The fight had ended in Ren’s overwhelming victory. Luman quietly nodded to himself and swallowed down a satisfied smile. No matter how much of a Hero you were, wasn’t it better for someone you cared about to come back after hitting the other guy rather than getting hit himself?
After the two boys had been pulled apart, Temar dealt with the other boy—who had been beaten black and blue and was now bleeding from both nostrils—while Luman and Jepeto checked on Ren somewhere quieter.
“If this goes wrong, it could scar.”
He wasn’t a cat, so how the hell had he managed to claw him up like this? Ren’s face was full of scratches. It had to sting like crazy. But maybe because he was still all worked up, he didn’t seem to feel it yet.
Light gathered in Luman’s hand. Jepeto looked at him expectantly. Just as that hand was about to touch Ren’s cheek, Ren grabbed Luman’s hand with his soft one. His big, furious eyes lifted and scolded him.
“Uh.”
“Mm.”
Luman let out a noise and lowered his hand. Jepeto looked bewildered. He was just about to ask, Um, why aren’t you healing him?—but after seeing the way the two of them looked at each other, he merely smacked his lips and kept quiet.
“All right. Then how about you tell us why you were fighting?”
After hearing Ren’s furious, huffing explanation, both Luman and Jepeto nodded that the other kid had had it coming. Snatching something Ren had picked up first—fine, that was one thing, just childish stubbornness. But personal insults and cursing his parents? That was another matter. Even so, as adults they ought to have said that throwing punches was bad, but the corners of their mouths kept tugging up too hard for them to manage it. Luman thought maybe he’d never make a good adult after all. He just wanted to take Ren’s side. But Ren was a good kid, so he’d probably grow up straight and decent even on his own.
Still, trying to at least pretend to be an adult, Luman started thinking about what he ought to say. Since Temar still wasn’t back, he pushed through the crowd toward the shop again to fetch him. There, the boy who’d been beaten was still throwing a fit. He was screeching about whether they knew who his father was, and Temar looked like he was getting dragged into the mess. Seeing that, Luman barely managed to catch the enraged Ren before he charged back in, then sent Ren and Temar ahead first while he and Jepeto stayed behind to clean things up.
The boy and the man claiming to be his father both had such appalling tempers that even Jepeto, drenched in cold sweat by the end of it, shook his head and muttered to himself,
“Well, there goes sightseeing for today. On a day like this, we really shouldn’t go wandering around more......”
Jepeto trudged along, then suddenly lifted his head as if something had struck him.
“How about a drink in the room?”
His face spread into a loose grin as he added,
“The real highlight is tomorrow night, isn’t it? The grand fireworks! As long as we don’t miss tomorrow, we’re fine!”
“That’s true.”
Luman jerked his head, telling him to come on.
***
When they went into the inn, Temar and Ren were sitting together on the first floor in perfect peace. Luman had half wondered whether Temar might have scolded Ren over the dogfight, but looking at their faces, it didn’t seem like that had happened. Then again, the other side had been the one in the wrong. It was a relief, and yet for some reason Luman also felt a little let down.
After greeting Temar and Ren with a glance, he and Jepeto went upstairs for a moment to put their things away, then came back down. The bundle in their hands was fairly large, but Ren was too busy glancing down at the stuff by his feet to even look at them.
Luman and Jepeto, back down quickly, sat again.
“Well then, it’s early, but shall we eat?”
“I’ll go put this away!”
“Oh, I should’ve taken it up with the rest earlier. Here, give it to me, I’ll carry it for you. It’s pretty big. Is it a gift for me, maybe?”
“No! It’s all mine!”
The instant Luman gave him that smooth grin and pretended to reach out, Ren sprang up like he’d been shocked, snatched up the things by his feet, and thundered upstairs. The noisy commotion made the other guests turn and look at the round back of Ren’s head.
“Puberty?”
“Huh?”
At Luman’s comment, Jepeto answered.
“No, I just mean, at that age they always say not to touch their stuff.”
“Then maybe the reason he told me not to drink the tea wasn’t because he hates me.”
“......Huh. So you heard that?”
Luman snorted. When he asked Temar whether he had scolded Ren, Temar shook his head.
