The air in the tightly sealed study was heavy enough to feel crushing. Till focused all his senses on the single sound of your shoe soles crossing the threshold of the dressing room and stepping onto the carpet. Even the sound of the stream of black tea falling from the spout of the cold porcelain teapot to fill the cup sounded to him like a scream sharply striking his ears.

To maintain the framework of the perfect servant granted by his master, Till forcibly suppressed the breath surging violently deep in his chest. The knuckles of his hands, encased in perfectly arranged white gloves, trembled minutely. Holding the saucer with those hands and approaching beneath your chin was, for him, like walking on the edge of a cliff at every moment.

The moment the hem of your long garment brushed against the end of his trousers, an unbearable chill and a strange heat surged beneath his skin all at once. He wanted to throw away this cold dignity right now, smash the teacup, and pour out his heart scattered like those fragments.

The desire to bury his face in the nape of your neck and lock you away entirely—not with loyalty, but with terrible arrogance and obsession—filled him to the chin, choking his breath. The emotions contained in the sturdy glass jar of taboo were already sloshing precariously like a water level on the verge of overflowing. A single drop of further stimulation would shatter this silence into pieces.

Till lowered his long eyelashes, hiding the cold beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Master... here is the tea you requested."

The voice that broke the silence was neat on the surface, but the tail end of that low resonance was deeply permeated with the cracks of an uncontrollable boundary. Till bowed his head deeply, looking down only at the tips of your shoes, swaying mercilessly between a bottomless fear and an alluring impulse, not knowing when this thread of reason he held would snap and consume you.