Chapter 22: Prince, death, and wine

Fearless woke up and he immediately couldn’t help but to question the choice he made in life. Why the fuck must he journey to Madukat again? It has been weeks since he said goodbye to the beautiful Arachne Iliva and life has been a constant waking nightmare for him.

Speaking of Iliva and himself, his personal bio on the first page has been updated and Fearless was considered being marriage for some reason. He thought what he did with Iliva was only at the level of being engaged to one another, not marriage, and yet, the bio page stated otherwise. Another thing, he gained another level from that marriage. It seemed that the game recognized that he has succeeded in forming a political marriage with another warlord and thus rewarding him the experience for that success. It's really strange.

However, if he was talking about strange thing, he must mention the warm snow he encountered while walking through the Bison Prairie.

The weather of the Zard kingdom was a constant topic of discussion among ROC’s most zealous fans. Zard had one of the most bizarre weather in the world of ROC. It was significantly warmer compare to White Winter and Silver Snow despite being on the same latitude. However, it was the warm snow of autumn of Zard that made fans could not help but wonder what sort of weeds the developers of ROC were smoking when they designed this country.

If Fearless remembered correctly, Misery had an episode on his stream to explore the weather on the three main continents of Escana and Zard was listed as one of the regions having the most bizarre weather.

Fearless had never really question about the warm snow despite finding it incredibly wacky. In the game, the warm snow slowed the marching speed of the army and hampered the visibility, while the normal snow brought about all of that disadvantages as well as the double consumption rate of supply of the army. ROC taught its player that it was foolish to wage war during winter and snow through that mechanic.

The warm snow was just a geography distinction the game developers of ROC gave to Zard. They probably did not think much about how strange it was, even the BETA testers did not find it strange until later on when those gamers who obviously cared more about the lore of the game than the game itself made the warm snow to be a problem to tackle.

However, Fearless had to agree that this snow was wacky and completely out of place in this world now that he was a part of it. It felt warm in his hand and dry. When it melt inside his palm, there was no trace of water. The warm snow vaporized like dry ice. If Fearless’ memory was correct, the developers explained that the reason for this warm snow in Zard was due to the tomb of the dark god resided within its border, so basically, magic was their explanation to this bizarre phenomenon, talking about lazy writing...

Fearless was somewhat thankful that it has only snowed lightly on his trip and not as heavy as the snow he encountered in Canada when he visited Fantasy’s home during Christmas. It was a real culture shock for him back then.

Fearless sighed. He could not wash himself for an entire week since there was no large water source could be found on the trip. He smelled like fermented cheese underneath his robe and this made Fearless cringed at the thought of how people would pinch their nose when they’re around him. And his feet, no matter how much he tried to clean them, scrubbing off the dead skin on the grass and stuffs, they still smelled worse than fermented molten cheese, until this moment, he honestly did not know that human feet could smell so bad. Ah, he wanted to take a bath so bad. Never before he was so disgusted at his own body.

Fearless also developed a wild stubble and he had no way to shave it without a shaver, Enfermé came to his mind once but it was too sharp. He felt like it would shave away his chin if he made a tiny mistake. Using Enfermé as a shaver is definitely a recipe for disaster, besides, Naharis must roll beyond his grave if he knew Fearles used Enfermé such purpose.

Fearless' legs were always sore, being at the mercy of the constant muscle sore that never really go away. He has walked so much in the last seven days that he has already stopped wishing that he had his car or motorbike with him. That kind of wishful thinking did not help one bit, it only made him cranky and depressed.

"Get it done," Once in a while, Fearless heard that familiar whisper in the brewing winds. He just kept on going.

Fearless’ water supply ran dangerously low at times and the only method to refill it was to manually collect morning dews on by soaking up a piece of fabric on the wet grasses then squeezed out the morning dews. The average amount of water Fearless could collect in a day was around three full gulps, no more. Fearless was very thankful for that incident where he was left behind on that unknown island, the experience changed his world view and made him somewhat resourceful when it came down to survival in the wild.