“Really?”
Jepeto looked at Temar too, apparently curious. Temar furrowed his brows.
“Yeah.”
Luman stared at him with open suspicion, but Temar, apparently having no intention of saying more, kept his mouth shut. Before long Ren came scampering back down, somehow looking excited again, and the group ate an early dinner.
The four of them settled into Ren and Temar’s room. After asking a servant to bring up a large table, they loaded it with food and plenty of alcohol.
“The sixth day doesn’t actually have that many events, so sometimes the best thing is just staying in a nice inn and enjoying the view.”
Throwing the window wide open, Jepeto pointed at the square outside, where people in costume were parading through the streets. Ren’s shoulders shivered in the cold wind. Luman stepped out for a moment, then came back with a thick blanket and draped it over Ren’s shoulders.
“Jepeto, are you secretly a bard or something?”
“Oh! Can you hear the music in my voice?”
Jepeto, who had already been drinking with dinner, looked like the alcohol was starting to hit him. Ren looked at him and giggled.
“No! You just seem really serious about having fun!”
“Heh-heh. Is that so?”
Ren and Jepeto looked at each other and burst into laughter.
Luman had thought Ren would mope after having to come back early, but instead he looked just as happy as he had yesterday.
“Well done.”
Luman tossed it out.
“At what?”
Temar tipped back his beer in long gulps.
“Forget it.”
“No one gets to tell me anything about Ren.”
Luman lifted his eyes to him. Temar set his cup down and looked straight at Luman. Luman waited, wondering what he was about to say, but Temar brought up something else instead.
“At dawn?”
“Ah. Yeah.”
“......Tell him before you go.”
Luman’s eyes shifted.
Tell him before I go?
But he didn’t want to drag down this good atmosphere. In the first place, he’d hidden the exact day he was leaving because he didn’t want to say goodbye at all—what could be more pathetic than going back on that now?
“It’s fine. Just don’t cry because I’m gone.”
“As if.”
The two of them laughed, trading light jokes.
Night deepened. Pushing aside, for a little while, the real burdens still waiting for them, the Heroes enjoyed a good night.
Jepeto, with a grimly solemn face, challenged Luman to a drinking match, only to get drunk after barely a few cups and start laughing like an idiot. Then he began loudly announcing, though no one had asked, what was so wonderful about this festival and what he had liked best about it, and after that he put the same question to Temar, Luman, and Ren. But when no one answered, his face fell into deep disappointment, and he declared that wouldn’t do, because things like this had to be said out loud if you wanted to remember them. Rummaging through his bag, he pulled out the fountain pen and paper Coco had given him, then immediately started scribbling away.
“By tomorrow morning... hic! ...everybody write... hic! yours down!”
Hiccuping, one hand on his hip, Jepeto shouted the order, then waved the pen and paper around and stared each of them down with eyes that had started to gleam with something close to madness before finally setting the paper and pen on the table. Then he dug around in his bag again, pulled out a notebook, and started reeling off a list of rare herbs, asking that if any of them happened to find even one, they absolutely had to bring it back for him—in other words, he had officially begun drunken rambling.
“Jepeto. If you drink too much, you’re going to have a rough day tomorrow.”
“Hero! My God. You’re actually... hic! worrying... about me......”
Unable to watch anymore, Temar stopped Jepeto from reaching for another drink, and Jepeto turned a deeply moved face on him.
“Seriously. Temar, what’s gotten into you?”
Luman gave a short laugh as he looked at the paper Jepeto had set down.
“Ugh. Drunk.”
Looking at Jepeto, Ren shook his head with his lips pushed out, though his voice was full of delight despite the words. Waving one hand in front of himself and saying the smell of alcohol was wafting all over the place, he dragged his chair over to the window. Apparently he meant to sit there and watch outside.
Music and cheering still rose noisily from the street below, along with the cries of peddlers and the voices of the crowd. As if it was much too early for anyone to be sleeping. And yet the sky was already black.
It was the perfect time to tilt back a drink and talk.
Jepeto, completely wiped out, ended up sprawled flat on the floor in the shape of a giant character and soon started snoring. Ren snickered at the sound.
Luman drank, using Ren’s laughter as his side dish.
