Chapter 212: Be Patient, Master (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 212: Be Patient, Master (2)
Light green eyes, holding a life just beginning to bloom.
Red eyes, carrying a life that had already departed.
Red eyes losing their luster like cooling ash. In that brief moment, they seemed to die and turn black, carrying the raw, metallic scent of blood.
It was the same feeling he’d had when Calian glared at him, his anger barely suppressed. The same feeling from the day Calian failed to hide the shadow of someone who could never return. It was as if those red eyes smelled not of the sea, but of blood.
Franz watched his younger brother, trapped alone in a cold prison built by a ghost from the past. A terrible, silent scream echoed within him, one that only he could hear.
"Calian," Franz said.
Calian’s eyes turned toward him.
In their own ways, Calian and Franz stared at each other. Both pairs of eyes held life, yet they shone with completely different lights.
No matter who it was.
So that no one could interfere.
So that no one could step in.
Franz knew Calian was trying to shoulder everything alone again, determined that no one else would get hurt. The brat had always been this way. Franz could practically hear the thoughts churning behind those crimson eyes.
Looking at Calian’s eyes, which were fixed on him without a word, Franz added a brief remark instead of a lengthy explanation.
"Sit down. Stop barking."
He figured the kid had gotten entirely too bold just because Franz had humored him a few times, playing along with his demands and even spending time with his cat. The kid had caught wind of the news, barged in, assessed the situation, and was now throwing a tantrum—all on his own. What else was there to say?
After all, Franz wasn't one to yield easily, not even to Lucy. Yet his impudent younger brother treated him like some gentle dove, leaving Franz no choice but to see him as nothing more than a yapping dog.
Watching Franz, Alan silently stood up from his seat, walked past Calian, and left the room.
Alan was different from Lemain.
He wasn't so tactless as to butt in while his precious disciple's older brother—who had just been compared to a bird by said disciple—was now calling that same disciple a dog. Alan knew better than to interrupt and ask what on earth they were doing.
Click.
Neither of them spared a glance at the quietly closing door.
Standing frozen in place, Calian’s eyes shifted. Facing his young older brother, whose ability to cross the line was truly unfathomable, he quietly lowered his gaze.
I don’t know if the King of Secritia sent this because he truly remembers my past self, but…
Devlan was not Silike.
Devlan was different from Silike, who would smile while handing you a slow-acting poison. He was a true snake. Get too close, and his fangs would kill you. Instantly. You wouldn't even notice the bite before you were dead.
"Do not act on your own. This is my business."
So, this was far enough.
Alan, Arsen, Arianne, Chase, and Franz, too. They all had to stop right here.
As if he’d heard Calian’s inner thoughts loud and clear, Franz spoke in a languid voice.
"I have no interest in playing the bird, quietly folding my wings and doing nothing but breathing inside the cage my younger brother built."
If you need someone like that, go to Chermil 5th Floor or call the Crown Prince of Secritia back. Do whatever you want. Because I am not that person.
Looking at Franz with dumbfounded eyes, Calian retorted, "I have never handed you my leash."
His meaning was clear: Have you already forgotten you were calling me a dog just a moment ago? Besides, isn't a bird better than a dog?
Leaning back on the sofa and crossing his legs, Franz looked up at Calian askance. "I don't know if my younger brother refuses to listen because my words don't sound human to him, or because he simply can't believe them."
I don’t know if he can’t hear me because the useless, cold wall he built is too thick, or if he refuses to listen out of arrogance, believing that everyone but him is weak.
"But my younger brother is barking quite a lot today."
But Franz paid him no mind. He’d been impressed when Calian cast off the role of the obedient younger brother, and in turn, hadn't Franz long since cast off the role of the obedient older brother?
I don't know why you never listen to me, Franz thought, his brow furrowing. He was just as annoyed and displeased with the current situation as Calian was.
"Sit down. Stop looking down at me. It's annoying."
Looking at Calian, who stood there towering over him and treating him like a weak little kid, Franz repeated himself.
Closing his lowered eyes tightly, Calian struggled to suppress his anger.
With an extremely generous heart, Calian decided he would try to understand why the ‘Pea’ he had saved, looked after, taught, and raised was once again refusing to listen and crossing the line.
And then he answered in a quiet voice.
"Yes."
Calian pushed aside the fleeting thought of snapping the rude bastard’s green head—which looked fragile enough to break with a single touch—and strode over to the seat Alan had just vacated.
A faint scent of strawberries drifted through the air.
Alan’s office usually smelled of coffee and mint, but today, the air carried the scent of tea made from dried strawberries, kept ready to be brewed at a moment’s notice.
Staring for a moment at the transparent red tea that had been left for Alan, Calian spoke.
"I'm listening."
Since he was told to sit, he sat. It wasn't as if they were here for a leisurely tea time. Since he was told not to bark, he would just listen.
"Why you opened it. Why you came here."
He was telling Franz to get on with it. He should have just acted as a carrier pigeon and delivered the letter. Why cause all this trouble? Still, Calian would at least hear him out.
