Chapter 10 (2/2)
“Dea would bury the incident six feet under if he could. No- more than that.” On that topic, Gin was rather hurt. “He said that it was the darkest period of his life.”
Feisha felt compelled to share his thoughts. “To be honest, I think that you might want to ask Hughes to reconsider your relationship.”
Gin instantly whipped around, alarmed. His eyes felt like white-hot lasers on Feisha’s skin.
“O-Of course, I’ll make sure to keep quiet about the things I need to keep quiet about,” Feisha hastily managed. It’s really not a big deal; everyone has a shameful backstory.
“Fei, my friend,” said Gin gently after a pause.
“Please don’t call me that, I’m getting goose bumps,” Feisha said, fighting shivers of disgust. Gin shuffled in closer in response, smiling.
“What do you think about my suggestion earlier?”
“Didn’t I already agree?”
“Not that; the thing between you and Dea.”
Feisha looked at him blankly, unimpressed. “What thing between me and Dea? It’s clearly between you and Dea.”
“Heheh, I’ve been working at Noah’s Ark for a very long time, but you’re the most interesting human out of all of them,” Gin said, grabbing his shoulder.
“Is that a complement?”
“No, I’m just stating my thoughts.”
“Erm, continue.”
“With the previous humans, as soon as I show my teeth they all get scared into becoming readily available.”
…Hold on, what?
“What do you mean by ‘readily available’?”
“That they agree to everything I say, duh,” Gin said.
“Oh. That’s not how we use that phrase.”
“You guys are so behind with the times.”
Feisha was at a loss for words. “…We’ll do better next time.”
“Uh, what were we talking about?”
“Being readily available.”
“Before that.”
“I’m the most interesting human you’ve met.”
“Mhm,” smiled Gin. “That’s why I’m going help you and Dea.”
He sure sounded regal. “Do I have a choice in this?”
“No, it’s mandatory.”
“Then continue.”
“Believe me, you won’t regret getting together with Dea,” Gin said with a smile.
“Then why did you break up?” asked Feisha.
“Because he regretted it.”
There was an awkward pause.
“I wasn’t lying about being straight, you know,” Feisha said earnestly. Gin thought about this for a moment, then asked:
“Do you think Dea is beautiful?”
“Well, I think that the concept of beauty is a very broad one, and-”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“Yes.”
“See?” Gin’s smile twisted into a sneer. “Humans differentiate genders on a very shallow, physical basis. Since this concept doesn’t apply to Dea, you can stop using gender as an excuse.”
“So you’re saying that vampires don’t differentiate by physical attributes?”
“We of the noble blood clan don’t rely on shallow physical characteristics, of course. We look to the deeper physical characteristics.”
Feisha inwardly raised his middle finger.
“You know,” he said, pausing. “I realised earlier today that Hughes is really beautiful as well. Maybe more than Dea.”
Golden locks flung into the air, Gin pointed at the door and roared, “You, get your ass to Dea. Taking shits is forbidden until you seduce him!”
Feisha strolled leisurely out into the hallway, saying, “Oh, noble one of the blood clan. Since when did you start saying phrases like ‘taking a shit’?”
“…”
Exiting his room, Feisha glanced at his watch; it was dinner time. The dining hall at this time was at its busiest, with both staff and customers coming down to relax. Waving at some of the latter category, he stood at arm’s length to them and swept his gaze across the room, finally deciding to sit next to the dwarf, Layton.
Despite being the closest to Asa out of everyone here except Hughes, Feisha couldn’t help but think that his spit problem really needed to be looked at.
“You asked Isefel for a raise?” Layton asked quietly.
Feisha was surprised. “How did you know?”
“I heard it while testing my newest invention, the Domino Listening Device.”
“What does it have to do with dominos?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh.”
“That’s not the point, the point is that you actually asked Isefel for a raise.”
“But I failed.”
“What I’m concerned about isn’t the outcome,” Layton said in a dark tone. “There has never been a pay raise in Noah’s Ark since its creation.”
“And?”
“And you actually. Asked. Isefel. For. A. Raise.”
“…”
Feisha pinched the bridge of his nose. He wished that he’d gone to eat with Asa instead; at least with spit-drowned food, it would still be possible to eat.
Translator’s notes
[…] McClelland’s Three Needs Theory from the need for achievement, need for affiliation and need for power to the need to fart, need to piss and need to shit.
As per usual, the original Chinese: 孔子说的‘人有三疾’——狂妄、矜持和愚昧硬生生地用时间改革成‘三急’——放屁急、小便急和大便急kǒng zǐ shuō de ‘rén yǒu sān jí’——kuáng wàng, jīn chí hé yú mèi yìng shēng sheng dì yòng shí jiān gǎi gé chéng ‘sān jí’——fang pì jí, xiǎo biàn jí hé dà biàn jí (lit. Confucius’s words that ‘people have three diseases’ – arrogance, aloofness and ignorance was forcefully changed over time to ‘three urgencies’ – the urgency to fart, urgency to piss and urgency to shit). Yes, this is an actual saying. As far as Chinese google knows, the origin of the phrase isn’t necessarily Confucius, but the ‘three urgencies’ thing is a real thing that people say as a joke. This is mainly due to the fact that the word for ‘diseases’ used here has the same pronunciation as the word for ‘urgent’ (jí). Unfortunately, there is no handy quote about bodily functions in English that I know of, so I settled for the Three Needs Theory. Sorry, David McClelland.
“[…] He was quite obsessed with wuxia works, and superheroes were all the craze back then […]”
The individual characters of Feisha’s name literally mean rock (石shí), flight (飞fēi) and hero (侠xiá). While it’s not considered outrageous by any means, this name is quite superhero-y, clearly drawing some inspiration from fiction (wuxia, in this case).
Hey guys, Tracy’s an idiot
Here’s something I forgot to mention back when it was relevant: Dea’s actually more elf than faerie, appearance wise. The Chinese name used for his species is 精灵jīng líng, which could mean both the conventional Tinker Bell fairy and elves (Legolas is bae <3). Or wizard, according to google translate, but that’s why you have me and not google translate. I guess I should’ve gone with elf instead, but it’s a bit too late for that now. Just keep in mind that he doesn’t have wings or wear pink tutus.