The One and Only Sami Chapter 23

Bathed in the clear morning sunlight streaming through the square window, Sami looked again at the man who had woken him. It was Kamil, the stable hand from the room next door.

“Morning… Morning?!”

Sami, who had been listening to the young stable hand’s words with a daze, suddenly bolted upright as if his tail had been set on fire.

“Agh! What about the Housekeeper?!”

“Whose errand do you think I’m on? I’m here to wake you up.”

“Oh no. Wh-where is she?”

“Madame Harna? She’s with Mister Chapa. There’s some trouble with the fountain… Hey! Whoa, Sami!”

Sami scrambled into his shoes at the foot of his bed and burst through the door. His face and movements were so frantic that Kamil instinctively pulled his shoulders back to clear a path for the boy.

The kid was already fast, but now he was running for his life; he was out of sight in a heartbeat. Still, it was such a rare sight that Kamil leaned out the door to get a better look. Sure enough, all he could see was a tiny dark head shrinking into a dot in the distance. Watching from afar, Kamil stuck out his lower lip and tilted his head.

“That’s odd. Usually, that kid is up and at ’em before the crack of dawn.”

Kamil shook his head, having no idea that Sami had just survived an incredibly long night.

“Still…”

The stable hand scratched the back of his neck, staring in the direction Sami had vanished.

“Was he always like that?”

Did his skin look a bit more… radiant? Or was it that the corners of his eyes, peeking through his fingers as he rubbed them, looked unusually dark and sharp?

He’d made a fuss about oversleeping, but that just made Sami seem even more like Sami. A diligent, simple kid.

“He came of age recently, didn’t he?”

Ah, maybe that was it. A touch of manhood?

It definitely felt different. He was puzzled by how the atmosphere surrounding Sami had turned so… supple, but he couldn’t find a clear answer. Naturally.

After all, who could possibly know what had happened during those early hours?

Only a man more wicked than a Mage and the white moon that had voyaged through all his antics knew the truth.

Naturally, he received a sharp scolding from the Housekeeper. Since Sami was usually honest and hardworking, he got off with a stern lecture, but his behavior lately was starting to seem very strange to the rest of the household.

He’d been sent on an errand for a basket of oranges and came back with a haul of expensive exotic fruits; then, the boy who always woke at dawn to sweep the courtyard stayed sprawled in bed until the sun was high. It was beyond a simple lapse in discipline; it was getting to the point where people were actually worried.

“Sami.”

Madame Harna felt the same way.

“Just because you have lived twenty years and reached maturity does not mean you have truly become a man. A man is one who fulfills his duties and takes responsibility.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Madame Harna…”

“…Once you’ve finished lunch today, go see the seamstresses. Mister Zarta has been talking since morning about the clothes he’s made for you.”

“Clothes?”

“Mister Zarta and Hesha wanted to get you a birthday gift, and I heard Master Antar gave them some fine fabric.”

“…!”

“I understand you’re excited, but you mustn’t let curiosity make you neglect your work. Finish all your chores before the meal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Madame Harna!”

Even if she hadn’t said so, he intended to finish everything he had to do today. He had no intention of making another mistake. Deep down, Sami was a busybody by nature. As soon as the Housekeeper finished her lecture, he planned to polish every vase, window frame, and lamp in Salif’s grand estate.

As he fidgeted with his fingers clasped respectfully behind his back, the Housekeeper’s stern face softened for a brief moment.

“You may go. And… happy birthday.”

His fidgeting fingers froze.

‘Happy birthday.’

At the sound of those words, Sami’s memories were instantly swept back to last night.

The man who had stepped boldly through the window against a cool breeze and offered him a nonchalant greeting.

‘It’s only right that I’m the first to congratulate you, isn’t it?’

Despite breaking into the mansion without permission, he had said, ‘I have no business with the master of the house, only with you,’ and whisked him away on a carpet. And then…

“…Yes. Thank you, Madame Harna. I’ll start with the vases.”

Sami bowed deeply. It was partly to hide his face, which was rapidly turning beet-red. Biting his lip, Sami repeated to himself over and over:

‘Get it together, Sami.’

He didn’t know how that man had brought him back. The morning was passing by as if nothing had happened, but…

Surely…

Even as the Housekeeper walked away, Sami kept rubbing his cheeks for no reason. His flushed skin wouldn’t cool down.

He remembered everything vividly. What happened, and what was done to him.

And yet, there wasn’t a single mark on his body. He felt like he had cried his eyes out, but even the corners of his eyes weren’t puffy. His thighs and the roof of his mouth had been rubbed so raw by that large mass of flesh, yet there was no stinging pain.

“Ugh…”

Sami wrapped his hand around his nape, which wasn’t hidden by his bowed head. The skin on his neck felt hot, and a bit of sweat made his palm stick to it. In that state, he took a cautious breath.

‘It’s okay. He promised. He said he’d send me back safely before morning.’

Just as he promised, Sami had returned to the mansion safely before dawn. He was so perfectly fine that it felt like it might have been a dream.

‘I swear, Maruts are either erotic or just plain lewd. Their greed to keep things inside them is immense.’

‘Within half a day, you’ll be frantic with the urge to devour every cock in this mansion.’

…Could it really have been a dream?

“…”

Sami crouched on the floor, stealing glances at people passing by.

Morning at the Salif estate was busy for everyone, regardless of status. Even in the short time Sami spent crouching and pretending to massage his feet, several people crossed the garden.

There was one common thread in where Sami’s gaze lingered.

The dirt-stained linen trousers of the gardener digging a trench; the lower body of Kamil the stable hand, draped with whips and ropes; the baggy pants of a strongman pulling a cart loaded with grain sacks; and the long robes of the tutor who taught the young masters arithmetic and foreign languages…

Sami offered a silent apology to the crotches of every man walking by as he peeked intently, but—as expected—no strange, lewd urges arose.

“There’s no way that would happen…”

It was a relief, but at the same time, the fact that he had been anxiously staring between other men’s legs made him feel quite miserable. As he was grumbling to himself, a new pair of trousers came into view.

A robe made of cool, soft cotton fluttered with every dignified step. The fabric didn’t look cheap or flimsy. Rather, the slow swaying motion felt as delicate as a veil catching a gentle breeze…

“Sami?”

“…Master Antar.”

Sami, who had been staring blankly at the hem of the robe while crouching, scrambled to his feet and bowed his head. He only saw the young master’s face—smiling with a look of mock distress as if to say ‘I told you not to do that’—after he looked up.

“I saw Sami sitting idly at the entrance for some reason, so I came to check on you.”

“Oh, no, I… my shoes… I was just fixing my trousers…”

“Is that so?”

Sami was a terrible liar. Antar was a wise young man who could see right through a boy’s clumsy deception.

However, instead of pressing him, he simply beamed. Sami narrowed his eyes at the kind, virtuous smile, then shook his head violently at his own thoughts. To even subconsciously overlap that rude man’s image with the smile of the most virtuous young man in the world was the height of blasphemy.

“Haha, Housekeeper Harna was worried about you. Hmm, you do seem a bit out of it, Sami. The banquet is tonight; what shall we do?”

Despite his words, Antar maintained a pleasant, twinkling smile. It was clearly a joke, but since it came from the usually refined and polite young master, it made Sami, the servant, feel uncharacteristically anxious.

“No, sir! I’ll do well. I’ve practiced many times.”

Wanting to show that he was sharp and alert, Sami blinked emphatically and nodded. His lips were pressed into a firm, horseshoe shape from the effort, but that only made him look more endearing.

…Still, when he had seen the boy sitting there so blankly a moment ago, he had wondered if the boy’s aura had somehow changed.