Chapter 49 - You Make My Heart Beat Faster

It was storming outside, and Stein could not sleep at all that night.

He lay in a separate bed in the same room as Franklin. He tossed and turned, just listening to the howling winds and the constant thunder outside, his faint and weak heart being overcome by turbulent emotions like the storm outside.

He needs some tea. Anything to calm him down.

He noticed how well Franklin was sleeping, so he could not possibly disturb him just to prepare some tea for him. He also would really like a hug, but that felt childish, relying on him and his bedtime stories to fall asleep. He is a grown man now, he should handle his insomnia on his own.

Still, he stole a kiss on his forehead before heading out of the door and going downstairs.

He took a candle with him and walked down the stairs of Haus Storitz in his nightwear, still careful to wear long sleeves and gloves because of a certain annoying guest. He heard his own footsteps echoing on the halls, thankfully covered by the rain outside. It was pouring loud with numerous thunders, reminding him of the first time he opened his eyes in his metal bed.

The light of his candle sometimes cast shadows in the taxidermied animals in the living room and the saloon as he passed through to the kitchen. The fangs of a jaguar glinted an ominous shine, and the eyes of a bat hanging upside down seem to be peering at him curiously. Yet the big man does not feel scared of them at all. After all, he is just like them.

A dead body.

But.... like them as well, he was not always dead. And this is what keeps him awake.

Who was he before this? Who were the people where this body of his came from?

When he finally arrived at the kitchen, he prepared some tea for himself and some crackers in a tray, still deep in thought. Are the people who once owned this body really important to him? Do they mean something to his identity? Before, he thought they don't mean that much. He already has a life purpose. To be Franklin's lover, that is his identity.

Yet.... That Andres. It was all because of that classroom picture. Ever since then, his right hand would always itch, and he would find himself awake at night just staring at what was a fading tattoo.

It must be some animal's head, he feels. And even when he cannot see it, he knows its meaning.

Strength. Retaliation. The hardworking people in the farms and fields, the laborers.

Andres must definitely be the owner of his right arm. Stein was now sure of it.

And Franklin knows him, they were classmates.

But Franklin said he collected his body parts from underhanded means that the law and the Church did not know. Stein always assumed that he must have taken it from graves, or from the cadavers of the executed criminals. After all, he made such implication regarding the origin of his head, which must have belonged to someone who was beheaded.

"Robbers must have their hands cut off..." He repeated.

Who said that to Andres? How can he still recall the memories of the one who owned his right hand? Did the person who said that... kill him?

Was it.....

No, it couldn't have been Franklin. There must be an explanation for this.

But then again, Franklin lied to him. One of his body parts is from someone he knows. Who's to say that that is not the case for everything else?

His heart palpitated, close to hyperventilation. If Franklin really was a murderer....

What does this mean for him? Would he still love him?

Nothing is confirmed yet. He needs to test before confirming or denying the hypothesis. And just thinking and thinking is making him go insane.

His breathing had become erratic, and the tray he was holding started to shake. He noticed this, steadied his hand, and set down the tray on the table. There was only the flickering candlelight and the occasional flashes of lightning that allowed him to see, but he will do just fine. He gently took the cup by the handle, pinky raised up, and took a sip from it. The scent did calm him down....

"Can't sleep?"

Stein spilled the tea on his hand as it crashed loudly back to the table!

"You don't have to be so shocked! Haha! I did not know how sensitive your nerves could be, Snow Queen." The loathsome captain came beside him, laughing like a maniac. But when he saw what happened to Stein's hand, he stopped laughing and went to hold it. "Wait, you're hurt? Why did you have to be so jumpy to spill on yourself..... ah, you should take off your gloves and put something cold on there....."

"Leave me alone!" Stein took his hand away from him and slam the back of his hand to stomach.

"Urk! That.... Isn't that a bit too much.... Cough....." The captain held his tummy that was almost dented from the impact. Thanks to his fine sculpted abs that absorbed the damage, it was not that bad, but it still hurts like hell. "I was just trying to help....."

"Again, I don't need your help!" Stein hissed. "What part of that can you not understand, Mr. Clerval?"

"Why are you so stingy..... Seriously....."

"I am not stingy. I simply do not like when my business is being minded by someone who should not be minding it!" Stein stood up from the chair and went to wash his hand over to the cold water of the sink. But he remembered about the mismatch, and so he turned back to the captain, yelling in a hushed tone as to not wake up Franklin. "Go back to sleep, you imbecile!"

"I also cannot sleep and want some tea. The storm is too loud. Isn't it proper conduct to make some tea and crackers for your guest when they can't sleep?" Captain Clerval recovered from his crushed insides from Stein's punch and went over his side. "Why are you not washing your hands yet? Do you not know how to tend to a burn?"

"Do not look!" Stein turned away quickly, pushing his gloves back on. It was wet, so the skin color would be revealed if the captain look too closely.

"Why not? Here, I can do it for you---"

"Stop!"

But it was too late. The captain took off his right glove.

Under the candlelight, it was clear. His right hand was the color of coffee beans being dried under the sun.

A complete mismatch from his milky white skin from the neck up.