Being alone was also a problem, Fearless had never been so lonely for so long before. He started to monologue, talknig to himself, poking fun at himself and acting like a crazy man throughout the journey. Once every now and then, he wished that Iliva did not crack his phone.

However, those were the least of the problematic matter on Fearless’ mind. The sack of wine remained in his back pack proved quite a problem to Fearless. There was only one correct solution to deal with it, tossing it away. Knowing that, Fearless wondered why it was so hard for him to throw the damn thing away.

Perhaps, it was a curse object

In all honesty, Fearless wanted to drink it, just a small sip. However, he knew that once he took that small sip, there was nothing that could stop him from emptying it. The problem wasn’t that he could not empty the wine sack, it was the consequence of emptying that wine sack. Fearless had the basic survival knowledge within himself to understand that he would die if he did that. He was alone now, without Iliva to watch his back.

The Bison Prairie named after the four horns bison that roamed this prairie, however there was also the snow wolves and mountain eagles resided in this plain. They preyed on hares, snow foxes and sometimes even attempted to hunt the bison.

During the trip, Fearless was attacked twice by the wolves. The first time, he was so scared that he used “What you can do, I can do better” to transform himself into a wolf to run away while dragging his luggage with him in the most ridiculous fashion. That pack of white wolves was so confused by that, they stopped chasing him and just stood and watched with round widened eyes, probably wondering what the fuck just happened, and did not know what to do.

Fearless lost his South pointing compass during that attack and his trip has become a giant mess. He constantly had to rely on the direction of the sun, the Spine mountain range and his Rolex watch to determine South. But he wasn’t very sure with this method. He knew the theory but he has never tested o practiced it before.

The second time he was attack was by the wolves around the dusk of the fifth day, it was probably a different pack but it’s not like Fearless could tell. Thankfully, he was more prepare this time.

The skill “The Magician” came out extremely handy for him. Aside from being an extremely mana friendly skill, it allowed him to teleport in any direction he wanted or swap position with a target. According to the skill’s description, this was an escape skill. There was a ten second cool down in between the uses, however, Fearless experienced no such thing. There was no cool down timer in the between of each attempt. He can keep spamming it as many time as he wanted and as long as his mana pool allowed him.

Fearless made it raining wolves with “The magician,” teleported himself thirty meters to the sky then swapped position with a wolf on the ground and repeated until the entire pack of snow wolf ran away from him. There were over a dozen of snow wolves lying around him once he was done with them, dying and groaning, painfully suffering. Watching the aftermath Fearless could only hope that he won't get sue by some animal protection organization after this, it was legitimate self defense.

Fearless laughed seeing the wolves ran away with tail tucked in between their legs. That was the first time he laughed after separating from Iliva. It was a good laugh. He wasn’t powerless in this world after all.

After that, Fearless tried to explore this skill. “The magician” could be silently casted unlike “What you can do, I can do better.” He did not have to chant the word “The magician” aloud every time he used it. Also, he can cast “The magician” while casting “What you can do, I can do better” at the same time. He tried to do it once, teleporting himself into a herd of bison whilst transforming himself into a bison. He succeeded it, the entire herd did not even realize that they had an imposter in their midst.

The longest distance “The magician” could transport Fearless away from his original position was around thirty meters and it must not be obstructed by anything. Also, Fearless must be able to see that position first before he could teleport to that position. After determined that bit of information, a spark went off inside Fearless’ head and he decided to play a prank on those bison.

He screamed, shouted and made noises while running toward their direction. Of course, they ran, the entire herd. Fearless waited and swapped his position with the slowest bison among the herd and kept repeating the process over and over again, until he felt that he was hitting the bottom of his mana pool. The bison helped him covered a great distance without having to walk. Well, he could just teleport but where was the fun in all of that. And that was where he made a great mistake.