Having finally bent Calian to his will, Franz began to speak.
He explained receiving the letter from the Secritian spy, his suspicion about the words inside, and why he had opened it. He also explained that telling Calian would only result in him trying to handle it alone and ending up looking half-dead again, so he had informed Alan instead. Finally, he shared that upon confirming the letter’s contents, Alan had declared he would go to Secritia immediately.
He didn’t mention the contents of the letter presumed to be from Devlan, a detail Calian did not miss. Realizing Franz had omitted it on purpose, Calian spoke.
"...And the contents of the letter."
He didn't know why the bastard kept subtly dropping his honorifics, but if he argued about it now, they would probably end up fighting until Alan had to come back and break it up. So, the ever-magnanimous Franz suppressed his irritation with a short sigh.
"What do you need to know that for?"
"Wasn't the letter addressed to me? How many times do I have to tell you that this is my business?"
It was also a warning: getting entangled with the Kairis royal family rarely ended well, so Franz had better tell him everything so he could find a way to handle it quietly.
In the end, Franz recited the short letter in full. Alan might have destroyed the physical copy, but Franz remembered every single word.
Hearing the cryptic message, which made it impossible to tell if the sender truly knew the truth, Calian’s hands clenched into fists.
The ghost he had tried to forget. The moment he realized that specter was reaching for him again, he clenched his fists, hiding their slight tremor from Franz.
"He probably knows that the Third Prince of Kairis has never trained in swordsmanship. He would also know that I took up the sword as if I awoke to it overnight. If a spy reported on my swordsmanship before I corrected it—after Duke Siegfried pointed out my Secritian knight habits—he would have grown suspicious. It’s also possible he received reports on my close relationship with Crown Prince Chase, how we were desperate to help each other. He might have even known who Crown Prince Chase was using those messenger birds for."
Hiding his anger, hatred, fear, regret, guilt, and pain, Calian spoke in a low voice and looked at Franz.
"But I don't believe he used the words ‘protect again’ for no reason."
The letter didn't specify what he was supposed to protect, but Franz had clearly sensed the hidden meaning: to protect Chase from Devlan one more time.
Calian felt the same, but he had his doubts. No matter how much information Devlan had gathered through spies, no matter how many anomalies he noticed, he couldn't possibly deduce the truth of Calian's past.
"Either he regained his memories, like the Crown Prince of Secritia, or he simply thinks I used to be a knight of Secritia."
If the target was Chase, it meant Devlan had regained his memories. If it was the Secritian royal family or Secritia itself, then Devlan was simply fishing for Calian's secrets without knowing the full truth.
"Whether he knows the truth or not, what are you going to do?"
It was Devlan who had taught Bern how to lay double and triple traps. That same Devlan had now laid a trap for Calian—one he would have no choice but to stick his neck into, even knowing the danger.
He was threatening to reveal the real reason for the third prince’s transformation to Lemain—a man Devlan saw as nothing but a pathetic king who had spent his life suppressed by nobles, never once raising his voice.
Since Calian had already lost everything once, Devlan was confident he would run headfirst into this trap, desperate not to lose the life he now had.
"Are you planning to go see him yourself?"
So Franz was asking what he planned to do. Was he going to go in person and choke the life out of Devlan, just as Alan had threatened? Could he really do that? Could he, of all people, do that?
"Is that why you are doing this?"
Haunted by Devlan’s ghost, Calian looked at Franz—the same Franz who had turned his back on Silike—and posed his question.
Wasn’t he the one who had tried so hard to ignore what Chase had done? Wasn't he the one who had pressured Franz, asking if he could truly let go of Silike's hand? The irony was so thick he couldn't help but chuckle.
"Are you acting so recklessly because you're afraid I won't be able to lift my sword, or because you're afraid I actually will?" he asked. Was Franz interfering out of fear that Calian would move to eliminate Devlan, or out of fear that he would rashly fall into his trap?
"Whichever I choose, leave it be. You will get hurt, Brother."
Watching Calian speak these words after his laughter died, Franz looked down into his teacup. He stared silently at the strawberries floating inside for a long time before looking up again.
Strawberries.
He couldn't remember if he’d once said he liked them just to get people to stop asking, or if he genuinely did. Whether he had forgotten or the memory itself had been erased, he couldn't say.
Did that boy know the answer? Franz knew he could live a thousand years and never bring himself to ask. So he stared at the one person who would never give him an answer, his gaze fixed on eyes the exact color of the tea in his cup as he continued.
"I am not acting recklessly; I am playing the older brother."
So stop acting so high and mighty, and stop looking down on me.
"Calian."
I don't care how old you are or what your name is. I… am not going to create any regrets this time.
"So stop barking and just stay put while I help you. It's annoying."
Franz had no idea how complicated Calian’s feelings had become upon hearing the guy who looked like a carefully raised broccoli stalk declare he would act like a proper older brother.
Hearing those words, Calian felt like he could neither laugh nor cry, as he fully realized just how troublesome an older brother in the throes of a turbulent adolescence could be.
"Yes."
So he simply answered.