Luman finally settled down after teasing for ages.
I tried to think about the old lady at the inn, but the flow had already been broken, and I couldn’t rember what I’d been thinking. All that kept popping into my head was Luman constantly shoving his face at ! I swear, he knows way too well that he’s handso. That has to be why he keeps sticking his face in mine every chance he gets! I almost bit his cheek hard and barely stopped myself.
Because I had this horrible feeling he might actually like that, since he was weird enough for it. Ugh. Creepy.
Even when I frowned for no reason and bit my lip... I still couldn’t focus.
Yeah. The truth was...
I was excited.
I wanted to go outside! I wanted to look around another village too!
Would there be people my age here?
It’s not that I wanted to make friends, absolutely not! Nothing like that. Definitely not. I was just curious, that’s all...
This was all Coco and Luman’s fault.
To make it through this brutal world, you needed a tough heart, and those two had obviously gone and made mine a little too soft.
I got all worked up, then imdiately felt down again.
It hadn’t even been a full month since I left the village. Was it really okay for to let my guard down this much?
'Get it together. It’s not like you’re out here to have fun.'
Right. I should just be grateful that I got to be sowhere comfortable with my brother.
Huh? Why does the top of my head sting?
“Aaagh!”
“Heh heh heh... Ahahahahaha!”
I looked up, and Luman was staring at !
Apparently he’d dragged over a chair at so point and planted himself right in front of , just blatantly watching . His golden eyes looked exactly like a big cat’s, and that genuinely scared the shit out of . They looked like the glow I’d seen in the cave.
'Huh? The cave?'
“Ren, you really do startle easily.”
“You scared half to death!! Don’t you have anything better to do? Why are you so obsessed with ssing with people!?”
“It’s funny watching your face turn pale, then red, all by itself. What were you thinking about? Hmm?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
“No, you definitely were. You were frowning like this while you thought. Looking at that, you really are brothers. You make the sa face when you’re thinking.”
“Really?”
“Hm?”
“Do I really look like my brother?!”
“Ren, your face is a little too clo—”
“I asked if I look like him! Or I don’t? Hurry up and answer!!”
“You do! You do! You do!”
“Tch. Why’d you have to say it three tis? I’m not deaf, you know.”
'Huh. Am I too close?'
Wow, Luman. His eyes are really pretty. His lashes are dark and thick too... I thought he had a handso face, but wow, it was a really, really pretty face! Luman’s pupils slowly widened. I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in them. Wow. Weird. , inside soone’s eyes.
I was staring at him like I was bewitched when I heard soone swallow.
“Ren.”
Luman said my na softly.
“You’re too close...”
he whispered.
Too clo— aaagh! Why are we so close!?
“Careful—! Whew. You okay?”
I jerked backward in panic, but I fumbled and lost my balance. I almost fell right off the bed onto the floor, but Luman caught with one hand.
I flailed in the air, and he just scooped up like it took no effort at all, then set back down on the bed. His face had gone stiff in an awkward way.
“......”
“......”
Wh-what the hell is this situation!?
Our eyes t again. The fine-boned hand Luman still had against my back suddenly felt unbearably ticklish!
Wh-what is this awkward situation!?
“I-I’m fine! What about my brother!? I’m going to go find him!”
“Ren! Wait—!”
Bang!
The wooden door slamd shut with a huge noise.
***
Luman’s hand closed uselessly around empty air. His ears were red. It was as if the feeling of lifting Ren was still lingering in his hand. This was just...
embarrassing.
It had felt completely different from back in the hollow, when he’d held him to save his life and split the light apart. Getting like this over a kid? What the hell. Luman pounded at his own head a few tis, then raised the upper body he’d bent forward.
Jepeto was very pointedly looking away.
So you were the one who swallowed just now!
That’s why this suddenly got weird for no reason...!
While Luman, unusually enough, stood there blankly blaming soone else for his own state, Jepeto slowly lifted his head. His face was bright red too.
“Um... shouldn’t you maybe go after him? Ahem!”
“......Wait. Was Ren wearing his hood when he ran out?”
“Uh... I didn’t really see clearly...”
Bang!
He must have slamd it ridiculously hard, because part of the edge of the old wooden door had splintered and dust was drifting down.
Luman had already vanished.
“Cough. Cough, cough.”
Being part of a Hero’s party really wasn’t easy.
Jepeto made a slightly bitter face, then suddenly raised his head.
At the mont, he was alone in this room.
***
Aaaagh!
After slamming the door, Ren stood frozen in front of it for a second, then raced down the stairs. He didn’t even notice all the eyes in the hallway stabbing into his face.
Inside, Ren was screaming nonstop.
Ah, damn it, this is all because I had to go and stare at soone’s face like that! No, wait, there was no reason for that to get awkward in the first place, was there!? Then why the hell am I the one running awayyyyy!? But Ren’s legs were faster and quicker than ever.
“Sir! Are you headi—”
The boy who had guided Ren’s group to the inn earlier saw Ren barreling downstairs with terrifying speed, started to say sothing, and then froze blankly. Ren was in such a hurry to get out that he didn’t even look at the boy’s face. Ah, maybe their eyes t for about 0.01 seconds.