On the twentieth day roaming on the Bison Prairie, Fearless could feel karma hitting him full force for bullying the bison. He has veered off the path greatly and headed North West instead of staying North. He cursed himself for being asshole to the bison and then cursed the bison for running North West instead of North. However, what’s done was done, Fearless sat down to calm himself and chewed on the remained drumstick of the mountain eagle, which he hunted the day before for breakfast. After that, he had no choice but to navigate to Madukat without his compass again.

Around noon, Fearless encountered a caravan and his heart was filled with joy. It has been an entire week since he last talked to a person and ran toward that caravan.

However, what Fearless discovered brought him only confusion and gut-wrenching feeling. There was no survivor among the caravan. They were all dead. A flock of crowds were picking on their corpses. The stench of rotten flesh reeked and filled Fearless's nose. He pinched his nose as he threw up. These people were attacked by something. At first Fearless thought the perpetrators of this disgusting carnage was the snow wolves. However, the scene of an old man wrapping his withered arm around a young boy around seven or six years old, both being impaled by a spear, that scene brought tears to Fearless.

Worms

Fearless went around the caravan, searching, hoping to find a survivor waiting for him to save but he only saw more gruesome deaths. Most of the corpses were male. There was only two female among the dead, both naked and bruises, the horrid experience they suffered branded in their eyes.

Fearless threw up again as he began to tear up for the dead. He had enough. This was enough. He wanted to go back to Iliva this instant. He wanted no part in a society where carnage like this happened.

Civilization should not look like this.

Fearless tried to head south but his vision was filled with tears, too blurry for him to see a damn thing. He rubbed off the tears with his knuckles, using his Rolex to determine the direction. However, the tears came out like a broken dam and Fearless could do nothing but cried. His head was a roller-coaster of dark emotion, full of disappointing thought and bad memories.

Fearless just sat down by the road and teared up for many hours until he decided his next course of action. He chased off the ravens. He used Enfermé to tear down the wooden carts and carriages, using the parts as firewood. He made a great pyre with all the firewood he managed to create. He tried to swap his position with the dead to save his energy and discovered that the skill “The magician” only work on living beings. In the end, Fearless could only rely on himself to give these unfortunate people the cremation they deserved.

The three moons hung on the sky the moment Fearless could finally lit the cremation fire for those unfortunate people. He could only offer the dead his silent prayers. After that, Fearless drank away his inner burden and sad thought, the only way he knew how. Survival can go away and fuck itself for all he cared.

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The cicadas was playing their mating song again, it was still summer, the season he hated the most. It was full of unpleasant memories.

Fearless was forced to watch a boy crawled into a fetal position as the beating rained down on his skinny body. He did not groan or cry even when the kicks of his assailants went through his thighs and delivered a smashing blow to his groin, just a sharp breath, nothing else. He did not use his arms to protect his head or face. His used his body to protect his hands instead, what a stupid decision. The boy just lied on the ground to accept the beating in his most vulnerable form as his assailants kicked his body like a rag doll.

His body was drenched in sweat as he laid on the ground, allowing himself being at the mercy of his assailants. He was pretty much a dead fish on the chopping table.

This did not happen to him regularly. The boy was smarter than that. He was smart enough to never allow himself to be caught in an ambush like that where there was no girl to protect him or nobody to call for a teacher to his rescue. But before that, his mouth was loud, like really loud. He could call. But he didn't.

This happened to him because he wished to be caught and beaten by these assailants. This was the only time he wished for pain to inflict on his body.

His assailants too were also boys, same age, but bigger, one of them was twice his size. That boy was the leader of this gang, simply because he was the biggest and the strongest. He was stronger than the beaten up boy but also more stupid, all brawn and no brain. He did not understand that the more he bullied the boy, the more the girls in the class would despite and ridicule him. Perhaps he did not even care about being hated by all the girls in the school. He beaten that skinny and weak boy because they were too different, and simply, because he could.

