Luman shook his head like he’d lost. Thin strands of hair fell loose across his forehead, then fluttered back. Brushing them away, he replayed Ren’s shoulder in his mind. The blue bruises shaped like fingers, rising like a brand.

With a mocking little curl to his voice, Luman said,

“I think it’s going to last a while.”

“......”

“Well. Priest Kirky treated it, so it’ll probably be fine.”

Luman murmured something to the two horses he’d gotten from Coco, and a yellow light appeared beside the reins, then moved on its own. After that, Luman lightly jumped up onto the driver’s seat.

When he tugged the reins, the horses snorted and slowly began to move.

“But it’s going to hurt. It’s a wound even holy power couldn’t fully cover.”

Their gazes met from the moving horse and the driver’s seat. The carriage slowly cut through the forest road.

***

“Is it bothering you?”

When I kept peeking out the carriage window, Jepeto, who had been sewing with narrowed eyes, looked up.

“It’s just... I’m curious.”

Luman had gone outside a while ago, but the carriage still hadn’t shown any sign of starting.

What the hell are they talking about, my brother and him? I’m dying to know!

It’s not like they’re planning to leave me behind or anything....

Obviously not.

Hmph.

Before my thoughts could wander anywhere stupid, I turned them around.

Still, Jepeto was really good at sewing.

As he stitched the fabric with practiced hands, he stole a glance at me.

“What.”

“Would it be all right if I... embroidered something on it?”

“Embroidery? Like flowers and stuff?”

“If I just sew it up like this, I think it’ll look too much like a patched-up shirt....”

Jepeto trailed off and gave an awkward smile.

Hmm. He had a point.

Maybe because he’d ripped it too roughly earlier, the shirt had torn diagonally in this jagged crooked line, and if I just wore it sewn back together like that, it really would be kind of embarrassing.

“You know how to embroider?”

“Of course!”

I’d asked skeptically, but Jepeto answered like he’d been waiting for it.

“What kinds can you do?”

What the hell, a doctor who can embroider too?

“Oh! Want me to tell you about them?”

The second I showed a little curiosity, Jepeto started chatting excitedly.

He said the thing he embroidered best was climbing roses.

After going on at length about the fresh, passionate beauty of climbing roses, Jepeto stared hard at me. Meaning after all that talk about climbing roses, if he was looking at me this eagerly... he wanted permission to put them on my shirt, right?

“...Do whatever you want.”

“Thank you!”

“Feels like I’m the one who should be saying that....”

Even when I grumbled, Jepeto just kept smiling.

Then, after knotting off the shirt he’d finished repairing, he got ready to thread the needle again. Seeing him pick green thread, it looked like he planned to start with the vines.

Jepeto was skinny, but his hands were unexpectedly big. I guess I should say his fingers were broad? Not thick exactly, just... really big. Maybe that was why the needle in his hand looked absurdly small. Not even like a needle—more like a thin little pin.

“Give it here.”

“Thank you.”

I held out my hand toward the needle in Jepeto’s fingers. He must’ve thought I was just going to snatch it, because he looked startled, then handed it over and scratched his head with a smile.

He really didn’t have to thank me every single time just because I threaded a needle for him.

It’s embarrassing!

And it’s not like I always snatch things like that every single time. Ugh. I really do need to fix my temper a little... While we were staying together at the young lady’s estate, Coco had warned me about that. She said my personality was the kind people misunderstood easily, so at least when I could hold back, I should try sometimes.... So I’d immediately snapped back asking why she didn’t just tell me to hold back all the time, and Coco had stared at my face for a long while before shaking her head.

She called it a “minimum safety device,” didn’t she? What the hell does that even mean?!

Grumbling inwardly, I threaded the green string through the needle and handed it back to him.

Jepeto happily started sewing again. His eyes shone with this stubborn intensity, but because his mouth was pressed shut in concentration, he somehow looked kind of funny.

The way he sewed looked exactly like the way he treated patients.

His silent, focused eyes and hands moved with serious care.

Shockingly vivid green vines were growing across my shirt.

The deep green tendrils slowly spread over the shirt, little by little erasing the traces of the tear and the stitches that had mended it.

“Wow....”

“My hands are pretty good, right?”

“...Well. ...Yeah.”

God, this damn mouth of mine!

I could’ve just said yes....

But Jepeto smiled like I’d given him the highest praise.

Damn it.

