Brukisel’s birthday had arrived. Rou somehow couldn’t control his pounding heart from the night before. How happy would he be if he gave him the belt Brukisel had so desired? At the thought that he might show a bright smile rarely seen from him, his cheeks kept growing hot.
Brukisel definitely wasn’t the Goddess’s type. His fierce eyes and sharply pointed nose. And his stubbornly closed lips were far from sweet. Also, Brukisel’s hair wasn’t the color the Goddess preferred.
She praised the warmth containing spring or the vividness of summer. Brukisel’s deep black hair and blood-red eyes belonged to neither.
Rou had seen many handsome men cherished by the Goddess, but. A man with such a rough impression as Brukisel was a first. Was that why? He’d never trembled or been nervous meeting any human. Rou now had to keep fanning himself to calm his flushed cheeks.
‘Is it because he’s the first type of handsome man I’ve seen?’
Like a mark scratched deeply in passing, Brukisel kept lingering in his memory. He would sometimes come to mind and flicker before his eyes. Rou fell into sweet sleep while fumbling to make sure the gift was safely under his pillow, lest he forget. He already missed Brukisel, whom he would meet the next day.
And Rou, who woke at the crack of dawn, opened the windows and door with an excited heart. He was filled with thoughts wishing Yan would come quickly to help him prepare to go out. Thus Rou waited for Yan without thinking about the future that would soon befall him.
Yan came to see Rou earlier than expected. Rou welcomed Yan warmly, but that emotion didn’t last long.
The soft cream-colored clothes Yan brought were moderately warm and light, and aesthetically beautiful even to Rou’s extremely high standards. The golden embroidery sewn at the sleeve ends was truly delicate, and the geometric patterns of the well-woven lace were admirable just to look at.
The clothes made of several layers fluttered with every movement, and the golden silk revealed each time showed from afar that Rou belonged perfectly to Goddess Kaine. It felt as if the golden color symbolizing the Goddess wrapped around him. Both the gift and the vestments for conducting the Holy Communion were perfect.
Except for the fact that chicken-dropping-like tears kept flowing from Yan’s eyes as he helped dress him…….
“Yan, didn’t I apologize? And not only can I not reattach cut hair, hair will grow back if left alone.”
“……Sniff.”
Rou’s gentle tone had the opposite effect on Yan, who had been suppressing his tears until now. Yan stopped right there and began crying, literally making “ing-ing-ing” sounds.
Though he’d unintentionally startled and made young children cry while gathering honey to offer the Goddess in flower fields, this was the first time a grown adult cried because of him, so Rou was only flustered. Rou tried to wipe Yan’s tears with his sleeve cuff but was instead restrained by Yan.
“……The, the vestments…… sniff. Must be kept…… tidy……”
Rou looked around for a piece of cloth to wipe Yan’s face, but couldn’t see anything suitable. So when his eyes met with Jes, who arrived just then, Rou felt pleased beyond just glad. All the more so because Jes didn’t seem to be sobbing and appeared fine.
“Jes. Could you lend me a handkerchief……”
“My goodness, to be able to cry so freely like that. What a great blessing youth is! This old man’s tear ducts must have dried up—no tears will come out.”
“……”
Jes’s eyes as he spoke were truly red. Whether his words about dried tears were true, the whites of his visible eyes were bloodshot red.
“If I could, I would like to cry like that too, High Priest. To cut off all that beautiful hair without a single word of consultation with me!”
“I, I was wrong.”
Rou hurriedly apologized, hoping Jes’s nagging wouldn’t drag on, but it seemed it wasn’t a problem that could be solved with an apology from the start.
“My goodness! No. How untrustworthy must I have seemed for you to do that? This must be why they say when you get old, you should return to the Goddess’s embrace. How happy it would be to return to the appearance of your most beautiful time and live in the paradise the Goddess has prepared.”
“……”
“If you feel closer to ‘that bastard’ who served as a slave to a cruel and merciless Emperor than to ‘me,’ who served the Goddess all my life as High Priest. Then isn’t it as if I’ve lived my whole life wrongly?”
“N-no……”
Between one young human crying miserably and one old human who he wished would rather cry without saying anything, Rou suffered. Jes poured out words so rapidly and piercingly that even Rou, who would normally have cautioned him not to speak so carelessly about Brukisel, couldn’t get a single word out.
