STABLE BOY ; Trash of the Count's Family

18. TERRIBLE DAY OFF

Cale went out with Choi Han. Hans was taking care of the kittens. The knights were training, and all the other workers should be around today.

"You are going to spend today sightseeing."

South stared at Leon-sunbae. He was in the middle of cleaning one of the horse's hooves. He looked over and just blinked, slack-jawed and confused.

"...uh, seonbae," he began carefully, "I am... okay, I'll just stay in the stable tod—"

"No!" he raised his voice and South jumped.

South was so confused.

Leon repeated, "you worked all of yesterday, so rest and have fun today!" he said, and yes, that was an order for some reason, "go out into the town— ah, wear this."

He pushed a set of new clothes into South's hands.

"We went around yesterday, so if you tell people you're from the Henituse, so you should be safe from people looking for trouble," Then, pointing, "if you dare to come back before sundown, I'm going to buy you even more clothes."

"Why are you saying that like it's supposed to be a threat?!?" South was hysterical, punching at the door but the coachman already slammed it in his face. "And no! These clothes are too fancy, I'm not wearing them out into town, what if they get dirty?!"

"They're SUPPOSED to get dirty! That's the whole point of wearing clothes!" he stuck just his head out to emphasize with a finger jabbing at South. "Oh and I already told Hans this, so you can't go back to the inn either. There's pocket money in those pants, spend it. I'll feed any leftover money to the horses."

"What kind of insane gourmet dinner would that be?!"

South was left outside the stable, stranded just like that.

Did he just get forced into a day off?

-

"This coat is so long... it's all the way to my shins," South sighed, draping it over his shoulder. "Makes sense. It's a little above knee-length for Young Master-nim."

The collars were very high on this black jacket, light gold embroidery around the lapels, and not much else embellishing. The sleeve collars and inner coat was a wine red like Cale's hair.

"Here you go dear," the local innkeeper handed him a sewing kit. "Be sure to return it to our receptionist once you're done, alright?"

"Yes. Thanks, ma'am."

Since he wasn't allowed to go back to the stables, he decided to find something to do outside.

First thing on the agenda was making this coat wearable. The coat was actually rather modest for a noble— clearly, Hans packed this one because Cale preferred simple clothes to ornate ones— so South didn't need to alter it too much.

"Just mend the holes and chew marks left by Ponychael's teeth, trim the length, and probably sew more pockets in it..." he frowned, "it's a bit big. Maybe I can alter it to have a vent at the back... then I can wear it while on a horse too..."

He could do all of it today, since he didn't have to care for the horses.

Yep! Even if he was forced into a day off, he didn't know what to do on day-offs anyway. He was going to do some work where sunbae liked it or not!

-

"Dear, you can't sleep here!"

He jerked up when the innkeeper yelled at him.