Chapter 77
The next day, everyone in the villa noticed that the tension between Anxius and Satan had eased considerably. Satan in particular got up before dawn and diligently brewed nourishing soup, even making a double portion—one serving carefully ladled into Yomi’s little bowl, the other casually dumped into a basin, which he declared was for Anxius.
Cold Crow was so shocked he nearly lost the power of speech, and even suspected Satan had poisoned Anxius’s share.
Of course Satan had done no such thing, but Anxius still did not drink a drop. His hostility toward Satan had lessened, yes, but only to the extent of treating him like an ordinary stranger.
In Lynn and the others’ eyes, though, Yomi’s boyfriend and foster father were no longer at odds, which meant the family conflict was finally gone, and all of them felt relieved for Yomi.
Yomi: …So this is what they mean by peace in the family brings prosperity in everything.
Satan and Cold Crow had come this time on something like a business trip. Yomi knew they couldn’t stay long, after all, Pearl State still needed its lord.
Since they had come from so far away, and the journey hadn’t been easy, Yomi decided he had to treat them well.
So when a bright, sunny day finally came, Yomi discussed it with Anxius and proposed taking everyone out to have fun for a few days.
This time there was no fixed plan—they would just go wherever looked fun, and rest whenever they got tired.
On the first evening, near the foot of a mountain where they had parked, they ran into a lively forest dance party. Men, women, old people, and children were all there, though most were farmers.
Some were roasting meat over fires, some were drinking and chatting, and most were singing and dancing. The atmosphere was wonderful.
Yomi went over to get some hot water, while Yesi and Linda were already holding hands and dancing. Lynn’s tentacles had hooked three of the boys together as he awkwardly copied the other dancers, all the while shouting to Yomi, “Come on! It’s so lively!”
Yomi smiled at them, though his hands were still busy with the hot water.
He was only halfway done when Anxius finished pitching the tents and came over too. With one look, he saw that Yomi’s lips were dry—clearly he was thirsty. But Yomi had had diarrhea the day before and couldn’t drink cold water, and all the hot water in the RV had already been used up.
Seeing the water would still take a while to boil, Anxius glanced around. This was a forest dance party; everyone was drinking either alcohol or cold drinks. The only people with hot water were a few elderly folks.
Yomi was still watching the kettle when Anxius suddenly got up and walked away.
Yomi turned his head and saw his boyfriend approach an old lady. He said something to her, and she looked him up and down in surprise, frowning as if to scold him, but in the end she still opened her thermos and poured water into the miniature insulated cup in his hand.
In under half a minute, Anxius was back beside Yomi. He blew on the water in the little cup, took a sip himself first to test it, then handed it to Yomi. “It’s not hot anymore.”
Yomi drank in a daze. It really wasn’t hot, and it seemed to be mountain spring water, with a faint sweetness to it. After drinking, he felt much better, and couldn’t help asking, “How exactly did you ask her for water?” He thought the old woman’s reaction had been kind of strange.
“I asked if she could spare me a little water. Then she saw your tiny cup and said, ‘How can you bring such a little child out this late at night? It’s too dangerous.’”
Yomi froze for a moment, then his face flushed bright red. “…You should’ve gone over in human form. Then she definitely wouldn’t have misunderstood.” He had become “someone’s son” again in other people’s mouths—wasn’t that Anxius taking advantage of him?
Hearing that, Anxius’s lips curled upward. Right there in front of him, he transformed into his human form.
With a 1.9-meter and a 1.7-meter human standing together, no one could possibly mistake the relationship now.
After drinking the water, Yomi happily dragged his boyfriend into the dance circle.
Meanwhile, Satan had just returned carrying a whole pile of alcohol and drinks. The moment he saw them dancing, he stared at Yomi for a while, then abruptly turned and left.
When Yomi danced, he was only focused on his own feet. Back when he had been a little sheep, he had played dance games with his foster father’s internet, and he had even practiced the waltz, so he could count as experienced now. Once he started dancing, he did so without hesitation. But after dancing for a while, he noticed people all around them seemed to be staring.
Two tiny figures in the middle of the crowd naturally drew attention.
Yomi suddenly grew self-conscious and didn’t want to dance anymore. Just as he was hesitating over whether to somehow style his retreat as a dramatic exit from the dance floor, Satan’s voice suddenly rang out from not far away:
“Little Sheep baby! Daddy hired you lots of backup dancers! This time you can lead the dance!”
