What is this?
Leopold had been angry. Truthfully, he'd even felt disappointed.
Seeing the students collapsed and bleeding around Teron, the bad blood from their earlier conversation had caught fire.
Teron had even ignored what he'd said, so Leopold had grabbed his arm to demand an explanation...
But looking again, the black robe was torn in places and caked with dirt.
The arm mostly hidden beneath the robe had a wound in a hideous shape, and blood kept seeping out of it endlessly.
What in the world is this, he was thinking, and at the same moment Teron wrenched his arm free and, without a word, took a step toward the edge of the forest.
Only to be caught again immediately.
“Stop. Wait.”
“...”
“I said stop!”
This time Leopold seized a fistful of Teron's robe.
He could feel the black-haired boy glaring at him, but he paid it no mind.
When he pulled just a little, Teron came along astonishingly easily.
Teron Meyer lost his balance and staggered.
Startled, Leopold grabbed his shoulders and set him upright properly.
One of his cheeks was swollen and red. Teron let out a hacking cough.
“...What happened to you?”
“...”
“And what's wrong with your arm? No, now that I look, you're not just hurt in one or two places. Let's get to the infirmary first. You're in no state to be walking around.”
“Get lost.”
The first prince of the kingdom, cursed at yet again out of nowhere, looked thoroughly put out. Wasn't he now dragging Teron along without so much as asking his opinion?
Teron Meyer, whose condition was well past abnormal and honestly on the verge of death, was hauled helplessly along until his rising temper made him spit out something reckless.
“Have you lost your mind? When someone tells you to let go, you listen. What do you think you're...”
“You're this insolent, so why on earth would I listen to you?”
Whatever became of that equality he loved so much, the reply that came back was pitiful.
Teron started to retort, but a wave of nausea rose up and he clamped a hand over his mouth.
He made a sound like he was fighting back the urge to retch, and when he strained hard against it, Leopold finally turned his head.
“Are you all ri...”
“I'll come with you, so let go.”
Leopold stood frozen for a few seconds as though something in him had broken, then at last released Teron.
The wound-covered boy bowed his head and didn't move.
Sunlight poured down harsh from the sky. Amid the sweltering heat, the two of them couldn't move.
Leopold felt a dizzy sensation, like he'd been struck on the back of the head.
What am I even doing right now?
Teron Meyer was hurt. There didn't seem to be a single unmarked spot on his whole body, enough that it wouldn't have been strange for him to collapse then and there.
Trying to overpower someone like that by force and drag him off was, in itself, the mark of a truly terrible person.
And those five students collapsed over there, well, unless he'd completely lost his senses, it was easy enough to reasonably guess why they were lying like that.
He bit down on his lip. His face grew hot. For no reason, he rubbed at his own blood-dried hand.
The answer to the question of just how Teron had gotten so hurt also lay within the realm of what Leopold knew. Teron Meyer was utterly isolated in this place. You'd have to be a fool not to know that. So that was, that was why...
Teron's tied-up hair caught his eye. He'd learned it from stealing occasional sidelong glances, at some point Teron had started wearing his hair tied short. Only after a good long while did Teron slowly raise his bowed head.
“...Is it, all right for me to go?”
When Leopold asked, hesitant, Teron said nothing and walked forward.
Leopold Deluah fell into step beside him.
Nothing could be heard but the soft scuff of their footsteps.
Having made their way out of the forest, they quietly entered the academy building.
Now and then students came into view, but all of them were of a different year. It was a tremendous stroke of luck that they didn't run into any of the kids who went to class with them.
Teron tried to head straight for his dorm room, only to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck yet again. This time Leopold's will not to yield an inch was unshakable.
Unbearable irritation boiled up, but his ruined body wouldn't obey his head.
And so he was dragged off to the infirmary.
“Take off the robe.”
“You really are a piece of...”
Before he could finish, the dirt-caked robe was stripped off. Teron ground his teeth. Seeing that both sleeves were soaked crimson, matching the blood-stained tunic, Leopold went silent for a moment in apparent shock, then soon muttered a single line.
“Are you insane? How on earth did you end up like this?”
Teron, who by now had given up on everything, sneered.
“You saw it with your own two eyes. Have you lost your memory already?”
“...Was this those students' doing?”
“What answer would satisfy you?”
“You... no. All right. Fine. Let's treat the wounds first. You're bleeding too much.”