Fearless looked at the scene and he could only sighed. He could not understand what was going on inside the boy’s head at that time to allow himself to be beaten like that. He cannot overwrite pain with pain, that’s stupid. The wounds and the bruises would remain on his body for a month, not that he would feel better from that nor would he know that yet, not yet. Perhaps the adrenaline that coursed through his body at the moment was protecting him from the pain he sought. That pain would come later and it would linger for a very long time.

His assailants kept kicking, soccer kicking the boy’s body as they were laughing among themselves in their boyish voice, telling the boy that he was a coward, calling him a princess. “Princess” was the title the boys in his year gave to him for only hanging around the girl, playing houses and dolls with them. The boy did not say a word. He did not talk back to his assailants. He let them do whatever they wanted. He wanted pain and his assailants wanted to make him suffer, it was a win-win situation for both involved parties.

Fearless could only sigh again and again.

The boy made a stupid decision despite being obviously smarter than this, that made him incredibly stupid, even many times more stupid than the fools that were beating him. But it was not like there was no meaning in stupidity.

Suddenly, a goddess descended on earth. A goddess she was, shining like a sun.

Perhaps taking pity on the foolish boy, the goddess descended on earth to save him. With a kick, she sent one of laughing assailants tumbling. She spun and dropped a roundhouse kick on another one, sent him reeling. Then she kicked another one in the groin, dropped him to the ground for good. One of the assailants was already running but not the leader of the gang. He challenged the goddess, spilling insult through his crooked mouth.

The goddess gave her reply in form of a flying knee kick. Her knee connected with the boy’s face and broke his nose, blood was flying everywhere and before long the big boy was running, crying his mother’s name.

The foolish boy looked at the scene, speechless. The boy thought that he would remember this scene for the rest of his life even if he was to be condemned to hell and beyond. He would never forget this.

The goddess helped the boy to stand up then she became angry at him.

“Why do you allow them to beat you up like that?”

“Why don’t you run and ask for help?”

“Why don’t you try to fight back at them?”

The goddess asked while helping the boy to dust off the dirt on his shirt.

“It’s fine,” the boy replied, “It doesn’t hurt,” he was telling the truth. He could not feel the pain from the beating.

“You are hurt. Where is the nurse office? Show me and I will bring you there.” The goddess held the boy’s hand and asked. Her voice was warm and full of concern. She probably took pity on him because how miserable his reply was.

“You don’t know where the nurse office is?”

“I’m transferring to this school this morning.” The goddess replied nonchalantly.

The boy looked back at the blood mess the goddess created to help him and the goddess herself. It felt like time has stopped inside his head. He thought that of course the goddess had nothing to be afraid of. A goddess did not share problem with mortals. If a mortal did something like this, he would suffer a consequence. However, a goddess could care less about that. It would not affect her.

The boy ran away, telling the goddess to go back to her class. He could not understand why he did that. Was that anger or shame that command him to do that? Or something else? The boy honestly did not know. He ran to his favorite hiding spot in the school and stayed there for the day to end. He did not return to his class. He skipped the last class and waited for the school to end.

When dusk settled on the schoolyard with its copper touch, the boy secretly went back to his class to pack his stuffs. A few girls in the class noticed him and showed their concern when they noticed how dirty his uniform was.

“Were it them again?” the girls asked.

“Yes, but I’m fine. Someone bailed me out,” the boy replied.

One of the girls did not believe in his word, she lifted off the boy’s black shirt, revealing the red and purple bruises on his white skin. They gasped and several of them became awash with tears.

“How cruel,” they said.

“Let’s go down to the headmaster office. We will be on your side,” they said.

“It’s fine, honestly,” the boy said, surprised the girls by pulling away from them. He grabbed his bag in a hurry and ran out of the class. He did not know why he was behaving like this either. This was not his normal self. Perhaps, he has stopped being normal already.

The boy ran. As he ran, he noticed a crowd outside of the headmaster office. Out of curiosity, he stopped and approached that crowd.

