“I’m sorry, but this time, I can’t take your side, hyung. Changing Delroz is impossible, so it might be better if you changed your mind instead… Ah, the rest is something the two of you should talk about yourselves.”
Baiheron cut himself off and rose from his seat. He walked over to the door and opened it wide. Standing there, even paler than Banteon, was Delroz. Leaving just the two of them behind, Baiheron exited the room.
Baiheron’s earlier words about mourning didn’t seem like an exaggeration. As soon as Banteon saw Delroz’s face, stiff as a corpse, a heavy weight settled on his chest, as if a boulder had been placed over his heart.
“Delroz…”
At the sound of his name, Delroz lowered his head. When Banteon cleared a space beside the bed, silently asking him to come closer, he approached quietly and sat down next to him.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Delroz leaned into Banteon, wrapping his arms around his body clad in nothing but a thin nightshirt.
“You can resent me. You can even hate me. I don’t mind—just, please, take care of your body.”
“…I’m sorry.”
Everything that had happened today was entirely Banteon’s fault. He had stayed up all night and collapsed under the scorching sun, falling asleep—no excuse could justify it, no matter how many words he tried.
He gently stroked Delroz’s trembling back. Why did he keep ending up hurting him like this? In their relationship, it was always Delroz who endured the pain, who bowed his head, who suffered. Banteon didn’t want to leave things that way, so he tried to care for him, to be attentive—but between them still loomed an invisible wall he couldn’t yet cross.
A wall between someone who had lived his whole life as a noble and someone who had lived without any such rules—an unseen divide between Banteon and Delroz.
“I know how important your family is to you. And I know just how unreasonable my request is. So I’ll do anything else. Whatever you want, I’ll make it happen…”
“……”
“If you’re worried about a family without an Esper, I’ll go kill all the Espers from the other houses. I’ll make sure no one ever threatens this place again. So please… please, just tell me another way.”
In the end, it was Banteon who had done wrong—but it was Delroz who was pleading. Banteon let out a quiet sigh from deep inside. Family, Espers, bloodlines… If someone asked him whether those things were important enough to hurt the person he loved, he could answer no without hesitation.
But if someone asked whether he could easily let go of the values he had upheld his entire life—then that would be the hardest question of all.
“Delroz.”
Amber eyes, dark and heavy, fixed on Banteon. His beloved Esper—so precious, so dear. Just as Delroz was pleading to fulfill Banteon’s wishes, Banteon, too, wanted to grant Delroz’s.
So he would give his answer. Forget the family. Forget reputation and power. Let’s just live, the two of us—happily, peacefully. He was about to say it, to tell him: Let’s live like that…—but his mouth froze.
“Ah…”
It wasn’t hesitation over lingering attachments to his family or values that stopped him. Banteon covered his mouth with a hand.
His body hadn’t even fully recovered yet, and still, he had rushed in with a sense of urgency, insisting on a medical checkup. Why was he only realizing his own heart now?
On the other side of their father’s distant back, their mother’s gaze had always been fixed on Banteon and Baiheron. Even as she lay dying, she had watched over the two brothers with warm, gentle eyes. Eyes that had been worn away by the children who had consumed her very life.
The vague memory of that moment suddenly resurfaced.
“Our Banteon is just like me, and Baiheron takes after your father. It’s uncanny, really—sometimes it surprises me.”
The warmth of her hand as she stroked his cheek, the kiss she placed there—it had spread through his body like sunlight in winter, slowly seeping into his bones.
“I’m so excited to see what kind of people you two will grow up to be. It breaks my heart that I won’t be there to see it. I really wanted to stay with you a little longer.”
Her voice, filled with sorrow, had always trembled faintly. The memory of her death had been so vivid, it had made him forget the warmth she once gave—so thoroughly that he hadn’t even realized he missed it.
“Delroz. I don’t think what I needed was an heir.”
Why had it taken him this long to realize?
“I think… I wanted to meet the child born from you and me.”
Just like that warm, peaceful past—he wanted a child who resembled the both of them. He wanted to watch that child grow up, taking after the one he loved. He wanted to live together, peacefully, in one house, and show Delroz—who had never known warmth—that he wasn’t the only source of it.
Banteon wrapped his arms more tightly around Delroz, who was still nestled in his embrace. From Delroz, who clung to him in return, came the scent of tender memories. He buried his face deeper into the gesture so filled with love that it nearly overwhelmed him.
“I can’t give up on having a child.”
“……”
Delroz’s broad back stiffened. Banteon gently caressed it as he continued.
“But if it harms your body even the slightest bit, I won’t do it. I’ll find another way.”
Although the method hadn’t yet been commercialized, research involving artificial facilities was underway. One day, perhaps, it would be possible to continue a lineage without passing through a human body. It was still a distant dream—but the possibility remained.
