STABLE BOY ; Trash of the Count's Family

60. LOST DREAMS

South tried not to really look at himself much when washing. He didn't have that luxury of time, and often he was happier not knowing how his marks developed while he was gone.

"Huh? Oh, it's just a tattoo," Coachman Leon checked him in the morning before they left, pulling South's collar away from his neck before fixing it neatly. "Thought you spilled ink or something on yourself."

What kind of tattoo would warrant that reaction?

So, he knew he would regret it, but he checked anyways.

"Whuhhh?!?"

There used to be fish scales all across his upper torso, lined with water waves. They've disappeared, since they were from his past life— and he hasn't had a good enough bond with the Whale Tribe to foster any connections there.

Instead, his entire upper body was consumed by black dragon scales.

A whole sleeve of it eating the left side of his body from the collarbone all the way down to his elbow, only giving way the olive twines from some servant in the Stan house, the black dragon scales shrouding the skull on the back of his palm like a solemn promise it will be gone soon. It wrapped around his torso and cradled the koi fish and the silver shield tenderly.

South swallowed nervously. Isn't it a little close to the heart?

He hadn't let himself think of that incident in a long time.

He had to look at himself properly in a mirror. Sure he expected a mark for Raon to show up, but it took an odd amount of time, and definitely overwrote his largest tattoo with his own.

He would miss the fish scales. But all the sea travel and the beach vacation must have reminded him enough of it that his heart learned how to move on from them.

So, he will forge them. Because he already knows he can't get them back.

Now, he'll treasure the bond he has with Raon.

"Seonbae, don't you think I look kind of demon-possessed right now?" South teased, raising both arms to show off his arms that no longer matched in colours, "half my skin is dark and the other half is pale."

The other half had cuter tattoos. His wrist had Hans' corgi leaning upon an ornamental key (that, after long deliberation, was most likely for Lock, since the key's colour matched Lock's hair colour), and the kittens' paw prints. Hillsman's criss-crossed blue cord wrapping around his upper arm was woven between thorny rose vines that eventually gave way for Rosalyn's red rose around his bicep.

"Uh," Coachman Leon chose his words carefully, "I think you always look like that. It's the fact that the tattoos keep changing that's weird, but I think most of the people in the County are already used to it."

"Well that's no fun."

"Too bad Sou. Come on, the Young Master's here."

-

Coachman Leon is well-known among servants as the Coachman of the Henituse county. Deruth Henituse doesn't hire multiple of them, after all, so Leon basically takes him on all formal occasions.

That is why, when Cale wants to stay unannounced, he goes out with South instead.

"You didn't come with the Young Master?"

"No, I dropped him off at a meeting and he told me to meet you here."

The residence that was arranged for them to enact the Black Dragon's revenge— it's a fancy residence, but no one lived here. Of course, Vicross and South were here ahead of time to just inspect the premises. They would spend the next four days here, after all.