“I’M bein’ carried like a primcess! Ahaha! Can’t believe Master’s carrying me. Are spears gonna rain from the sky? Ah, wait, I want spearmint instead of spear-rain! Spearmints gonna rain!”
Oswald wanted to groan over the girl innocently throwing her arms in the air trying to catch imaginary candy. The people walking the evening-lit road chuckled as they watched them go by. It took every ounce of self-control for him to maintain a gentle smile as he softly admonished the girl in his arms.
“My lady, you are more susceptible to curses and hypnotism because you haven’t been baptized yet. Please tread extra carefully.”
“Ahahahaha! Hey, hey. Why you talk so funny? What’s wrong with yousss?”
“What’s wrong indeed.”
Feeling his smile twitch at the corners, the sham-butler hurried. He never expected the girl who tried so hard to be independent at all times would turn into such a baby after drinking a basic stimulant.
By the time they finally returned to the dorm room, the sun had settled beyond the forest, leaving only a speck of orange light. In darkness navigable without light, he gently lowered the girl he had been carrying onto the bed. The spoiled princess who had been in such elated spirits until then darted her unfocused gaze around the room with a glazed look. Yet when her eyes found his, her whole face lit up and she began chirping away like a pesky little bird in the wee hours of the morning.
“Listen, listen. So yesterday, Mommy kneaded the steak in bed!”
Oswald peeled the wrapper off the candy capable of suppressing the Fake Lover parasite and pushed it into her mouth. And still her chitter chattering didn’t stop.
“It made this ooey-gooey, slurpy-urpy sound. And then the sausage went kaplooy!”
“Why don’t you lie down and get some sleep, my lady?”
Annoyed by his suggestion, the girl puffed out her cheeks and tugged him to her by his hair. He scowled from the pain, but found himself lost in her clear eyes only inches from his face. When he said nothing, she put an unexpected request to him.
“Name.”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’m not your lady. Call me by name!”
What are you? A toddler throwing a fit? Oswald suppressed his thousandth sigh that day. He reluctantly called her by the name she currently went by.
“Lady Angelica.”
“Not! That! One!” The girl shook her head back and forth and pinned him down with a commanding glare. Then she pressed another demand on him. “I hate you being all prim and proper.”
“You have my deepest apologies.”
“Talk to me like you usually do.”
“You have my deepest apologies.”
Her expression clouded over the more he treated her like a stranger. Unease filled her voice when she called his name.
“Oswald…?”
“Please call me Will.”
“C’mon, Oswaaaald!”
“My lady, please listen to—”
She yanked him the last few inches separating them, erasing the smile off his lips and the next words off his tongue. She childishly pecked him on the lips and quickly withdrew. Her eyes glistened as she clung to his shirt until crystalline teardrops rolled down her cheeks.
“Do you hate me now…?”
He wiped away her messy tears with the pad of his thumb. The sham-butler maintained a troubled smiled as he placated her by stroking her hair. He purposefully spoke in a soothing voice to appease her.
“How could I hate you, my lady?”
“I hate it when you don’t kiss me.”
Oswald’s hand stopped midstroke. Unaware that she had thrown off his perfect actions as butler, Nichika begged with him to drop the act.
“I don’t want the butler Will. I want Oswald.”
Hers was likely an innocent request for him to stop acting like another person. But the meaning was changed entirely by her inebriated state and pink cheeks. Tears stained her face still shaped by the vestiges of adolescence, and the moonlight traversed a white trail across her thighs exposed by her slightly hitched up skirt.
She wasn’t a woman. Nor was she a child. Before he knew it, Nichika’s hands had moved from his chest to his back. She let out a sigh of relief like a wanderer who had finally found a place to rest their weary soul.
“So warm.”
Her husky whisper gnawed at his heart, transforming his desire to protect her into something altogether different. Oswald pretended not to notice that unknown feeling and forcefully tossed it to the wind.
He decided to sober her up once and for all. As her master, he needed to teach her what happens when you carelessly cling to a man. Finally discarding his butler mask, Oswald lifted her face from his chest and gazed intently into her eyes.
“Are you…inviting me to take you?”
“Um…”
“All right.” The corner of his lips curled up in a wicked smirk as he brought them closer to her ear and whispered in the sexiest voice imaginable, “If you so desire it, I’ll love you until you’re begging me to stop.”