Temarr’s Fear
“Yeah. You want me to do it?”
“I’m asking you.”
Ruman nodded while frowning.
It was an attitude that said he didn’t want to, but he would do it.
So this is what a real friend looks like?! Someone who immediately agrees when you ask.
“……”
Hyung and Ruman must really be close. He only said he needed to make contact, so how did he understand that he wanted him to do it instead? Does Ruman know Hyung better than I do?
Ah, well… they’ve been together for a long time, so it’s natural, right?
“Ren. How’s your body?”
When Ruman went outside to communicate, Hyung approached with large strides, sat down cross-legged beside the bed, and examined various parts of my body.
“I’m fine. I think I could move even tomorrow.”
“Don’t overdo it.”
“Okay!”
Perhaps because the priest treated me, my body felt much better.
The usual fatigue, weakness, and throbbing muscle pain were creeping in, but compared to when I was in pain, it was nothing. At this level, I can move. For about a week after a seizure, I have stamina similar to a normal person—a frail person—after all!
When I answered without hesitation, Hyung seemed a little relieved.
But Hyung didn’t leave his spot and just stood quietly beside my bed.
Why is Hyung… doing this?
I also quietly looked up at Hyung.
Wow… Being alone together quietly like this… is nice. It feels like I have Hyung all to myself!
Thick eyebrows and a nose that rises high and prominently.
He’s my hyung, but he’s really handsome.
Hyung will get married too, right? Maybe after completing this mission…?
“Ren.”
“Y-yeah?”
“Hyung… killed people.”
“Huh?”
Are you talking about Del Belkerman, that traitorous bastard?
“But, Ren. Those people were bad people. People that a Hero must kill. Trash.”
Temarr Hyung’s voice sank darkly.
Why is he suddenly saying this? Of course they’re bad guys, so they have to be killed! The neck that was cut off in one stroke and the blood that spurted like a fountain momentarily blocked my vision.
It’s… a hallucination, right?
My heart felt like it dropped with a thud. My heart fluttered.
Definitely, such scenes don’t seem to be good for my stomach…
Hyung looked down at me with lowered eyes. His dark brown eyes looked even deeper than usual.
“Temarr Hyung.”
I reached out my hand. But Hyung still maintained the same posture as before. When I waved my hand a few times, Hyung slowly gave me his hand as if pondering. I grasped Hyung’s thick, heavily calloused, injury-filled hand with both hands. His body temperature, burning hot, seemed to instantly raise my own temperature.
“Hyung is a Hero! It’s natural to kill bad guys.”
I-is it okay to say this? I won’t get scolded for saying something bad, right?
Del Belkerman tried to kill Coco. As if that wasn’t enough, he also betrayed Coco’s heart.
Ah! Wait. What Hyung said earlier was ‘corpses.’ He wasn’t talking about Del Belkerman. Then who? Ah… I get it. He’s talking about the masked people who attacked the carriage. Then is his confession of killing also referring to them?
I widened my eyes.
Because a fire suddenly ignited in my chest!
“Those bastards should be killed!”
When I suddenly got excited and tightly gripped Hyung’s hand, Hyung’s eyes opened wide.
Those bastards made Hyung and Ruman get seriously hurt.
I didn’t remember the memories from the hollow clearly, as if they were cut in pieces, but I clearly remembered Hyung and Ruman soaked in blood.
Ah, should a Hero’s younger brother not think like this? Will Hyung be disappointed? But I don’t know. In my heart… I wish all the people who hurt Hyung would die.
“Right.”
Hyung smiled faintly.
***
Temarr came out to the garden where there were no people. In the garden where winter had settled, dry branches were trembling in the wind. The Ganien family’s garden, which emphasized naturalness, became this desolate like a winter forest whenever winter came. If only snow would fall, it would look a bit cozier and lighten one’s mood, but only dry wind was blowing. It was so dry it was strange that nothing caught fire.
‘Hyung! I’m unconditionally on your side!’
Ren’s eyes seemed to say exactly that.
Ren’s green eyes gazing at him accurately. Eyes as clean as first snow. When Temarr met those eyes, he felt bewildered. He felt like it had been a very long time since he looked directly at Ren’s eyes. So… when Ren only came up to Temarr’s knees. The thought that this was the first time since then…
Temarr dry-washed his face.
So he couldn’t ask what he really wanted to ask.
Aren’t you afraid of me?
Temarr wanted to ask that. Temarr wasn’t such a humane person to begin with. Could there really be a Hero with the humanity to have guilt or fear about killing? Ah, the one who died early might have been like that. But it’s impossible for Heroes who experienced terrible wars for years, whose entire lives were stained with blood, to have such feelings. If they had such feelings to begin with, they would have already died.