The infirmary teacher was away. But this was a school where nothing but swordsmen who specialized in the blade gathered. Leopold naturally picked up the disinfectant and poured it over Teron's arm. The spot struck by dark magic had festered a dark color.
What kind of wound even is that? Unable to contain his astonishment, Leopold poured disinfectant over that spot too, and Teron Meyer nearly bit clean through his own tongue.
“Are you, ugh, out of your, please, get lost.”
“The one who's out of his mind is you. How did you let it get this bad...!”
Teron said nothing. That very fact made Leopold's heart drop with a thud.
“Teron... it's not like this every day, is it?”
“...”
“Tell me. Have those kids been tormenting you for a long time?”
“And what would you do if you knew?”
“What did you say?”
“You truly never change. If I may be so bold as to predict, Your Highness will be the same your whole life long.”
The way Leopold clenched his teeth as though holding back his anger was laughable.
Yet, astonishingly rational as he was, he endured even that fury.
It's practically a marvel, Teron thought, watching him draw a healing magic circle.
Both arms were wrapped in bandages, and his slashed leg was treated. Through a splitting headache and a blurring field of vision, Teron reflected anew on just how insane this situation he was living through really was.
When Leopold finally took interest in the blood leaking from his back through the torn tunic, Teron Meyer whispered in a grim voice.
“Go on, try touching it.”
“I have to treat it, don't I?”
“You must take me for some idiot who can't even use a single healing spell.”
“That's not what I meant. Healing magic doesn't make every wound close up, anyway. You disinfect first.”
“I'm impressed. As expected, you're astonishingly meticulous, logical, and righteous.”
The provocation clearly landed hard on him this life. As if something had welled up, Leopold stopped talking. The eyelids he lowered slightly to suppress his emotion made him look, all over again, like the true sixteen-year-old boy he was.
Sweeping back his tousled blond hair, he murmured quietly. His large, water-colored eyes wavered.
“Watch your mouth. Talking like that won't do you any good.”
“Then perhaps you might actually listen to a word I say, even in passing.”
“No...!”
He tossed the bandages into Teron's arms as though throwing them.
“Fine. I'll do it your way.”
As if genuinely fed up, he stepped back and perched on the bed opposite.
Leopold in a temper was always a fine and pleasant sight.
Teron Meyer, a satisfied look on his face, leaned his back against the wall by the bed.
Drowsiness swept over him. He'd kept his eyes closed like that when Leopold commanded him in an aggressive posture.
“Tell me when those kids started tormenting you, Teron Meyer.”
“...”
“...It's an order. Speak, now.”
Teron simply couldn't understand how he'd wound up in a situation like this.
The more he talked with the prince, the more his misplaced murderous urge only kept flourishing, so he'd avoided that prince as much as possible. And yet, of all days, on the very day he'd slipped out all the way to the academy to learn dark magic, he'd been picked on, traded blades with a classmate, and then run right into Leopold Deluah.
His condition was at its worst. His ears rang, but the voice buzzing at him like a gnat, tormenting him, would not stop.
“...Now you've even started ignoring me. No, you've always been that way, but I can't just stand by and watch any longer. I'm a prince. And even if I weren't, I'm your classmate. Heaping insults on a classmate at every turn is truly rude. So...!”
Please, shut up! Teron cursed inwardly. Though he faltered for a moment at the words that followed.
“Answer me, I'm asking you. I have to grasp the truth of what happened before I can take any steps afterward. Even if I'm that disgusting to you, that hateful... I still have to act intelligently. Right?”
Leopold smiled. Sixteen was a young, young age. Even looking at the trembling corners of that young boy's mouth, beyond his control, and his wavering pupils, there was no way not to notice that fact.
The wounded look in his eyes struggled to hide its feelings. His smile was flawless, but Teron Meyer knew it was thanks to Leopold's transcendent patience.
Beneath the falsely gentle tone lay the thorn no human being can help but carry. The two fingers of his right hand couldn't stay still, rubbing against each other now and then.
Ha ha...
A laugh threatened to escape. Foolish twenty-six-year-old Teron. His whole body ached with a thick sense of humiliation. Struggling to control the mana raging within him, he asked in a flat tone.
“And if I tell you, what are you going to do about it?”
Leopold's eyes went wide. The softened set of his eyes and the oddly brightening expression were nothing at all like the last image of him that Teron remembered.
