168.

Ha. Damn it….

In the midst of being unable to hide his anger, Johannes nevertheless, somehow, barely managed to back away from Inette. A dark red emotion was plastered like mud under his eyelids.

“What is this nonsense….”

Inette clutched both her arms as if hugging herself. She twisted her waist diagonally as if avoiding a harmful beast. Her thin shoulders were hunched defensively. It was clearly a frightened posture to anyone who saw.

Johannes’s gaze, having clearly witnessed that sight, finally faltered. A deep sigh slowly flowed out from between his lips, which were tightly pressed together with a clenched jaw. At last, his gaze was pushed out and fell to the corner of the corridor.

The sense of betrayal that made him feel like his eyes would roll back was hard to swallow, but he never intended to hurt her. He had grabbed her purely out of thoughtlessness. His miserable empty hand involuntarily rose to his forehead. From his eyebrows, distorted as if melted by fire, to under his eyes, everything hid under his grasp.

With all kinds of misunderstandings and anger making his entire chest feel like it would burst, along with added self-reproach that he shouldn’t have done that, it was truly unbearable. Until then, Inette had only stared intently at Johannes’s every move without the slightest movement. Regardless of how they felt, the fierce argument between the two seemed to be entering a lull.

Booo….

It was just then that the heavy sound of a horn blared for a long time from far outside the fortress. The siblings’ gazes, startled by the clattering sound of the bridge lowering, gathered at once and then fixed on the end of the corridor.

A dead-end wall. The embrasure, opened lonely in the bleak corridor without even a proper window, only captured the pitch-black exterior in a width about the size of a child’s head, as if one could be sucked in. Inette, who had been staring at that darkness with an almost entranced gaze, suddenly grabbed Johannes’s hand.

“Let’s go, Johan.”

“…….”

“No time for long talks, let’s hide for now.”

Johannes’s whole body spun following her hand, his attention briefly distracted by the outside situation. He immediately became flushed again. For that reason, he could only enter his bedroom following Inette after firmly closing his mouth. However, he stopped abruptly at the doorway.

It was a silent gesture saying not to hope that he would ask for forgiveness first, taking advantage of this moment. Tonight, he couldn’t give in with a humble attitude like usual. She definitely had to approach first and soothe his wounds. Ah, absolutely.

Inette, who had gone ahead to the depths of the inner room, looked back at him. She was silent for a moment. After letting out a low sigh, she came back and pushed his back as if to say why aren’t you coming in quickly. She poked her head out through the door crack, checked both sides of the still quiet corridor, and then carefully closed it the rest of the way.

A candle illuminating the doorway flickered at the sound of the hinge. Inette, standing with her back to the door, let out another deep sigh. Her slender body slid down along the door. She seemed to be lost in thought alone for a moment. Her gaze, which had been staring at the empty space below, soon came up towards Johannes.

“Come here, Johan.”

“…….”

“I said come here.”

As if like when they were young, Inette, sitting right down on the dry floor, calls him. Johannes, who had been watching her actions with a complexly scratched gaze, neither replied nor completely ignored her.

It was because he was at a loss, trying to endure his insides which had become no different from a lump of filth with unbearably negative emotions surging up vigorously. His molars clenched involuntarily. Still, since he wasn’t entirely without guilt, he showed the generosity of approaching her.

Inette stared up at him and patted the spot in front of her, and Johannes’s brow furrowed sharply. Are you treating me like a dog? It felt like his patience was being tested. Johannes stared at her fingertips for a moment without moving, but eventually sat down cross-legged. Even then, he didn’t look at her. If he crossed this line too, he would surely explode.

“Why are you sitting so far away?”

“…….”

“Come closer.”

“…….”

“Look at me.”

Johannes still didn’t answer. He had no choice. If he faced her, he felt like his hand would reach out again like before. If possible, he wanted to jump up right now, go out and behead all the eldest sons of prestigious families. And the necks of the second and third sons left afterwards too. No. This is only half the truth. The immediate truth is…. That’s right.

The way he felt now, he would have broken your ankles first. He would have done something, anything, to make you cry and beg to him first. Whether she would understand this anger was uncertain, but even that fact fueled his sense of betrayal. In the end, he fervently wished that she would show a humble appearance before him.

It was then that Inette, who had been quietly waiting for Johannes’s reaction, leaned forward. She stretched out her arms long and braced herself outside of Johannes. Having come so close to create a double enclosed space, Inette’s breath brushed Johannes’s cheek.

Johannes’s shoulder twitched. He wanted to scold her not to try anything, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He couldn’t help but have all his bodily senses gather where her breath touched. In the end, he desperately closed his eyes. As if to say he absolutely wouldn’t give in easily.

“…Are you really going to be like this?”

A soft forehead came close and playfully butted against his nape. Because of that, Johannes’s upper body was slightly pushed back. Even after straightening his spine rigidly, Johannes’s eyes didn’t turn towards her.

He was getting heated up to his scalp again at her attitude of trying to get past tonight’s incident with just moderately affectionate contact rather than thorough begging. A faint tremor arose from his tensed spine and shook up to his shoulders. Slowly, slowly. In the end, it was Inette who first rubbed against his skin.

