CH 32

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

Sugar Prince tapped my head with his finger. I lifted my head and looked at Sugar Prince. Those golden eyes of his narrowed slightly. It seemed like something had pleased him. I meowed once at him as a courtesy, Nyang, and flopped back down.

From beside me I heard the sound of Sugar Prince working again. It was the sound of him writing with a feather pen. It was starkly different from the silent strokes of a ballpoint pen or the sharp scraping of a mechanical pencil. But it wasn’t that I hated the sound. The hushed scratches of the quill had a pleasant charm of its own.

That aside, I was still bothered by the image of Simon’s retreating figure from earlier. As soon as Sugar Prince had returned, Simon left the room, preciously holding a coin in each hand. That brawny figure had looked so lonesome as he left…

I had better give Simon some pocket money every once in a while. If getting just two gold coins had made his eye red then how poor was he? A man had to have the means in order to get a girl and get married. No matter how handsome his face was or how nice a body he had, it was all useless. What kind of person was his father to make his own son live so poorly. Surely his father wouldn’t be extorting the money he got from working as a soldier, too?

Wait… Simon’s family name is Richt, so…

Richt. Richt. Richt. R…icht, the… Duke?

「“I was told Duke Richt said to give this to you. I heard you got pocket money from the nobles? How happy you must be, Butterfly.”」

「“It seems it needed some pocket money. Here, take my gold coin, too. Hahaha.”」

Ack! That gramps—!

The moment that old man’s face flashed in my mind, I scratched the desk with my claws. So that geezer was Simon’s father! He happily gave a passing feline a gold coin, but to think that he actually didn’t give even one penny of pocket money to his own son! He really couldn’t have been anything other than an evil old man. Of course, I could tell his wickedness from the moment he forcefully thrust the gold coin at me.

Once again, I resolved to really make sure to give the pitiful Simon some pocket money. Really, if I didn’t, he would be too pitiful.

I was still thinking about the pitiful Simon when something came and stuck to my head. Lifting up my eyes, Sugar Prince was pressing his face against my head. I really couldn’t figure out for what reason he continuously stopped working to stick his nose into my fur.

As I stared at him, Sugar Prince smiled and extended his fingers. And… hey! He scratched the bridge of my nose with his fingertip. I suddenly bit down on the finger right in front of my eyes and poke-poked at it with my teeth.

You. If you keep acting up, I can suddenly bite you. Even if I do look this calm normally, I’m scary once I get mad.

I kept stabbing at his finger with my razor-sharp and fearsome canines, but… what’s this? Sugar Prince was smiling. No, he was even laughing out loud. Seeing his expression, he looked happy enough to die. With a mind to test how far he would go, I grabbed another finger with my front paws and firmly bit it.

But as I thoroughly gnawed from the tip to base, his laughter grew louder. I momentarily considered what would happen if I were to punch a hole in the finger of this guy who was brashly ignoring my razor-sharp fangs. The foolish human did not know how to fear a cat. I saw that there was a need to teach him the dire consequences of ignoring my fangs. 

I was seriously considering whether or not to poke a hole in him while I gnawed, but then this punk, he suddenly pulled his finger out and stuck a different finger into my mouth. Then he gazed at me with eyes full of expectation.

…What.

As I stared at him dumbfounded, his finger inside my mouth pressed up against my fangs.

Since I had stopped chewing him in my confusion, he had taken it upon himself to poke his own finger. Poke poke on my lower left fang, poke poke on my lower right fang, and switching off, poking on my upper teeth, he smiled, clearly pleased with himself. Heol.

This was unacceptable!  These actions were unmistakably those of disregarding me. I had indulged him over these last few days, and now he had lost his sense of fear. Overcome with rage, I bit down on the finger in my mouth.

“……”

“……”

The golden eyes that met mine blinked slowly. Biting down hard, I stared back at his eyes. My teeth were deeply embedded in his finger, but strangely there was no exclamation of pain or even a pained expression. Somehow, I prickled under Sugar Prince’s extremely expressionless face.

Afraid that I might have made him mad, my eyes darted here and there, but there was still no response. I spat out the finger I had been biting in my mouth. Lowering my gaze, I saw that the finger before my mouth had a pair of small punctures in the skin. From those holes, droplets of blood slowly formed and beaded, starting to flow down his finger. It seemed I had thoroughly bitten him. I lifted my head back up to look at him, but he was still expressionless.

…what? Are you mad?

I put some more intensity into my eyes as I stared him down.

What? What do you want me to do?!

What should I do if he was the one who got mad? And besides, it was his fault first. He even enjoyed it when I bit him. I only bit him in the end because he asked to be bitten!

Glancing down, I saw drops of blood dripping onto the documents.

One drop. Two drops. Three drops. Four drops. Five…drops…six…seven.

…… Hmph.

I stopped counting the drops of blood and began gently licking Sugar Prince’s finger.

I glanced up while lapping at the teeth punctures and saw those golden eyes slowly smile. At the sight of Sugar Prince beginning to chuckle, I nipped the finger I was licking with my teeth.

You bastard, I was tricked!

I rushed at him, and as I began scratching at his chest, the bastard began to laugh heartily. I shredded his clothes to pieces with my claws in my fury.

You scared me! You bastard! Jerk! Swindler!

“Pff— Alright. I did wrong. I did wr… Hahaha—!!”

Halfway through trying to appease me, the shameless wretch began to laugh again. I removed my claws from the guy’s tattered clothes and turned my back to him.

I won’t play with you anymore. You swindler.

As I laid down on the cushion with my butt facing the detestable fellow, the laughing gradually died away.

I swatted away the hand he was slowly extending towards my back with my tail. Then, after being still for a moment, he began stroking my back again. I didn’t care, I only glared at the wall.

“I won’t do that anymore, so don’t be mad.”

Sugar Prince whispered. But I refused to look at him. At that, he whispered again.

“Should we play catch the tail?”

…catch the tail?

As my ears twitched at that enticing sound, Sugar Prince continued with a grin.

“Or should we play with the feather?”

I unconsciously whipped my head around.

Feather? Right now?

As I asked with bright, sparkling eyes, Sugar Prince nodded his head. I decided to accept Sugar Prince’s apology, thanks to how admirable his efforts were.

As soon as I let go of my anger, Sugar Prince started touching and stroking my cheek and back as he wished. Not caring, I tapped his arm and nagged him.

Let’s play with the feather quickly. Hm? Heo-ri eop (hurry up). Rwa-it na-oo (right now). Hurry. Hurry.