“Ooh.”

People let out admiring sounds. Anyone could tell at a glance that he’d lifted him without using even a bit of effort.

Still, because he’d grabbed Ren up in a hurry, the posture was awkward. He was holding him by the hips and lifting him up like some kind of trophy.

“Put me down already......!”

“...Want me to carry you on my back?”

Temar set Ren down easily, then lowered his head and asked. Ren glanced around and awkwardly shuffled his feet for no reason. His face was red.

“You want to see the stage properly, don’t you?”

After thinking for a second, Temar added that.

In the brief moment that had passed, a whole mass of people had crowded in between Temar and Ren and the stage, so now Ren would’ve had to stand on tiptoe just to barely see it. Rather than struggling to force his way back through the crowd, it would be much easier for Temar to lift him or carry him from where they stood. Temar was already a full two heads taller than most people just standing still, so there was no need to hoist him all the way onto his shoulders.

“I’ll carry you.”

Temar asked the people around them for a bit of room and made a small space. Then he dropped to one knee on the bare ground and bent forward.

“Ren, come on.”

“.......”

Ren watched him quietly for a moment, hesitated, then climbed onto his broad back. Temar stood up with ease, and Ren blinked at how high his view had suddenly become. He was only being piggybacked, but because Temar was so tall, it almost felt like he was riding on his shoulders.

People looked at Ren perched up there, but only for a moment. Ren pushed his hood back slightly and looked toward the stage.

When was the last time my brother carried me like this?

Honestly, it felt like the kind of thing that would’ve happened when he was so little he couldn’t remember. Maybe even the memory of Temar carrying him at all was nothing more than some fantasy Ren had made up out of wishful thinking.

“Wow.”

At the little breath of wonder from above his head, Temar’s face softened with satisfaction. But Ren was only admiring it with his mouth. He wasn’t watching the match at all. Instead, his eyes—sunken deep and strangely bitter—were fixed on the crown of Temar’s head. While carefully shifting one hand on Temar’s shoulder, Ren started idly playing with his hair, then steadied his breathing, trying to swallow the sudden swell of tears rising up in his throat.

'What the hell? Why do I suddenly feel like crying? This is ridiculous. Am I out of my mind?'

Ren mocked himself and tried to force the tears back down, but it wasn’t working.

A while ago, he’d pretended not to hear and had asked what Temar meant, but the truth was Ren had heard perfectly well what Temar said back at the inn.

“In the capital, they even have public bathhouses.”

“Want to go someday?”

Why was he suddenly asking to do something like that together? He’d never said anything like that before.

For some reason, Ren hated it.

Why? If my brother changes, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? If he’s gentler, isn’t that good? I always wanted him to care about me, to treat me better than other people. Washing my feet so gently back at the inn, asking to go somewhere together—isn’t that exactly what I wanted?

Ren thought he didn’t even understand his own heart anymore. Maybe he was just too used to craving his brother’s affection. Maybe it only felt awkward because it was unfamiliar.

But then what was this resentful feeling....... He hated the way Temar had suddenly changed.

Why didn’t he do this before? There were all those times he stopped by the village for a little while, and then there was the whole year after the seven-year war when they lived cramped together in that shack. Every time, Ren had begged him to look at him, had gotten angry, had cried. Back then he stayed the same. If he could change this easily, then why didn’t he back then......?

These ugly thoughts kept coming.

'Ah....... Could it be he only started acting like this ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) because I stopped throwing fits in the village?'

Ren started looking back on his own behavior. Back in the village, he’d barked and snapped and gotten into fights at every chance, throwing punches whenever someone provoked him. But after starting the journey and becoming close with Coco, that kind of thing had clearly decreased. Ren himself had felt that he’d changed a little.

So that’s what it was. The problem was me.

Ren smiled bitterly.

So in the end, were the villagers right? Was he really just a rude, shameless brat—an immature idiot who strutted around relying on his Hero brother and didn’t know his place? Then this wasn’t something he had any right to resent Temar for in the first place. Stupid Ren.

Wait! Resent my brother? What kind of disgusting thought is that?! Ren shook his head back and forth.

“What? You want the swordsman with the long hair to win?”

“Huh? Y-yeah.......”

Lost in his thoughts, only half-looking at the stage, Ren answered without thinking.

“Waaaaah—! Richard! Richard!”

“Seka—! Show some strength—!”

Their fight looked like it was nearly at the end. Even from far away, you could see their ribcages heaving hard. Steam rose from Seka and Richard alike, driven off by the force pouring from their whole bodies. Seka, whose side had been ripped open when Richard’s spear stabbed through his skin, rolled away and sprang back up in one fluid motion. The two men glared at each other, both waiting for a single opening.

“Seka’s been hit by the spear, but he’s back on his feet! He’s up again!”

“Seka! Seka! Seka!”

“Richard! Richard! End it in one strike! Don’t go easy on that punk!”

“It’s over! There’s no way he can win with that much blood loss! Forfeit! Forfeit!”

“Don’t give up—!”

Ren listened to the announcer describing the state of the fight, then lowered his gaze again. Temar looked like he was focused on the stage.

'This is so humiliating....... My brother’s finally being kind to me and I’m over here pretending not to notice. What is this, seriously? Damned if he treats me well, damned if he doesn’t!'

Ren bit down hard on his lip. Hard enough that blood almost showed.

'Don’t do this. Don’t keep pretending not to notice for no reason!'

The hand tangled in Temar’s hair tightened.

'Should I ask him what he meant earlier? But why did he stop halfway through?'

Could it be because of my attitude......? Did he notice I was pretending not to hear?! Ren went pale for a second, then quickly recovered. There was no way his dense brother would notice something like that! He was the kind of idiot who believed women fainting on purpose every damn time were actually delicate! Hmph!

