“Um, Hero. That is......”
I finally found Ren.
Like a ghost whose self had been stolen, like an evil spirit he had once seen, Temar felt as though someone else was controlling his body.
It had started after his private audience with Ragniel.
‘So, Temar, do not search for Ren. That is the last advice I can give you.’
Even after hearing those words, he could not search for Ren.
He decided to swallow his memories and forget Ren’s appearance. But how could he forget his one and only younger brother? Temar, he, had only now begun to truly see Ren...... The yellow light mixed into those beautiful green eyes, the corners of his eyes that rose when he was angry, his thin cheeks after losing weight, and the fact that his bright blond hair was more dazzling than sunlight and looked as sweet as melted honey—Temar had only now noticed all of it.
The fact that his voice, Ren’s voice calling Temar, had been clear as a stream, soft as a spring breeze, and sweet as the ripest fruit in summer.
The looks and actions he gave Temar, the eyes that curved when he was happy to see him, the childish gestures with which he pouted and begged him to look at him. The fact that he had never properly accepted any of those things.
If he were given another chance.
But even that assumption must be a selfish wish.
‘So, Temar, do not search for Ren. That is the last advice I can give you.’
If Temar searched for Ren, Ragniel would have no choice but to move as well. He would insist on finding the final star who had not appeared yet. Ren. Then that child would be trapped in the royal castle and spend his entire life sacrificing himself for the king. That was not what Temar wanted. One person—himself—was enough loyalty to offer the kingdom, to Ragniel. He did not wish that upon Ren.
Ren was the reason Temar lived.
He wanted him to live freely. He wanted him to live without being bound by anything.
Temar knew what happened to poor children who grew up without parents, and what happened to them on battlefields. Temar had also learned early what children with exceptional appearances went through.
To protect his poor, young, beautiful younger brother who had lost their parents, he needed great honor.
That was why he had left Ren. To protect him.
That was why Ren absolutely had to be there in the place he would return to.
That was Temar’s life.
Leaving in order to protect him, and returning to the place where his younger brother was.
Leaving, and “returning.”
That was Temar’s life.
It was his fault. He should have hidden Ren away tightly. Or else, he should never have entertained the thought that he might even abandon the king. Or no, had becoming a Hero been the mistake?
The inside of Temar, who had carried out his mission without even an inch of doubt, began to collapse.
How could a Hero who had lost his mission be called honorable?
Ren had said he hated such things.
Temar decided not to think. He could not reach any conclusion. No matter what regret he had, Temar could not go find Ren.
But Temar could not endure Ren’s absence. So he had no choice but to forget him cleanly.
He forgot cleanly, but the moment he saw blond hair, Temar moved as though possessed.
While everything blurred so much that he could not remember what state of mind he had been in or what he had done, Temar, who had been moving like a machine of the royal castle, finally seemed to regain his own will.
Temar, who had spent an entire season moving while clad only in authority, loosened his strength and looked at the boy.
Would he be hurt if touched? Would he break if held too tightly? Calming that nervous heart, Temar reached out to Ren and grasped his blond hair. Savoring the beautiful color breaking apart beneath the sunlight, he looked at Ren.
“Hero, that is......”
A voice that did not know what to do. Yes, this voice was Ren’s.
“Ren.”
Temar lowered his head and pressed his forehead to the boy’s forehead. His face, ripened under the summer sun, was only hot.
“Ren, do you have a fever? Why didn’t you tell me? Hm?”
Temar barely suppressed the anger rising up, hid the boiling inside him, and asked tenderly.
How could he be this foolish?
Does he like me that much, my younger brother?
To think he came all this long way with that frail body, following his older brother.
Where in the world could there be such a proud and beloved younger brother?
Ren, my younger brother.
My lovely younger brother, whom I could put in my eye and still not feel pain.
“Th-that is......”
“I won’t scold you anymore.”
Temar’s manner of speaking was softer than anything.
Seeing his younger brother watching his mood made his heart ache. Perhaps he was the one who had driven him to this point. He had only tried so that people would not say Ren was an orphan without parents, and therefore had no manners. Yet he had made Ren shrink back. What did that matter? A child could lack manners, so why had he only ever pressured him? He should have listened to his younger brother a little. He should have hugged him instead of scolding him.
But had his younger brother not grown up so wonderfully like this?
How had he understood his older brother’s heart, understood that he had suppressed the feeling of wanting to see him as though swallowing poison, and followed him down such a harsh road?
In the end, tears seeped into Temar’s dark brown eyes.
Eyes more humid than the summer air stared persistently at the boy before him. Without blinking even once, as though he would gaze at him forever.
“I didn’t know that the time when I could not see you was this painful.”
I imagined you in the shack, imagined you safely making food for yourself, roaming the back mountain, getting along with the villagers. I imagined you laughing and talking, staying comfortably in that old but cozy house.
Even while taking the breaths of people I had never seen before, even while running across battlefields as they called me a monster, this older brother thought only of you, Ren. I endured by imagining you shining like a lighthouse, smiling brightly when you saw me, running to me at any time while calling me your brother.
I remember nothing about the time in the war. The opening of the Seven-Year War, when I first felt the fear of “death,” my dead friend and comrade, the star who left first. While burying that death in my heart, I was afraid. I did not want you to know a world like this. Me, stained with blood, and you, knowing nothing. How could the two of us have been together?
I had only thought of raising you and making you independent.
I once even thought that I would dare not see you.
I will apologize for all of those things, Ren.
My younger brother.
For this older brother’s arrogant thought that he could dare not see you, and for who I was then, unable to understand your heart when you cried out for me to stay with you.
“Forgive me, Ren. I’ll do my best.”
The apology that could not reach faded beneath the sun.
And the young man held by Temar could not bring himself to open his mouth.
The knights and soldiers watching them had no choice but to keep their mouths shut as well.
The desperate emotions seeping between each of Temar’s brief words stopped them from speaking.
Silence continued for a long while.
While Luman froze white, Geloman approached Temar and peeled away his hand, which was still gripping the soldier’s hair. Temar obediently stepped back, even personally placing the helmet back on him.
Temar moved back to the front as though nothing had happened.
Only a silence as quiet as a funeral flowed through the procession of victors heading to the kingdom.
***
The Forest of Aked.
Even though it received the blazing midsummer sun in full, the forest’s temperature was cool.
The hot air seemed to scatter without staying long.
A man passing far around the forest raised his eyebrows.
“What the...... How can there be that many people?”
He was someone heading up to the capital with only one bundle to find work. He did not even want to go anywhere near the Forest of Aked, where ominous and mysterious rumors spread, and which seemed suspicious no matter how one looked at it. But because going around the Forest of Aked was the fastest way to reach the capital, the man was circling around the forest with tears in his eyes.
But what is that?
That many people are going into the forest?
The man stared blankly at the sight in confusion, then flinched and lowered his head.
It really is no ordinary forest!
There are that many people who want to hide their tracks? The way they were wrapped in black robes was suspicious beyond measure. Then again! Among those who went to the Forest of Aked, were there any who were not suspicious?
But that was not the only strange thing.
Usually, people being chased were shabby in appearance and had an indescribable atmosphere all their own.
The group just now, rather than that......
By the time the man carefully raised his head, every last one of the people loitering around the forest had disappeared.
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