GC | Side Story 1.2

But because they could not understand each other, and because the child had an oddly detached air to him, he did not actively try to explain his situation even though there was no guardian in sight.

Rather, Shey, growing anxious, looked at the child, who was poking curiously at the traditional sweets of this country.

“Does he not have parents?”

“I’m not sure. For now, he doesn’t seem like a child who has settled here. Come to think of it, recently a group of illegal immigrants set up outside the west gate. Maybe he’s from there.”

The senior priest crossed his arms and shrugged.

By now, the child had broken a sweet in half and was watching with interest as the honey-mixed fruit juice leaked out. But it seemed not to suit his taste, because after one bite he frowned.

“He’s sixteen? He looks younger than that.”

“It was written in the common script, so it must be right.”

“His hands and feet are big. He looks like he still has a long way to grow in height.”

A priest with good eyes studied the child. Hearing that, Shey only grew more troubled. The child had his likes and dislikes when it came to food, but he didn’t seem picky, so why was he so small? Shey worried that maybe he was in a situation where he could not get enough nourishment.

Then the child stood up.

He gave the two of them a small nod of farewell, then started to leave the temple without a trace of hesitation. Startled, Shey quickly grabbed his wrist, and for a moment the child looked surprised, before a faint irritation finally appeared on his face.

“Where are you going? To your parents? I’ll walk you there, so let’s go together.”

He had intended to see for himself where the child was headed, but that did not mean he had no intention of escorting him.

He smiled and took the seat beside him in a friendly manner, hoping to let the child lower his guard. It was a habit he had developed after helping the poor and the sick.

The child glanced at him, then resumed walking. It seemed he did have a destination, because his steps were unwavering. Even though he was shorter than Shey, his stride was much faster.

“Where are you going?”

Even after Shey spoke beside him, he received no answer. It felt less like the child did not understand the foreign language and more like he was ignoring him. The atmosphere was completely different from when he smiled brightly, and despite being only sixteen, the child had an air of difficulty about him.

“Aren’t you cold?”

If he had come from a place that cold, then the climate of this country must feel unfamiliar. So Shey kept talking stubbornly, but not even a glance was given in return.

Just then, two carriages passed between them in quick succession, widening the distance. Startled, Shey reflexively tried to call out to the child, but the name, with its unfamiliar pronunciation, awkwardly refused to come out at once.

While he hesitated, the child grew farther and farther away. At the fork of a side street, a group of people passed behind the boy. When that far-off back figure was blocked from view, the anxious Shey blurted out.

“Ruslan!”

It was a name with sounds he had never used in his entire life. At the call, the child turned around, his eyes wide. His round eyes now looked innocent in a way that matched his age.

If only he could understand foreign languages through divine power.

Shey let out a relieved breath and smiled awkwardly. Though the pronunciation was unfamiliar, he thought it was a pretty name. He resolved to ask what it meant once they could communicate, and Shey walked toward the child, who stood rooted in place.

✿ • ✿ • ✿

Shey was sitting beside the child on the riverbank.

“Ruus–lan.”

“S. Ssshl.”

“Ssss…”

Ruslan, who had been correcting his pronunciation, gave a short laugh and threw a pebble toward the river. It looked like a random toss, but the stone skipped six times across the surface before sinking.

“Wow.”

When Shey clapped, genuinely impressed, the child shot him a sidelong look with a mysterious expression. He looked as though he wanted to scold him for making such a fuss over something so trivial. In fact, he muttered something rapidly in Fridisien. Shey couldn’t understand it, but he smiled brightly anyway. In any situation, smiling got you halfway there.

“You’re amazing.”

It was the child’s language. Ruslan looked genuinely surprised when those words slipped from Shey’s lips in the boy’s native tongue. They met every day lately, but this was the first time he had ever made that expression. Maybe because of his delicate features, it made him look especially cute.

Thinking that Shey knew his native language, Ruslan spoke to him in Fridisien.

“I only know the basics so far. ‘Thank you.’, ‘I’m sorry.’, ‘How much is this?’”

When he carefully rolled his tongue around the last sentence with awkward pronunciation, the child burst out laughing. With a lively gesture, he pointed at Shey and replied something, probably praising him for how useful that kind of sentence was for a foreigner.

It might have seemed rude, but Ruslan looked used to such gestures. Maybe in his country, pointing was not considered rude. Shey understood in his own way and smiled.

“But where exactly are you staying? Your parents? ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad.’”

Still, he was worried about the child’s living situation. Since the day Shey first shouted Ruslan’s name, the two of them had been meeting every two or three days. If Shey went to the place where they had last parted, Ruslan would appear not long after. It was as though he knew exactly when Shey would show up.