The shirt he’d fixed for me really was impressive. It almost felt like I’d been given a present. The words thank you and you worked hard both got stuck in my throat for some reason, but Jepeto didn’t seem to care about greetings like that at all. He just quietly tidied up the mess of thread and needles he’d scattered around.

When our eyes met, he smiled again.

Jepeto smiled a lot more than I’d expected. Maybe thinking he was timid had been my mistake in the first place. Jepeto had been kind to my brother and to Luman too, and he even got along fine with nasty-tempered me. But I still kept my distance from him.

“Ren. Once we get back to the village, should I brew some tea? You seem like you like tea.”

“I don’t....”

And the second I said it, I regretted it again.

But this one was Doctor Jepeto’s fault. He kept casually picking out exactly the things I tried to hide, the things I didn’t want mentioned.

“Haha. Then I’ll drink it by myself.... If you want some later, just say so.”

Jepeto scratched the back of his head with a smile, then pulled out a notebook and started reading.

I watched his focused face and thought.

Would it be okay?

I hated him and resented him because he’d touched my herbs, but Jepeto kept being good to me without caring at all about the way I treated him. That bothered me too much! Even when my prickly tone and behavior kept slipping out on their own, he just laughed it off! I’m only used to things going both ways—to mutual dislike. It made me want to mutter in a sulk.

If I’m going to feel uncomfortable around him, then honestly, I’d rather Jepeto hate me too.

Then suddenly that thought hit me.

Could this be what being an adult is...?!

Understanding the other person?

The words Jepeto had said to me last night—the words I’d heard without really feeling anything back then—suddenly came back.

“Sick people can’t help becoming sensitive. And Ren, you’re still so young on top of that, so how much pain must you have been in?”

If I told him, would he understand me?

Our relationship was only that of doctor and patient he had to look after for a little while, so even if I died, it wouldn’t leave behind any grief that would weigh on him. Maybe if I told Jepeto... maybe he would understand me, quietly trying to meet death alone. Maybe he was someone I could tell.

Why now, all of a sudden... why this....

Something surged up hard inside me.

I had really, truly been in so much pain.

I couldn’t say it to anyone, but—

I had really been hurting....

Enough that my fingernails broke from crawling and scraping at the floor of the shack....

I couldn’t even count how many ropes I’d found before I got help from the old apothecary.

And the misery of not even being able to tie those ropes properly, of falling off the chair instead, that memory I couldn’t tell anyone—I didn’t even want to see it in dreams.

“This may be something you don’t want brought up, Ren. But being stabbed with a sword isn’t a small thing for most people. Even for a grown man, it’s not the kind of thing you just go through lightly. Just because the body heals doesn’t mean the fear and pain from back then disappear. Even if you think you’re fine.”

The pain Jepeto was talking about was probably the sword wound in my chest....

But out of nowhere, the days I’d spent alone in the shack, fighting «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» my illness, rose up in my mind.

And in that instant, Jepeto’s warm voice asking, How much must it have hurt? like he was comforting me, felt like a sharp blade twisting through my chest.

A deep pain surged up from inside me.

It was pain that couldn’t even be compared to the pain of being stabbed.

Those ordinary comforting words—even Jepeto himself probably hadn’t put any deep meaning into them, and I hadn’t even listened that closely—became the sharpest blade of all and plunged straight into my chest. It felt like it was ripping through my insides.

Just because the body heals doesn’t mean the fear and pain from back then disappear.

Even if you think you’re fine.

I was fine.

I really was fine.

I had to be fine....

I couldn’t not be fine....

With nowhere to lean, no one to tell, nothing at all, all I could do was wait in that shack for the brother who never came and scrape at the floor.

Words of comfort like this were a luxury, something I had never even expected to hear.

I can’t get weaker.

When I finally die later, I have to be completely alone.

“Ren?”

But....

I’m scared.

I thought I was fine.

I thought I had to be fine.

So the fear never went away.

When the next attack would come, when it would start hurting again, how bad it would be. I’d thought I was used to it, thought I was fine, but I wasn’t. It had stayed in me, vivid as ever.

“Ren!”

“Hh—hk... hhk... haa....”

“Ren!! Hero! Hero!”

Jepeto hurriedly pounded on the ceiling of the carriage.

Bang bang bang bang.

Before the carriage had even fully stopped under those frantic blows, Temar suddenly yanked open the window.