Chapter 6
“Haa, I’m finally done cleaning.”
The space that had been filled with dust and foul odors had at last become a proper bedroom for the young duke.
‘Cleaning alone wasn’t enough to fix everything…’
The old wall fabric was replaced with the latest trend from the capital, and all the curtains and bedcovers were changed to new ones.
Even the terrifying silver candelabrum that would suit an underground chapel better was swapped for an elegant, luxurious golden one.
The broken mirror was completely removed, and in its place we hung a landscape painting.
‘It’s not like that boy is going to stand in front of a mirror and primp anyway.’
And if we put up another mirror and he broke it, he might hurt himself. That would be a disaster.
“Now the place is finally livable.”
While I was looking around in satisfaction, a white head poked out from under the bed.
The boy’s head swiveled left and right quickly, as if he were sightseeing.
‘He’s awfully curious, isn’t he?’
It had been a grueling fifteen-day journey.
Because Callion disliked others so much, Shayla had to handle everything herself.
I got Henry’s help moving and installing the heavy items, but his rough hands, which knew nothing of interior decoration, weren’t very useful.
“It’s clean now, right? What do you think? Do you like it?”
Suddenly, Callion came fully out from under the bed.
“I asked if you like the room. I bought all of this myself. With my own money.”
“……”
“Do you know how much this cost me? Antonio is definitely going to complain about my extravagance.”
The Antonio story was a lie I just made up. After all the effort I put into arranging the room, I felt embarrassed not to get any reaction, neither praise nor rejection.
‘Does he not like the change?’
Maybe he preferred the old room? That haunted-house style?
“Say something, you… as my husband…”
But he just stood there blankly, then said:
“Aren’t you going back to the capital?”
Oh heavens, the capital talk again. I thought he wouldn’t bring it up today.
“No, I’m not going.”
“…Really?”
“Yes! This is my home now. If you mention the capital one more time, I’ll…”
I reached out my hand, and his frightened eyes widened.
“…I’ll kiss you.”
“……”
The threat seemed to work; he stopped asking me to leave.
But he kept staring at me with mysterious eyes, as if observing a strange creature, then suddenly turned away.
‘What an arrogant little thing…’
Still, he didn’t go back under the bed, and that was progress. This boy, who used to be annoyed just by my presence in the same space, had made great strides.
Feeling relieved, I quietly slipped beside Callion, who was looking out the window.
“By the way, Callion.”
“……”
“I’ve never seen you eat anything, neither day nor night… Do you eat regularly?”
I had started wondering when I learned he never left the room.
Henry said he sometimes left the room at dawn when no one was around.
That was how our relationship began, too.
‘No servants come into this room separately.’
Henry only came once or twice a week.
“Who takes care of your meals? You have to eat every day.”
“……”
“Does Henry handle it? He told me to ask you.”
As if my questions annoyed him, he closed his eyes and buried his head in his front paws.
For a moment the sight looked peaceful, but I felt the need to clarify this issue.
‘There’s no smell of meat in this room. Why?’
He looks like a little pup, but he’s definitely a wolf. He should be eating meat…
‘Could this idiot be eating weird things he finds?’
Sometimes there was a sharp, pungent smell. A scent I couldn’t identify.
I carefully examined his body.
He looked like a soft cloud, but for his small size he was fairly plump.
‘Look at this fullness. He’s definitely eating something.’
But why this worry?
“Haaaam.”
I looked around as if uninterested, then yawned and lay down on the wide bed.
Anyway, Callion never used the bed. There wasn’t a single sign he’d ever climbed onto it.
“Maybe I’m just too tired from cleaning. I’ll sleep a little.”
No one would find it strange if I slept here. Everyone knows I come here often.
“Then wake me up in ten minutes, Callion.”
Even if he did wake me, I’d pretend to sleep and watch what he secretly eats.
I closed my eyes.
* * *
“Oh, what is this…?”
I finally woke from deep sleep because of a sharp, foul smell.
The sun had set outside the window, and a round moon had risen in the sky.