Behind the blind covering the windows of the headmaster office, the boy could hear the valiant voice of his goddess.

There was also the voice of the headmaster. “Is that the truth?”

“She is lying obviously, can’t you see it for yourself? She beat my boy like that,” an angry female voice followed, “Tell her child, tell her that that girl is lying.”

“She’s lying,” the voice of that fat boy who leaded the gang echoed.

“See? I told you that girl is lying. I know a liar when I see one,” that angry voice reverberated once again.

“I did not. He lies,” the goddess shouted, her voice was defiant, yet weak. Her small voice was quickly drown out by that angry voice of the unknown woman.

“You dare to say that. You even beat his friends like that. What did they even do to you?” the woman did not stop. She kept spouting nonstop without allowing the goddess and the headmaster to say anything.

Fearless waded through the crowd of children, more like phasing through them. He stared into the foolish boy in the eyes. His dark eyes were swimming in an ocean of thought.

The boy looked at his bruised chest through the gap of his opened collar, then shaking his head. It was not adequate, not serious enough. He secretly pulled out a pencil from his bag and stabbed his chest with the sharpened point of the pencil. Then he drew the blood with an angry swing. He felt the pain now but it wasn’t too much that he could not handle. The boy thought that it wasn’t enough and repeated that again, drew two more cuts on his body then tossed away his pencil into the recycle bin nearby. His blood seeped into his black pants from the gashing cuts. Only then, he advanced with confidence, loudly knocked on the door of the headmaster office.

Fearless could not help but smile. The boy had the face of an angel but his heart was that of a demon lord.

“I come to testify,” the boy said loudly.

The door opened and the boy entered. His goddess looked at him with widened eyes.

“Child, you are here to testify?” the headmaster asked.

“I come to testify,” the boy repeated the moment the headmaster locked the door and chased away the crowd in front of her office.

“Yes, tell her boy. That the girl is lying,” that angry woman said, obviously did not even realize her son’s pale white face, without a single drop of blood.

“This girl did not lie. She protects me from their attack. They were ganging on me until she came,” the boy said, loud and clean, without any hint of emotion in his voice. He was pointing his finger at the leader of the gang who took part in enjoying inflating pain to the boy’s body, emotionlessly.

The woman looked stunned then she hissed angrily, “He’s lying as well. They are in the same cahoots,” pointing her finger at the boy’s face.

The boy stared at the woman blankly, then her son, his goddess and the headmaster. Then, without warning, he stripped, his pants and underpants came off first, staining red with blood, then his shirt came off. Everyone was stunned and speechless, they could not react.

There were bruises over his body. His shins, his thighs, his stomach, his back, his chest were all bruises and three freshly dripping cuts reddened on the boy’s pale white skin.

The boy said nothing, just stood and stared emotionlessly at everyone in the room. His mother taught him that sometimes, music spoke louder than words. However, his father also taught him that sometimes, silence spoke louder than music. Until this very day, he did not understand his father’s word. The emotionless mask that he was wearing on his face was the cherry on top of the cake.

The headmaster was the first person to react. She bent her to his height, fixing the boy’s cloth in a hurry. “It’s okay,” she said, rubbing her warm and calloused palms on his head, “I will make it right,” pulling his hand as she unlocked the door. She was probably thinking of bringing him to the nurse office.

“So you won’t punish her?” the boy asked, his voice was innocent and angelic unlike his darkened heart.

“No, I won’t,” the headmaster shook her head, her eyes awash with tears, “Why didn’t you tell this matter to someone else sooner?”

“Tell somebody? Who?” the boy retained his poker face. He was dying for that question to be asked and could not be happier when it was asked this early in the conversation. And yet, he hid his relish beneath his own emotionless face.

“Your class tutor or your parents. They could have prevent this.”

“Mrs. Nhung is currently on her maternity leave and my mom, she died three weeks ago,” the boy said without a hint of emotion on his face.

