MCDWTBS Chapter 25
by VolareHe almost wanted to melt into Edwin’s arms immediately, turning into a small insect pancake. He wanted to press his soft, chubby apple cheeks against Edwin’s chest, wanted to curl up and fall asleep there, and secretly hold each of Edwin’s fingers with his male insectoid tendrils.
The male insectoid’s caramel-colored eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness, as if rippling with water, but he still lowered his eyes, listlessly betraying his own unworthy will.
He didn’t return Edwin’s embrace, only letting Edwin hold him tightly.
No matter how enthusiastically and intimately the insectoid’s tendrils pressed against him, the insectoid was like a soft, glutinous rice cake, with little reaction. His fluffy head drooped low, and Edwin’s heart suddenly sank.
He knew that what he was doing was extremely disrespectful. If Sison were still here, he would definitely glare at him with severe eyes for offending the young male master, but Edwin was still unwilling to let go. The male insectoid tendrils around him crowded and jostled each other, almost wrapping Edwin from head to toe.
Serra felt a little embarrassed and annoyed. He quietly stretched out his little chubby hand, pulled back a few tendrils, and held them in his arms, to prevent them from endlessly harassing Edwin.
“Young Male Master.”
Edwin waited in vain for the insectoid’s fervent embrace. The male insectoid in his arms had his back to him, his chubby figure very stubborn, making Edwin’s fingers turn cold.
He should let go. If the young male master no longer requested—no longer wished Edwin to touch him, if the young male master felt disgusted and ashamed by Edwin’s actions, then Edwin should not further offend the young male master. This was an unforgivable crime, and if the young male master were not so merciful, Edwin would be sentenced to death for it.
“I was wrong. I betrayed my promise to you. I caused a lot of trouble for you and the Duke’s Mansion. Please… please punish me,” Edwin’s voice trembled slightly, and that made Serra’s exhausted heart ache even more.
“Male parent, you did nothing wrong. Don’t say that.”
Serra raised his little fleshy hand, wanting to pat the back of Edwin’s hand as he used to, but he hesitated again. He wasn’t sure if what he was doing was with Edwin’s permission. His presumptuous intimacy, his “love” and “expectations” of Edwin, he wasn’t sure if that was what Edwin wanted.
It clearly wasn’t, otherwise Edwin wouldn’t have chosen to die so resolutely every time. Just like the things he didn’t care about, just like the things he had no attachment to.
Originally, Edwin didn’t understand these things either. The “love” theories that Earth humans were obsessed with, the concepts and pursuits of another civilization on the distant blue planet, these were always unilaterally imposed on Edwin by him, and obviously, this made Edwin even more painful and confused.
Serra still remembered that on that bloody and cruel celebration, Edwin’s pair of wings burning with the flames of revenge took him into the air, incinerating everything with the hellfire of hell. He was so dazzling, so resolute, but the look in his eyes as he looked at Serra was so painful and sad.
In order to protect Serra’s reputation, which he didn’t even care about himself, Edwin publicly admitted that he was a “blasphemer,” a heavy and lowly crime. In the insectoid’s monotheistic society, it was a crime that no insectoid could forgive or tolerate.
Serra clearly knew how reverently Edwin looked up to the Insectoid Mother, looked up to his only, supreme mother goddess. Even Serra couldn’t say anything bad about the Insectoid Mother in front of Edwin.
Now Edwin took this blasphemous crime upon himself, only because he felt guilty and confused about Serra. The kindness and love that Serra had imposed on him didn’t make his life easier, but rather like a new shackle, making Edwin bear an even heavier burden.
And all of this was a scene that Serra wanted to escape from even in his nightmares.
This wasn’t what Edwin wanted. His embrace wasn’t, his presumptuous love wasn’t, and the “male parent” title that he had imposed on Edwin wasn’t either.
“Male parent, listen to me. You’re not wrong, you’ve never been wrong. What’s wrong is the power-hungry and cruel church, what’s wrong is the royal family who have no insectoids in their eyes, what’s wrong is this society that has continued its deformity and cruelty for thousands of years.”
The male insectoid paused. His short, chubby hands curled up, forcibly suppressing the impulse to put his fat paws into Edwin’s palm, enduring until his fat belly trembled for a moment.
“What’s wrong is me. If I could be stronger, if I had prepared more, if I knew more—more about Marshal Ax, I wouldn’t have put you in a dangerous situation.”
