#127

Elder sister straightened her back just as she had done earlier and began stomping her feet. Johannes tried hard to hold back his laughter. Then he lay down on his side and looked up at her.

“Look at that scream. Now who’s the fool?”

“Don’t just watch, help me get it out!”

“How am I supposed to get that out?”

Johannes looked at his elder sister’s silk belt and smirked.

“Ah… ah, you’re so mean, you’re really mean…!”

Elder sister seemed about to kick her prostrate brother’s stomach, but hesitated. She must have thought it was too harsh even for her. She quickly knelt down and punished him by thoroughly pounding his shoulders instead.

“What if it stains, I’m saying! It’s a cherished, outfit!”

“Hey, is that what you should be saying? Who started this first? Wasn’t it you? And what about my clothes?”

“That! I! Don’t know!”

“Don’t, ow, wait…! Bone! Nette, bone!”

Because elder sister could hardly subdue her anger, the merciless assault continued for a while longer. Johannes kept groaning “Ugh, ugh,” but couldn’t stop the laughter that burst out now and then. Even if told to spend a whole year alone with this child, he felt he could gladly do it. It was that much joy.

“Divine punishment.”

“Says who!”

Along with an angry cry, more beatings that were not at all unpleasant poured down. Johannes intended to take it silently, but he did grab his elder sister’s wrists a few times. In fact, he didn’t feel entirely innocent. He laughed heartily as he wrestled with his elder sister who was struggling to break free from him. He soon lost hold of her wrists.

A blissful afternoon when the heart was full even if long-standing fatigue could not be helped. It was the first leisurely passing time in that summer that had been filled with only unpleasant dreams. Thanks to this, Johannes was able to forget for a moment about the unidentified man in his nightmare and the anxiety that weighed on him like indigestion.

“Ah… I really hate you.”

Elder sister, who had been punching so meticulously, finally seemed to have run out of strength. She panted, catching her breath, and buried her forehead in Johannes’ forearm. Johannes, who had been curled up like a fetus and whining until then, lay down flat as if he had never been in pain.

“This is the arm I’ll have to use to hold a spear in the future, so if it’s broken you’ll have to take responsibility.”

“Big deal, I’ll hold it for you instead. You just lie there prettily.”

When he blamed his elder sister in a laughing tone, she, lying on top of his body, rubbed her forehead and pouted. ‘Sure, go ahead.’ Johannes replied half-jokingly, half-seriously, and stroked the back of his elder sister’s head as if combing it. Her round earlobe caught on the edge of his hand. The skin that touched felt quite cool. He absentmindedly fiddled with his elder sister’s ear, drawn to the cool sensation. The soft curves, down to the soft and cold earlobe.

“Ugh, it tickles.”

Elder sister laughed as she nuzzled her nose into the collar of his clothes. Johannes kept his gaze fixed on empty space and said with a wide grin, half-threatening:

“What can you do? I need to show you some affection right now, so bear with it.”

“My goodness. Just listen to you…. Fine, fine. Love me a lot. You have to do it for your whole life anyway. Don’t come crying later saying you’re tired of it.”

Well, even if she didn’t specifically ask him to, it was what he had wanted all along. Johannes smiled like a sigh. Then he grabbed under his elder sister’s armpits and pulled her up a little more. When her forehead fell near his nape, he hugged her with both arms and closed his eyes.

“You know… do you think there will ever come a day when I’ll grow tired of you? I like even the sound of your breathing so much that I can hardly breathe myself.”

“That’s why you can never beat me.”

Elder sister buried her face in his collar and giggled, finding something so amusing. Is that so? Johannes also stretched his lips into a smile.

Soon, elder sister’s laughter muffled by his clothes faded as if swept away by the wind. A gentle stillness began to settle. Even the breathing of the two people was calming down like long-lying blades of green grass. Of the ice that had poured onto the grass, half had turned to water, while the other half was still slowly melting. Elder sister, half-asleep, murmured into his ear in a drowsy voice.

“You know… if you’re going to love someone, you must always only love me, Johan. Okay?”

“We’ll see.”

“What’s that? I know you’ll do it anyway even if I don’t beg like this.”

“……”

He wasn’t sure if he had properly answered that. Instead of a reply, he might have pressed his lips to his elder sister’s temple. If only every day could be like today. He just prayed inwardly. Fatigue washed over him in a long wave and he felt quite drowsy.

Johannes’ hazy gaze, lying spread-eagled with his elder sister on top of him, climbed up the stone wall of the opposite tower. He could see an unusually wide rectangular window opened in the middle to upper part of the tower. It was the Duke and Duchess’s bedroom. The window was wide open, but that day his mother’s figure was not visible. Perhaps she had retreated to the women’s quarters to escape the heat. Normally, she would have been standing there like a ghost at any time. Come to think of it, Winfrid might have moved from the sickroom to the children’s room today….

“…That child is in quite a predicament. In this weather, confined to bed unable to move.”

“Hm? Who?”

It was a voice he had let out without expecting an answer, but elder sister suddenly opened her eyes and asked.

“Who else…. I mean Winfrid.”

Johannes propped himself up slightly on his elbows. His gaze met that of his elder sister, who was still lying on top of him with her hands clasped. She looked clueless, as if the drowsiness had completely left her. As if hearing the youngest’s name for the first time in her life.

