Villainess is being pampered by her beast husbands
Chapter 45 --45 Another trauma.

Chapter 45: Chapter-45 Another trauma.

Kaya had come to realize something troubling: she didn’t recognize most of the fruits or edible plants in this forest. Everything either looked poisonous, too colorful to trust, or had spikes. The kind that whispered eat me and die painfully.

All this walking, searching, and foraging was draining her energy fast. For a moment, she even considered hunting—maybe a rabbit or a squirrel. Something small and fast.

But then her gaze drifted to Cutie.

Specifically, his ears.

Long. Soft. Twitchy.

Rabbit ears.

The image that popped into her head was so vivid it made her freeze—her, skinning a rabbit, setting it over the fire... and suddenly watching it morph mid-roast into a horrified man with half-charred fur and betrayal in his eyes.

She blinked that thought away with a shudder.

Nope. Not doing that.

Sure, in the military, they’d been trained for survival in brutal conditions—eating things most normal humans wouldn’t dare touch. Bugs. Tree bark. Some things that technically moved when bitten. But none of those lessons ever covered, "What to do when your dinner might turn into a man."

And as far as Kaya was concerned, anything that walked on two legs, talked, or looked at her like it had taxes to file... wasn’t going on her menu.

End of discussion.

So, like any normal human being with a scrap of sanity left, Kaya turned to Cutie and asked the most logical question she could think of:

"Do the fish in this river... also turn into humans? Like, are they beastmen too?"

She was genuinely serious. After all, if rabbits and squirrels could suddenly sprout human forms with dreamy faces and shiny hair, what was stopping the damn fish?

But Cutie?

He laughed.

He actually laughed. Not a chuckle. Not a polite giggle. A full, snorting laugh like she had told the world’s best joke.

"Wait—are you serious?" he asked between laughs. "Fish? Turning into beastmen? That’s... that’s ridiculous!"

Kaya just stood there, jaw slightly clenched, watching him like a predator calculating which bone to break first.

Oh, she wanted to strangle him. Really. Badly. The audacity of this rabbit-eared beauty to laugh at her question—her, who had seen actual squirrels morph into six-foot men with tragic backstories and sparkly eyes.

It was peak hypocrisy.

"Right," she muttered dryly. "Because rabbits turning into pretty boys makes so much more sense."

Still, at least she got her answer. The fish were just fish. Not beastmen. Not shapeshifters. Just wide-eyed, slippery protein.

A practical relief.

With that cleared up, she started considering her next steps. There was no way she could catch a five-kilo fish, wrap it in a leaf, and drag it through the woods like some wild forager with a sushi addiction. She needed something she could carry—clean, dry, and light.

So, Kaya began planning. Maybe she could smoke the meat over low heat, preserve it, or dry it into jerky. Or maybe even use the crab shells or fish bones to make containers or tools.

She wasn’t sure yet. But one thing she did know?

She was not, under any circumstances, getting mocked again by a rabbit who didn’t know the trauma of nearly cooking someone who could talk back.

The sparrow, who had been casually observing everything from a nearby branch, was completely and utterly dumbfounded.

[No, he is not flying; he is just being tied there now. Upside down like a bat]

This... this insane woman—this foul-mouthed, violent creature who always looked one bad mood away from roasting him alive—what was she doing now? Was she seriously about to stew him?

With a crab?

That ugly, muddy, two-pawed dirt monster??

A shiver ran down his delicate feathers.

No. No, no, no. Ille nako. Never. He refused to die like this—especially not stewed alongside a crustacean with zero elegance and algae breath. He was far too radiant, too breathtaking, too divine to share a pot with such filth.

He started trembling. Not out of cold, but sheer horror.

What if she threw them in together? What if he became... soup?

But Kaya, entirely oblivious to the dramatic internal meltdown happening in the branches above, was focused on her catch. She held the crab by its claws, eyeing it with a mixture of irritation and practicality.

Then, in one swift motion, she tossed it toward a dry patch of grass she’d laid out like a makeshift prep area.

Only... maybe she was too tired. Or maybe her aim just sucked.

Because instead of landing on the grass—

SMACK.

The crab landed right on Cutie’s fluffy, sensitive ear.

"Huh?!" Cutie blinked, reaching up in confusion. His ears twitched as he turned toward Kaya, his face a perfect picture of disbelief and betrayal.

Kaya also froze, her eyes flicking from the crab to his ear... then to his face.

They both stared at each other for a beat of awkward silence.

Then—

"HUUUHHH!?"

Cutie’s yell echoed through the trees like a startled cat discovering a cucumber.

"W–Wait! Stop jumping around!" Kaya shouted, half confused, half annoyed, as she chased after him, the dry grass crunching under her feet.

"Nooo! Get it off! Get it off!" Cutie yelped, hopping in circles like his tail was on fire, flailing his arms as the crab’s claw dangled stubbornly from his ear.

Kaya narrowed her eyes, breath huffing. "For heaven’s sake, hold still! It’s just a crab!

And from that day on, another trauma etched itself into Cutie’s mind—

The trauma of crabs.

🐟 Little Theatre: The Origin of Cutie’s Fish Trauma 🐰

Long ago, back when Cutie was just a tiny bun—round-cheeked, big-eyed, and barely tall enough to peek over the riverbank—he followed his father on one of his early morning fishing trips.

His ears fluttered with every breeze, and his tiny hands were clutched around a half-eaten carrot as he hopped along behind him.

His father, a calm and sturdy beastman with weathered hands and patient eyes, cast the net into the rushing water with practiced grace.

Cutie sat a little distance away, his legs swinging over the river’s edge, watching the shimmering water ripple in golden hues of morning light.

"Stay back, Cutie," his father had warned, chuckling softly. "Don’t get too close to the fish. They’re slippery and rude."

Cutie nodded seriously, but his wide eyes were full of curiosity and wonder. He’d never seen so many living creatures at once—glimmering scales of red, blue, and silver flipping and flapping in the shallows where the caught ones were thrown.

And then he saw it—

A particularly bright, almost rainbow-colored fish. It lay among the others, still flopping slightly, its mouth opening and closing like it was trying to speak.

Cutie leaned in.

One tiny hand reached out.

His fluffy ear swayed a little too close.

SNAP.

The fish jumped.

It didn’t just hit him. It bit him.

Right on his soft, velvety ear.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

His shriek shook the riverbank. Birds flew from trees. His carrot fell into the water, forgotten.

His father ran over, both confused and trying not to laugh, as Cutie clutched his poor bitten ear and wailed in betrayal.

From that day forward—no matter how small or dead or fried—fish were the enemy.

Even now, years later, the mere mention of fish made his ears twitch and his soul slightly leave his body.

And so was born...

The Great Fish Trauma of Cutie.