It took a while before that piece of information sunk in everyone’s head. The angry woman stood in shock. Her face was clouded with shame, pity and something else. Her stupid boy, his stupid mind did not even comprehend how deep in a shithole he was. The headmaster and the goddess had that same look on their face, pity.

This was the first time the boy used empathy as a sword. Until this day, he has only employed it as his shield, to protect himself and no more than that.

The headmaster ended the discussion without any warning and hugged the boy tightly within her arms. She sobbed quietly, her tears drenched the boy’s shoulders, “It’s fine,” and she carried the boy to the nurse office as everyone was watching.

Fearless stood and watched the entire scene. That boy’s face was emotionless through the entire time, not a sliver hint of sadness or pain. His face was the real drama inside this melodrama. How scary for a boy so young to be so calculating and devious. If that boy lived and grew up into a man, what kind of man would he be?

Later, when the headmaster returned to her office to deal with the problem at hand, “I will be back,” she said the same line that Arnold Schwarzenegger said in Terminator except that hers was more warm hearted and unbelievably kind. It made the boy felt bad for deceiving her.

His goddess also visited him. She snuck in the office when the nurse tried to chase away all the girls that came to look for him. It was an army of worried girls against a single fifty years old nurse, a very gritty and dreadful battle at the entrance of the nurse office.

“I thought that you did not know where the nurse office is?” the boy asked quietly to not notice the nurse of his goddess’ presence.

“I ask,” the goddess curtly replied, “I come to say thank you. You really save me back then.”

“You save me first. But it’s not like I need you to save me or anything,” the boy replied as his goddess infuriatedly scowled, “I’m Phúc. What’s your name?”

It was then the nurse noticed the tomboy goddess has snuck inside her office. She pulled her away.

“Alice,” the goddess told to the boy her name as she was being dragged away.

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The headmaster drove the boy home on her White Sedan. She thought of having a talk with the boy’s father but he was out on the street, probably drinking to kill his own grief again. The headmaster waited for a long time and eventually she made a call to the boy’s father but he did not pick up.

She asked the boy all sort of questions in the regard of his current life style. The boy, smart and devious as he was still but a boy, he was not wise enough to know what kind of question he should answer and what kind of question he should not. In the end, he just answered all the questions the headmaster asked him.

He has no other relative to take care of him. His father was always away from morning to night after his mother’s death. However, he always remembered to leave behind a five hundred thousand VND note on the dining table every day. Five hundred thousand VND was roughly around twenty USD after conversion, however, its monetary value was around a one hundred USD note in Vietnam. It was a little too much of a daily pocket money for any twelve year old boy in Vietnam.

The headmaster was horrified by the boy’s answer and he realized that. However, he wasn’t really understood what she was so horrified about. She asked him if he wanted to join her family for dinner and stayed at her home for the night while she would try to connect with his father. The boy declined, he just wanted to return to his room and waited for his father to return.

Hạ Đông, the kind lady who lived on the opposite side of the road immediately came over after seeing a strange woman who she has never seen before in the area talking with the boy. She has volunteered herself to take care of the boy after his mother’s death. She would ask him to come over her house to cook and do laundry for him every single day. After a quick introduction, Mrs. Hạ Đông thanked the headmaster for helping the boy at school as she hugged him inside her arms after discovering the wounds on his body.

After that, the boy went inside his empty house to change his cloth. Naturally, Fearless followed the boy. When the boy changed into his normal cloth, he grimaced as the fabric brushed against his wound. It was only now that the wounds and the bruises felt painful to him. His sight then fell upon the piano, the boy thought, maybe today, and opened the cover. His fingers hit the Do key, then Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti. It’s painful still. He can't play any song today as well. It’s painful. The boy closed the wooden cover and went to Mrs. Hạ Đông’s house.

