Brukisel’s honest answer pleased Rou. When he couldn’t stop smiling, Brukisel, who had at first averted his gaze as if embarrassed, also raised his voice.
“Stop and go back already!”
“Ah, wait a moment!”
At his momentum of picking up the oar as if to immediately turn the boat prow, Rou stopped grinning. Though the words that he had been waiting for him felt good, the reason he had come all the way here was because he had something to tell Brukisel.
“Brukisel. I have something to say.”
“What now?”
Brukisel’s eyes were full of suspicion as if this was ominous.
The High Priest looked pure on the outside, as if all the innocence in the world had been gathered together, but when he opened his mouth, troublesome stories often flowed out. From past experience, Brukisel was not letting go of the oar.
Rou firmly grasped Brukisel’s wrist.
‘Why does a High Priest keep touching another man’s body like this?’
Even if he liked him, still, he began to suspect whether he was slyly satisfying his own desires using this situation as a pretext.
Rou carefully opened his mouth.
“Brukisel. I came because I have something I want to say.”
“……What is it?”
Rou had a serious face. Even when he was angry, he would have a smile on his lips which would further fuel the anger, but he was uncharacteristically serious, making Brukisel unnecessarily tense. He wondered what shocking story he was going to surprise him with now.
“Brukisel. All humans say this. Even if you hold all wealth and glory in your hands, you can’t take it with you when you die. That when you die, you’re alone.”
Brukisel thought Rou spoke as if he weren’t human. The reason he couldn’t be sarcastic was because Rou’s eyes were shining in a color he’d never seen before.
Every time he met those golden eyes, a flash of brilliance flickered inside them like thunder. In those eyes he had thought were simply sweet like honey, he felt an unbelievable dignity and traces of time.
He had thought he was just a southern noble or an immature prince of a royal family, but to have such eyes. If it weren’t Brukisel but a king of an ordinary small kingdom, he would have immediately knelt before him.
“And then?”
Brukisel asked as if urging him. He was curious what story this person with such shining eyes held.
“Brukisel.”
Strength went into Rou’s hand grasping his wrist. The soft, tender hand was much warmer than expected.
“You’ve been alone in winter until now, but when you die, I’ll be with you.”
“Ha……”
So that’s what he had prepared to say. It seemed what had weighed on his mind was fleeing without looking back that day. Brukisel thought Rou clearly didn’t know what his own words meant.
To be with him when he dies. Does he mean he’ll just stare at the dying person? If so, it was quite a deception. How could that be being together—it was ridiculous. Brukisel put strength into removing the arm holding his wrist. Sensing this, Rou immediately added.
“I mean I’ll die together with you.”
This time, a long silence followed. Brukisel asked back as if doubting his own ears. It wasn’t something a High Priest should say.
“Do you even know what you’re saying right now?”
“Yes. Brukisel, you said you wanted to disappear from this world. That’s why you drink poison, right?”
“……Yes.”
“So. When Brukisel drinks his last poison, I’ll prepare poison to kill myself too. Let’s leave this earth together.”
Had he drunk too much strong liquor earlier? Otherwise, this couldn’t be possible. To take his own life for him.
“It can’t be something you’re saying without knowing. Goddess Kaine forgives everything, but……”
Brukisel stopped mid-recitation of a scripture passage without realizing it. He thought himself contradictory, spitting out passages without hesitation while hating Kaine Religion. But that too couldn’t be helped. The content he had heard while going in and out of the temple following the previous Emperor often flowed out unintentionally like this.
“Yes. I know.”
“How…… how can you decide so easily?”
Brukisel’s eyes still showed disbelief.
“It’s not something I decided easily.”
Rou bit his lower lip slightly. It truly wasn’t an easy thing. Above all, the fact that the Goddess would be sad weighed on Rou’s heart. From the moment the Goddess welcomed Rou as a Spirit, Rou’s life had already been the Goddess’s. It felt like repaying the Goddess, who had only given love since then, with wounds.
“The Goddess will be sad…… But, to Her. To Her, there are others besides me. There are countless believers on this continent. She’ll be alright.”
