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Kesh presses his palm flat against his mouth to try to stifle the sobs.
He’s hiding in one of Master’s closets, wedged into a corner behind coats and shoes and cardboard boxes full of who-knows-what. It’s not a good hiding spot, but it’s the best one he’s been able to find in his week and a half here. Master’s apartment is so much smaller than Kesh’s former master’s mansion. Usually, Kesh doesn’t mind it — likes it, even. It’s cozy, and there aren’t any rooms that are used so infrequently that being forgotten when you were tied up in them was a very real and worrisome possibility.
But the lack of good hiding spots is terrible.
The front door opens and Kesh presses his hand against his mouth harder.
“Kesh?” That’s his master, home from the university. He’ll be confused — he sounds confused already. Kesh is normally waiting for him with dinner ready, now that he’s worked out when his master usually gets home and the kinds of meals he likes to eat.
Kesh isn’t waiting for him with dinner today, though. Because Kesh burned dinner.
Wasting food is one of the worst things a slave can do. Kesh knows this intimately. And if he can’t be trusted to cook — if he can’t be trusted even to make a simple recipe like taradok buns — then of course he won’t be able to be trusted with Master’s manuscripts. Master will realize that Kesh is nothing more than a stupid, lazy slut who can’t do anything other than take a cock and cry pretty, and Master will stop teaching Kesh to read, and stop treating Kesh like a person, and everything that’s been so nice about this place will fall apart —
Kesh sobs, too loud, too loud! He gasps and shoves his knuckles into his mouth but it’s too late. The closet door is opening and Master is standing over him, looking down, a deep frown on his face.
“Kesh? What are you doing in here?”
Kesh hurls himself out of the closet and into a kneeling bow at Master’s feet.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Master, I — I mean, this stupid slave burned your dinner, it wasted your food, it wasted your food, and you should punish it, please punish this slave, Master, this worthless slave is so sorry, it’s so sorry, please, Master, please —“
“Kesh,” Master says sharply, and Kesh falls silent, chest heaving with desperate gasps. Any minute now, Master is going to grab him and beat him, or pull him to his knees and remind him of his place, or — or —
Master lays a warm hand on Kesh’s head and Kesh whines with fear, but Master doesn’t pull his hair, or grind his face into the floor.
“You’re alright,” Master is saying quietly. “You’re alright, Kesh, I’m not mad. It was an honest mistake. I’m not going to punish you.”
“B-but you — you have to punish me, Master,” Kesh pleads. “I was bad, please —“
“If you insist on a punishment,” Master says, and Kesh nearly sobs with relief. “Then go and sit in the corner while I make us dinner. Perhaps — yes, you can think about what you’ve done. Will that be sufficient?”
Kesh nods frantically, hardly believing his luck. “Yes, Master. Thank you — thank you, Master.”
“Off you go, then,” Master says, and Kesh makes a beeline for one corner of the room, crawling on his hands and knees so he doesn’t have to waste time with standing up. Once he gets there, he folds his legs beneath him and presses his nose into the crack where the two walls meet.
By the time dinner is actually ready, Kesh feels much calmer. When Master calls him to the table, he stands and walks over and sits down on the small chair Master keeps just for him, across from Master’s place.
“Better now?” Master asks, and looks pleased when Kesh nods. “Then let’s eat.”
Kesh thinks, as he digs into the noodles in front of him, that he must have the best master in the world.