‘He didn’t wake me even until midnight?’
I’m sensitive to sounds. If he made any noise, I would definitely have woken up. He must have deliberately been quiet.
Shwick, shwick.
Shwick, shwick.
An intensely foul smell and a sound like insect wings being ground.
I quietly got up, muffled my footsteps, and headed toward where Callion was.
‘The balcony.’
Outside, he had his head buried in the ground, painfully chewing something.
“Callion…?”
What on earth is this boy eating right now?
I opened the balcony door, and a sharp smell rushed in.
“Ah.”
I pinched my nose. It was a stinging odor that hurt the skin.
When our eyes met, Callion raised his head and froze.
His beautiful aquamarine eyes were shining with tears.
“You… what are you eating right now?”
He was the most sensitive to smells between us.
I, with a human body, have a sense of smell ten times stronger than a normal person, but his might be a thousand times stronger…
Yet he puts something with such a foul smell in his mouth?
“Ah, the smell!”
How can his nose stay intact smelling this up close?
“Heung…”
As expected, tears were streaming down.
His small body was trembling from the pain. In his open mouth, I saw the remains of “that thing.”
“What is this? What are you eating?”
But Callion didn’t answer. He squeezed his eyes shut and forcibly chewed and swallowed “that thing.”
“Urgh! Cough, cough!”
He retched and spat, then cried and swallowed again…
“Stop! What are you doing?”
In my anger, I forgot my promise not to approach or touch him.
“Have you gone mad?! Spit it out right now!”
I strode over, grabbed his thin neck, and pulled him to my chest. He, who was always lightning-fast, had frozen from the pain to his taste and smell, so I caught him easily.
“Let me go, let me go!”
“Spit it out! I said spit it out!”
He cried and twisted, but I didn’t let go and forcibly opened his mouth.
“Are you ignoring me?!”
He growled and violently scratched at my eyes, but at that moment I saw nothing.
“Hey! Calm down and spit it out!”
When I shouted, he let out a faint howl and rolled his eyes.
‘His ears aren’t even fully upright yet, and his teeth are already this sharp. A real wolf…’
I was inwardly shocked. I randomly stuck my fingers in his mouth, but fortunately he didn’t bite me.
When I finally forced him to spit out what he was chewing, a bitter, stinging smell rose.
“Ah, what is this?”
It looks like cheese…?
While I was trying to figure out what it was, I felt a strange touch on my left hand holding Callion.
Even…
“You… why are you so light?”
It was like holding a dove instead of a wolf pup…
When I examined his body, beneath the soft fur I felt something hard as wood.
“You… this isn’t flesh, it’s all fur?!”
“Let me go! Put me down!”
He was terrifyingly thin; I could clearly feel the bones of his spine, and his hind legs were like tree branches.
In other words, a skeletal body with only bones left.
“What is this? How did you get into this state?”
“None of your business!”
“What did you eat to end up like this? Did you even eat anything?”
I felt dizzy. Could this happen to the heir of the north?
Even if he hates others and avoids them… someone should have taken care of his food!
‘He could have starved to death.’
I looked around and saw an old leather pouch in the corner of the balcony. It looked like Henry had brought it.
Still holding Callion tightly, I opened the pouch with my free hand. A round root-like thing rolled out.
It looked like a radish, but white and covered in peel.
“Ugh… the smell!”
My sense of smell nearly broke. It seemed he was eating this root.
‘But what he spat out was cheese-colored?’
If we peeled this root, would the inside appear? But I didn’t even want to touch it because of the stench.
Definitely a poisonous plant. Nothing with this smell could be normal.
“How can you eat this? What if it’s poisonous?”
Thank goodness I caught him red-handed.
Who would imagine that the descendant of the great Graywolf family was eating this instead of tender veal steak?
“Did Henry order you to do this? Were you threatened?”
“……”
“Speak right now! Or I’ll report Henry. I won’t let him off!”
“No, don’t!”
After a long silence, he quickly raised his head.
“Garlic.”
“What…?”
“This is garlic.”
