“Where have you been all this time…”

Narcissus, who had recovered considerably, greeted me with a neat face. Or rather, he was about to greet me but stopped abruptly when he saw my disheveled face. My nose was bright red, just like a real rabbit’s.

I ignored him, sniffling and wiping my nose as I walked to the bed.

“Are you alright?”

I heard him rising from the bedding spread on the floor. I didn’t want to talk to Narcissus in such a desperate situation. I lay down on the bed nervously and pulled the blanket over my head.

Foolish tears dangled at the corners of my eyes again. I quickly wiped them away before new streams could form down my tilted face.

“Momo.”

When he called my name for the first time in my life, I inexplicably choked up and silently shed tears.

“Mo…”

“Don’t talk to me.”

Instead of speaking further, Narcissus approached my bed.

“Don’t come closer!”

Only then did he stop walking, noticing the moisture saturating my voice. The thought that someone had witnessed my sorrow made me cry from anger this time.

Narcissus remained standing still, neither moving nor opening his mouth. For several minutes, only the sound of my angry, heaving sobs circled the room. Had he left by now? Somehow, I felt that if I turned around, Narcissus might be gone.

When my crying finally stopped, a stillness descended as though time had frozen. I tried to sense his presence while holding my breath, but detected nothing. He must have left.

I exhaled a long sigh and buried my face in the pillow. Then I properly released the tears I couldn’t show before the princess. I sobbed loudly enough to flood the cramped attic room, enough for my neatly arranged indoor shoes and pretty scented candles to be swept away in that flood of tears.

I couldn’t calm down easily. Something soft as a feather briefly brushed over my curled-up, sobbing body.

Was it the wind? I thought I had closed the window. Whatever.

The sensation that had lingered on my shoulder, barely touching, moved upward. Then it slowly stroked my silver hair tinged with cherry blossom water. From the more distinct weight and warmth, I realized it wasn’t wind at all.

I stopped crying and held my breath. A hand, neither warm nor cold, continued carefully caressing my hair. Even after the hand finally withdrew, I remained motionless, facing the wall.

The taste of my wet lips was salty and bitter enough to snap me back to reality.

* * *

“Sha-ah, haang, uhngh…! Shahan, ah, hah, Sha-Shahan, nim, aaah!”

The girl’s unfocused eyes and tongue turned toward Shahan. She called his name. Sensual moans flowed from the lips of a young girl who had bathed in milk and applied flower oil to her hair.

Her pretty face, attractive enough to make passersby turn and look, was completely melted in pleasure that had continued since the previous night.

“Mmng, ahh, ah, ack, ahhh…!”

She didn’t know how many hours this lovemaking had lasted. The bed sheets clutched in the girl’s hands were completely crumpled. Her legs, wobbly beyond recovery, could no longer support her lower body and kept collapsing.

Each time this happened, Shahan frowned, grabbed her narrow pelvis, and forcibly lifted her up. He considered stopping at this point but soon changed his mind. This impudent girl had enjoyed herself thoroughly, but he hadn’t.

He thrust his er*ect p*nis between her raised b*ttocks again. The mechanical hip movements continued. The two penises filling the girl’s front and back wriggled as though it were alive.

When the two intertwined bodies finally reached climax, they separated from the girl’s lower body with a wet sound. Thick liquid gushed from her widely spread openings.

Shahan looked down coldly at the girl trembling wildly with aftershocks of pleasure.

Not today either. Not yesterday, nor tomorrow. No matter which woman he embraced.

He never found the fulfillment he craved. Unlike the girl sobbing face down, his face, having found not a trace of pleasure, sank into even deeper coldness.

“I did this because you wanted it.”

Shahan murmured in a low voice tinged with irritation.

“Post-coital contraception isn’t a good method, Elpida.”

“Mmm…”

Unlike the girl rolling n*ked on the bed, Shahan remained in his neat priest’s robe from beginning to end. However, it wasn’t the ordinary cylindrical priest’s robe that extended to the ankles.

Shahan’s robe, with double layers of fabric at the waist allowing the upper part to be lifted, was designed to expose only the necessary parts when having relations with women.

“Make sure to use contraception.”

“Haa, uh, yes, yes, Shahan.”

After finishing his words, Shahan left the bedroom without looking back, leaving behind the young apprentice priestess.

He felt unbearably filthy. Lying on his silk bedding with his sweat-soaked body, he caught a passing apprentice priest and ordered:

“You, come here immediately and undress me. I must wash quickly, having been covered in filth from mixing with a lowborn.”

“Yes, High Priest.”

The priest’s robe made of white cloth with gold thread fell in layers at Shahan’s feet. Soon, Shahan, n*ked and pure as white salt, stepped into the bathroom.

His spotless white body, without a speck of dust, shone brilliantly as though containing a thousand lights. Its owner’s face emitted an eerie beauty that seemed not of this world. Shahan himself felt no particular emotion about his appearance, but he knew its usefulness.

Irritably throwing aside the priest’s robe he had worn while mixing bodies with the girl the previous night, he commanded:

“Wash these thoroughly. Two times, three times. Wash them until they wear out, then bring them to me.”

“Yes, High Priest.”

After the priest withdrew, Shahan put on a transparent bathrobe and immersed himself in the bath water. Suddenly remembering something, he hurriedly called back the priest who was about to close the bathroom door.

“What is that child’s schedule today? Where is she and what is she doing now?”

“Who are you referring to, High Priest?”

“Foolish one. I have asked about that child every day for a year without fail, and you dare ask who I mean?”

“F-forgive me, High Priest. I just entered the temple today and didn’t know.”

“Then from today, remember clearly. This is what you must report to me every day from now on.”

“I will obey your command.”

“JeJe from the imperial palace. If that’s unclear, everyone knows her as the nameless attendant of Princess Kesera. If you understand, disappear.”

“Yes, yes!”

The apprentice priest hurriedly bowed his head and left the room like the wind.

In the silent space filled only with the sound of still water, Shahan began his bath. His long silver hair, saturated with moisture, flowed like silk without a single tangle.

He lifted his dripping hair with one hand, wrung out the water, and tossed it carelessly. The splashing water scattered across the mirror.

Eventually, the face of a girl with silver hair like his own flickered in the mirror. Silver hair tinged with pink flower dye and clear blue-gray eyes so transparent one could see through them.

But a child whose thoughts remained completely unknown whenever he looked into those eyes. The vexing JeJe who showed excessive wariness whenever their eyes met and never approached him.

While people’s fear of Shahan was reverence, JeJe’s was pure terror. Unlike other women, she had never fallen for Shahan even once in five years.

Shahan sneered softly.

Yes, with JeJe too, it had begun with mere curiosity.