Stein's eyes widened. There was a splotch of red from the burn, and bubbles soon grow too from that splotch. He took his glove back from the captain, not knowing what to say from a moment of being stunned.

The captain was stunned too. "Your hand..."

"It's..." Stein remembered Franklin's words when he was bathing him. "It's a defect. I was born with it."

The captain does not believe him at all. He encountered all kinds of people, and never heard a defect like this. It's not just that patches of his arm were discolored.

It is obvious that this hand does not belong to someone with his face.

Then.... If it's not a defect... What in the Hades could it be!?

He then made sense of something from Stein's thin night robes. The collar was lower than what he usually wears, and he can now see a bit of his neck. Unable to stop himself from curiosity, he pulled the collar itself---

And revealed a bit of his collarbone. It was a very indecent thing to do, but there's something much more important.

His neck was stitched!

Stein immediately pushed him away, making him knock his head into the wall until it bled a bit!

The stitched-up man was so full of fear and dread from the developments of the encounter that he blurted out without thinking through. He grabbed Captain Clerval by the neck, lifting him high up in the air, almost up to the ceiling itself.

"Urkkkk..... Kkk...." The captain choked, his face turning blue.

"Listen closely. If you tell anyone about what you discovered, including Franklin, I will kill you. Do you understand?"

"Krr... Yes..."

Stein made himself as intimidating as possible, but deep in his ill heart, he was afraid. It starting to affect his health a bit. He put down the captain, loosening his grasp a little. "Whatever you saw, forget about it. And do not talk to me ever again."

He let go of him with a slam, wearing his glove back and returning hurriedly to his and Franklin's bedroom to hide behind the covers and hide from the incident until morning comes to save him!

Captain Clerval was left on the floor, coughing and coughing with a bleeding head in a daze.

The candle's wax melted into a pool on its holder.

He stood up, placing a handkerchief over his head wound.

"What... have I gotten myself into..." He mumbled in a daze.

Still, he did as Stein told him, and pretended that nothing happened, leaving the tray of tea and biscuits be as he went back to his room, locking it while making another sign of warding off evil. This time, he directed the gesture to the room parallel to his.

'Franklin' stirred a bit when Stein came and quickly went to the bed, hiding in the covers. "Stein....?"

Stein closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. But he was shaking like a leaf.

'Franklin' smiled. He went over to the bundle of covers, and patted what seems to be its head. Zhe Chouhen on the inside rejoiced.

(It had started. The time for his relationship with the second male lead to grow is here.)

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The next morning, 'Franklin' went off on his own.

"I have news now about the thing I have been searching for, a friend of mine sent a telegraph. I just need to confirm it for myself. " 'Franklin' said.

"Let me join you." Stein rushed to his master, but 'Franklin' placed a hand on his chest.

"I shall do this by myself, Stein. Besides, who will keep company to our guest when I'm gone?"

The guest in question, who has just come out of his bedroom and listening in to this master and servant's conversation by the staircase with large dark bags under his eyes, was not expecting to have so much attention so early in the morning. Seeing Stein's icy glare and remembering what happened last night, he waved his hand. "I do not need any company."

"What happened to your head, Captain?" 'Franklin' asked worriedly.

"Oh..... uh..... I accidentally hit it too hard on the bedpost." The captain lied.

"I see. If you are constantly moving in your sleep, you should put up more pillows next time." 'Franklin' suggested. "Anyway, I really do not need anyone to carry my things for me. Besides, Stein, haven't you always wanted to try making breakfast? Now I'm giving you the opportunity to do so."

"But..." Stein whispered to 'Franklin'. "I do not want to make breakfast for such an ingrate, Frank! Please take me with you!"

'Franklin' just patted his head, and whispered back. "We cannot be too overt with our operations. You need to stay here and distract him from wondering too much about us. I will be back soon."

He then turned to the captain, who just looked at them whisper to each other without care, suddenly interested in the staircase's real gold railing. 'Franklin' smiled, tipping his top hat. "I'll be off."

"Yea..... Schtake care, doctor." The captain responded in a lukewarm manner.

Stein responded in a more sincere and sad way. "Take care..... Frank. Be home soon."

And so, 'Franklin' has left. It was the only two of them now, alone in Haus Storitz.

The captain looked down sheepishly. "How is your ha----"

Stein just gave him an icy glare as he quickly ran past him by the staircase and locked himself in his room with a scowl.

"Right....." The captain scratched his head. "What to do, then..."

Even with the warning, he still had the urge to flirt with danger. He wanted to find out what is going on.

What is Stein, exactly?

Because he knows he is definitely not human. And he felt the answers must be somewhere here....

But then he noticed that the doctor was not so careful as he left one of his books behind. It must have fallen off his bag. He took it, and saw the cover.

'Studies of Franklin Storitz and Andres Cervantez, 1879'

His eyes became as wide as the moon, heart immediately went in wild circles as he took the book with him to his room, locking the door with wild gestures to ward off evil once again.

And upon closing it, placed the book on his chest.

Then, he grinned.

"Zhe Chouhen, you're being too risky.. I was not ready at all for this kind of development."