The male insectoid used his fat paws to grab his swaying tendrils, hugging them tightly in his arms. Tears welled up in his caramel-colored eyes, and his gaze trembled slightly. His chubby body also trembled with exhaustion and remorse, but he pretended to be nonchalant and refused to turn around. The young insectoid’s short, chubby shoulders bore all the weight alone, almost tearing Edwin’s heart apart in an instant.
How could he do this to the young male master? How could he hurt an insectoid child’s heart like this!
“Young Male Master, don’t say that. You’ve saved me so many times. There’s nothing I can do for you. I always—all the insectoids I care about will, will leave me. I’ve never been useful.”
The black tendrils wrapped around Edwin clung to him affectionately, but the male insectoid in Edwin’s arms didn’t move. Edwin’s gaze almost shattered. He prayed in his heart that the male insectoid would turn around and throw himself into his arms as he had before, but the male insectoid didn’t.
“…I’ve always been causing trouble for the Young Male Master. I beg—I beg the Young Male Master to punish me. I won’t, won’t do anything to embarrass the Young Male Master again. I’ll listen to the Young Male Master. I’ll be a qualified male parent. I—”
“Male parent, there’s no need to be like this.”
The male insectoid gently pushed away Edwin’s arms with his tendrils. He seemed to hide in the darkness, leaving Edwin kneeling on the spot in panic and bewilderment, with a few strands of black tendrils that wouldn’t listen to Serra’s commands wrapped around him.
“You don’t need to listen to me, and you don’t need to be a qualified male parent. Every word I just said to you came from the bottom of my heart—it was my fault.”
Edwin’s eyes widened, and a bright and helpless tear slid from the corner of his eye. His throat squeezed out a sob like a suffocating prey, which almost made Serra waver.
More tendrils disobeyed Serra’s will, swaggering and enveloping Edwin, wrapping around Edwin, but he could only see Serra.
“I am a male insectoid who lost his male parent and also suffers from a disability. Most of the time, I am confined to this fleeting place in the vast Duke’s Mansion. My male father has been using aphrodisiacs and mental energy enhancement drugs for many years, and his body has long collapsed. Therefore, he is sensitive and avoids the world, and he didn’t let me go to the male insectoid school, nor did he hire a tutor for me.”
“My learning and life are all completed in this suite. The church’s textbooks teach me to hate and be wary of female insectoids and Sub-male insectoids, and I have done everything, but I am still very painful.”
“Until I had a serious illness and thought I was going to return to the Insectoid Mother’s embrace, you appeared by my side. I developed a strong selfishness. I wanted to have a male parent who would love me and care about me.”
“But I never thought about whether you would be willing to be my, a disabled male insectoid’s male parent, after so much torment from male insectoids was inflicted on you, after male insectoids took away everything you cherished, I still want to plunder love from you. This is my fault.”
The male insectoid lowered his head deeply. Although his words were half true and half false, his emotions were not faked at all. Serra didn’t know how Serra’s original body, as a disabled but privileged male insectoid cub, lived, but from the moment he became Serra, he had actually been approaching Edwin purposefully.
The system’s mission, of course, was the beginning of everything. That unreliable system issued a mission that seemed to be able to be completed without using his brain, stimulating an obedient female insectoid to awaken and resist, allowing Serra to rely on Edwin using his cub identity. Because of his loneliness and emptiness in another world, he seemed to be a little chick with a chick complex, treating “saving Edwin” and “establishing an emotional connection with Edwin” as his meaning in another world.
He used “love” to crowd out Edwin’s already small living space, and demanded the same return from Edwin, hoping that Edwin would care about him as much as he cared about Edwin.
But was this fair? When all Edwin had was pain that he couldn’t let go of, a life as an insectoid full of scars, he still had to squeeze a trace of “love” out of Edwin. But that poor female insectoid didn’t even know what “love” was.
He didn’t understand anything, and he had no obligation to return Serra’s “love.” He didn’t have to pay for Serra’s coquetry and intimacy with something he didn’t understand, and he didn’t have to give up the past and have the idea of living well because of a strange male insectoid cub.
“It’s okay, male parent.” The male insectoid sniffed, pulled over the unwilling black tendrils, and wiped the unknown liquid on his little fat face—he hated this cub body to death, his abilities were poor and his tear ducts were shallow, especially when he was by Edwin’s side, it didn’t leave him any dignity at all.