What backup dancers?
He turned his head—and the crowd abruptly split to both sides. A Rain Dragon was herding an entire flock of mountain goats toward him. The goats surrounded Yomi and Anxius in an instant, bleating all around them.
Yomi: ……
At once, all around them came stifled laughter, astonished exclamations, and people saying, “This is fun! We’ve never had a performance like this before. Let them keep going!”
Yomi: This…
Meanwhile, Satan was still busy trying to wrangle several rebellious goats that wanted to run off. As he chased them, he called to the dark-faced Anxius, “Move aside, move aside! Little Sheep baby dances so well—don’t stand in the way!”
The dance floor grew even more lively, and everyone’s eyes were fixed on the beautiful little figure.
Yomi wanted the earth to crack open so he could dive right into it, but since there was no crack, he simply transformed into his little sheep form and vanished into the flock. Then he looked up at Anxius, who was clearly about to go settle accounts with Satan, and cried, “Dear, let’s go first!”
Satan could clean up this mess himself.
Casting one look at the sea of goats on the ground, Anxius couldn’t be bothered with Satan either. He shifted back into his huge original form, reached into the flock, and plucked out the tiniest, cutest little sheep. Then he spread his wings and flew off at once, away from the chaos…
“Little Sheep baby, how could you run off with someone else?!” Satan’s wail echoed at the foot of the mountain for a long time.
Once they escaped the social death scene, Yomi transformed back into his human form. Looking down at the rapidly shrinking treetops below, he could finally no longer hear Satan’s shouting or the songs from the dance party.
“Anxius,” Yomi asked, a little excited, “where are we going?”
Amid the rush of wind, the monster descended with his little one onto a mountaintop. The moment he landed firmly, he turned back into human form, bent down and kissed Yomi hard on the cheek, then sat down with him gathered close in his arms. “From here, you can see a lot of stars you can’t see on Snar Star.”
Wow~
Yomi followed his gaze. There really were countless stars—though to him, they all still looked about the same.
The stars blinked and blinked, like the physical form of a heartbeat, thump-thump, thump-thump.
After watching them for a while, he turned to look at Anxius, only to meet Anxius’s gaze head-on.
Yomi was about to speak when Anxius suddenly leaned in and kissed him. A moment later, Yomi—his whole body gone soft—was lying on the grass, pinned beneath his boyfriend, unable to move.
Even though Anxius’s human form was no longer the size of a typical Snar person, a man of 1.9 meters was still big to Yomi. Out here in the remote mountains, if Anxius really wanted to do something, there was no way Yomi could resist.
With all kinds of bizarre dramatic scenes running through his head, Yomi immediately started acting the moment Anxius cupped his face. In a deliberately pitiful tone, he whimpered, “Let me go. If you don’t let me go, I’m going to scream.”
Anxius, who had been about to kiss him, paused and stared straight at him. “Go ahead and scream.”
Yomi: “……” Don’t sound so expectant, okay?
What had started as a private little elopement fantasy suddenly turned into a full-on “bandit forcing himself on someone in the wild mountains” scene. Yomi twisted a little in token resistance, then put on a look of tragic resignation. “Go ahead, then.”
How could Anxius possibly be fooled by such acting? He lowered his head and kissed his cute little boyfriend until he kept making tiny helpless sounds. The boy’s pale cheeks and neck were practically covered in red marks.
After kissing him, he wrapped his whole body around him, held him tightly in both arms, and buried his face deep in Yomi’s neck, as though drawing strength directly from Yomi’s essence.
The night air was cold, but held in Anxius’s arms, Yomi felt warm all over. Curled up in his embrace, he gazed at the stars and silently wished that every day in the future could be this beautiful~
That night, they didn’t stay on the mountaintop. Once Yomi started growing sleepy, Anxius quietly carried him back to the RV to rest.
The next day, aside from Satan and Anxius nearly coming to blows again, everything else went according to plan. They explored deep mountains that even locals seldom visited, and at the summit, they planted little flags with each of their names on them before continuing onward.
Knowing he would soon have to leave Evil Ghost State, Satan had developed the habit of sticking close to Yomi whenever he had a chance. That day, they were preparing to go hunting together, and Yomi even brought the little gun he had tuned up himself, intending to practice shooting. Satan tagged along behind him like some eager lackey.