“Ah.”

Elder sister sighed belatedly. It wasn’t a sigh tinged with any particular emotion. There was such a child. Just about that much depth.

“You….”

Johannes was about to click his tongue at his elder sister’s insensitivity but stopped. It wasn’t a completely incomprehensible reaction, given that elder sister wasn’t originally of an affectionate nature, and Winfrid was so sickly that they rarely even crossed paths. And yet, one corner of his heart felt strangely heavy. A somber shadow fell over Johannes’ eyes.

He knows. That the only person she shows attachment to is himself, her brother who is like one body with her. Nevertheless, Johannes could not prevent the sudden emptiness in his heart.

You cast me out.

Suddenly, his elder sister’s face was overlapping like a thin membrane on the surface of the blue moon that had crumbled in his nightmare. He silently reproached the elder sister in his mind. If we hadn’t been born as twins, if I had been as frail as Winfrid, you… probably wouldn’t have cared for me in the same way you do now.

That reproach didn’t end with mere speculation. In fact, he was somewhat certain. Living together all the time, he couldn’t help but know his elder sister’s unfeeling nature.

You cast me out.

He feels a little hurt by something that hasn’t even happened. It was a somewhat arrogant feeling that didn’t put himself in the other’s shoes. Even if their situations or circumstances had been different from now, there was a groundless belief that he at least would have had the same appearance, the same weight of emotion no matter what, but that was the basis of this sad arrogance….

What could it be?

Johannes questioned his own emotions slightly for the first time that day. Was it not a special affection based on the special relationship of being rare twins in the first place? So if that relationship were to break down or never existed in the first place, we would have no particular reason to care for each other like this, would we?

What is the basis for believing that if we were born without any proper connection, elder sister would treat me indifferently as usual, and in the end only I would be left gazing at her? Just because our personalities are a little different? Is that why the depth of the feelings we have for each other is so different….

…Different?

Suddenly, Johannes unconsciously shook his head. The difference in depth that he had unwittingly realized over a trivial matter seemed to subtly prove that the nature of their feelings was different from the start. Male and female should be separate. Siblings should keep their distance. The reproachful gazes that had stared blankly came to mind. And even the sight of his parents copulating, like a flickering flash.

Different? Not different. No, I don’t know. I don’t want to know more either.

Johannes decided to think that the depth of emotion didn’t matter much. Both sides seemed to have the exact same form as extreme sibling affection. We whisper, bite, hug, touch. It was the same shape of attachment where if one couldn’t see the other, they had to search every nook and cranny of the entire fortress to be satisfied.

So even if his affection was a bit deeper than his elder sister’s, it could only be an emotion allowed within human ethics. Moreover, it was an affection that would not harm his elder sister. That was most important.

No one can blame us, me. This momentary confusion is all because of that dog of a dream. Ever since losing something in a dream that I had never lost before, I’ve been hearing nonsense from that ghostly man, so I’ve just become more anxious than usual. Yes, that’s all it is.

Even after firming up his thoughts, there was still something unsettling, but Johannes simply pressed down on his chest that was subtly tightening. Soon he dropped his head back with a thud and squeezed his eyes shut. His eyelids suddenly felt as heavy as stones. The fatigue he had momentarily forgotten while playing with his elder sister seemed to be rushing back like a urgent stream.

“Hey, why do you suddenly look unhappy?”

Johannes’ expression must have changed considerably, as his elder sister asked, and.

“…I’m tired. I’ve been having strangely bad dreams lately.”

After a brief pause, he answered as honestly as he could. ‘Dreams?’ his elder sister questioned, but he didn’t have the energy to answer at length. No, he himself had no desire to dig deeper, so how could he answer correctly?

‘It’s not a big deal,’ he finally let out just his voice with his eyes closed. He repeatedly inscribed in himself a new conviction that this emotion was not much different from his elder sister’s. But, it was at that very moment.

“Hey, Johan.”

“Yeah.”

“Then shall we do something to make us feel good?”

“…Huh?”

“Do you want to try kissing?”

Johannes opened his eyes.

He sat up with a creak and stared at his elder sister with a dazed look. His elder sister also got up slowly and sat down near his side. Some curiosity and expectation were mixed like a halo of light in her glass bead-like pupils. Johannes questioned those eyes:

“Kiss?”

In fact, he was more puzzled than shocked by his elder sister’s suggestion. The kisses he had seen so far were just greetings exchanged intimately regardless of gender. Yes, a kiss was simply putting one’s cheek to the other’s mouth and making a light lip sound. Wasn’t it just a courtesy exchanged with close people, and a casual contact that they as siblings often gave and received? Why suddenly that?

“I could see that your tossing and turning at night was not normal. You’ve become much quieter lately too…. Anyway, as you said, you don’t look like you’re in a good mood.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. So….”

“You want to greet for that reason? Suddenly?”

“No, not a greeting like that.”

Elder sister seemed about to explain something, but suddenly cut off her words. Her clear eyes, which had cleanly absorbed the shade of the trees, rolled up to one side. The corners of her lips, thinly pressed together, twitched slightly, with exactly the expression of someone recalling some serious mischief. Ah, that child is excited now. It was not a good sign. Johannes raised one eyebrow suspiciously and closely watched his elder sister’s movements.