It was strange and worrying, so Shey had secretly followed the child once, but Ruslan noticed immediately and vaniShey before Shey could react.

He was an unusual, very beautiful child.

“It might be annoying, but that’s just the kind of work I do.”

Knowing the child wouldn’t understand, Shey kept talking anyway.

“So I’d like it if you could understand. I worry about a child wandering around alone. And…”

Shey paused for a moment. He seemed to think about something, then leaned toward Ruslan and whispered secretively.

“And I like doing things like that. If I’m being honest, I like it more than holding a high position. Meeting people, checking how they’ve been living, whether anything hurts. I wish I could spend my whole life doing only that.”

His gaze, fixed somewhere on the water, looked bitter.

The bracelet on Shey’s wrist, the one that proved his status and rank, gave a faint clink.

“I’m only telling you.”

His playful expression looked relaxed. As though he felt safe precisely because Ruslan would not be able to understand.

✿ • ✿ • ✿

“That name is hard.”

“My name is pretty easy.”

“No, anyone would say it’s hard. The pronunciation twists and turns.”

“Twists and turns?”

This time, they were sitting on a stone wall at the top of a hill near the capital. The ridge of the hill spread out as though protecting the capital with a mysterious, powerful energy. A clear wind blew up, coolly refreshing Shey’s cheeks, which were damp with sweat from climbing the hill.

Long ago, his ancestors had leveled the hillside, built stone steps, and raised a stone wall at the top. Thanks to that, Shey and a few other idle wanderers had gathered on the hill in broad daylight, chatting away.

To someone else, it might have looked pitiful, but to Shey, it was a peaceful scene.

Warm weather all year round and bright, worry-free expressions. Their footsteps, confident that peace would go on forever, were light and fresh. Like everyone else, the two of them sat on the stone wall and made small talk.

“It’s not really a woman’s name…”

“Are flowers feminine?”

“Don’t people usually think so?”

Shey tilted his head.

His name was not delicate or beautiful enough to be compared to flowering vines. Rather, it had an almost rough impression. The priest who had raised him after he was abandoned in front of the temple had chosen it, wishing for him to live strongly and not waver in anything.

It was, by all accounts, a thoroughly masculine name, so Shey was puzzled when Ruslan simply stared at him and replied indifferently.

“It’s similar.”

“To what?”

“A flower. It’s pretty.”

There was not a trace of embarrassment in that calm answer. The one who became embarrassed instead was Shey.

He knew, from having ears, that his appearance was not ordinary. But the standards for judging whether someone had the qualifications to be a priest were divine force, benevolence, and a strong spirit.

Appearance was secondary. And in his country, it was also considered rude to comment too freely on a priest’s looks, since priests were treated differently from ordinary people. So even though he knew all that, he was not used to such direct speech.

“You’re prettier.”

Shey smiled awkwardly, his cheeks coloring a pretty red like a ripe fruit. Instead of accepting the compliment smoothly, he turned it back toward Ruslan. It was sincere, too. Ruslan was the most beautiful boy he had ever seen. He could even say with confidence that he would never find another boy that beautiful again.

“I know.”

Unlike Shey, who was not used to compliments, Ruslan accepted it with a flat expression. If anything, he even looked bothered.

“It’s annoying. Useless, too.”

“But still, being handsome is better if you can help it.”

“Better for what?”

Shey had only made a general observation, but Ruslan asked back. The eyes that had been looking toward the far hill opposite turned to study Shey. Their color was so bright they looked like crimson lanterns had been lit inside them. Wherever that gaze touched, it burned hot.

“Just… because everyone likes handsome people…”

Shey stammered his answer, flustered, and Ruslan swept his gaze back over the hillside with a look of boredom. Shey felt as though he had misspoken. As a priest, he was embarrassed that he had been assigning a value to someone’s appearance.

“Um…”

“Looks are useless. More important than this kind of thing is having one more day of life.”

Ruslan cut off Shey’s attempt to explain, then jumped lightly down from the stone wall. That was not a sentence a normal sixteen-year-old would say. Not in Shey’s country, especially.

“But hearing that from you feels good. Weird.”

Ruslan, who seemed not to understand why he felt that way, met Shey’s eyes with a puzzled look. For the first time, he felt innocent.

Before Shey could answer, Ruslan pointed to the hillside opposite.

“Is that a signal tower?”

“That? Yes. We’ve never really used it properly, though.”

When Shey smiled, those eyes turned to him as if asking what he meant.

“It’s kept for symbolic reasons. The last time the torch was lit was more than five hundred years ago, so rather than functioning as a signal tower, it symbolizes something that no longer functions at all. It means peace has lasted that long. And the last time the fire was lit was apparently because of the death of the virtuous ruler, Desare II, so in effect, it has never really been used as a signal tower.”