“I figured it out, you don’t need to do anything for me, just… just live well, okay? I know I look unreliable, but I will… wuu… I will make your body better, I will change all of this.”
The male insectoid’s fragile throat couldn’t help but squeeze out a sob. The insectoid, who had lost all face, stomped his feet anxiously, pulling his tendrils that were stuck to Edwin and running out “deng deng deng.” The tears that had been suppressed for a long time gushed out, like two small fountains, looking pitiful and ridiculous.
His black tendrils lingered around Edwin affectionately, drilling straight into Edwin’s arms. Edwin opened his arms, wanting to protect them, but Serra finally remembered how to retract his male insectoid tendrils. Those tendrils that were intimately wrapped around Edwin’s fingers suddenly disappeared, leaving Edwin’s body and heart suddenly empty.
“…Young Male Master…”
The sensory door closed instantly, and Edwin’s voice was swallowed. The temperature-controlled room was suddenly so empty that it made his heart panic, and the darkness pressed down in layers.
Edwin realized for the first time what loneliness felt like. He was stunned for a long time before crawling back into the medical bay, curling up as if he were a little afraid of the cold.
Even now, he didn’t understand why the male insectoid was crying so sadly, why it was clearly his fault, but the male insectoid didn’t blame him at all, but instead said some things that he couldn’t understand, but made his heart ache. The female insectoid stared blankly at the void until her eyeballs were so cold that they seemed to be frozen. Only then did he slowly close his eyes and put his arms around his empty chest.
There used to be a warm insectoid cub here, burying his chubby little face in his chest and sleeping soundly.
But now there was nothing here.
Edwin suddenly felt a burst of unprovoked fear blocking his nasal cavity. He stiffened blankly, waiting for the emotion that made his heart ache to pass, but it lingered.
Until a familiar, sneaky black tendril poked its head out from the edge of the medical bay, and finally carefully crawled along the edge of the blanket, lying next to the black-haired female insectoid’s hand.
It cautiously “looked around” for a while before slowly approaching the cuff of the female insectoid’s sleeve along the edge of the blanket. After a while, that fat-headed snake-like black tendril was already wrapped around the female insectoid’s wrist in a blatant manner, and the round tip was pressed against the female insectoid’s bulging chest.
Sticking to the female insectoid’s silently rising and falling chest, it finally became honest, pretending that it didn’t exist. The female insectoid in “sleep” gently opened her eyes, looking tenderly at the tendrils sticking to his chest, allowing the emotions that had been suffocating his chest to recede like a tide.
He gently shook his wrist, causing the “alert” fat-headed tendrils to immediately play dead, quietly leaning towards the edge of the blanket, but still lingering on his chest, as pitiful as a puppy that hadn’t had enough milk. Edwin closed his eyes, pretending to unconsciously grasp the fat tendrils in his sleep. After a few breaths, the fat tendrils happily “melted” into Edwin’s chest, no different from the cub who liked to spread out into a small insect pancake on his chest.
Edwin’s heart settled down. He closed his eyes and fell asleep peacefully for the first time today.
*
In the work room separated by a wall, the male insectoid slumped dejectedly on one side of the wall, his eyes swollen into peaches, and wiped away tears with one of his tendrils in a miserable manner.
He was still worried about Edwin. The insectoid race didn’t have the concept of a patient being accompanied by a bed at all. Sison returned to his residence after sunset, leaving Edwin alone in the medical bay to rest—this was an unimaginable preferential treatment for the female insectoid, but how could Serra rest assured?
He, the insectoid, had left, telling himself to restrain himself, not to demand things that Edwin couldn’t understand, and that it was enough to protect Edwin well. But his soul still remained by Edwin’s side, and his mental energy had been restless in the void.
Serra had discovered that when it came to his emotional problems, or more specifically, when it came to Edwin, his mental energy didn’t listen at all and had its own ideas. Serra fought against his desires like a brave warrior for two minutes, and the fat insectoid was defeated. A lucky tendril that stood out from its peers crossed dimensions and approached Edwin sneakily.
Edwin’s body was fine, just a little weak.
Listening to the feedback from the tendrils, the fat insectoid sniffed and began to fantasize that the small pancake lying in Edwin’s arms instead of the tendrils was himself. The system happened to come out to make trouble at this time:
“Host, can you sleep? I can’t sleep.”
The system’s girlish voice was gloomy, and it seemed very eerie in the dark night.