onto it. “Can you get me some water?”
“Ah, sure.” Yuki poured water from the pitcher into a glass. Est forced the glass into Rifae’s hand.
“Here. Don’t break it.”
Break it?
The set of matching glasses were sculpted from hard clay and looked sturdy enough. Rifae’s hair looked like a rat’s nest. The hair at the back of his head curled up in different directions, knotting at the bottom. Where did his finely groomed, wavy hair go?
“Mn...” Rifae’s right hand sluggishly moved with the cup. Yuki cautiously watched as the cup shook in his hand, but it made it to his mouth without any issue. He guzzled down the water and placed the cup on the table. Est sat next to Yuki, across from Rifae, and started eating.
“I-Is he okay?” she asked. Rifae didn’t seem awake yet. She looked over at Est who pointed at Rifae with his spoon. She followed his gaze—Rifae sluggishly moved his own spoon like the sloth she once saw in a zoo.
“Oh…”
“Rifae is bad with mornings.”
I’m not sure if you can just call this being bad with mornings…
“He’ll wake up as he eats.”
“Huh…” Yuki decided to just accept Est’s reasoning and pick up her own spoon. “Thanks for the food.”
She glanced over at Est who ate in silence. Rifae appeared like a mature adult until now, but his current state bewildered her.
I-It’s kinda hard to say I’m leaving right now…
Yuki decided to eat in silence, but Est broke the silence out of consideration for her. “When I first came to this house…”
“What?”
“It was a pigsty.”
“A…pigsty?”
What does he mean?
Their eyes met. She blinked several times. Est’s stunning gray eyes glinted with a frostiness not there before. “Did you hear about the time Rifae picked me up?”
“Ah, yeah. A little bit from Rifae last night…”
“I see. He found me in the dead of night. He discovered me during a night walk and brought me back to this house. He pulled me through the pitch-black hallway to a bed and let me sleep there.” Est stared expressionlessly at the porridge-filled bowl. “My only skill at the time was cooking, so the next morning I thought I could make him breakfast as thanks for letting me stay the night.”
“…I see.”
“And when I tried—this room was a pigsty.”
Yuki took advantage of Est’s current talkativeness to ask a follow-up question. “…What do you mean?”
“What other meaning can it have? Let’s just say it was so filthy you’d think pigs lived here. I couldn’t even walk into the kitchen!”
“What? Why not?”
“He was conducting experiments with fire in the kitchen and didn’t clean them up, so things kept piling up. It piled up so high it became a mountain of random stuff. He said he didn’t want it to all fall down if he touched it, so he left it that way and just let it continue growing.”
“…That sounds like…”
A hoarder?
Yuki laughed dryly when she recalled the special TV news report she watched on hoarders. “Hahahaha!”
Either he was unhappy she laughed, or he just wanted someone to rant to, because Est rattled on, “I’m telling you it’s no laughing matter. It wasn’t just the kitchen. Even this living room was a nightmare! It was covered in a foot of dust and mold grew everywhere. It was to the point a normal person definitely woulda gotten sick.”
“Now that’s hard to imagine…” She stole a peek at Rifae slowly munching on his porridge. His bangs hung sloppily over his face, hiding his expression.
“Just when I thought he made food, it was charcoal. I’m surprised he’s lived for thirty years like this.”
“Whaat?! Wait. Who’s thirty?”
“Rifae. He was thirty when he took me in, so he’ll be thirty-five this year.”
“Don’t talk about my age…” strained a hoarse voice. Surprised, Yuki looked across the table.
“It’s the truth.”
“I appear younger than my age, so lay off it,” a still sleepy, but clearly awake Rifae answered. He swept his bangs off his face with his left hand, revealing bags under his eyes.
“G-Good morning,” Yuki abruptly greeted, unsure of what else to say.
“Morning, dear,” Rifae answered with a beauteous grin. If not for his medusa-like hair, his smile would have been one of the most beautiful she had ever seen.