The boy got a double nosebleed.
Because the sight of Ren biting his lip and those damp green eyes had been too adorable. The inn fell into a bizarre, untily silence, like a ghost had just walked through.
Even the people enjoying a late al and early drinks froze the instant they saw Ren’s face—because he had forgotten to put his hood back on.
Thud thud thud!
The noise from the stairs shattered the silence. Not long after Ren charged out, a tall, strikingly handso man ca running after him with a frightening look on his face.
“Hey, Tommy.”
“Yeeah...”
Tommy, the innkeeper’s grandson, rubbed at his nosebleed in a daze as he answered.
“Since when did this inn have so many gorgeous n coming through it? Or was I dreaming? Hah hah hah! Another beer!”
That one man’s question kicked off a heated buzz through the whole dining room.
“What family do you think he belongs to?”
“If he lived in this village, there’s no way we wouldn’t know! Obviously he’s from out of town!”
“Man. He looked like so fairy right out of a legend.”
“No, with ears a little pointed like that, didn’t he look more like an elf?”
“Well, I’ll be damned! I’ve never seen eyes like that. And his hair was blond too, right?”
“Hic! Yeah, hic! That must be why he ca in all bundled up earlier!”
The people gathered around the tables carried the subject from Ren to the rest of the Hero’s party. Even in the best possible light, their builds didn’t look like ordinary people, so in truth, the mont they’d entered this tiny village, they had already beco the hottest topic in town. rcenaries? Knights? People threw out all kinds of guesses. The conversation finally circled back to the boy who had just run out.
Any ti the old n’s comnts started crossing a line, Tommy would practically lunge at them with poison in his eyes. The rest of the ti, he grinned to himself while wiping down the tables. The streaks of dried blood were still on his face.
“You little punk! What are you smirking abou— what the hell happened to your face!? Who hit you—”
“Hee hee. No, Grandma. I get it now. I get why you were staring at him like that.”
“What kind of nonsense did you eat? What’s wrong with you!”
Tommy kept laughing even while she grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“That’s the first ti I’ve ever seen soone who looked that angelic... Grandma! Do you think he was really an elf or a fairy?!”
Tommy had said it with his eyes wide open, but before long they went dreamy and slack again.
The old innkeeper understood imdiately. The angel her grandson was talking about ant the boy who had co in earlier.
***
“Haaah... haaah... ngh. Hah, hah...”
Ugh.
Ren barely managed to swallow back the thin saliva that kept trying to spill from his mouth. He stood with his hands braced on his knees, trying to catch his breath, but his ragged breathing refused to settle down. His shoes and the hems of his pants were a ss from running over the slushy, lting snow. He’d run so hard that even in the winter wind, he was sweating, his whole body flushed with heat. At this point he was practically hot.
“Wh-where am I...”
He’d just run without thinking and ended up sowhere he didn’t recognize. Ren worried for a second about whether he’d find his way back, but then thought, I ran in a straight line, so I can just turn around and run straight back, with ridiculous optimism.
The place Ren had run to was the village market street.
Small shops lined the road, and there was an alley where children were playing. The local kids looked at Ren with curious expressions as he ca running all the way from afar. The adults were no different. Blond hair glittering in the sunlight drew attention even when he was standing still. Their gazes naturally turned toward him.
“Hooo...”
Ren let out a long breath and straightened up.
But sohow, it felt like everyone around him was staring at him.
“Hhk—”
Soone sucked in a sharp breath. Soone else coughed. Another person started hiccuping! In this tiny village, Ren’s face was the kind of beauty that ca as a genuine shock. A couple briefly let go of each other’s hands, then hurriedly clasped them again, and the little kids’ eyes lit up. One young man with a face red as fire kept trying to work up the nerve to approach Ren.
Ren narrowed his eyes.
'Don’t tell they’re all staring at ... what do you an, “don’t tell ”?'
'They are staring at !'
Ren flinched at all the blank looks fixed on him—mouths hanging slightly open—then deliberately puffed his chest out even more. He made the fiercest, ugliest face he could at the young man who kept twitching while staring at him!
And what if you are staring!?
How long are you planning to keep staring!?
Take a look and move on ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ already! What am I, an animal!?
Kyaaah!
Ren thought of beasts puffing themselves up and glared fiercely. The sharp force of it sent the young man, who’d been about to talk to him, fleeing, and so of the kids started to tear up.
“Eek!”
He could even hear soone hiccup in fright.
There were still a lot of people around, but when Ren lifted his eyes and glared so viciously, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to openly stare or talk to him. Instead, they awkwardly went about their business—
or invented business to go about.
anwhile, Ren felt deeply satisfied!
For so reason, it felt like he ought to dust off his hands.
'Hmph!'
Ren snorted and plopped himself down by a tree. The posture was outrageously sloppy. If he’d been sitting like that in the capital, a patrolman probably would have hauled him in.
“Hey.”
Right then, soone ca over looking for trouble.
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