Unfortunately, Yomi’s marksmanship still had… lots of room for development. Anxius and the others had already surrounded the prey, and Yomi still couldn’t hit anything.
Cold Crow sighed. “He’s really good at outlining the edges.”
Satan shot him a vicious glare. “Little Sheep baby is just too soft-hearted to shoot!”
Still, there are always more solutions than problems. In order to restore Yomi’s confidence, Satan secretly hunted a wild boar himself, then propped it up against a tree along Yomi’s path when no one was looking.
After that, he went over and led Yomi this way as casually as he could.
Sure enough, Yomi spotted the wild boar at once and immediately fired in nervous haste.
Satan: “A hit! My heavens, Little Sheep baby actually shot a wild boar!”
At first Yomi didn’t believe him, but when he saw the boar go completely still the moment he fired, he was shocked too. He followed Satan over and crouched down to inspect it—only to discover that the boar didn’t have any bullet hole on it at all…
Yomi glanced sideways at Satan, wanting to speak but holding back.
Satan was visibly tense. “It was scared to death! Your gunshot scared it to death! What incredible marksmanship this is!”
Yomi pressed his lips together and lowered his head with a sigh. “Actually, even if I miss, it’s okay. I—”
Before he could finish, something caught his eye in the corner of his vision. He looked up and saw, near a distant clump of bushes, a big wild pheasant.
A new target!
Yomi immediately fell silent. Sweating all over from nerves, he raised his gun and aimed, his hands trembling so hard he could barely keep it steady. The moment he pulled the trigger, the pheasant in the distance dropped instantly and rolled down the slope…
H-he hit it!
Yomi’s huge eyes trembled slightly, and he kept gasping for breath.
Naturally, Satan saw it too, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head.
The feeling of hitting prey for the first time was indescribably strange. Yomi had the absurd illusion that he might become a sharpshooter one day. When he snapped out of it, he excitedly ran over to look. After a brief search, he found the dead pheasant in a ditch downhill. It had a bullet hole and was still bleeding—it really was the one he had shot!
Yomi blushed. Maybe… I’m actually kind of amazing.
Satan stood there dazed for a while, then burst into tears as if Yomi hadn’t merely shot a pheasant, but had just won Olympic gold in shooting.
Within minutes, everyone had heard the glorious news that Yomi had successfully hunted a pheasant. First they all stared blankly for a few seconds, then they came over one by one to congratulate Yomi, who was still clutching the dead bird.
Only Cold Crow found something a little off. A pheasant was much smaller than a boar and should have been harder to hit. He doubted even he could reliably hit one with a pistol at that kind of distance.
Still, things like this were hard to judge. Luck could account for a lot. Maybe Yomi had just happened to hit it.
When the hunt ended, everyone divided the work—dressing the game, starting fires, preparing utensils, and so on.
There were a lot of people and a lot of prey, so one fire wasn’t enough. After dressing the game, Anxius built a second fire over near a pile of rocks.
Cold Crow carried some meat over to help. But before he even reached it, he saw in the flames the half-burned remains of a fake pheasant toy…
Cold Crow: “……” He seemed to have discovered a secret.
Anxius didn’t even look at him. He just said, “Don’t say anything.”
Cold Crow: ……
At dinner, Cold Crow still hadn’t quite recovered from the revelation. Then the little one came trotting up and happily handed him a chicken leg. “This is from my first successful proper hunt. Don’t be shy, everyone.”
Cold Crow paused, then stiffly accepted it. “…Thank you.” Ahhh, so cute. This pheasant has to count as his kill!
Yomi shyly continued distributing the roasted pheasant, then sat down to eat while enthusiastically recounting every detail of how he had hunted it.
Lynn was the most supportive of all. Looking full of admiration, he said, “Your aim is incredible. A pheasant is so small—if you can hit a pheasant, what can’t you hit in the future?”
Yomi became so giddy from the praise that he nearly floated away. With a goofy grin he said, “I also think I’m improving really fast… Really, whenever you have skill, you have confidence. I’m starting to think I could become an assassin.”
Everyone: “……”
Karl immediately steered the conversation away and asked Yomi for his “thought process” while hunting the pheasant.
Cold Crow looked over at the momentarily frozen Anxius and inwardly felt quite smug: Look, didn’t I tell you? Give this little sheep an inch and he’ll soar to the heavens.
That said, he still found Yomi’s shy, secretly proud expression ridiculously cute, and decided he would take this secret to his grave.
