Chapter 199. Tub (1)

Translator: Lili

It was late at night, after dinner had ended and preparations for bed were complete. With nothing pressing to do, Henriad was deliberating whether to get some sleep or to finally dig into why Shushu had returned earlier, a crying mess. Just then, he heard the sound of her door opening, followed by the faint creak of footsteps descending the stairs toward the kitchen.

‘Nightmare?’

Henriad dismissed the notion with little concern. But when a considerable amount of time passed without her coming back upstairs, he got up from his seat.

At the foot of the stairs, he still expected to find Shushu quietly sipping on warm milk or perhaps stifling her sobs.

“…”

That expectation was promptly shattered the moment he stepped into the living room. He was at a loss for words as he took in the scene before him.

It wasn’t milk. The familiar yet unmistakably strange scent in the air made that clear. Sitting curled up on the sofa, Shushu held a mug filled with something entirely different.

Henriad’s eyes moved silently to the bottles on the tea table. Among them was a bottle he distinctly remembered buying earlier today—a high-quality apple cider. Beside it sat a wine bottle, presumably from the house’s existing stock.

“What the hell are you doing at this hour?”

He let out a long sigh, his expression unusually unsettled.

“Just…”

Shushu murmured, shrinking into herself. Her bare feet were tucked neatly under her on the sofa. Henriad briefly glanced at the discarded slippers nearby before returning his gaze to her.

“Someone said… if you’re really going through something tough, drinking… a lot of alcohol… makes you feel better…”

‘Who had told her that?’

Shushu squinted, trying to recall, but Henriad wasn’t particularly interested in the answer. He didn’t need to know. In a place like Augwell, finding someone who didn’t preach the merits of alcohol was probably harder than finding a politician who’d never told a lie.

Before Shushu could raise her mug to her lips again, Henriad snatched it from her hands. A cute little white mug decorated with a bluebird, now filled with wine instead of juice—both the mug and the wine deserved better than this unfortunate pairing.

“So you drank all of this by yourself?”

In response, Shushu gave a couple of weak nods and ran a hand through her hair. The headache she hadn’t noticed while drinking was now catching up with her.

— If it hurts so much, don’t drink in the first place.

But Shushu, embracing the logic of a true alcoholic, reached out toward the tea table again, convinced that drinking more would somehow make her head hurt less. Her clumsy hands slipped, and the wine spilled down her chin and all over her pajamas.

“Haah…”

A soft, “oh no” escaped from Shushu’s lips as she panicked. Her night clothes were quickly drenched in wine.

‘I’m going to lose my mind.’

Henriad looked down at the now thoroughly disheveled Shushu with an exasperated expression. But it wasn’t over yet. Her weakened grip caused the wine bottle to slip from her hands, landing with a dull thud on the carpet. The house was immediately filled with the pungent aroma of spilled wine. Henriad tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling, and let out another long sigh. It had been a long time since he’d dealt with such an exasperating end to a day.

“Get up.”

“Ugh…”

Henriad approached and shook her gently. The alcohol reek was even stronger up close. A quick glance at the floor confirmed his suspicions: the bottles on the table weren’t the only ones she’d emptied. Judging by the mess, she’d also polished off the cooking apple cider.

Pushing the empty bottles aside with his foot, he picked up her slippers. But upon seeing her struggle to even sit up properly, he threw them back down in frustration. What use were slippers for someone who couldn’t even walk?

“If you’re going to sleep, wash up first.”

“I… don’t wanna…”

“You don’t want to? Looking like a drowned rat that fell into a winery, you’re refusing to bathe? Did I hear that right?”

Shushu, clutching her aching head, brushed off his hand as she reached once again for the empty bottles scattered on the floor.

“Why isn’t there… any more…”

Watching her muttering to herself as she hugged the empty bottle, Henriad pressed a hand to his forehead. It was a sight to behold. Shushu, hiccupping and curling into herself on the sofa, looked like nothing more than a pet who had wrecked the house while its owner was away.

“Suddenly… I feel… so sleepy…”

Even under Henriad’s sharp gaze, Shushu’s eyes drooped shut as she murmured. Henriad clicked his tongue several times but stopped himself. If he could, he would’ve cast a spell to lift her into the air, douse her with water, and shake her dry. But doing such magic right in front of her wasn’t an option.

Henriad, deciding against coaxing the half-asleep Shushu into washing up, slid his hands under her arms and effortlessly lifted her. Without hesitation, he carried her straight to the bathroom and laid her in the tub. Removing her soiled pajamas, he tossed them into a laundry basket in the corner. Shushu whimpered, curling up from the chill.

Naked and covered head to toe in spilled wine, Shushu looked just as Henriad had described earlier—like someone who had fallen into a wine vat. Her long hair was sticky and matted with wine, making her look even more of a mess.

Her soft, pale body lay curled in the tub, a composition of gentle curves. Henriad looked down at her, but instead of inappropriate thoughts, a much more mundane question filled his mind.

‘How am I supposed to wash her?’

Henriad had done laundry plenty of times, but he had never ‘washed’ a person. Specifically, he had never washed someone with water and soap in a proper bath. His only experience with bathing came from a story he’d heard about mice cleaning themselves in sand. Taking that advice literally, he had once rolled pet mice in sand to ‘clean’ them.

After a moment of thought, he decided to proceed as if he were washing laundry.

***