Chapter 205, Please Bear With It, Master (2)

Translator: Hedge

Editor: Lizzz

 

Light green eyes containing life just beginning to bloom.

 

Red eyes carrying on a life that has already departed.

 

Red eyes losing their light like ash remaining after everything has been burned away. Those red eyes, which seem to have died black once again, reeked of blood.

 

Just as he had felt that day when Kalian glared at Plants with barely contained anger, just as he had felt that day when someone unable to return home failed to fully conceal themselves, he had the feeling that those red eyes reeked not of the sea but of blood.

 

Plants opened his mouth as he watched his younger brother, trapped alone in a cold prison created by the specter of the past that had risen again, screaming terrible screams that no one could hear.

 

“Kalian.”

 

Kalian’s eyes turned toward Plants.

 

Kalian as Kalian, Plants as Plants. They gazed at each other with eyes that equally held life yet emitted completely different light.

 

Whoever it might be.

 

No one could interfere.

 

No one could intrude.

 

He knew that Kalian was trying to embrace everything alone again to ensure no one else would be harmed. The bastard had always been like that, so he could hear all the thoughts contained within those bright red eyes.

 

Rather than explaining the current situation in detail, Plants, who had been watching Kalian’s eyes fixed on him without response, added a brief remark.

 

“Sit. And stop barking.”

 

It seemed that after going along with whatever that bastard wanted and playing with his cat, he had lost all sense of respect. Coming here on his own after hearing the message on his own, assessing the situation on his own, and getting angry on his own. What other words could Plants possibly say?

 

Was this not the same Plants who would not even obediently yield to Luci? When that spoiled younger brother treated such a Plants as if he were a tame pigeon, the best he could do was see him as a little dog.

 

Allan, who had been watching such a Plants, silently rose from his seat, passed by Kalian, and went outside.

 

Allan was different from Rmain.

 

He was not the type of person so oblivious as to intrude on this situation where his child had treated his older brother as a bird, and the child’s older brother had now treated the child as a dog.

 

*Thud.*

 

Neither of them paid attention to the door that closed with such a small sound.

 

The pupils of Kalian, who stood quietly in place, moved. With his young older brother standing before him, making it impossible to gauge how far he intended to cross the line, Kalian quietly lowered his eyes.

 

“Whether the King of Secritia truly remembered my little brother’s past appearance when he sent it, I cannot say.”

 

Debeullan was not Sillike.

 

Right now, Debeullan had nothing to hold him back.

 

Debeullan was different from Sillike, who had smiled while handing over poison that would slowly kill. He was a real snake. Get any closer and those fangs full of venom would kill. In an instant, in one moment. Bitten by fangs one doesn’t even know exist, dead before realizing it.

 

“Do not act as you please. This is my affair.”

 

So that was the limit.

 

Allan, Arsene, Arianneu, Chase, and even Plants. They could only go that far.

 

Plants, who had once again completely heard Kalian’s inner thoughts, spoke in a languid voice.

 

“I don’t have the hobby of playing the role of a bird that obediently folds its wings and just breathes inside a cage my little brother has created.”

 

[If you need such a bastard, why not visit the fifth floor of Chermil or summon the Crown Prince of Secritia again. Do as you please. Because I am not that.]

 

Kalian, who had been looking at Plants with disbelief, retorted.

 

“I have never handed you a leash.”

 

As if to say, doesn’t that older brother of his remember that he had just been treating his perfectly fine younger brother like a dog? No matter what, doesn’t it seem that a bird is better than a dog? That was what he meant.

 

Plants, who leaned against the sofa and crossed his legs, looked up at Kalian askance and said.

 

“I don’t know if my little brother isn’t listening because my words don’t sound like human speech to him, or because he doesn’t believe them.”

 

Whether the utterly useless, ice-cold walls he had built with his own hands were so thick that words couldn’t get through, or whether he wouldn’t listen out of arrogance that anyone other than himself would inevitably be weak.

 

“Today my little brother has barked several times.”

 

And Plants had not listened to Kalian’s words at all. Hasn’t it been a long time since Plants quit playing the role of an obedient older brother after being deeply impressed by Kalian quitting the role of an obedient younger brother?

 

[For whatever reason, anyway, you really don’t listen to my words at all.] Plants frowned with such thoughts. In terms of being annoyed and displeased with the current situation, Plants was no less than Kalian.

 

“Sit. Don’t look down on me. It’s annoying.”

 

Watching Kalian standing upright while treating him as a young, weak bastard, Plants said the same thing once more.

 

Kalian, who had tightly closed his lowered eyes, made an effort to suppress his anger.

 

He decided to understand with an extremely generous heart that the pea he had kept alive, cared for, taught, and raised well all this time was once again not listening and crossing the line.

 

Then he answered in a quiet voice.

 

“Yes.”

 

Kalian, who briefly put away the thought of whether he should eliminate that insolent bastard’s grass-like head that would break off with just a touch before starting work, came and sat where Allan had been sitting.

 

There was a subtle strawberry scent.

 

In Allan’s office, which had only coffee and mint, it was the scent of tea with dried strawberries that must have been prepared in advance so it could be brewed and served at any time.

 

Kalian, who had briefly looked at the transparent red tea that had been placed for Allan’s portion, opened his mouth.

 

“I will listen.”

 

He sat because he was told to sit. It probably wasn’t meant to be a leisurely tea time sitting across from each other, and since he was told not to bark, he would at least listen.

 

“Why did you open it? Why did you come here?”

 

His words were already whatever that needed to be said. When Plants could have just played the role of a messenger bird quietly delivering letters, why did he make such a fuss? He would at least listen to that reason.

 

Plants, who had finally made Kalian yield, began to speak.