There were many Spirits belonging to the Goddess. So even if She grieved and was hurt by Rou’s disappearance, She could find comfort from other Spirits.
“But the only one who can die on the same day, at the same time as you, is me.”
“……Even if it means you can’t enter the Goddess’s paradise?”
“Paradise……”
Rou loved the Goddess’s paradise. The sweet flower petals blooming there every day, the cool dew forming on the tips of the light green leaves, the fresh fragrance from the pitch-black soil full of vitality—like an old hometown, they occasionally brushed past Rou’s nose.
“Even if I can’t return to paradise.”
The rainbow created by the fountain in the very center of paradise, the Goddess’s bed under the acacia tree, the voices of children playing there, the kind conversations shared by good people. The hymns praising the Goddess that occasionally started without anyone leading.
To Rou, they were all precious and beautiful memories.
But Rou had already lived there for hundreds of years. The humans who reached that place were sometimes reborn as humans. When those born as humans returned to paradise, Rou was still there.
It was a beautiful place, but it was enough for him. When he closed his eyes, that place was still vividly drawn. So Rou was alright.
“I heard children of Shadow can’t go to paradise.”
Rou lowered his hand. Brukisel’s hand was large, firm, and a bit rough. Rou thought even the texture felt from that palm resembled Brukisel.
“So…… so I’ll be with you.”
Brukisel’s mouth moved, but in the end, he couldn’t say a word.
Paradise. The promised resting place after death that the previous Emperor had so desired.
That man, hateful enough to barely be called a father, desperately wanted paradise. Resenting being born with Shadow blood, pouring all that resentment onto Brukisel, he desperately hoped that the paradise promised to others would also come to him.
When he who desired the Goddess’s salvation newly expanded the temple. When he offered wealth to the temple, draining the national treasury. Even when he became a fanatic and built altars half-crazed. Brukisel had not believed for a single moment that the previous Emperor would go to paradise.
One naturally craved more what one couldn’t originally have. As an Emperor who held everything on the continent in his grasp, he also couldn’t easily accept the fact that there was something he dared not have.
The place the previous Emperor had so coveted. The place he had wanted to go so badly, even offering his own flesh and blood, even ignoring state affairs. The place where sweet honey flowed to form rivers, where it was known one could be eternally immortal.
‘That’s paradise……’
Yet this High Priest said he would give up the promised paradise. To die together with him. Could this High Priest even guess how that sounded to him? Brukisel’s red eyes were shaking mercilessly.
Because it was just like a large wounded beast, Rou put strength into their clasped hands.
“Why on earth? For what?”
“I don’t want you to be lonely, Brukisel.”
“……”
“That’s all I want.”
He had wished for Brukisel’s happiness. But what if Brukisel didn’t wish for happiness? If Brukisel wanted death, was it really right to give him that?
The conclusion Rou reached after organizing his thoughts for seven days was clear. Rou wanted to grant Brukisel’s wish. And since it was a life Brukisel had saved once, he wanted to be with him so he wouldn’t be lonely even when he died.
“I hope it pleases you.”
It was a conclusion Rou had reached after much deliberation. If even this didn’t please Brukisel, he would have to ponder again what more he could give. Rou waited for Brukisel’s reaction with a more trembling heart than when he had brought Saint Patricia’s Belt.
“Whether it pleases me?”
Brukisel made a strange face. A distorted face that seemed to be smiling and crying at the same time. That face looked terribly lonely, yet also satisfied as if promised paradise. Unable to read his emotions, Rou quietly answered Brukisel’s question.
“Yes. That’s what’s most important.”
How should one accept someone who would die together for him? Brukisel looked down at Rou sitting quietly as if waiting for an answer. He was gripping his hand so tightly, it was like someone waiting for an answer to a confession.
‘Even if you like me, would you go this far?’
Brukisel was extremely flustered. He thought the depth of the affection he spoke of was extraordinary. He had thought it was just light affection when he confessed to liking him, but to think it was such pure love. Even though the High Priest was rumored to be a philanthropist, this was different in nature from simply being kind to everyone.
Brukisel’s heart shook.
‘Has anyone ever cared for me this much?’