I had heard of garlic. A spice that comes through the eastern port, common in the capital.
The smell-sensitive Lexi family members called it “the devil’s seed.” The smell is foul, the taste pungent and bitter.
“I was the one who asked Henry to bring it…”
“This? Why you?”
Why on earth.
I didn’t understand, so I lifted him with both hands.
“Speak. Why did you ask for this and eat it?”
Why put something so painfully smelly in your mouth?
“I asked you why!”
I tried to look into his eyes as he turned away, so I shook his frail body.
“Don’t! Don’t do that!”
“Speak! Say it now!”
“Because they said it would make me human!”
My hands suddenly stopped.
“They said if I ate a hundred of them… I would become human. That’s why I ate them…”
When my eyes met his wet, wavering ones, my heart sank.
What should I say? My lips didn’t move easily.
But I couldn’t stay silent now. This boy was distraught, waiting for any answer.
I quickly erased the shock from my face and asked as calmly as possible:
“Who told you that nonsense? Henry?”
“No. I overheard an eastern merchant talking. He said there was a bear in the far east that ate a hundred garlic bulbs and became human…”
I, who grew up in the capital where all kinds of people pass through, had never heard that story before.
‘Does that even make sense?’
Wouldn’t someone die eating a hundred of them? How does a bear become human?
“Maybe, I mean…”
When I fell silent, Callion cautiously asked:
“Have you heard that story, Shayla?”
Pain stabbed my chest again.
I saw the intense hope in his voice and eyes.
“Do I have to eat all hundred at once? I can only manage one a day…”
“Is that why I haven’t become human yet?”
His unfinished words echoed in my ears. I swallowed the heat rising in my throat.
“…How many have you eaten so far?”
“Eighty-one.”
“Haa…”
He ate this for three months?
This foul devil’s seed!
That’s why this little one was so thin, hiding under the bed without energy, always grumpy.
Because he was suffering.
Because he was constantly nauseous.
“You stupid idiot!”
“Ah.”
I unconsciously pulled Callion to my chest.
“Let me go, let me go!”
“Calm down a little!”
Anyway, his frail little body was far too fragile to handle roughly. The garlic smell wafted from him, but strangely, it didn’t bother me.
“You idiot, eating garlic won’t make you human.”
“Then… that bear…?”
Was it a special bear?
I hugged his tilted head and let out a laugh mixed with a sigh.
“It was just a trick to sell garlic at a high price.”
“Ah…?”
“Merchants are natural storytellers. They make up fake tales to sell their goods and spread them around.”
“……”
The sparkle faded from his jewel-like eyes.
‘He needed hope.’
No matter how painful eating garlic was, he endured it. Because of the hope of becoming human.
Hope gives strength to endure anything.
I felt his desperate longing to cling to something.
Then, in the quiet of the balcony, a bitter voice rang out:
“Yes… Actually, I knew. Eating this wouldn’t make me human…”
Perhaps because the voice was too painful.
My lips moved on their own.
“I know a way to become human.”
The light returned to his eyes like a candle relit.
He slowly lifted his gaze from the floor and stared at me.
“What did you just say?”
“I said I know a way to become human.”
In truth, I don’t.
But I couldn’t bear watching this boy eat the devil’s seed just to become human.
I didn’t want to see that despairing look again.
If he was clinging to false hope this desperately, it didn’t matter who created that hope.
“Are you teasing me?”
“No.”
I had seen my father, Count Lexi, lie and deceive countless times.
‘When you lie, put your soul into the lie.’
The moment someone believes it, it’s no longer just your lie.
I lifted my chin and put on the most brazen expression possible.
“I know the exact way.”
“……!”
“I told you I was born a rabbit, right? Look now. I’m human.”
I showed him my five-fingered hand right in front of his eyes.
“Really…”
His round eyes carefully examined my hand.
What’s new now? So naive…
“If you listen to me well, you can become human too.”
With my confident tone, Callion looked excited.
“Why are you telling me this only now?”
“Because you never even looked at me! You completely ignored me!”