Temar, who had been drinking with him in silence, rose from his seat.
“Where are you going at this hour?”
“To take a look around.”
“You really have to?”
There was nothing wrong with being thorough, but now that Luman was thinking of it as their last night, he felt a pang of regret. You could never promise what kind of meeting might come after a parting. Temar looked at him and let out a short laugh.
“So you can talk to Ren.”
“......Are you giving us privacy? You?”
“Want me to stay?”
Temar knit his brows.
No, what the hell, when did you start having this kind of tact? Luman nearly shouted it. But when Temar moved as if to sit back down, Luman shut his mouth, carefully told him to be safe, and shoved him out the door.
The sound of the door closing had been louder than expected, but Ren stayed quiet. He must have fallen asleep.
“Hoo.”
Luman let out a breath of relief and stood there for a moment.
Inside the room, it was so quiet you could hear the buzz of tiny insects. Outside, it was still loud and alive.
It felt strange.
A warmth spread slowly through Luman, tickling at him, like he’d been given kindness for free, kindness that asked for nothing in return. The food wasn’t expensive, and there was nothing special about it—just ordinary dishes sold anywhere—and the liquor was cheap, but it tasted good enough to get drunk on. Even the sound of Jepeto snoring wasn’t unpleasant.
It was a good inn, but it was nothing compared to the royal palace. It was only a place to stay for a short while.
And yet, absurdly enough, Luman found himself wishing he could keep living here.
“Have I lost my mind?”
Luman laughed, pushing a hand back through his hair.
For some reason, he felt as if he were being rewarded for all the hardship he’d gone through. As if he’d been handed every ordinary thing he had never been allowed to have.
The sense of belonging he felt now was something he had never felt in the royal palace, nor among the Seven Stars. And it wasn’t frightening the way he had imagined such a thing would be—wasn’t scary, wasn’t burdensome, wasn’t something that made him anxious. It was comfortable. It was ticklish. It kept making him picture a future.
“How ridiculous. Must be because it’s time to leave.”
Luman laughed at himself.
A Hero wasn’t really so different from a wandering mercenary. They might belong to the royal palace, but that was all. Even if the palace had built them their own residence, it could never become a home. Just as Heroes could entrust each other with their backs, but could never become true friends. Ever since his death, all of them had tried not to trespass into each other’s territory.
That was right. They had no one who truly understood them, no one they could share their hearts with. Ordinary people could never understand them, and the Heroes, shattered by his death, had chosen not to share anything at all and instead to exist alone.
Wandering mercenaries might have had it better than they did. Those men, at least, might have been able to make homes of one another, might have become each other’s understanding companions after surviving life and death side by side.
But that had been the right choice.
To start having these human feelings now, after all this time, was nothing but self-torture. Temar’s words came back to him—keep living the way you’ve lived until now; even if you start thinking about it now, what’s going to change?
“That heart you’re talking about is only going to make you suffer.”
Temar had been right.
It hurt.
Feeling this way meant it was time to stop.
So all he had to do was leave cleanly, exactly as planned, and be done with it.
“No one ever recognized what the Heroes went through! How much they sacrificed! How sad their families are!”
And yet he still found himself wanting to stay beside Ren, who understood their sacrifice.
Why were words like that impossible to forget? Ren’s voice when he’d shouted them in anger, his tone, his expression—they all came back with painful clarity.
No. The truth was, even that was just an excuse.
He simply wanted to stay beside Ren and keep watching him smile.
But he couldn’t remain at Ren’s side for the sake of his own selfishness.
His promise to the nobles was a promise, yes, but more than that... Luman was already a broken man. Not even a man, really, but the king’s sword. There was no way the mind of someone who had lived like that could still be whole. If he stayed nearby, someday he might start eating away at Ren.
The memory of his body and mind breaking down, the terror and fear of going through a “miracle,” the sensation of being overwhelmed by the power of a reconstructed body—those things still surfaced sometimes. Leaving the battlefield did not mean the blood and screams staining those years would ever truly leave him. In truth, Luman still felt as if he were standing right in the middle of the first day of the Seven-Year War and the last day of it. So just like Temar, maybe someday he too would lose his mind and run wild.