When his mother was alive, Hạ Đông was just a kind woman who lived across the road. She was a widow, not that the boy understood what the word “widow” really meant until he grew up. Hạ Đông was honestly a strange name. Hạ was her surname, it meant summer. Đông was her given name, it meant winter. It was honestly a strange name.

Mrs. Hạ Đông was incredibly kind just as she was warm and soothing. When the boy cried at night, fearing the dark and the cold, he would run out of his house and knock on her door, asking if he could sleep with her and she always said yes. She would pull him to her full chest and kissed on his forehead, cuddled him within her arms until he slept.

The boy honestly thought Mrs. Hạ Đông possessed some sort of magical power. When she gave him a tight hug, he can feel all of his pain fading away. It’s also thank to Mrs. Hạ Đông that the boy knew that homemade cooking wasn’t really that hard to make. It’s just that his mother has a knack for making bad food.

Fearless smiled as he watched the boy snuggled within the arms of Mrs. Hạ Đông as he fell into sleep. Life then had seemed not as painful as the boy thought it would be.

Then, one day, the boy woke up on the bed, Mrs. Hạ Đông was nowhere to be seen. He jumped off the bed to search for her.

When he was down stair, he heard Mrs. Hạ Đông’s voice in the living room. She was calling for him, her voice was strangely full of pain.

Through the gap of the opened door, the boy watched Mrs. Hạ Đông sitting on her sofa, her body completely naked without a piece of fabric to cover. She sweated so much that her skin seemed to glisten under the golden glow of the living room’s chandeliers. Her left hand was busy groping her full breasts, pulling at her nipple, her right violently stabbing a strange object into her crotch. Her lips let slip sultry moans in the form of the boy’s name. Her eyes were tearful and unfocused. Her right hand did not stop no matter how much pain that strange object appeared to give her, it never stopped moving.

The boy instinctively understood that he was watching something he was not supposed to. And yet, he just stood, transfixed, staring at the object that smashed Mrs. Hạ Đông’s crotch and gave her so much pain. His crotch behave strangely to that scene, bulging as if it would sling out of his pajama, painful. This was the first time this happened to the boy, he was confused and scared, yet he kept on watching Mrs. Hạ Đông’s glistened figure as she moaned his name.

She slammed that object into her crotch with so much force and vigor as if her crotch was on fire, and water gushed out to douse that fire. But that did not stop Mrs. Hạ Đông from continuing. She breathed heavily as if the air was lost to her, “Fuck me,” she gasped, moaning the boy’s name, “Fuck me harder,” she moaned, pulling her full and bouncy breasts to her mouth, gobbling and chewing on her own nipples. That strange object smashed against Mrs. Hạ Đông’s crotch for one last time, harder than all the iterations before and a geyser violently squirted.

The boy lost control of his crotch and his pajama stained dark with a cloudy liquid as he was staring at Mrs. Hạ Đông’s body. He quickly escaped the scene, tiptoeing before he was discovered.

Since then, his relationship with Mrs. Hạ Đông became stiffened, more on his part than her part. Every time she pulled him into her chest as she always did, his crotch began to hurt badly, a rock hard bulge. He could not look at her in the face without remembering her naked and glistened body under the golden glow of the living room’s chandelier. He wanted to do the same thing she did to her own nipples, putting them inside his mouth to suck and chew on. That dark thought made him too embarrassed to look at her in the eyes.

Nevertheless, it was her rapture voice, her sexy moans, her lips that called his name as she used that long object to smash against her wet crotch that branded within his undeveloped mind. He could not get that sound out of his mind. His mother told him that he inherited a talent from his grandmother, the ability to capture every note and chord of any song he heard within his head and saved them.

That ability and his beautiful fingers which he inherited from her and his father made him a prodigious pianist, she said. He only need to practice, kept on practicing and in the end, without a doubt he would become a great pianist. Perhaps, he could become a greater pianist than anyone in the Bạch family ever did in the past. And yet, that special ability was used against his will to capture Mrs. Hạ Đông’s moaning voice. It drove him insane at times. Sometimes, he could even vividly hear Mrs. Hạ Đông’s moaning during classes and his crotch would immediately stiffen.