To think there were people who were this obsessed with his hair. Rou even thought he wanted to go back to being a bumblebee at the ear-piercing crying and complaints.
For now, it seemed he needed to calm the two of them and enter the Imperial Palace. If this story continued even after going to the Imperial Palace, even Rou with his solid mental fortitude would be tired. He couldn’t show such an appearance before Brukisel, could he?
‘Is there no choice?’
Rou lightly pinched the two pendants rattling in his pocket with his fingertips. Het, who received Rou’s secret request, moved faster than expected. As expected, his long career working in the Imperial Palace couldn’t be ignored—Het soon came knocking on Rou’s door carrying a large box despite it being the dead of night.
What filled that box to the brim were accessories made using Rou’s cut hair. The necklace with a thin silver chain and the brooch without elaborate craftsmanship and lacking any flashy appeal weren’t particularly special. They were ordinary accessories that high-ranking nobles wouldn’t even glance at, let alone merchants or nouveau riche.
If they didn’t all contain the High Priest’s hair, that is.
To Het’s eyes, the plain accessories rather made the High Priest’s hair, like warm sunlight, stand out more. The part of the High Priest contained in the cold metal was surprisingly similar to the High Priest’s situation, shining from the deepest part of the Imperial Palace despite the persecution inflicted upon him.
“How did you think of this? To think of making accessories using hair.”
“Hm? Is this your first time seeing this?”
Het had seen trends come and go while staying in the palace, but these accessories were a first. To think everyone could possess a part of the High Priest. He didn’t know what waves it would bring, but it was clear it would convey well the High Priest’s values of fairly conveying the Goddess’s love to anyone.
‘What a truly remarkable person.’
The High Priest moreover ordered that the accessories be distributed to anyone who visited the temple.
Those who visited the temple were mostly those far from the musty high-ranking nobles—in other words, commoners and emerging forces were the majority. At this point when the Emperor’s power was stronger than ever, the high-ranking nobles were full of dissatisfaction but didn’t dare step forward, valuing their lives.
In short, the nobles were holding their breath and only waiting for an opportunity. The rumor that a new High Priest had been declared had already reached their ears. The moment the High Priest went to the birthday celebration, countless flies would swarm all at once.
‘But if the High Priest distributes these accessories, the story changes.’
He could firmly maintain the High Priest’s status as one who loved all people equally, while simultaneously checking opposing forces. Not only that, it was an opportunity to show everyone that the High Priest was on the Emperor’s side.
Just how many moves ahead was he seeing—he himself couldn’t even imagine.
“Yes. You’re truly remarkable.”
“No, well…… over something like this.”
“And you’re even humble!”
Het was impressed. Watching Het praise dozens of things at once, Rou thought he should put him in the choir at the next ceremony. What remarkable lung capacity.
Letting that praise go in one ear and out the other, Rou smiled brightly. He was fortunate to be able to dispose of his hair quickly.
Even if it didn’t suit his heart, it was a body the Goddess had bestowed upon him. He didn’t want to see the Goddess grieve after carelessly cutting his hair just because he didn’t like it. For such a Rou, accessories containing hair were the best method to both care for believers while reducing guilt.
About 300 years ago. Storing a lover’s hair in a pendant was a trend that swept the entire continent. After the Kaine Religion spread, rigid principled people attached grandiose names to it like idol worship or whatnot, causing it to disappear, but until then it had been so prevalent that even commoners exchanged it as wedding gifts.
‘I didn’t know living long would be this helpful.’
Rou now felt he understood a bit why sages in human books were always depicted as aged old men. Combining the years he’d lived with accumulated experience (mostly indirect experience heard from the Goddess, though) seemed to become quite useful information.
Rou chose the two largest and heaviest accessories from those Het brought. The cost was covered with golden tableware Rou had sneakily taken during mealtime, since he had to proceed without Jes and Yan knowing. Because of that, it was regrettable that he couldn’t make them all from gold.
‘I want to give the best to these two who’ve worked hard.’
Jes and Yan had a tendency to be excessively obsessed with hair. Even though they weren’t lacking in hair on their own heads, Rou found it a bit hard to accept.
‘Still, they’ll be happy receiving this.’
Also, if a situation arose where he unavoidably had to shut the two of them up, the accessories would serve as a good shield. Hoping for that, Rou handed Het the third-largest silver tie pin.
It was only natural that Het was moved beyond words.