The weather had been glorious when they set out, but on the return trip it turned vicious. Not only did heavy winds and rain rage nonstop for an entire day, but the sky was full of constant thunder and lightning too. Yomi didn’t even dare look out the window. He curled up on the little bed in the RV and simply shut his eyes.
He had no idea how much time passed. It seemed they had reached the farm at last. The RV slowed and stopped, and from the vehicles behind came the sounds of everyone talking. Yomi quickly put on his hat, ready to go out and help everyone carry things inside.
That hat had been made for him by Anxius after the earthquake in Evil Ghost State. Ever since Anxius had found the human longevity lock in the ruins, he had become especially fond of sewing that longevity-lock motif onto Yomi’s things, as if doing so could guarantee that Yomi would live a hundred years.
Yomi was in the back of the RV. He and Anxius, who had been driving, opened their doors almost at the same time. But before Yomi could say anything, a fierce gust of wind blew head-on and instantly snatched his hat from his head.
The wind outside was so strong that the hat flew straight up into the air. Yomi made a grab at it, but drew back at once, frowning with a sigh. Then, just at that moment, a figure in front shot out like lightning.
In the blink of an eye, Yomi saw clearly—it was Anxius! Ignoring the lightning in the sky, he flew straight after the little hat.
“Anxius! Come back!” Yomi’s face turned white. A second later, a crack of thunder exploded overhead. The figure in the rain became hard to make out, and Yomi immediately ran into the storm. He had only taken two steps before a huge form dropped from above, scooped him up, and rushed under the nearest eaves.
“Anxius! Anxius…” Yomi panted, looking up.
The monster held him in one arm, and in the other hand was that little hat.
Only a few drops of rain had landed on Yomi’s head. After wiping them away, Anxius placed the hat back in his hands. “Don’t be afraid. The longevity hat is fine now.”
Longevity hat? Who cared about that…
Yomi nearly cried. “I—I thought you were going to get struck by lightning.”
“……” Anxius stiffened, then immediately kissed him once by the lips. “I won’t. When I was younger, I tested myself in lightning storms. Even if it hits me, I won’t die.”
“……” That only made Yomi want to cry more.
By then everyone else from the vehicles had run over too. Once they saw the two of them were fine, they all urged them back inside.
After they got indoors and sat down, Yomi’s pounding heart finally settled. They drank ginger soup, then all went back to their rooms to bathe and rest.
In the bedroom, when Yomi climbed into bed, it was still raining outside. He burrowed into Anxius’s arms like he was acting spoiled, rubbing his head around and making soft little sounds.
Anxius thought he was uncomfortable, so he hugged him and examined him carefully, asking what was wrong.
After a while, Yomi finally said in a small voice, “Anxius, even if lightning won’t kill you, it can still hurt you. A hat can always be made again. Don’t do that in the future… Did you really think I’d care more about a hat than about you?”
The arms holding Yomi suddenly froze. Anxius stared at him, then slowly tightened his hold bit by bit until it became almost painful. He fiercely kissed him on the lips, then let out a low laugh he could no longer suppress. “Mm.”
Only, in his eyes, everything that belonged to Yomi was important too.
The moment the rain stopped, Satan and Cold Crow prepared to leave.
On the day Yomi saw them off, Cold Crow took out paper and pen and sketched Yomi on the spot. He left the drawing in Yomi’s hands. “When we meet again, I should be able to draw you even better… Goodbye!” With that, he dragged away the wailing Satan and bundled him into the car.
Yomi lowered his head and looked at the cartoon little figure on the page, smiling with sheep horns on its head. The little figure smiled at him, and he blinked and smiled back too. After a long while, he looked at the vehicle already far away and waved. Having parted from people so many times now, Yomi had finally learned how to say goodbye with calm composure:
Goodbye. It’s okay. We’ll see each other again very soon.
The sky was a clear, open blue. As the soft breeze blew past, Anxius came over, took his hand, and led him home.
Flowers had bloomed somewhere nearby. Yomi looked up toward the flowerbed in the distance, then sniffed the sweet air. “Dear, do you smell that?”
“Mm.” Anxius lowered his head and sniffed at Yomi’s fluffy, soft-looking hair. “It smells just as sweet as yesterday.”
“……” Yomi shot him a helpless sidelong glance, then walked home with light, happy steps, full of joy.
No matter what happened, he hoped every day from now on would be just as happy as yesterday and today~