He didn’t want to ruin Ren.
He didn’t want to smear him with any burden, any ugliness, anything bad at all.
Luman picked up the paper Jepeto had left on the table.
“I didn’t realize I’d hate leaving this much. That’s a problem.”
His tone was playful, but bitterness clung to it.
[The best thing about the Tempesto Festival is roasted sparrow. But the most enjoyable part was walking the festival streets with the Heroes and Ren while happily eating tanghulu together!]
Reading what Jepeto had written, Luman let out a short laugh. For a physician, he had surprisingly beautiful handwriting.
Luman picked up the fountain pen. He thought for a moment about what to write, then, recalling a memory from not so long ago, wrote without hesitation.
[The days we spent together were moving.]
His eyes began to fill.
“Seriously. Where’d the man go who said life wasn’t something moving?”
Muttering lightly on purpose so the tears wouldn’t fall, Luman set the paper down and went over to Ren.
“Ren, Ren. Wake up.”
“Mmnnn. Why...... I want to sleep more......”
Ren rubbed at his eyes and shook his head. His tousled blond hair spilled over his forehead. Luman brushed it back and kept stubbornly waking him.
Apparently he was having some kind of good dream tonight, because the little grin on his sleeping face made him look as cute as a puppy. For a moment, Luman only watched him mumble in his sleep. How had this journey into retirement turned into something enjoyable? Why had this boy’s smile become worth more to him than a pile of gold coins? The heavy thing settling in his chest twisted painfully.
But Luman believed that there came a time when a person had to leave, and he thought that moment was now.
“Ren. We said we were going to decide on a name for the flowerpot. Come on, wake up. Get up and I’ll give you a present.”
“A present......?”
Forcing himself to smile, Luman shook Ren awake. At the word present, Ren’s ears seemed to perk right up. Rubbing his sleepy eyes open by force, Ren looked at Luman. With an intensely serious face, Luman started passionately tossing out every beautiful word he knew, throwing himself into the task of naming the flowerpot. Ren nodded along to his suggestions and kept drifting off every few moments.
Once they’d finished naming the flowerpot, Luman started pressing him for stories about the village, then launched into a whole speech about how life was precious, and that he must never throw himself away for someone else. After that he went on teaching him bits of miscellaneous knowledge and common sense, until he caught sight of the wound on Ren’s cheek and, eyes flashing dangerously, continued in a new direction.
If people treated him like this, he should answer like that; if the other side wasn’t the kind of person words worked on, he should just throw the first punch. He hauled Ren to his feet and carefully taught him how to make a fist and how to throw it properly. Ren’s eyes were half closed the entire time, but Luman’s lecture showed no sign of stopping.
“If I fall asleep...... I’m sleepy......”
Drunk on exhaustion, Ren muttered, asking why Luman was tormenting him.
“Ren. If someone picks a fight with you like they did today, just hit them. The moment a hand starts coming up past shoulder level, that’s a hundred percent your sign—hit first. I’ll handle the settlement. Unlike Temar, I’ve got plenty of gold.”
Once I get settled there, I’ll write.
Luman whispered it to Ren, who had already fallen completely asleep.
The dark sky had begun to turn, little by little, blue at the edges as dawn approached. Luman lifted Ren, sleeping against him, and laid him carefully down on the bed. He tucked the blanket around him neatly, then hid the bundle of clothes he had secretly bought for Ren beside the bed.
“......”
He wanted to say something—anything—but his mouth wouldn’t open.
Luman tore off a small piece from the bottom of the paper Jepeto had left and wrote a note on it, then tucked it into Ren’s bundle.
Of all people, Luman was supposed to be the one with a silver tongue, so why was it that the moment he stood in front of Ren, he turned into a complete fool who couldn’t even speak properly? He reached his hand out toward Ren’s face as if to stroke it, but only touched the empty air and drew it back again. A yellow glow floated by Ren’s face.
In the darkest hour just before daybreak, when blue had only begun ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) to seep into the sky, someone moved quietly among those sleeping deeply.
He lingered for a moment near the bundle and near the flowerpot by the window, then vanished through the window. Fine strands of golden hair fluttered in the wind.
