Chapter 5 (1/2)

Some footnotes in here this time around. Enjoy!

Chapter 5: I became a Jean Valjean for you (2)

“Bark. Bark bark bark! Bark!”

“…Hello to you too.”

“Grrrr. Grrrr.”

Instead of words, he spit out animal sounds from his mouth.

“Grrrr!”

I tilted my head.

“Are barking and growling literally the only things you know how to do?”

The male lead shook his head in response to my question.

“Right. You can understand human speech. But then why don’t you speak? Maybe…are you able to understand but unable to speak?”

This time he nodded his head, still glaring at me ferociously, of course.

…Well. Despite the glaring, he was behaving pretty obediently.

I looked at him, feeling a little weirded out by his glare, and then took a pouch out of my chest pocket and handed it towards him. As soon as I opened the pouch, a delicious smell drifted out. Ricdorian’s eyes widened.

“Do you like bread?”

Head tilt.

“I’m saying, I’ve become a Jean Valjean for you.”1

I dangled the bread that I had stolen from the kitchen, wait, no, technically, the bread I had hidden in my pocket during mealtime, in front of Ricdorian. The male lead’s bright blue eyes followed the bread as I waved it in front of his face.

Well, what do we have here.

If the bread moved right, the eyes went right. If left, then left…and so on.

Wow. How cute. Though I shouldn’t be teasing him with food.

“Want some?”

“Bark!”

“No, not that. Repeat after me. Please, give me some.”

“Bark? Bark bark bark?”

“Please give me some.”

“Bark bark bark bark!”

“…Exactly who taught this guy to speak in dog language.”

The fact that he could understand but couldn’t speak the human language meant that someone had taught him to do so. Ugh. Exactly what kind of crazy bastard only taught this guy to speak in dog language?

I stopped looking at the male lead, shaking my head.

“Okay, wait.”

I moved my hand back. The blue eyes followed the bread in my hand, with a ‘why aren’t you giving it to me’ look. I flinched at the gaze of the starving beast.

…If there wasn’t a chain, I would have run away by now.

“Now that I think about it, if I just give this to you, you’ll just devour it without thought. So just wait a second. Oh don’t look at me like that, I’ll give it to you, I’m just afraid you’ll choke on it!”

Maybe he didn’t hear me, because his gaze was growing more vicious by the second.

– Clank. Clank.

I ended up giving him a piece of bread when his chain started rattling from his pulling.

“Eat up.”

As soon as I gave him a piece, he gobbled it up.

“Eat slowly. Otherwise you’ll get a stomachache.”

He gently bit my hand and closed his mouth over it. My hand tickled.

“…Does it taste good?”

There were bread crumbs stuck to the side of his mouth. Ricdorian’s eyes shined as they looked up at me.

Ah. I guess this means he likes it. …And who exactly taught this guy to act like a dog, too?

He kept licking my hands to indicate that he wanted more, so I handed him another piece.