“When that time comes… I want us to meet our child then.”
“…If that kind of method becomes available.”
Delroz nodded reluctantly. At the sight, Banteon beamed and kissed him. His lips, warmer than usual from the heat rising in his body, met Delroz’s briefly before pulling away. Staring at Delroz’s startled expression, Banteon smiled gently.
“I don’t know when we’ll meet them, but… I hope the child looks like you.”
The expression on Delroz’s face—the one that was always kind whenever he stood before Banteon—crumpled helplessly.
Banteon let out a laugh at the sight. Surely, if the child resembled Delroz, they would grow up to be healthy and kind. Even the occasional sulking or puffed-up cheeks would be adorable. Unlike his mother, Banteon wanted to stay by that child’s side until they grew up, and then, with a smiling face, bring his happy life to a peaceful close.
***
The nightmares kept coming.
In the center of a dark void, a silver-haired man looked upon Delroz with a radiant smile. Drawn in as if under a spell, Delroz walked toward him and took Banteon’s hand. The moment their fingers touched that pale skin, Delroz’s gaze fell downward.
It was gaunt and pitiful.
Despite the bright smile, the arm was rough, wrinkled, and withered. Alarmed, Delroz looked back up at Banteon—and blood was streaming down his smiling face. Like tears, it ran down his white neck and dripped onto the floor. His lips, soaked crimson with blood, curved gently.
“So in the end, you’re the one who killed me.”
His lover reproached him in a soft voice.
“If I had never met you, I might’ve lived.”
Delroz pulled Banteon into an embrace with trembling hands. But before he could fully hold him, Banteon’s blood-soaked body began to crack—and in the next instant, it shattered. Finely ground sand poured down to the floor. The sand that had been Banteon’s body piled endlessly in the dark void.
Delroz sank to his knees and reached out to touch it—and the world abruptly changed. Blinding light flooded his vision. Before him stretched a sun-scorched desert.
Sand slipped through his fingers. Delroz clutched it tightly with both hands, desperate to hold onto the grains of Banteon. Clinging to what remained of him, hoping not to lose even a single trace—yet it was all in vain.
The sands of the endless desert blended together. Waves of wind-blown dunes made it impossible to tell which grains had once been Banteon and which belonged to the desert. No matter how strong he was, some things were simply impossible. Delroz stood frozen, unable to move.
Hahahahaha.
A lively laugh rang out from behind him. Boisterous and uncontainable, the sound grew louder, as if reveling in joy.
“You couldn’t protect him either.”
“Shut up.”
With that mocking laughter came golden hair, blazing like the sun. Rohan smiled broadly, stretching his mouth wide.
“You and I are the same.”
“Shut up!!”
Delroz swung his arm backward, striking the figure behind him. The radiant golden hair flew as the head hit the ground—landing with a thud. But what lay on the sand was not gold, but a head of dazzling silver.
“…Ah…”
Behind him, Rohan’s eerie laughter returned. The sound—like screeching metal—split the air and spread endlessly across the desert. Sand, and more sand. Under the searing sun and churning air, with no horizon in sight, Delroz let himself sink into the waves of windblown grains.
***
“Mmh…”
What pulled Delroz out of the dream was the smallest of shifts. Banteon, even in sleep, lay beside him with his usual composed posture, making a faint sound as he turned. The warmth of his skin where they touched and the steady beat of his heart slowly relaxed Delroz’s tensed muscles.
The Banteon who had scattered into sand in his dream now slept peacefully beneath the moonlight, glowing faintly. With a deep sigh, Delroz brushed back his hair with his fingertips. Even after Banteon had awakened from his long unconscious state, Delroz’s nightmares hadn’t ceased.
Still, as long as he opened his eyes to see his beloved breathing right there in front of him, he could endure. He could suppress the pounding in his chest, no matter how frightened he was. Banteon frowned slightly as if the brush of fingers over his bangs tickled him, and Delroz gave a bitter smile.
When had he given everything—heart, soul, and body—to this fragile lifeform who could shatter or restore him in equal measure? Was it the night he was saved under the moonlight? Or the moment their hands touched in the collapsing mine?
Delroz recalled how poorly things had started between them. He had once been asked when he realized the mysterious Guide was Banteon. Delroz had only laughed and given no answer.
The truth was shameful—he hadn’t figured it out until long after they had met.
“Even if the matching rate is slightly lower, a female Guide would be better for you. Right, Delroz?”
In front of the screen displaying the highest matching rate in recorded history, Banteon had said that. Blood had surged through Delroz’s veins, drawn irresistibly toward him—and yet, the man responsible stood there with a composed expression, drawing a line between them.
“Until she appears.”
