Chapter 4
Once he decided to live, he couldn’t stay like this. If asked why he couldn’t stay like this, he wouldn’t have anything to say, but he wanted to get ready like a widow who puts out yellow flowers by the window today for her husband who will return tomorrow.
He went down to the river to avoid people’s eyes. The river, immersed in darkness, reflected light from somewhere and flowed like a black snake with white scales. The petal sent away a while ago must have already flowed into the sea with the flow. It may have already met in the sea with the two petals that had been sent away before.
He washed his face and hair with the cloudy water that he could not see the bottom of. He also washed clothes that were covered with filth all over. It was difficult to knead the wet, tough cloth with his weak and dry fingers. No matter how many times he splashed and rubbed the stain in the water, it did not come off properly. It was probably because he had never really done his laundry.
I should have learned it beforehand.
Regret seeped in even the smallest things.
For now, it was important to clean his clothes somehow, so he dipped himself naked into the cold river until his fingertips were wrinkled. He wasn’t used to washing his body in cold running water without soap or a brush. He tripped several times on the jagged rocks underneath. He drank some water, too. But he washed himself for as long as he could.
Oh, G.o.d. This is a disaster.
It was good to wash at night, avoiding people’s eyes, but it was too cold to wear wet clothes at dawn. Aelock rummaged through a pile of trash in a sequestered place to find something to warm his shivering body. But he couldn’t find anything to cover himself with.
If he were to stay like this, his body temperature would drop to a dangerous level. It was suicidal to endure the night with a body that had reached the extreme and had no fat left to burn. How long had it been since he made up his mind to live? After hesitating, Aelock left his hiding place and headed for another alley.
“Hey, wake up. You have to pay for your meal.”
Aelock opened his eyes to a wild kick in his leg. He woke up in a shabby shed that could shield him from the night dew, even though it was full of nasty odors. The old, dusty blanket covering him was soaked with the s.e.m.e.n Aelock had received all night. When he woke up and moved, the man who kicked him immediately left the shed. The clothes thrown by the head side were almost parched.
Before putting them on, Aelock ran his fingers up his a.n.u.s to sc.r.a.pe out the s.e.m.e.n and wiped it between his legs on the blanket. He ignored the pain and forced his legs which were about to cramp to stand up and went outside. The man who had asked for three rounds of s.e.x the previous night in return for giving him a warm blanket and a place to hide from the night-dew offered him something to eat this time.
“How many times?”
“You pigged out on everything my b.a.l.l.s had to offer, so there’s nothing to feed. Do the work instead.”
The man pointed at the sack of flour with his thick, hairy hand. Aelock looked at it blankly, not knowing what it meant. The man said bluntly.
“Move that over there. Keep in mind that if you drop it and it tears open, making it of no use, I will twist your neck. Never come into a kitchen with a brazier. Because I don’t want anything to be infected with germs.”
He wrapped his white ap.r.o.n around his waist and entered what appeared to be the kitchen. Aelock did as he was told and picked up a sack of flour the size of his torso. To be precise, after picking it up and staggering, he kept it back down, and after struggling several times, he managed to pick it up and put it on the stone plate next to the kitchen that the man had pointed at.
Even moving one made all his joints tingle, and even his teeth shook from how much effort he put into it. Is there anything heavier than this in the world? While Aelock was breathing heavily and rubbing his knees and wrists down, the man looked out and yelled.
“If you don’t move quickly, you won’t even get a single moldy bread!”
Aelock was startled by the thunderous voice and nodded. He quickly moved to shift the second sack of flour.
That afternoon, for the first time in his life, Aelock got two pieces of bread and some sugar in exchange for sound labor. In terms of money, it was cheap physical labor, slightly less than a coin. When he looked down blankly at what he had earned with his own hands for the first time, the man exclaimed that it was very generous considering the quality of the labor provided.
Probably not wrong. Aelock’s legs were shaking and his arms were weak from moving all day. One of the approximately thirty sacks of flour fell to the floor, and the end of the bag tore open, spilling white flour. For that reason, his thigh was kicked severely, but the man didn’t act as cruelly since he was working in the bakery and handed the wages to Aelock.
He tore off the white inside of the precious bread he had earned through hard labor, dipped it in soft brown sugar, and put it in his mouth. It was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. He wanted to look at the special bread for a little longer, so he tried to save it, but when he came to his senses, he had eaten the whole piece. He was drooling and the half-remaining sugar and the other piece of bread kept catching his eyes, but he firmly tightened the bag and held it in his hand.
If he ate it all today, he would have to starve tomorrow. He saved the bread today because he learned on the streets that it was more important to avoid tomorrow’s hunger than be full right now. This was also his very first savings.
While staying in the bakery’s shed, he had no choice but to spread his legs whenever the man asked for it, but Aelock said he wanted to work as much as possible. Then the man was not quite happy about that. However, he then nodded his head gladly, as if he had changed his mind. Instead, the man asked if it would be okay to try something different for the night.
“Okay. But from now on, don’t do it inside.”
“Kek. What’s this from an alpha wh.o.r.e.”
“I don’t want to do it otherwise.”
“Hmph, fine.”
Fortunately, he thought Aelock was an alpha. This was because there were no specific symptoms of heat and the omega body scent was not properly developed. To be honest, even Aelock didn’t know when his heat would come. One day after his stomach was full, he would know that the heat period had pa.s.sed and that another pregnancy had ended at the same time, only when a clot of red blood escaped through the s.p.a.ce between his crotch. The body that changed one day was still unfamiliar.