Ren thought furiously. Earlier he’d pretended not to hear because his feelings were too tangled up, but now that he thought about it again, it felt like too much of a waste. Ah, my brother asking me to go somewhere together—that was the first time ever! Ah, wait, was it the second? This trip to the capital was also because my brother insisted I come with him! Ughhh. Anyway, whether it was the first time or the second, if I let this chance slip by, I’m going to regret it like crazy......!

......In fact, he already regretted it.

Right when Ren, lost in a vicious storm of indecision, unconsciously started tugging at Temar’s hair, the match was decided.

Richard lost because he got careless, convinced victory was already his. Instead of finishing it with one decisive blow, he chose to press Seka to death, driving his spear again and again toward Seka’s wounded side without pause. Seka dodged each attack with steps no wider than half a foot, and his eyes flashed. Because Richard was putting all his strength into every merciless thrust, his shield had dropped just slightly below his throat. Seka didn’t miss the gap. He gave up his already wounded side even deeper to the spear and drove his sword at Richard’s neck. With not a hair’s breadth of error, the blade flew straight for the back of his neck, past the part his shield couldn’t cover, and the whole crowd fell silent.

Richard dropped his shield. Seka’s sword had gone deep. Richard’s cracked shield slammed against the floor of the arena and rolled away with a clanging metal crash. Blood poured from Seka’s side where the spear had stabbed in deep, his flesh torn open horribly enough to expose muscle. Meanwhile, from the back of Richard’s neck there ran only a thin, narrow line of blood. But if Seka had put real force behind that downward strike, Richard’s life would have ended in an instant.

Waaaaaah—!

A long roar of cheers rang out.

Seka! Seka! Seka!

The crowd kept shouting the victor’s name.

“The owner of the laurel crown, the winner of the gladiator tournament—Seka! It’s Seka!”

There was no question about it. It was Seka’s victory.

***

At the inn, Jepeto and Luman examined the flowerpot closely. There was a very fine crack in it, but nowhere near enough that someone could reasonably guess it had been damaged. They were the ones getting jumpy for nothing, like guilty people imagining everyone could see it on their faces. Just because they were afraid Ren might remember the time he collapsed in agony.

When Luman and Jepeto rejoined them, Temar left Ren with Jepeto and stopped Luman.

“The flowerpot... I’m the one who broke it, right?”

After a brief pause, Temar asked. His face was dark. When Ren had collapsed in the carriage struggling to breathe, Temar had lost his reason. But it wasn’t hard to guess that in the process of losing control, he had unintentionally damaged the carriage and the things inside it. When he came back to himself after the nightmare, the carriage had looked intact, but that was probably only because Luman had taken care of it.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

Luman, who had been looking at Temar with narrowed eyes, let out a short laugh.

“Forget it. It’s already done. More importantly, looks like Ren’s eyesight is pretty good. If I’d known, I would’ve put more effort into fixing it.”

Luman clicked his tongue as he joked. What was the point of digging up something that had already passed? He turned the conversation toward the festival instead. Fortunately, there was plenty to talk about.

Luman had only been half-listening to Temar, but when Temar stressed how much Ren had loved the gladiator tournament, Luman lifted a brow.

“Ren liked it that much?”

Luman asked, sounding doubtful.

“I told you, he did. He was even tugging on my hair.”

“What?”

Temar smiled, his face softened and loose. Ren was walking around the stalls chattering away with Jepeto, and Temar and Luman were following closely a step behind them.

“Roasted sparrow??”

“This is the festival delicacy! Delshu told me so. Apparently Tempesto Village’s roasted sparrow is so chewy it can’t even be compared to the kind in other villages, and......”

Honestly, Jepeto looked even more excited than Ren.

“That guy even shook my hand.”

“Really?”

If Ren liked it, then good. What was there to think about?

Luman answered absentmindedly, then looked at Ren’s profile as he seriously debated whether or not to try the roasted sparrow, and chuckled.

“I don’t like that.”

“Yeah.”

Luman had answered carelessly again, but then he stopped short. Temar stopped walking too. The two of them looked at each other.

“What do you mean, you don’t like it?”

As Luman frowned and repeated the words, his lips twitched. The answer had already come to him at the same moment he asked.

You mean you don’t like that he shook hands with Ren?

“Swordsmen should have short hair.”

“Pwahahaha!”

“What’s so funny?”

Ren, who had only been watching Jepeto tear into the roasted sparrow instead of eating it himself, turned at the sound of Luman’s loud laugh. Luman waved a hand and kept laughing like he’d completely lost it. Ren’s eyes narrowed as he looked at him.

“Ren! It’s seriously delicious! Good God! Lord Luman! Lord Temar! You have to try this. I swear, you absolutely will not regret it.”

“Luman’s seriously weird.”

Luman suddenly wanted, at least once, to tell Ren the truth. The weird one wasn’t him—it was Ren’s brother! God, who would’ve thought Temar was this much of an old man about things? Was that why he’d asked earlier if anyone knew where the barber was?! Come to think of it, Temar’s own hair had gotten pretty long too. Considering he’d always stuck to short hair before, that thing he’d just said probably wasn’t something he’d made up on the spot......! Hair is a matter of taste!

Thinking of the gladiator champion with hair long enough to brush his shoulders, Luman couldn’t stop laughing.

“Haaah. I had no idea you had it in you to be this funny.”

Temar let out a small laugh.

“Look who’s talking.”

“Me? I’m always entertaining.”

“My face is, too,” Luman added, grinning broadly.

Temar made a sour face.

“That’s enough.”

“What do you mean, enough? You have to answer, Temar. So what do you think of my face? Fun, right?” 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

“Hah.”

In the end, even Temar burst out laughing. At the sound of it, Ren’s shoulders twitched.