Temarr’s humanity had already been rolling around on that ground in tatters, mixed with corpses, when he wielded his sword in the name of war and cut off countless enemy necks, when he butchered even the seeds in the bellies that would become threats.
“……”
Temarr threw the little remaining liquor into his mouth. The strong alcohol that went down his esophagus burned as if it would scorch his internal organs. But it was nothing. If he could get drunk, even several long nights wouldn’t have been torturous. A Hero’s body is cruel to humans. Though he didn’t know if he could call himself human.
He’s afraid.
For the first time, Temarr was afraid of Ren.
He was afraid that Ren, unlike himself, was a ‘human’ who could die at any time.
But the fear he just felt was a different kind of fear.
It was the fear of whether Ren would be afraid of him—someone who wasn’t human-like, who was called a monster, who was a slaughterer on the battlefield, whose entire life was punctuated with blood, someone to whom killing was nothing. It was terror. Like a ghost that suddenly appears and snatches away one’s spirit, Temarr felt a chilling sensation creeping up from behind.
He and Ren were different.
He was a monster who had lost his humanity, just a ‘sword.’
But Ren was a ‘human’ with a soft heart.
Can a human and a monster be family?
Can they be close?
Won’t fear take root between them?
To Temarr, even Ren’s trembling pupils and the small movements of his eyelashes were visible in units of 0.1 seconds.
When he said he had killed people, Temarr clearly sensed what Ren recalled, Ren’s trembling appearance in that moment.
Perhaps such fear was already growing.
The reality of a hyung he didn’t know because of distance.
Reborn as a monster.
“I have to hide it…”
Temarr let out a bitter laugh.
The smile that bloomed on his solid face was close to self-mockery.
Being this different, is it okay to say he’s my younger brother?
Mocking himself for having said ‘my younger brother’ to Ruman, Temarr dry-washed his face. The face that was revealed again had cleanly erased any suffering, looking like it wouldn’t waver like solid rock—it was the face of a brave and emotionless ‘Hero’ with not a single feature of his deep, distinct features disturbed.
***
“Mm! You’re in good condition today too!”
“Can I move now?”
The physician Hyung had brought, the physician residing at Princess Coco’s castle, and Kirki the priest. I was surrounded by these three in a circle. Behind them, Hyung, Coco, and Ruman were watching.
It’s burdensome.
And my heart is trembling. What if they discover some clue from my body!
‘But they won’t figure it out easily.’
It took the pharmacist harabeom and me almost three years to investigate my body and reveal that it was an ‘incurable disease’! In the beginning, even harabeom diagnosed me as being not just weak but seriously so.
Coco too is just making a fuss because she feels more concerned that I was stabbed by a sword in her place.
She asked with the premise ‘Even if it’s not a fatal disease!’ from the start. If only I stay calm, no one will notice.
“Can’t you heal it cleanly?”
Coco pointed at my chest with her hand.
The wound deeply stabbed by the sword had healed considerably, but stinging pain and traces still remained. Actually, at this level, it could be considered fully healed!
Anyway, I don’t know why Coco is being so over the top.
“Coco-nim! If I do that, natural healing ability will decline, so it won’t do!”
Kirki shook his head with a stern face. His gaze alternated between the two physicians as if asking them to agree.
“That’s correct. And he’s still young.”
The physician residing at the Ganien family also nodded.
The young physician Hyung had brought kept glancing at me while answering.
‘Why is he staring like that? The examination is over, why are you staring!’
When I glared at him, the physician was startled and lowered his eyes.
Cut it out, damn it!
Kirki placed his hand on his waist and stuck out his chest. When Coco clenched her fist, he subtly lowered his arm.
Come to think of it, today Coco was dressed entirely in black. That was the same for Temarr Hyung, Ruman, and the physicians too.
Kirki the priest, who was usually dressed entirely in white, was also wearing a black cloth around his neck today.
“The scar won’t remain, right?”
“Of course! As long as you change the bandages well and apply the medicine well, there’s no problem. Ah, you have to take the medicine well too. Got it, Ren?”
“Got it.”
I bit my cheek.
The attention is burdensome… More than that, why is he speaking so affectionately? It’s not like I’m a baby! Ugh. I feel like I’m getting goosebumps on my arms. When I rubbed my arms, Kirki the priest tilted his head and covered me with a blanket. It was too bothersome to say I wasn’t cold, so I just left it.
Temarr Hyung and Ruman looked at each other. The two exchanged glances, then turned their gazes away.
“Let’s leave in the afternoon, Ren.”
“Huh? Okay.”
Coco crossed her arms as if displeased and called out to Hyung.
“How about leaving Ren behind?”
“……”
“What are you talking about!”