He quickly found out what the new thing the man was talking about wanting to try. One night he showed up with three or four of his colleagues. He had taken two at the same time, but it was the first time he had ever dealt with so many alphas. What was worse was that they had big bulky bodies. They grabbed Aelock’s limbs, which he kept trying to pull back in fear, and played with them like toys, violating his torn a.n.u.s several times.
“Is he an alpha? Why is he acting up like this?”
“He smells like an alpha. There was an omega too, but this guy adored him too much so here we are.”
The men in turn violated the skinny body, and at the same time, they inserted their p.e.n.i.ses and started pouring in a huge amount of s.e.m.e.n. Aelock was struggling with the pain of his a.n.u.s being torn and glared at the man who had promised and argued.
“Ugh…… ah…… I told you… not to do it inside… Agh, ugh!”
“I didn’t. This guy did. Kekek.”
He couldn’t control his already numb body and simply bit his lips and left it in their cruel hands. Soon after, his entire body was overflowing with s.e.m.e.n. After they left, having satisfied their needs, Aelock started to vomit. The s.e.m.e.n he couldn’t swallow flowed down his nose with the vomit.
After throwing up the s.e.m.e.n, he spread his rear open and sc.r.a.ped out what was left by inserting his fingers into the a.n.u.s where screams leaked by just touching it. If he wasn’t biting the blanket, he might have bitten his tongue. He shoved his finger in again and again, which only left stains of blood on the tip of his dirty fingernails. Aelock buried his pale face in this blanket and fell down.
It was terribly painful to deal with multiple people at the same time. While the burred vision grew darker, the strangely hazy brain completely ignored the owner’s command of not wanting to think of anything. He was once again reminded of what he had done. Perhaps the crimes he had committed, a little more appalling than this, caused him to raise his head.
* * *
Rayfiel Westport was definitely an omega. He was short and, of course, small enough to fit into one arm. Even though he was an omega, he was a male, so it was rare for a person to develop such protective instincts over him.
Instead, there was nothing superior about him compared to Aelock except for being an omega. He was not well-educated, nor did he have any special talents. In an aristocratic society, he was just an ordinary human being, as common as stones rolling by the side of the road. It wasn’t even that he had outstanding beauty. He obviously had a cute side and was worth looking at, but one wouldn’t be caught dead calling him beautiful.
Despite the stark differences between alphas and omegas, it was close to impossible to call Rayfiel more beautiful than Aelock, no matter how much he lowered the sharp standards of aesthetic sense. Unlike the Count, who looked somewhat temperamental but was as handsome as if he were in a painting, Rayfiel’s cutesy features could be reckoned as charming only when he was looked upon generously.
Besides, his blond hair was duller than Aelock’s, and his blue eyes were patched with gray in places, much inferior to Aelock’s iris, which was like the wings of a flawless blue-and-yellow macaw. House Westport, distant relatives of House Teiwind, was not so insignificant, but they were not a family that could certainly support their son-in-law.
Why did he like such a worthless person? He might have been convinced if he was dating a completely different person. Klopp wasn’t a person to like someone who was Aelock’s inferior in every way just because he was an omega.
It was also true that they were judged as similar enough to be mistaken for siblings sometimes, despite the obvious differences in level that would be unpleasant to even mention. There must have been another reason for choosing Rayfiel over anyone else.
After thinking about it, he decided that it was a kind of provocation. It may have been a tactic to avoid giving the initiative to the Taywinds’ Aelock. It was very childish, but it had a significant effect. Whenever he saw the two of them affectionately clinging to each other, Aelock was overcome with fiery jealousy.
In the late evening, when he was getting ready to leave after the boring banquet of Viscount Derbyshire, which he had only accepted to meet Klopp, he waited in the Viscounts’ lobby for his carriage to arrive. Aelock paced the corridor with his complexion a little hardened as people rushed all at once, crowding the area with carriages.
Over there, at the edge of the dimly lit garden, he saw two people clinging to each other. The only place young aristocrats who had reached marriageable age could freely date was at gatherings of prestigious aristocratic families. It was because being invited directly to the other person’s house even though they are not particularly engaged symbolized a very secret relationship during heat or for other reasons, so it was a matter of unnecessary gossip.
Since he had not yet heard that Klopp had personally sought Rayfiel, it was clear that the relationship between the two was nothing more than an innocent exchange. But no matter how concealed and gloomy the place, which couldn’t be found unless one deliberately looked for it, they were still clinging to each other like that in the open garden of another mansion that was not their own. Are they out of their mind? He was displeased and thought about simply ignoring it, but since Rayfiel was his relative, he decided to tell him to be cautious out of consideration of their shared reputation.
They whispered something in each other’s ears with low laughter, unaware that another person was approaching. The discomfort was intense. As he moved closer, Klopp held Rayfiel’s hands together and kissed the ends of each of the fingers wrapped in bandages. Aelock couldn’t close his mouth in shock. Klopp said as he held Rayfiel’s fingertips to his lips, and had his characteristic deep gaze fixed on the little omega.
“No matter how rough and scarred they are, they are the most beautiful and dearest hands to me.”
At those words, Rayfiel’s face blushed, and he only called out his name “Klopp”. It wasn’t a simple pretense. He was a naive omega sincerely in love from every angle, and the alpha, who gently wrapped his long arms around him, lowered his head and kissed his forehead as if he was very lovely. That was it. Aelock didn’t have the vulgar audacity to the point where he even watched others kiss.