 

He explained about receiving a letter from a spy of Secritia, about becoming suspicious of the handwriting in that letter, about the reason he came to open the letter, about how he simply informed Allan instead of telling Kalian since it was obvious that even if he did, Kalian would try to handle it alone and end up with a half-dead face, and about how Allan, after confirming it, said he would immediately go to Secritia.

 

He did not explain what was written in that letter believed to have been sent by Debeullan, and Kalian did not miss that point. Thinking that Plants had deliberately omitted it from his explanation, Kalian said.

 

“The letter’s contents as well.”

 

Plants did not understand why that bastard kept subtly trailing off his words, but if he pressed him on that now too, they would probably fight until the situation came where Allan outside would have to come in and stop them, so the generous Plants just let out a short sigh and suppressed his anger.

 

“What would you do knowing that much?”

 

“Isn’t it a letter sent to me? How many times must I tell you that this is my affair?”

 

It also meant to tell him everything without omission so he could think of a way to handle it quietly, since getting entangled with the Royal Palace of Cyries rarely ended well.

 

In the end, Plants told him the entire content of that brief letter without omission. Although Allan had destroyed it, Plants conveyed every single character written in the letter without forgetting any.

 

That ambiguous content.

 

Kalian clenched his fists upon hearing such content where it was difficult to properly discern whether it meant he knew the truth or didn’t know it.

 

A specter he had lived forgetting. He clenched his fists to hide from Plants the hands that began to tremble finely as soon as he realized that phantom had reached out to him again.

 

“He probably knows that the Third Prince of Cyries never trained in swordsmanship. He must know that I entered the path of the sword as if awakening in a single moment, and if there were birds who reported my swordsmanship before I corrected it after Duke Siegfried told me about how I have the habits of Secritia Knights, he probably thought there were suspicious aspects. The close relationship with Crown Prince Chase and how we were frantic to help each other. He might have received reports and known all of it, and he might also have known who Crown Prince Chase was using his birds for.”

 

Concealing rage and hatred, fear and regret, guilt and pain, all of it, Kalian looked at Plants with a small voice.

 

“But I don’t think he would have said ‘protect it again’ without any meaning.”

 

Although what he was supposed to protect again was not written, hadn’t Plants felt the hidden words that way? That it must mean to protect Chase again from Debeullan.

 

Kalian felt the same, but doubts arose.

 

No matter how much Debeullan learned information through the birds and discovered strange points, no matter if he suspected Kalian’s identity, Debeullan couldn’t deduce Kalian’s past.

 

“Either he directly found the memories like the Crown Prince of Secritia, or he simply thinks of me as someone who was just some Knight of Secritia.”

 

If what he was to protect was Chase, it would be words said after rediscovering his old memories, and if what he was to protect was the Royal Family of Secritia or Secritia itself, it would be words meant to recklessly expose Kalian without those memories.

 

“Whether he knows the truth or not, what will you do?”

 

It was Debeullan who taught Bern how to set double and triple traps to catch someone. That Debeullan had now essentially set a trap for Kalian. A trap where he would have no choice but to stick his neck in even knowing it was dangerous.

 

All while threatening to reveal to Rmain, who must have seemed pathetic in Debeullan’s eyes, who had lived unable to make a sound under the pressure of the Nobles, the real reason his third son had changed.

 

Whether he knew the proper truth about Kalian or not, Debeullan was now confident that the moment Rmain suspected Kalian, everything Kalian possessed would disappear. Having already lost everything once, he was confident that Kalian would rush into the trap he created without hesitation to avoid losing what he possessed as Kalian.

 

“Do you plan to go there yourself?”

 

So Plants was asking what he intended to do.

 

Was he planning to go directly and cut off Debeullan’s breath and return, as Allan had said he would do?

 

Could he do such a thing? Could he really do it?

 

“So this is why you’re doing this.”

 

Kalian, chased by Debeullan’s specter, asked while looking at Plants, who had turned his back on Sillike.

 

Wasn’t this the same Kalian who had made efforts not to know what Chase had done, and had pressured Plants by asking if he could let go of Sillike’s hand?

 

Finding this situation absurd, Kalian finally let out a laugh.

 

“Whether I might not be able to raise my sword, or whether I might really do so, is this why you’re acting so arbitrarily?”

 

Whether Plants  interfered because Kalian might move to eliminate Debeullan or rashly fall into that trap.

 

“Whichever you choose, just leave it be. You’ll get hurt, older brother.”

 

Plants, who had been watching Kalian say such words at the end of his laughter, looked inside the teacup. After silently looking inside where strawberries were contained for a long while, Plants looked forward again.

 

Strawberries.

 

He could not remember whether he had just answered that he liked them because it was bothersome to be asked if he liked them, or whether he had answered that he liked them because he really did like them. Whether he had forgotten or been forgotten, he couldn’t remember.

 

Did that child know the answer?

 

Plants, who knew he wouldn’t be able to ask that one question even if he lived his entire life, looked at the person who would never tell him the answer until death. Looking at eyes that seemed to have transferred the tea water inside the teacup as they were, Plants continued speaking.

 

“I’m not acting arbitrarily. I’m playing the role of an older brother.”

 

[So, stop showing off and stop looking down from above.]

 

“Kalian.”

 

[However old you are, whatever your name is, none of that matters. I won’t create something to regret this time.]

 

“So stop barking and just stay put as I help you. It’s annoying.”

 

Not knowing how complicated Kalian’s feelings became upon hearing from this broccoli stem-like bastard he had carefully raised well, that he would properly play the role of an older brother, Plants said this.

 

Upon hearing such words, Kalian found himself unable to laugh or cry as he vividly realized how troublesome an older brother going through his turbulent adolescence could be.

 

“Yes.”

 

So, he just answered like this.