“Don’t be so upset, it’s not like you…. Please. It hurts my heart too much to see….”

“…….”

“Actually, you’re not entirely without pity for me deep down, right?”

She caressed his nape and shoulders with just her forehead. She was meticulously soothing him, rubbing all the way to below his ears. A different kind of heat began to rise in Johannes’s neckline. He chewed on curses he couldn’t bring himself to utter in his mouth. His resentful and sorrowful gaze trembled before finally glancing down and fixing on Inette’s part. He wanted to ask what on earth she was doing.

Perhaps sensing the gaze painfully looking down at her head, Inette’s face finally dropped and came up. The movement continued unbroken as Inette knelt and straightened her body. Her two arms came down lightly and newly wrapped around his nape. Her blue eyes, containing a pitying energy, also alighted on Johannes’s bridge of nose.

“Forgive me.”

She cupped her palm and gently brushed back his bangs. Because of that, Johannes’s straight forehead and eyes resembling his sister’s were fully revealed. Why? It felt like his heart was sinking.

His face, which felt strangely exposed before her, turned bright red. It was a shame that even blew away all the anger he had pent up in his chest until now. He just couldn’t stand it without knowing the reason.

“Inette. Stop….”

Johannes blurted out without realizing.

“Forgive me.”

But a kiss that disregarded his reaction briefly touched his forehead.

And once more. Again, once more.

Johannes’s movements stopped abruptly. His whole body stiffened, and even the tremors that had been lingering in his shoulders completely subsided. He couldn’t move at all, like a plaster statue, in the posture of receiving the kisses. It felt like all the blood in his body was pooling in his forehead.

As the kisses were repeated several times, his lips almost touched Inette’s neckline multiple times. Ah, damn…. It was a distance where he felt he could bite down and drink her bodily fluids if he just extended a little. His heart constricted at the nape right before him, making even his spine gasp.

By the time Inette’s gaze rose back up to his forehead, Johannes’s expression was that of someone completely dazed. He was trapped in her gaze like someone captivated. For several seconds like that.

Johannes’s brow gradually contorted and a shallow groan leaked out. He hid his quickened breathing and lowered his head. He had no choice but to acknowledge it. What was a kiss on the forehead, no different from a greeting as she often said.

What was this kind of contact where their tongues didn’t even intertwine once, like that summer long ago. She chooses even the smallest actions, meaningless gestures, that will completely shake his heart. So there was no way he could endure it. I cannot dominate this child even in trivial matters. Even if I don’t understand, I can’t get by without pretending to. The realization was truly fresh.

He raised his palm and buried his face in it. Completely covering his eyes like that, he embraced Inette’s waist with his remaining arm. It was as if he was collapsing his entire body against her belly. It was because he felt painfully dizzy, not knowing what more he could do in front of this child who had prepared her own journey without him noticing.

“…I don’t want to understand your circumstances ‘this time’, Inette.”

The inside of his dizzying eyes burned pitch black.

“I won’t try to understand you to the limit, at least….”

He had no idea what he had missed, or when.

“What are you saying. No.”

Inette quietly shook her head.

“You, at least, have to understand me. Even if I leave far away from this fortress… Even if I desperately want that, you have to understand me. If not you, from whom else would I receive such consideration….”

“Don’t make cruel demands of me, Inette.”

How can you be so insensitive to this point.

Johannes finally bit out a trembling sigh quickly. Inette’s body stiffened abruptly, startled by that force. Silence. Even the sound of wind hitting the outer wall outside the bedroom stopped in that moment. But the silence didn’t last long.

Mmm… Inette let out a long sigh with closed lips and held Johannes’s head to her chest. Johannes had no choice but to reluctantly press his ear to her belly, unable to calm his rough breathing. Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to lower the hand covering his eyes.

On the other hand, a desperate feeling that he absolutely couldn’t let go was frozen in every muscle embracing her waist. If only he could, no, if only she would allow it, he could burrow even into her womb. Inette’s delicate fingertips caressed his earlobe. It drifts away. Soon, the touch stroking his hair, as fine-textured as her own skin, was arbitrarily soft.

“…Still, look, Johan.”

Inette quietly began.

“If you want, we can meet again anytime.”

“…….”

“You can come see me every season.”

“…….”

“It may not be allowed for me, but you can do it, right?”

“Isn’t that just telling me to leave you in your husband’s castle?”

“Huh?”

“We meet hidden in the shadow of that bastard’s castle.”

Inette, who had been momentarily dumbfounded, laughed with a “pft” sound of air escaping.

“Why hide? You are my one and only brother.”

“No…. Meeting in secret….”

“…….”

“That’s not our problem right now, is it?”

“Then what is?”

“Your man.”

“My man?”

“Yes.”

“…….”

“Can you really not fathom at all how I would feel sending you to another man? How can you possibly….”

At that moment when Johannes finally raised his head to look up at Inette.

Johannes closed his mouth. Just those blue eyes pitifully looking at him, mature and fragile. His sister’s blue eyes, soaked as if with love between lovers, with the magnanimity of trying to somehow comfort her hurt brother. He thought lightning had struck right before his eyes. The realization was almost like a thunderbolt.

You have never, not for a single moment, considered me as your man.