The boy would later discover that every single night after lulling him to sleep, Mrs. Hạ Đông would go down to the living room, got naked and plugged that strange thing into her crotch while moaning his name. She went through that routine every single night as he stood outside of the living room on the dark corridor, quietly watching her sweaty body in action and listening to her sexy moans. That routine lasted for months before Mrs. Hạ Đông discovered the boy’s presence while she was climaxing through sheer dumb luck.

She covered her naked body in a hurry, screaming at the boy, telling him not to look, telling him that it was a mistake, that it was not what it seemed as tears began to trail.

The boy did not think twice, hugged Mrs. Hạ Đông’s sweaty naked body, telling her that’s fine, that’s it was okay. She had nothing to be embarrassed of. He told her that this was not the first time he watched her doing this. He has watched her doing this for months.

Mrs. Hạ Đông wept openly, probably thinking that it was the end.

The boy told her that he had not tell it to anyone nor he had the intention to do so. He wanted to be with her, to be hugged by her, to feel her warmth as he slept next to her, enveloping in her aroma. He told her that she had done so much for him and yet he had done nothing for her. He begged her to allow him to do something for her in return.

“No,” she said, “I can’t corrupt you any further than this,” and wept shamefully.

The boy was at a loss of word. He was smart but as smart as he was, he did not know how to get through Mrs. Hạ Đông with words. He remembered her moans when she touched herself and when she played with her own nipples. He did the same, putting her left nipple into his mouth, sucking hard on it while using his fingers to pinch her right nipple.

“No,” she said, yet wrapping her arms around his head instead of pushing him away. The boy continued fiercely, fearing that if he ended it midway, he would never be able to hug her again. He sucked on her hardened nipple, biting and chewing on it whilst his fingers pinched her other nipple and clit the same way she did herself. He did it until she squirted all over him.

Then he cried like a baby, burrowing his head inside her rich and squishy breasts, sobbing, begging her not to abandon him. He kept on crying until she wrapped her arms around him very tightly, squeezing him against her chest.

After that, they had a small talk.

“This is not right. The society would condemn me for this”

“Where was that stupid thing you call society when I was hurt and afraid? You was there for me, not society. What right society have to prevent me from saving you from the pain in return?”

“Are you sure that you are twelve years old? You don’t sound like one.”

“I’m turning thirteen next week.”

Mrs. Hạ Đông laughed and their conversation ended just like that.

Since then, their relationship took a strange turn. Their relationship became more of lovers than surrogate mother and son.

Mrs. Hạ Đông was an excellent teacher. She taught the boy a thousand ways to set fire to a woman and a thousand ways to transform that aflame woman into a giant puddle and more. Nevertheless the boy proved that he was an excellent student, more than she could bargain for, and before long, she had nothing to teach him in the art of pleasure and bedding.

Every day, he could not wait for school to end to find himself inside Mrs. Hạ Đông’s tight hug, to taste her full lips and to suck the sweet nectar on her swollen nipples. Nobody has managed to discover their relationship even after a year. It was blissful.

Yet, that fateful day came when the mating song of the cicadas was the loudest. The boy returned from school to find the door of his lover’s house wide opened. He called for her, walking into her house as a sense of dread filled him. He quickly found her, lying on the floor of her living room inside a pool of blood. He called for her but she was barely breathing. She gave him one last smile, straddled her bloodied hand against his cheek as she said her last words, “This must be my punishment” and her eyes closed, never to open again.

Polices and media said that it was some robbers who had broken into Mrs. Hạ Đông’s house that killed her. But in the end, they never found the culprits, let alone catching them. Mrs. Hạ Đông’s house later became government’s property and was put on an auction.

The boy’s first love ended like that, neither a bittersweet nor a beautiful one.